Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2024 i N-Photo: the Nikon magazine

1 FIRST PORT OF CALL Emma says… I like to shoot tethered via Adobe Lightroom. Being able to see the images as you’re taking them, while zooming in to check critical sharpness, is really helpful. Yes, it can be a bit temperamental and slow, but it’s extremely useful in a studio setting, especially if you’re working with clients. 2 FOODIE BLUES Emma says… I like to set my white balance manually to around 5600 K and cool it down further from there. The temptation is to warm your images like a face, but this can make the food look sickly. Always shoot Raw too, so if your colour temperature is off, you can change it in post-production. 3 WHAT’S ON THE MENU? Emma says… I shoot in Manual mode and…

The Wedding Guest CSABA DARÓCZI Butterflies & Dragonflies 1st Place I was photographing a wedding in a forest clearing in the beautiful surroundings of Uzsa, Hungary. The hall lights attracted a lot of insects to rest on the windows. At one point, I saw some guests taking pictures with their phones next to one of the red lights. As I moved closer, I noticed that an oak peacock moth (Antheraea yamamai) had taken up residence on the window. I waited until everyone had finished their pictures, and then it was my turn. Camera: Nikon Z 6 Lens: Nikon AF-S 24mm f/1.4G ED Exposure: 1/320 sec, f/1.4, ISO3200 Asymmetrical Threads ELIZABETH KAZDA Human Made 1st Place I wanted to photograph this thread in a unique way and came up with the…

I love fantasy photography and had always wanted to create an edgy mermaid concept that didn’t look too ‘Disney Princess’. This photograph – part of a series called Mermaid Queen – was captured at Tintagel Haven Beach, Cornwall. When I finally had the opportunity to realize my vision, I was faced with the huge challenge of working – in peak season – on a very busy beach. 1 Mermaid tails and props I found that mermaid tails fall into two categories: cheap, cheerful and colourful; or astonishingly beautiful and expensive. I wanted a convincing costume and offset the cost slightly by importing one from America. Small details can bring a scene to life too, so consider adding in one or two little props. I added the crown (bottom left) to…

Many of us are accustomed to using circular polarizing filters on our lenses. They’re useful for enriching colours in landscapes – especially blue skies and foliage – and invaluable for cutting through reflections or atmospheric haze. But polarizers aren’t just for lenses. Something magical happens if we polarize our light source too. This is called cross polarization, and the technique is simple. We need both the light entering our camera and the light emitting from our source to be polarized light. It’s a classic technique that has many uses, both practical and creative. Cross polarization can result in photos with zero reflections and glare, which makes the technique useful for practical things like dental photography, because eliminating the glare allows for a clearer picture of the shape of a person’s…

1 Get creative with Channel Mixer Photoshop’s Channel Mixer adjustment layer is great for creative colour shifts. Use the dropdown to target the R, G and B channels and experiment with values. As a rule of thumb, the combined value for each channel should be around +100 for best results. 2 Use the Color Mixer The Color Mixer panel in Camera Raw/Lightroom is one of the easiest tools for making colour changes. Go to the Hue tab then grab the Target tool and drag over colours in the image to alter them. Adjust the Saturation if colours are too strong or weak; for more control, experiment with the Point Color options. 3 Colour the backdrop A twist of your circular polarizer can turn the background completely white or black. But…

WHAT BLUR LOOKS LIKE 1mm blur Here, we’ve simulated 1mm of movement. The cyclist is slightly soft, but you could easily sharpen it. 5mm blur With 5mm of movement the blur becomes visible without zooming in. It’s probably acceptable, with sharpening. 10mm blur The blur is too bad to fix and this shot would have to be rejected.…

Q I would like to buy a prime lens for my Z fc and am considering the Nikon Z DX 24mm f/1.7. Would you go for that lens or something else? Tom Fellowes A Naturally, you can use any FX (full-frame) Z-system lens on a DX (APS-C) format camera like the Z fc, Z 30 and Z 50. However, the Nikon Z DX 24mm f/1.7 (£269/$277) is tailor-made for the job, gives an ‘effective’ 36mm focal length in full-frame terms, and has a fast f/1.7 aperture rating. We published a full review of the lens back in issue 153 and were impressed with its performance and compactness. But it has to be said that build quality isn’t overly robust, as it has a plastic mounting plate and doesn’t feature any…

