kevin_beretta

Thanks Roland for the info. That's some good additional information to consider. As to the manual focus, I find that the only manual lens I have now works quite well in that regard. In reading some of the reviews and methods of work, I've quickly learned to not rely on the focus dot to be lit up, but by picking the point where the "<" arrow to the right of the focus dot just makes the focus dot flicker a bit. That nails focus for me most every time, even at f1.4 . I suspect it might be a bit easier with a 40 mm and f2 at the widest. The slowness and deliberateness of shooting with a manual lens seems to work for me. I am having a chat with a friend of mine tonight who has at least one Voigtlander to my knowledge so I'll ask him how he finds it. However, there is a very strong case for the AF-S 50/1.8 indeed as you mentioned over all the others. I'd never considered it as I'd always had an AF-S 50 1.4G, but that is quite a bit heavier. Thanks again for the input.

I don't think I answered the question before I came here. I was looking for input and differences of opinion, other ideas etc. I did the same a few (12 or so) months earlier when I debated buying a 50 mm manual lens and I ended up with the Zeiss Milvus 50 1.4 instead of the Zeiss Planar T* 50 I had originally targeted. It was an excellent choice and driven by input from this forum and a number of online reviews. I find there is an incredible wealth of info and knowledge on this board and I certainly am not going to try all the lenses myself before making a decision, so I'm left with the opinions of others and some judgement in making a decision, granted with some bias and risk. I find this works for me.

I didn't comment on any grear, I just mentioned the reviews I read. If you don't like PN then why are you here?

Rodeo Joe makes a good point ... I have the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4G but put it up for sale to fund a new lens. It seems the Nikon AF NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4D is actually the lightest and smallest of the 3, although volumetrically, the Voigtlander is the smallest. Part of the reason I am looking at the Voigtlander is because I am so happy with the way shooting has changed since using the Zeiss 50 1.4 manual. The Nikon 1.4G lens never really threw off any good pictures for me but I can't tell you why because they are perfectly sharp but a bit dull, not sure what it is. 40 a nice step between the 35 and 50 lenses I have now. And the reviews on sharpness and picture quality seem really enticing too. The pondering continues... :-) Nikon AF NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4D Lens Dimensions (ø x L) 2.54 x 1.67" / 64.5 x 42.5 mm Weight 8.11 oz / 230 g Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4G Lens Dimensions (ø x L) 2.89 x 2.13" / 73.5 x 54.2 mm Weight 9.88 oz / 280 g Voigtlander Ultron 40mm f/2 SL IIS Dimensions (ø x L) 2.61 x 1.48" / 66.3 x 37.5 mm Weight 9.17 oz / 260 g

I read a review or two and neither were very positive about it.

Found this site .... helpful to find lenses... Lens Database

Thanks both @chulster and @c.p.m._van_het_kaar for your replies. If I go the Voigtlander route, I'll likely get a new one. But I may take a look around first for a Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AI-s Pancake-NIKKOR MARK III Cheers, Kevin

Once this silly Corona virus abates, I am set to do a significant amount of travel. I'm a D850 shooter and mostly backpack/hike/mountaineer so weight is an issue. My earlier exploits saw me carry a D700, 24-70 f2.8 and 105 f2.8 as sole equipment. I want to go a little lighter and am debating D850, 24-70 f2.8 and a small pancake lens for a "walk around anywhere" sort of lens. I would then also leave the Canon S95 home which I used for that purpose. I've read a few reviews on the Nikon Series E 50 mm 1.8 and apparently there are a few versions of these for different markets. Some focus a little closer to 0.45 meters vs 0.6 meters but the quality of the former seems better than the other versions. Sadly the "good" version is a bit harder to find. Cheap things at around $100 or so. The other option is to buy a Voigtlander Ultron 40mm f/2 SL IIS Aspherical new from BHP or somewhere else. A tad more at about $420. But hey ... It's a new toy. So my question is whether there are other small pancake options for the FX I am not aware of? I like the 40 mm in the Voigtlander vs. the 50 mm for the Nikon lens. The manual focus does not bother me at all. In fact, I have a Zeiss 50 1.4 and it's a beast but hasn't been off the camera much for the last 6 months since I bought it. Too heavy for travel though. Any ideas welcome.

Someone is selling replacements ... For Nikon D700 Camera Body Front/Rear Grip Rubber Cover Unit Replacement | eBay

You can't really fix the stickiness as it has to do with the breakdown of the components of the material. The severity will depend on the amount of humidity, heat cycles etc. your camera is exposed to. My D700 suffered from it tremendously in Asia. I have since taken the habit of wiping my hands before handling the camera or the lenses. No more problems since. One trick I use which works well, but only for a few weeks at a time, is to lightly coat the rubber bits in Armer All.

