ilkka_nissila

In this shot I positioned the sun to get a slight bit of flare. Z8, 100-400 mm at 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/320 s, ISO 2800.

The snow that we had the previous week melted and we finally got some sun & warmth. Z8, 100-400mm at 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/125 s, ISO 640.

Sunday morning in Porkkala. Z8, 100-400 mm, 250 mm, f/8, 1/200s, ISO 140.

I thought they pretty much all do. I did notice that some of the latest formats (HE and HE* in the Z9, Z8 and Zf) are not supported by some of the third-party raw converters or the support is still under development. But once a camera is fully supported, the software makers do not typically drop support in later versions.

To the original question, they are both good lenses, one of them is a fraction of the size and weight of the other. If one wants to carry just one lens, sure, the 85/1.4 Art - why not, but at least I need / prefer to shoot most situations with multiple focal lengths and so I chose the 1.8 line to accomplish this with ease. (And with a light bag.) They're also gimbal compatible etc. And I've been very happy with this choice. I will eventually get some of the faster lenses but they're not a priority for me right now. I typically use 20/35/85 as my short prime trio. I would add a 200 mm if they made one.

Huh? Z cameras always focus at the shooting aperture when it is not smaller than f/5.6. I don't know how the user could do it any other way. Unless he was just focusing wide open and then changing the aperture without refocusing for the stopped down shots. In normal shooting with autofocus, the camera does the correct thing.

It may work but given the small angular size of the subject a tripod would probably be needed or at least very helpful. I suspect that a separate IR sensor (with mirrors?) would probably be very costly to implement. 😉

To my eyes it looks like the bird's eye is not in focus. This is one of the problems of cropping deep (10x...), as the camera manufacturers don't design the focus areas to work optimally with such small parts of the frame. Having adequate sharpness and depth of field at the individual pixel level is very demanding for 45 MP let alone higher. The camera has to process a larger amount of data and achieve focus to a higher precision. That's just not workable with today's technology in my opinion. I saw two lynx in Porkkala yesterday, but they were fairly far away (120-150 m) and I only had a 300 mm. In this shot, the camera seems to have focused on the rock rather than the animal. About 10% was cropped from the bottom and right: In a large print, the slight misfocus doesn't bother me but when I made a significant crop (3-4x from the original) and printed that then it just doesn't quite sit right. In the overall image I would have preferred a lower vantage point (I was on a hill somewhat higher than the lynx so the agriculture equipment tracks show rather than the forest as background immediately behind the lynx. However, I am not comfortable stalking the lynx and getting into a better position - much as I like photography, this isn't going to happen. For landscape with a tripod, studio shots with flash etc. there can be benefits from going higher in the pixel count, but I think the autofocus precision, atmospheric effects, and noise are the main limitations preventing the use of deeply cropped images in wildlife photography.

Of course in any small-sensor camera with high pixel count, there will be noise. Software algorithms can reduce noise but at the same time they also reduce the detail and there is no genuine recording of fine tonal or colour gradations without having recorded enough photons. Mobile phones also combine multiple images to reduce noise but if the subject is living and moving about then this doesn't really work as the features in different shots are not aligned across the individually captured images. This process creates a fake appearance of the image which people may not notice so much when viewing the final result on a tiny screen which takes up only a small part of the visual field. But when viewed on a large screen it becomes obvious that there are problems.

60 vs. 45 is a fairly small difference and Nikon has got very nice 45 MP sensors nowadays also with fast read times (the Z8/Z9). I would think at least doubling to 90-100 MP would be needed to make a meaningful perceptual difference to the images where you'd really notice it when making very large prints. Though personally I think 45 MP is a very good place to be, in that it produces very sharp images but you can still use it for action and low light. Although I'm happy with the Z8 and Zf and still use DSLRs as well, I would like to see a 24 MP -ish variant of the Z8 or Z9 where the file size is more practical for events where the images don't typically need significant cropping but can be shot in very low light. The Zf works well for that (and I love that camera) but it doesn't have a stacked sensor (so there can be more rolling shutter in video and in silent photography than with a faster read time sensor) and some other things are missing (such as the interface to trigger SB-5000's wirelessly, and to use a remote release cable). Sony and Canon have recent high-end 24 MP cameras with global (Sony) and stacked (Canon) sensors. For the static subject and ultra high image quality imaging it'll be interesting to see how 35mm format can compete with the 33 mm x 44 mm medium format cameras at the 100 MP level.