When we reviewed the Nikon Z f, we called it ‘Nikon’s best-looking camera since 1982!’ And now, together with Nikon UK, we’re giving you the chance to win this full-frame retro-style Z camera. It’s an incredible prize that’s worth a whopping £2299/$1999. Enter any of the 12 rounds of NPOTY 2024 to be in with a chance of taking Nikon’s nostalgia-infused Z camera home – and of being crowned N-Photo’s Photographer of the Year 2024. A blast from the… future? The Z f is far from retro under the hood. It’s built around a 24.5Mp full-frame CMOS sensor and inherits some of the latest advancements from the Nikon Z 8 and Z 9. It’s powered by the latest EXPEED 7 processor, has a native ISO range of 100-64,000, and uses…

We’re very excited that The Photography & Video Show 2024 is almost upon us, and will be running from 16 to 19 March at Birmingham NEC. As well as coming to say hello to the N-Photo team on stand H404, there’s loads more on offer this year: there will be some legendary speakers (most talks are free!), incredible show bargains (where you can pick up kit for less than anywhere else from top camera dealers and direct from manufacturers), get hands-on with a whole host of new and exciting products, and watch live demos with everything from beginner-level tips to business-related advice for working professionals! Even better, Nikon will be there with a huge stand, where you can experience first-hand the very latest Nikon cameras and lenses, and perhaps see…

£849/$799 www.voigtlaender.de Compared with the Nikon Z 14-30mm f/4 S zoom, the Voigtländer 15mm f/4.5 Super Wide-Heliar Z Aspherical is relatively compact, a little over half the weight and has a similar wide angle of view and aperture rating. Key features Heading the feature list is the ‘super wide’ field of view, delivered by the Voigtländer’s 15mm focal length. Indeed, you get a huge angle of view equating to 110 degrees on full-frame Nikon Z-system cameras. You can also use the lens on Z DX (APS-C format) bodies and get a still fairly wide viewing angle but, in reality, it’s only a little wider than you’ll get from the dinky Nikon Z DX 16-50mm f/3.5-6.3 VR. The expansive field of view is most useful for landscape photography and interiors. With…

Fast, short telephoto primes are often referred to as ‘portrait lenses’. An 85mm focal length on a full-frame camera enables a comfortable working distance for head-and-shoulders or half-length portraits, so you can be close enough to engage with your subject but without invading their personal space. A longer 105mm or 135mm focal length gives the same advantage for close-up headshots, or the option of a more generous working distance. If you’re shooting with a DX (APS-C format) camera, the 1.5x crop factor often makes a 50mm to 56mm focal length more ideal, equating to 75mm or 84mm full-frame terms. We’ll be covering some top choices for those as well. A bright aperture, typically of around f/1.4 to f/1.8, has two advantages. Firstly, you can get a tight depth of field…

£699/$697 When it comes to fast primes, f/1.8 lenses are often seen as poor relations to their f/1.4 and even f/1.2 counterparts. They tend to be less expensive to buy, mostly because the narrower maximum aperture only requires smaller diameter glass elements. Naturally, you can’t get quite such a tight depth of field, and shutter speeds under low lighting will be two-thirds of a stop slower at any given ISO, but that’s not the whole story. This Z-system lens has a high-quality optical path that includes two ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements for maximizing clarity and reducing unwanted aberrations, along with high-tech Nano Crystal Coat for cutting ghosting and flare. There are no aspherical elements in the optical layout but this can sometimes be a bonus for bokeh – the all-important…

£269/$349 RATING: 4.5/5 Viltrox makes a trio of 23mm, 33mm and 56mm autofocus lenses for Z DX cameras, all with a fast f/1.4 aperture rating. They’re all pretty much the same size and weight, and have the same 52mm filter attachment thread. The barrel as well as the mounting plate is made from metal, and the lenses feature an aperture control ring. Further similarities include ED and HR elements, along with an HD Nano multi-layer coating. Centre-sharpness remains excellent even when shooting wide-open and, while corner-sharpness drops off a bit, that’s not generally an issue for portraiture. Bokeh is soft and dreamy. Overall, build quality, handling and performance are excellent.…