I switched to Capture One Pro v12 back in October of last year. I never upgraded to Capture One 20, suspecting it to be buggy. It's proven to be a very buggy product. The online (subscription) version seems worse; I'm on a few of their forums. That said, the v12 version (which had been around for a while) is amazing, stable, faultless and has many more options to work with you pictures than LightRoom. For instance, layers, better color control, luma range masking etc. But the thing that sold me initially was the RAW engine. The way Capture One renders a RAW (NEF) file from Nikon is just head and shoulders above what LR does to a picture right out of the gate. Holy batman noise control! Capture One is not as good in file management and rolling back to previous edits of a picture; it requires a few extra steps. But you can also get away from catalogues and split up your picture library into whatever configuration and location(s) you want as the edits are carried in sub folders to your RAW files and not bound to the program. It's a far more difficult program to get up to speed with quickly though. That said, I'll never go back. Back last year a license was around $400 for a full pro versionI think and now prices seem to have gone nuts. The Capture One stand alone license is $184 it seems, which is a steal if you only use Nikon.

Greetings, I am looking for a source of photography related events in and around Vancouver BC or the lower mainland. Anyone have a link or links to share? Thanks, Kevin

I've been to Nepal a handful of times but later this year I'll be back and want to leave a bunch of camera gear in secure storage while I go hiking. I know backpacks etc. can be left in most hotels for your trekking times, but I am not comfortable leaving a lot of expensive gear behind. Also, those storage units are quite messy and people step on packs to get to others etc. Ideally, I'd like to find a place where I can get a lock box, the size of a banker's box maybe, where I can leave a handful of lenses and a laptop, cables etc. and take only what I need for a hike. There are no lockers at the airport so that's not an option either. Does anyone know if there is a good option in Kathmandu? Cheers, Kevin

You know, as a complete amateur, I find these exchanges between Ikka and Andrew quite informative. Lots to learn here :-)

Another use is in the mountains. If you are shooting landscapes and capture small villages far away, you sometimes just want to know what they are called. With a GPS that has a digital compass this is a piece of cake. Just look it up on Google maps from your processing software which has the location and direction of your lens. I use a Dawntech Eco Pro 2. It's a minuscule GPS unit that plugs into the Nikon 10 pin connector. Works a treat. Only had it for a year or so but wish I would have bought it years ago.

Well at least you can get it that way still then. Still reasonably not cool of Adobe to not support a product that a few years old only. This is my last Adobe product. I bought Capture One v 12 Pro a while ago and prefer it greatly. Better raw engine, much faster, no use of catalogues needed and it works with layers.

Indeed, it's no longer there ... how strange. Ping Adobe and see what they say. Failing that I can put the file on a server from where you can get it. It's about 1.1GB in size.

I can use it either with manual aperture on the lens or with the CPU contacts and the dial when I set it to f16. Both work.

It works flawlessly on the new Zeiss.

I guess I don't get your point. There are good and bad copies of lenses. Mine may not be the best. But that's a whole different story than a company basically providing a utility or a tool to fix your lenses because it's expected to need it. Like buying a car that comes with a small mechanic to fix the inevitable failure. But I've learned that those who like Sigma lenses are usually firebrand fanatics. My lenses also bounced around the world in a motorcycle side case through 45 or so countries over the period of 2 years. That may have something to do with it too ...

Adobe apps available for download

Well my 85 1.4G is a bit soft for sure. As is the 50 1.4G, which this will replace. The only 2 lenses that are absolutely perfect are my 70-200 VRII and the 105 2.8 VRI. the 24-70 2.8G is good but not perfect and the 14-24 2.8G is good but maybe not the sharpest either. The 35 1.8 is also very, very good. I tried 2 Sigma lenses and both were miserable failures. Didn't focus worth a damn, hunting focus and never got a good picture (unless I manually focused them) from either one so both were returned. If a company needs to provide you with a dock to tune up the lens you know there is something not quite right I think.

@James Bryant I received my Milvus 50 1.4 last Friday. It's an absolutely stunning lens. Even the first few shots proved a revelation in quality difference from any of my Nikon pro lenses. The cat was my third picture. No changes except a bit of cropping. Capture One V12 used for the output to JPG. f3.5, 2000 ISO at 1/200s

I spent some time online with Adobe Support, expecting little to nothing. To my surprise, they sent me a link with a download file (1 GB) which updated my software to 6.14 and made NEF files appear again after a folder synch. Pretty damn happy.

I have an install of LR Classic 6.0 on one machine (PC) that has been updated a long time ago to 6.14. I have a Nikon D850 and the NEF files work fine with it. I installed 6.0 on a new machine #2 (2 allowed) a few weeks ago. It did not update to 6.14 but since everything else worked, I didn't worry about it. I reinstalled LR on machine #2 today because my catalog failed to open, no matter what I did. I've used LR since version 2 so know the quirks, mostly. With the new install, it refuses to recognize my D850 NEF files. CR2 Canon work. Updated to ACR v 12. No change. I logged onto the Adobe site but it seems there is nothing there for Classic users anymore. Where do I turn for help? Thanks for any pointers