The FL E is normally excellent; maybe you got a damaged copy.

There is no reason why a DSLR in live view can't act exactly like a mirrorless camera, e.g. the D780 to my understanding gives a very similar experience.

With the D850, if you're in LV with EFCS then you only hear the shutter closing and opening again once. However, the D7200 doesn't have EFCS (the D7500 does). How Nikon implemented LV shooting in many of their early DSLRs was quite ... peculiar. But I can see that if the shot is to be made with the full mechanical shutter in LV then the LV has to be stopped and mechanical shutter closed before opening again. And implementation of EFCS probably requires functionality implemented in the sensor hardware.

That 1 mm difference (which is wrong) I derived by checking working distances from two websites and subtracting them, leading to an erroneous result (because of the source data). I checked it now experimentally and at both 1:1 and 1:3, the F-mount 105 VR retains about 2 cm greater working distance over the 105 MC. Sorry for the error, sometimes it's best to just do one's own experiments rather than trust numbers people publish on various websites... 😉 You're also correct on the importance of the focus distance for the reasons you mention. There are options such as the use of a lateral arm that allows the placement of the camera closer to the subject, e.g., when the subject is in water and one doesn't wish to place a tripod foot in the water (for either because of the impact of the dirt and water on the tripod locks or simply because one doesn't want to disturb the water and spook the animals or affect the content of other images by e.g. spoiling the fresh snow). However, lateral arms tend to weigh something and they can be a hassle to bring into the woods. There are also some tripods specifically made for close-up photography. While I have a Gitzo lateral arm which fits my 3- and 4-series tripods, I rarely carry it into the field because of the extra weight. I also have a Manfrotto Super Clamp which can be attached to a tripod leg and can give some low angle positions while the tripod legs are safely on the bank side of the river. There are also visual differences between focal lengths, as the longer focal lengths lead to more magnified backgrounds relative to the main subject framed in a particular way, and so it's easier to get clean simplified backgrounds using a long macro. However, sometimes simple can be too simple, and a wider angle of view shows more of the environment.

Okay, so I performed working-distance measurements with the MC 105/2.8, AF Micro 200/4D, and Z 100-400 at 400mm setting. Each setup was positioned on a tripod in turn, and the position relative to my flat target was moved to achieve 1:3 magnification (so that they all are capable of achieving this, and also it's within the range of common magnifications that I need in practical close-up photography). Roland was quite right in that the longer lenses did have longer working distances though the 100-400 clearly is not as far ahead of the 200 micro as might have hoped from just looking at its nominal focal length. The working distances were measured from the front of the lens without hood, and I estimate my accuracy to be of the order of 1 cm (but do leave room for human error, as I did these only once). 😉 105 MC working distance at 1:3 is 31 cm. 200 (AF) Micro working distance at 1:3 is 67 cm. Z 100-400 at zoom setting of 400 mm working distance at 1:3 is 89 cm. So the zoom does give a bit more space to the subject and allow photography from a longer distance in this magnification range, and it may have some benefits (zooming, for sure, and VR in the lens). However, I think for many situations of this kind (i.e. close-up photography at sizeable working distance) the 200 Micro is superior because it's easier to handle than the 100-400 and it allows higher magnifications up to 1:1 for situations that require them. When I use it with a mirrorless camera, I typically use focus peaking although other focus aids are also available. On (mid and high end) DSLRs, it has autofocus. The 200 Micro also autofocuses better at close distances than the 100-400 which can lose the plot completely in close range (but that's probably more to do with the nature of mirrorless camera AF than the lens). Of course, the 200 Micro AF produces some sound as well, and there is no direct manual override (one needs to turn a switch). Optically the 105 MC is superior to the other two lenses in terms of bokeh but also CA (over the 200 Micro, by a mile) and sharpness (over the zoom, though all three are sharp at f/11). The 105 MC can be used safely at wider apertures whereas with the 200 I always stop down to f/8-11 to minimize CA. For frogs, f/11 seems appropriate, anyway.