£1699/$1447 This Nikon lens is much smaller and little more than half the weight of the competing Sigma 85mm f/1.4 on test, but much more expensive. It’s only natural to feel you’re not getting as much for your money. The optical path consists of 10 elements, compared with the Sigma’s 14, and the forward elements have a considerably smaller diameter. As with the Nikon AF-S 85mm f/1.8 lens on test, there are neither aspherical nor ED elements in the line-up. On the plus side, the Nikon’s relatively compact and lightweight build make it somewhat easier to manage. Weighing 595g, there are no real problems when using a tripod and shooting in portrait orientation, without a tripod mounting ring or L-bracket. Autofocus is typically quick and quiet for a ring-type ultrasonic…

£365/$379 RATING: 4.5/5 If you’re in the market for a particularly budget-friendly portrait prime, there’s a lot to be said for this lens. Yongnuo also makes a very similar 50mm f/1.8 lens, which is again full-frame compatible but a better fit for portraiture on DX format Z-system cameras. Both feature one LD (Low Dispersion) element and nano-structure multi-coatings. The 85mm also adds an HR (High Refractive index) element in its optical path. They have a chrome-plated metal mounting plate and weather-seal ring, gold-plated electronic contacts and a USB port for firmware updates. Sharpness is excellent even wide-open, while bokeh is much smoother than from the Yongnuo 50mm lens.…

£2819/$2797 There’s certainly nothing wrong with the budget-friendly Nikon Z 85mm f/1.8 S but it lacks an ultra-bright aperture, often favoured by portrait photographers for getting a really tight depth of field. With that in mind, Nikon bypassed the usual f/1.4 category and launched the super-speed Z 85mm f/1.2, its aperture making it a full f/stop faster than an f/1.8 lens. Wide apertures necessarily mean wide-diameter glass. As such, the lens is quite chunky and weighs in at 1160g. Even so, it’s pretty much the same weight as the Sigma F-mount 85mm f/1.4 lens on test and actually has a smaller 82mm filter thread, compared with the Sigma’s 86mm. Similarities to the Z 135mm Plena lens include super-fast autofocus based on two linear stepping motors, and a customizable L-fn button,…

I’ve noticed a trend where photographers proudly announce that they either don’t edit or hardly edit their photographs. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that at all, but when it’s said in a manner that belittles image editing, it doesn’t half grate on me. Photography is an art and if a photographer edits or doesn’t edit their work that’s down to a creative decision – there’s simply no right or wrong answer. To edit or not to edit… Editing photos doesn’t make you any less of a photographer and neither does capturing images straight from the camera. Whether or not, and to what extent, you edit is an artistic choice that you get to make, and you alone. So where has this negative view on editing come from? Here’s my take.…

While it might not quite be sunbathing weather just yet, the lure of the coast is an all-year-round attraction to photographers. But with the constantly changing tides to account for, there’s more to worry about than with a regular landscape shoot, so in this issue’s lead feature Ross Hoddinott presents his top tips for capturing sensational shots of the seashore. Of course, this time of year is a very good time to stay inside, too, and food photographer Emma Dunham shares the tricks of the trade with her apprentice for the day, teaching her to capture tantalizing images of tasty treats including delicious desserts, ultra-pink shakes and stacks of syrup-drenched pancakes. Mmmm, pancakes… We put a range of short-telephoto primes that are ideal for portraiture through their paces, with focal…

1 THE CROPPING BOARD Emma says… When there are lots of extra props in an image, you risk detracting from the main subject. A clever crop can remove distractions and create a stronger overall composition that ultimately guides the viewer’s eye towards the hero item and helps it to shine through. 2 PARE DOWN THE PROPS Emma says… In the background of this shot the props are too light, causing the viewer’s eyes to be drawn to them, especially the teapot as it’s white. I used the Polygonal Lasso Tool to cut around the props in the background and selected Image > Adjustment > Exposure to drop the exposure. 3 SUGAR AND SYRUP Emma says… I felt the pancake images with just the icing sugar or just the syrup looked…

