raczoliver

I think there is enough difference between 85mm and 105mm that some people will have both. I have both the 85/1.8G and the 105/2 DC. And the 135/2 DC. I use the 85mm focal length for landscapes and cityscapes too very frequently, while the 105 and 135 are more dedicated portrait lenses, as far as I am concerned. Of course it all depends on how far from your subject you are, but I also find the 85 good for taking pictures of small groups of 2-3 people, while I don't do that with the 105. Also, in the studio, being one or two steps closer or farther from your subject actually matters. I thought I was going to take either the 85 and 135 with me, or the 105 alone. It turns out that most of the times I have the 85 with me, and I pair it with either the 105 or the 135.

I wonder why they use manual focus override, at least without some kind of custom focusing screen, since the screens in Nikon's DSLRs do not even show any difference in depth of field at apertures larger than around f/2.5-2.8 or so. With any aperture faster than that, manual focus is a hit or miss even with perfect eyesight. Now live view is a different thing, again quite impractical for handheld shooting.

I would be totally fine with that for multiple reasons, namely price, size and weight. I also don't think I'd have many pictures in focus at 1.4 on headshots or head and shoulder portraits with a 135mm lens. In fact this 105 lens is too heavy for handheld shooting in my opinion.

"I'll be interested in what turns up at 135mm eventually" Me too, but unfortunately I am inclined to think that Nikon has abandoned the 135mm focal length. We haven't seen a new 135mm prime from Nikon since the f/2 DC, and I can't even count how many 85mm lenses came out during that same period. OK, maybe I can, I think it's five for FX, including the PC. The two 105mm lenses were both "just" macro too. It seems like Nikon considered the 85mm the new standard length for portraits, abandoning the 135, and also the 105 until now. The 135mm DC lens is the oldest AF Nikkor lens still in production and the only 135mm AF lens if I am not mistaken. Quite unfortunate, since I rather like that focal length for headshots or head and shoulder portraits, but find it hard to get sharp images with the DC lens between f/2-2.8. I think it's a focusing issue rather than optical performance. I know some find the LoCA of that lens very intrusive as well, but I personally think the 85/1.8G is actually worse in this respect wide open.

<p>"three-dimensional high fidelity", "smooth alteration of bokeh as the distance from the focus position increases", "very little distortion or bleed with the pinpoint light sources in night landscapes"<br /><br> <br> This lingo is very familiar from the introduction of the 58mm f/1.4G. Looks like this is meant to be its bigger brother, and possibly the replacement of the 105 DC lens, although I wouldn't mind an f/1.8 version at $1k less and up to 600 grams. I was expecting a 135mm lens more than this, although this seems very interesting too. Unfortunately the price is too high for me, so for the time being I'll stick with the 105 DC.</p>

<p>Well, looks like the picture did not get attached.</p><div></div>

<p>I don't know if this is to your liking, but here's the picture after a couple of adjustments in ACR.</p>

<p>I absolutely do not agree with his conclusion that the digital image surpasses the analog one in terms of resolution. Judging from these pictures, I would say the opposite. And you're right, I shouldn't have read the comments.</p>

<p>Magnification also depends on subject distance. For example macro lenses produce a very high magnification, but they are not special because their focal length is very long, but rather because they can focus very close. Of course, if you photograph distant subjects, minimum fous distance becomes irrelevant, and the lens with the longer focal lenth will have the higher magnification at the same distance. Be careful, though, you'll need a faster shutter speed to not blur the image if you are shooting hand held, which means you need a larger aperture to keep the exposure constant. Long focal legth lenses with a large maximum aperture are big, heavy and expensive.</p> <p>Primes are not always cheaper than zooms, but generally, for giving up versatility, you might get a larger aperture and a smaller/lighter lens in exchange. For example a 70-200mm f/2.8 zoom lens is heavier and more expensive than a 180mm f/2.8 lens. It is much bigger, heavier and more expensive than an 85mm f/1.8 lens, and you also get a larger aperture with the prime (but obviously lose the ability to zoom with it). An 85mm f/1.4 might not be much cheaper than the zoom. Your 50mm f/1.8 prime is not cheaper than certain zoom lenses, but those zooms have a much smaller aperture, and probably just not as good image quality overall.</p>