Subterranean places make superb subjects. There’s a joy to moving through these beautiful and seldom-seen locations. Each trip is a very rewarding journey of discovery, if damp, cold and, at times, uncomfortable… There’s no natural light below the earth’s surface, so head torches and flashguns are essential tools. With long exposures and selective lighting there’s incredible scope for creativity. Keep the shutter open while you ‘paint’ the scene with light. But too much light will ruin the mystique; embrace the shadows and keep things atmospheric. Caving is dangerous and requires specialist navigation skills. Newcomers will need to contact a caving guide to get in and out safely, and joining a local caving club is a great way to get into the hobby, too. How to shoot inside a cave 1…

Few photography effects can beat the look of a long exposure, especially the beautiful motion blur you get when shooting moving water with a slow shutter speed. During daylight hours the sort of slow shutter speeds you need can usually only be achieved with the use of a neutral density filter, which slows the flow of light into your camera. But sometimes you can be caught short without a neutral density filter, and the water comes out looking too choppy and detailed. If so, there’s another option. Using a tripod, shoot a series of frames in quick succession of the moving water and then blend the images together afterwards in Affinity Photo. It helps if the frames you intend to use are shot at your slowest possible speed. Here, our…

1 Polarizing filter Attach a polarizing filter to your lens. You can use either a circular or linear polarizer. You might need to use step-up-rings depending on your filter size and the lens thread size (but don’t worry if you can’t screw on the filter, simply hold it in front of the lens). We used a 77mm B&W circular polarizer here. 2 TV screen Most LCD screens emit polarized light. A TV is a good option as it gives you plenty of room to work with. If your TV has the YouTube app, simply search for ‘white screen’ and you’ll find plenty of blank screen videos (or display a plain white JPEG). Increase the brightness of the TV for a stronger light. 3 Hard plastics Clear, hard, plastic objects, like the…

Start to experiment with cross polarization along with other creative techniques and you can come up with all kinds of interesting artwork. For instance, why not try combining the cross polarization technique with a bit of craftwork? For this image we cut out a few shapes from a sheet of black paper, then stuck them to our board of Perspex (now placed vertically and held in position with a clamp). We then stuck a pair of plastic goggles to the board, and experimented by placing other plastic objects very close to the camera lens to create blurry, out-of-focus colours in the foreground. Of course, the TV screen needs to be captured as white for this to work, so we need to rotate the circular polarizer on the lens until we…

Are you paying enough attention to your camera’s shutter speed? Or do you just check it’s fast enough to avoid the risk of camera shake and then ignore it? Photographers work very hard to get their subjects perfectly sharp and to create just the right degree of background blur. But it’s a mistake to imagine that focusing and lens aperture are the only controls that count. In fact the shutter speed plays an equally important part in controlling sharpness. The aperture can control the sharpness with depth, but the shutter speed does the same thing with another dimension – time. If you’re photographing an object that’s still, the shutter speed may not be a factor, but most everyday subjects show some kind of movement, and this is where the shutter…

01 STATIC SUBJECTS Not everything in the scene will move at the same speed, and some things won’t move at all – like these rocks and cliffs. As long as you use a tripod to keep the camera still, the static elements will stay sharp however long the exposure you select. 02 MOVING WAVES The waves are constantly washing in and out during the exposure so they blur into a soft mist. They’re moving quickly, though, so you can blur them with an exposure of around one second – though longer exposures can be used to give a smoother look. 03 MOVING CLOUDS The movement of clouds is much slower, and they appear stationary during this one-second exposure. To show movement in clouds you will likely need to increase the…

HH Handheld without VR VR Vibration Reduction T Tripod Subject movement and camera movement are two completely different things. You can often achieve striking creative effects with subject movement, but camera movement (or ‘camera shake’) just produces an unattractive all-over blur where nothing in the picture is sharp. There is an easy way to work out the minimum shutter speed for handheld photography, based simply on the focal length you’re using (or effective focal length, if you’re using a DX-format Nikon). For example, if you’re shooting at a focal length of 30mm, 1/30 sec is the slowest ‘safe’ speed for handheld photography. If you’re shooting with a 500mm lens, it’s 1/500 sec. Of course, many lenses have VR, or ‘Vibration Reduction’ systems, and full-frame Z-series Nikons have ‘in-body image stabilzation’…

Q What’s the best secondhand full-frame DSLR I can buy, bearing in mind I don’t need the big megapixel count of the Nikon D850? Karl Atkins A Matthew recommends… The Nikon D750 is a superb camera that I used for years but the newer D780 is even better and has a significant advantage. That’s the DSLR I’d go for. Nikon D780 IN SOME WAYS, THE D780 COMBINES THE BEST BITS OF A DSLR AND A MIRRORLESS CAMERA RELEASED: 2020 PRICE NEW: £2299/$2297 SECONDHAND PRICE: ‘Excellent’ £1499/$1399 ‘Good’ £1299/$1199 The D780 takes all of the D750’s winning design and handling cues, but adds on-sensor phase-detection autofocus and EXPEED 6 processing, inherited directly from the Z 6 and Z 7. The net result is that you get a highly capable and entirely…

£579/$549 www.nikon.co.uk Historically, teleconverters have been notorious for degrading image quality. It’s like holding a magnifying glass to the lens, accentuating every slight flaw in optical performance. The speed and accuracy of autofocus can also take a hit. However, Nikon says its Z-mount teleconverters won’t degrade image quality. Let’s see… With the TC-1.4x, you get a 1.4x boost in reach with the caveat that you lose an f-stop in aperture brightness. So a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens effectively becomes a 98-280mm zoom with a constant f/4 aperture rating. Unlike ‘dumb’ teleconverters that have no electronics, the TC-1.4x enables full data communication between the lens and camera. The optical line-up is based on six elements in four groups and includes one aspherical element. Nikon’s Super Integrated Coating is also applied, to avoid…

£489/$477 There’s a lot to be said for compact lenses that don’t take up too much room in your kit bag. This one fits the bill perfectly, weighing in at just 350g. That’s less than a third of the weight and not much more than half the physical length of the Sigma 85mm f/1.4 lens on test. It’s also refreshingly inexpensive for an own-brand Nikon lens. The lens was originally launched 12 years ago and has built quite a fan base, picking up the baton from the AF 85mm f/1.8D, which was released nearly 20 years earlier. The high-quality optical path is based on nine elements, although there are no aspherical nor ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements. Build quality is good, with a sturdy feel and a rubber weather-seal on the…

The Nikon Z 85mm f/1.8 S and Sigma 85mm f/1.4 Art come closest to being ‘zero distortion’ lenses. Most short telephoto primes tend to produce slight pincushion distortion, which can be taken care of with automatic in-camera correction or at the editing stage. The same goes for correcting the Nikon AF-S 85mm f/1.4G, which produced slight barrel distortion in our lab tests. All in all, even the ‘worst’ offenders based on shooting lab test charts produce levels of distortion that you wouldn’t really notice in real-world shooting.…

£1249/$1599 Sigma’s 85mm Art lens is quite a handful but this one is about the same weight as a 70-200mm f/2.8 zoom, at 1645g. Nicknamed the ‘bokeh master’ it goes long on focal length and extra-large in construction. Telltale signs include an oversized 105mm filter thread, due to the large diameter of the forward-most optical elements. Unlike other lenses in the group, this one is supplied complete with a tripod mounting ring to more evenly balance the weight. That’s particularly useful when shooting in portrait (upright) orientation with a tripod or monopod, as it stops the centre of gravity shifting to the side of the head. Imposing from the outside, the lens has premium components on the inside, including three top-grade FLD (‘Fluorite’ Low Dispersion) elements, two SLD (Special Low…

Lateral chromatic aberration tends to be more problematic towards the edges and corners of the image frame, whereas axial/longitudinal chromatic aberration can occur anywhere in the frame. Our lab tests reveal the extent of lateral chromatic aberration. All the portrait primes featured in this group do well to minimize the effect, but the Nikon AF-S 85mm f/1.4G is technically the least impressive. The best on test are the Nikon Z 85mm f/1.8 S, Sigma 85mm f/1.4 Art and Nikon Z 135mm f/1.8 S Plena.…