<p>It seems that some people are annoyed by my annoyance.</p> <p> </p> <blockquote> <p>People tend to use the subject line to say what's most important to them.</p> </blockquote> <p>I indeed wanted to make it clear in the subject line that I did not like the trend. I hope it is still OK to dislike things, if being annoyed by them is apparently frowned upon. For lack of a better word, perhaps attributed to the fact that English is not my first (and not even second) language, I used the word "annoying". I am open to hearing suggestions as to how I should have phrased my subject line if I wanted to express my dissatisfaction with the trend, but since this is photo.net, and not psychology.net, I sort of assumed that the focus would stay on the part of my post that was photography related. I will definitely be more careful phrasing my subject line in the future.</p>

<p>I think I should not have used the word "annoying", because it seems like that one word is getting more attention than I intended it to.</p> <blockquote> <p>I didn't mean to imply that ALL my emotions (such as fear or love) are ALWAYS "under control" nor "under my control".</p> </blockquote> <p>I understand that, I only meant that annoyance was just as hard for me to control as fear, love etc. In fact, I believe everyone gets annoyed by things, but perhaps by different things. By no means did I mean to say that seeing a photograph I don't like makes me lose control and get furious about it, but I just find it really weird that someone would intentionally go after a look that I actively try to avoid. It's a slightly unpleasant feeling, which I referred to as annoyance.</p> <p>In the meantime, I noticed that the reason my 500px home page features so many of these photographs is partly because one of the photographers I am following keeps "liking" them, so it sends them to my home page. It works a little like facebook, displaying the activity of the photographers you follow, including the pictures that they "like". Anyway, I find it interesting, because I enjoy this photographer's work a lot (although her subject matter is very different from what I normally shoot, but I do find inspiration in her work), but dislike most of the stuff she "likes". In case anyone is interested, here is her page:<br /><br />https://500px.com/texturelikemouton</p> <p>And here are two photographs she recently "liked":</p> <p>https://500px.com/photo/154807357/somewhere-in-tokyo-in-black-and-white-by-takashi-yasui<br> https://500px.com/photo/154716563/katrin-by-kettenkarussell-photography<br /><br />They both obviously exhebit those characteristics that this thread was originally about. And here is another photographer's work, who is, in my opinion, just going gaga with the effect:<br> https://500px.com/labarton</p> <p>I especially find it hard to understand why someone would want pretty much all their photographs to have this look. I would sincerely like to ask the photographers themselves, but have not found a way to connect with them apart from the comments section on each individual picture.</p>

<p>I can only say that I envy you for being able to control your emotions. I am not in control of when I feel annoyed, just like I am not in control of when I am worried, or in pain, fear, or love.</p>

<blockquote> <p>you are probably annoyed basically because the trend doesn't 'conform' to your criteria, those criteria being either conscious or subconscious.</p> </blockquote> <p>Exactly. Now wouldn't you be annoyed too if you saw more and more photographs that you didn't like? And had the feeling that more and more people thought they were "cool"?</p> <p>I get a similar feeling with popular music: anything can be sold, and no matter what mindless, monotonous noise you make with your instruments, that might even sound like a two-year-old could play it any day of the week, somebody out there is going to be a fan, and you are going to be able to make a fortune with it if you have the right connections. But then why do people study music theory, or spend so much time learning an instrument?</p> <p>I'm just trying to take the thought to an extreme, I am not really implying that those pictures are "that" bad, but looking at some people's portfolio, it seems like this effect is really popular among some photographers, and are using it as their signature style. What if having a blue color cast on all my pictures was my style? Or adding a ridicuous amount of reverb to a singer's voice on all his songs was his style? Or adding the exact same seasoning to all their dishes was a chef's style? Gets boring pretty fast.</p>

"got sources, references?" No, I don't, I was merely stating an opinion. However, I am fairly certain I did not come up with this idea, and there have been others, perhaps even great artists who shared this opinion. Perhaps it doesn't even make much sense to argue about it, because we'll never know who is right or wrong. I was just pointing out something I didn't like about these and many other pictures, and was interested in other people's opinion.

Sorry guys, I didn't mean to steer things up so much. I used the word annoying because I think it is being overused. I open 500 px and there's a bunch of them, and most of the times the effect dies not add to the picture at all, it just seems like it is being used because it looks cool (or so the photographer thinks). It's not the pictures themselves that annoy me, but more the trend of using this effect without any consideration.

The way I see it is I might not see what the criteria are, but they are there. For example, compositionally, leading lines work. The rule of thirds works. The human brain perceives it as balanced. And when you break the rule of thirds, and put your subject in the dead center, it might still work because there is symmetry, and for that particular picture symmetry might work. It doesn't mean you need to take pictures by a rulebook, but these "rules" are based on experience. If you can invent a wheel that is not round, yet is more efficient than than those that are, more power to you. However, wheels aren't made round because a book says they need to be, but because that's what has worked for ages, and if you want to design wheels, the knowledge that wheels should be round probably helps you in the process. I think the "rules" of photography should be interpreted in a similar way.

<p>I was always on the opnion that there were certain empirical criteria for beauty, or a good photograph. The author has the artistic freedom to express things the way they want to, but certain criteria must be met. A technically flawed photograph is never going to impress me, regardless of how artsy it is. I don't mind if half of the photograph is made up of blown out highlights, as long as that makes the composition more balanced, or does something else that is of benefit to the photograph (which, in case of blown out highlights, is quite rare in my opinion), and in the photographs I linked originally, I think raising the shadows to a muddy gray does nothing to improve the impact of the picture. The one in the woods would actually be much better without this final touch of eliminating blacks altogether.</p> <p>I know I have to look into myself for being annoyed by things that do not really affect me. I am trying. However, I think I am not alone, and the majority of people need to look into themselves.</p>

Lew, I couldn't agree more. I thought about mentioning the unrealistic HDR where the shadows are almost brighter than the highlights and everything is surrounded by a halo as well, but that has been discussed a lot of times, so I decided to leave it out this time.

<p>Looking at 500px and other photography sites, I noticed that it seems to be increasingly popular to go after a certain look that resembles the appearance of fogged film, with no blacks and a lack of tonal range in general. And they seem to be very popular, I even recall some beginners on photo.net asking how to achieve "this cool look". Basically just slide the bottom left corner of the tone curve up vertically, and there you go. I personally find it ugly, and somewhat annoying that something that would obviously be considered a technical snafu in the film days is now purposely sought. Let me give you a couple of examples. It is very obvious in these two landscapes:<br /><br /> http://500px.com/photo/152621951/deep-in-the-redwoods-by-nick-carnera<br /> http://500px.com/photo/152695021/misty-morning-by-dimitris-koskinas</p> <p>I know they are all foggy landscapes, and the photographer probably wants to convey a certain atmosphere, but is it really necessary? These two cityscapes exhebit the same characteristics to a more moderate extent:</p> <p>http://500px.com/photo/152257543/density-by-tim-gaweco<br /> http://500px.com/photo/152310413/old-school-by-takashi-yasui</p> <p>Why the second one has a pulse of over 99 is absolutely beyond my comprehension.</p> <p>What do you think? Am I just not open-minded enough?</p>

<p>If you buy this lens primarily for portraits, I don't see a problem with using it for landscapes as well, like I do occasionally. However, if you're always going to stop it down to 5.6, 8, or even smaller, you need to ask yourself whether there's a point in buying an f/2 lens. It's big, heavy, and expensive. If you need a 135mm prime for landscapes, the Ai or Ai-S 135mm f/2.8 is perhaps more suited for your purpose.</p> <p>The DC lens is plenty sharp stopped down. It is also very nice wide open, but not because of absolute sharpness. You have to look at the whole picture, and when you see the focused subject against the creamy background, it appears really sharp. After all, it's the appearance that matters in a photograph.</p>

What I meant to emphasize is that when we crop a 24 megapixel FX image to DX area, we are not left with 16, but rather around 10.7 megapixels.

Actually, the above math is wrong. An FX camera has 2.25, not 1.5 times the area of a DX.

The card slot door also locks. Gotcha!

I use an SQ-A, and I also think the most probably cause was that the dark slide was pulled out just enough to allow you to release the shutter, but not enough to expose the film. I store the dark slide in the camera bag, right where the camera would go. The Mamiya SLRs provide multiple slots in the body where you can store the dark slide, but then those are huge cameras too.

Yes, I apologize for my clumsy English one more time. I did not mean to make people think I was dead when I posted this thread (although being that it happened on April 1st, that would have been funny in a way). Anyway, I am going to take the strobe to the service center and see what they say. It may well be that I just did not wait long enough before touching things I should not have been touching. This was a valuable lesson, and I do feel ashamed of my stupidity, but hopefully this thread will prevent others from making the same mistake, or even from actually being electrocuted.