£2699/$2497 One of Nikon’s very latest lenses, this one shows the heights to which the Z system can aspire. The optical path incorporates 16 elements in total and includes four ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements, one aspherical element and one SR (Short-wavelength Refractive) element. Nikon’s ED glass has long been renowned for delivering excellent sharpness, contrast and colour accuracy, even at wide apertures, while reducing chromatic aberrations. SR glass further reduces chromatic aberration at the blue end of the spectrum, while the use of an aspherical element can also reduce aberrations as well as the physical size of a lens. High-tech ARNEO coating is on hand to keep ghosting and flare to an absolute minimum, with the addition of a new Meso Amorphic Coat, which further reduces reflections from light entering…

£1099/$1399 RATING: N/A The 135mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art from Sigma’s Global Vision range of lenses is available in F-mount, catering to both full-frame and DX format DSLRs, giving an effective focal length of just over 200mm on the latter. Like the two Sigma Art lenses in our main reviews, this one is beautifully built, using the same materials and is typically chunky, measuring 91x115mm and weighing 1130g. The high-grade optical design includes two FLD (‘Fluorite’ Low Dispersion) and two SLD (Special Low Dispersion) elements, along with Sigma’s Super Multi-Layer Coating and an electromagnetically controlled nine-blade aperture diaphragm.…

Stick your hand up if you love being by the sea! There are probably deeply rooted, biological reasons why we are so drawn to water, and it is not hard to understand why photographers make a beeline for the coast at every opportunity. The coast is an ever-changing landscape, bursting with drama, motion, and interest. Large sandy bays form wonderful, large open spaces that provide so much freedom for expression and creativity. The coast can be calm and tranquil, or rugged, wild and dangerous. Picturesque coves, inlets, sea stacks, sand dunes and rocky foreshores provide endless picture potential. Man-made objects – such as romantic castle ruins, lighthouses, sea defences, piers, jetties, sea pools and beach huts – add further appeal. The coast is also a rich and varied habitat for wildlife…

Photographing red squirrels is one of the most spectacular projects a wildlife photographer can achieve in the UK. And while it’s almost impossible to capture a bad image of these photogenic critters, variety is key, if you’re to return home with a memory card full of Instagram-worthy shots. Wildlife photographer Paul Fowlie offers like-minded ’togs the opportunity to photograph red squirrels in the Yorkshire Dales from a pair of purpose-built hides (https://bit.ly/3ZQPq22) that offer plenty of variety. Arguably, the most interesting is the Reflection Pool Hide, situated in front of a shallow water feature, so you can capture incredible reflections. Reflections are a great way to balance compositions by filling the frame with interest. This is extremely useful when working with small animals, where filling the frame is a struggle.…

Many of us who’ve been using Adobe editing tools for years find that there’s less and less reason to open our images in Photoshop. Instead, Camera Raw and Lightroom offer almost everything we need to edit our images. But for precise retouching work, Photoshop has always been better – that’s until now. The latest updates to Camera Raw and Lightroom include a Content-Aware healing feature that could be a game changer for your Raw editing workflow. Content-Aware Fill lets you target an object, then watch as Photoshop removes it. Now we can use the Content-Aware Remove tool in Camera Raw and Lightroom’s Develop Module to reach similarly impressive results. So, if there’s a distracting object or detail that you want to be rid of, you can simply paint over it.…

1 Choose white or black One of the most magical things about the project is how the TV or laptop screen behind the plastics can be made either white, black or something in between, depending on the rotation of the circular polarizing filter. So try rotating the filter for a range of interesting effects. 2 Use different plastics Root around the house and you’re likely to find all sorts of interesting objects that can be transformed into a vibrant still life subject, thanks to cross polarization. Arrange the objects so that the screen backlights them from behind and, if the plastic is suitable, you’ll be treated to a colourful spectrum. 3 Try a macro lens If you have a macro lens, this is a great time to experiment with extreme close-ups.…

What does a Voigtländer camera, Napoleon and a giant tortoise have in common with Formula 1 photographer Clive Mason? The answer lies in a story from Clive’s childhood when describing how he got into photography. He said, ‘My father was an incredibly keen amateur photographer and while he was working in the Foreign Office we had this dreadful posting to St Helena, where Napoleon died in exile.’ A British Overseas Territory in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, St Helena is one of the world’s most remote islands. As Clive recalls, back in the 1970s, there wasn’t much for the islanders to do for leisure. ‘There was no TV, there was nothing, just the BBC World Service and that was it.’ Unsurprisingly perhaps, photography quickly became a shared passion between…

01 HEADING STRAIGHT AT YOU If you shoot your subject head-on there’s no movement across the frame at all, only movement towards the camera, so a shutter speed two to three times slower is often possible. It becomes more of a focusing problem than a shutter speed issue – you need to get your camera’s autofocus system set up correctly. 02 MOVING ACROSS THE FRAME This is where your subject’s speed across the frame is highest. If you check our table below you’ll see that a high shutter speed alone won’t always be enough to get a sharp shot – you will need to pan with your subject too. 03 45-DEGREE ANGLE Your subject might be travelling at exactly the same speed as it was when seen side-on, but its…

01 S MODE In S, or Shutter Priority mode, you select the shutter speed and then the camera selects the lens aperture that will give the correct exposure. This isn’t always possible – the light may be too dark for the shutter speed you want, even at the widest aperture, or too bright even for the smallest aperture. Watch out for ‘Lo’ or ‘Hi’ warnings in the viewfinder. If you ignore them, the exposure will be wrong, but you can increase the ISO or use an ND filter to compensate in these situations. 02 M MODE In M, or Manual mode, it’s up to you to get the exposure right – you choose both the shutter speed and the lens aperture, using the exposure indicator in the viewfinder to check…

01 Inside the lens, gyroscopic sensors detect any movement and instantly counteract it by moving a ‘floating’ lens assembly, which keeps the image steady. 02 Strictly speaking, you should switch the VR off when the camera’s on a tripod because it could introduce vibration. In practice, most of us forget and it doesn’t seem to be a problem. 03 If you’re shooting handheld, you can leave the VR switched on all the time. VR doesn’t guarantee sharp shots, but it does improve your chances of good results when you’re using marginal shutter speeds. 04 Some lenses have a special Active mode. This is designed for situations when you’re being badly shaken about as you’re taking pictures – if you’re shooting from a moving vehicle, for example.…

Lab tests explained Sharpness A chart with multiple sharp boundaries is photographed, the extent of blur at the centre, mid and edges showing how many line widths per picture height the lens can resolve. Simply put, the bigger the numbers the sharper the lens. Fringing Chromatic aberration is visible as purple or green fringing around high-contrast boundaries, caused by different wavelengths being focused on different areas of the sensor. The larger the number, the worse the score. Distortion A lens that bulges towards the edges of the frame produces barrel distortion, shown as a negative score. Pincushion distortion produces a positive score. A score of zero indicates no distortion. Our awards in a nutshell The best performance, design and value A product that gives you more for your money The…

£629/$599 www.nikon.co.uk The main feature of any 2.0x teleconverter is naturally its ability to double your telephoto reach. That always comes with a loss in aperture brightness, to the tune of two f-stops, but it can’t be helped. As an example, mount it on a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens and you’ll get a 140-400mm effective zoom range with a constant f/5.6 aperture. Another key feature is that it doubles the main lens’s maximum magnification factor. The optical line-up is based on eight elements in five groups; that’s two extra elements and one more group compared with the Z TC-1.4x. Both teleconverters include an aspherical element. Build and handling Build quality mirrors the TC-1.4x, with metal mounting plates, aluminium casing, full weather-seals, and high-tech coatings. It’s pretty compact and lightweight as well,…

To test real-world performance, we use lenses in all sorts of lighting conditions, for indoor and outdoor shooting scenarios. We check for good build quality and handling, smooth and precise operation of all controls, and we test the speed and accuracy of autofocus. We typically test full-frame compatible lenses on a range of FX and DX bodies, whereas APS-C format lenses are just tested on DX cameras. These include DSLRs like the D850 and D7500, and mirrorless cameras like the Z 7II and Z fc. In-camera and Raw processing corrections for chromatic aberration, distortion and vignetting are disabled where possible, throughout lab-testing, to better reveal the true optical performance of each lens. In our lab, we test lenses under controlled conditions, shooting specialist test charts and processing the results with…

£929/$1199 Unusually large and heavy for an 85mm f/1.4 lens, this full-frame compatible, F-mount Sigma weighs in at 1130g. That’s getting on for twice the weight of the directly competing Nikon AF-S 85mm f/1.4G on test. Typical of Sigma’s Art series, the design is firmly focused on image quality without any concessions to reducing size and weight. A telltale sign of its extra girth is that the Sigma has an 86mm filter attachment thread, compared with the Nikon’s 77mm. Despite not having an optical image stabilizer, the optical path is long and complex, based on 14 elements. These include an aspherical element at the rear and two SLD (Special Low Dispersion) elements, placed at the centre and towards the front. The aim is to boost sharpness and clarity while reducing…

£319/$399 RATING: 4/5 Ultra-fast primes tend to be hefty lenses with eye-watering price tags. This 7Artisans lens bucks the trend, shoehorning a phenomenally fast f/1.05 aperture into a compact 61x86mm package that weighs a mere 606g. It’s a manual-focus optic and lacks any built-in electronics, so you need to adjust the aperture via an onboard, stepless control ring instead of from the host camera. Even so, it features two ULD (Ultra Low Dispersion) elements and a sturdy metal barrel. The lens delivers crisp image quality even wide-open at f/1.05, along with smooth and creamy bokeh. Bokeh disks from defocused lights retain a circular shape well when stopping down.…

£2099/$2097 Shorter, slimmer and less than two-thirds the weight of Sigma’s upscaled 105mm lens, this Nikon has an identical focal length and aperture rating. It’s more manageable for handheld shooting, although the purchase price is more difficult to swallow. Unlike in the two Nikon 85mm F-mount lenses on test, this one has ED elements (three of them) in the optical path, while sharing the f/1.4 lens’s Nano Crystal Coat. As with the Sigma, an incredibly tight depth of field is available. In the context of portraiture, you can have sharpness for a single eye and even the eyelashes will be blurred. You’re best off shooting with a tripod, for the sake of focusing accuracy, at which point the Sigma is better balanced as it can rotate for portrait-orientation shooting in…

£449/$499 RATING: 4/5 This is one of Sigma’s trio of 16mm, 30mm and 56mm fast f/1.4 primes for DX format mirrorless cameras. Like the competing Viltrox lens, the 56mm has an effective focal length of 84mm in full-frame terms. Typical of Sigma’s Contemporary line-up of lenses, it’s designed to be compact and lightweight. It’s remarkably small for a 56mm lens with an f/1.4 aperture and weighs just 280g, making it a perfect match for Z DX bodies. The optical layout has an aspherical element and a hybrid ‘Aspherical SLD’ (Special Low Dispersion) element. The latter aims to minimize axial chromatic aberration. Levels of sharpness are very good and bokeh is beautifully soft.…

We’ve become very well accustomed to testing fabulous Z-mount lenses from Nikon, with levels of sharpness akin to a surgical scalpel. But the Plena is about more than that. It has an uncanny knack of combining supreme sharpness, contrast and clarity with the most wonderfully dreamy bokeh, plus a really natural-looking roll-off in the transition between focused and defocused areas. It’s not just our top choice of portrait lens, but one of our absolute favourite Nikon lenses of all time. The only drawback is that its 135mm focal length can be a little long for some portrait compositions. In that case, look no further than the super-fast Nikon Z 85mm f/1.2 S. On a tighter budget for Z-system cameras, the Nikon Z 85mm f/1.8 S punches well above its weight…

DX DSLRS NIKON D7500 THE D7500 SHOEHORNS the best bits from the now-discontinued pro-grade D500 into a smaller, more affordable body. The control layout makes everything easy to get at, and there’s a top-plate info LCD, 51-point autofocus system, fast 1/8000 sec shutter speed and 8fps continuous drive rate. Video resolution stretches to 4K. TESTED IN ISSUE 155 • £1099/$897 Sensor 20.9Mp, DX (5568x3712) Processor EXPEED 5 Viewfinder Pentaprism, 0.94x, 100% ISO 100-51,200 (50-1,640,000 expanded) AF 51-point (15 cross-type) LCD 3.2-inch, tilt, touch Max burst (buffer) 8fps (50 Raw) Memory card SDXC UHS-I FX DSLRS NIKON D780 THE D780 TAKES the D750’s winning design and handling cues, but adds on-sensor phase-detection autofocus and EXPEED 6 processing, inherited directly from the Z 6. The result is a capable and natural-feeling DSLR…