AccuRaw followup

Jan 032013
 

Since my last AccuRaw post was so clear – AccuRaw close-to but not as good as the X-Pro1 JPEG, I thought it would be useful to muddy the waters a little.

I selected the last two sample images because they had lots of fine, green detail. Which ACR struggles with. But this is not representative of many photographs. So I have a new sample with fine detail, but no leaves.

DSCF0923

 

The scene is quite flat, yes. This is the JPEG from the camera. Provia color. It matches how I remember the scene quite well. The crops are taken from the center.

xpro1RAWtest_1(1-2-12)

 

Sharpening settings:

JPEG: +1 in camera

Adobe Camera Raw 7.2: 25/1/1 amount/radius/detail

SilkyPix: NaturalFine

Raw Photo Processor: 200/0.5 smart sharpen in Photoshop

AccuRaw 0.9.5: default settings, 60% Luma Sharpness

AccuRaw 0.9.5 -CA: default settings, 60% Chroma Artifact Suppression, 60% Luma Sharpness

 

Now the AccuRaw and JPEG are very close. The AccuRaw files are a touch crisper, but have a little more sharpening applied. You can see clearly how the CA Suppression in the AccuRaw software helps to control the moire that appears. Still, a little moire is still visible in the CA suppressed conversion. The RPP file is the worst in this set. Mushy. Lots of artifacts. The ACR example is very very clean. No hints of noise. Not much fine detail. If you push the sharpening you can see the “watercolor” effect occurring. The SP file is also not too impressive. The clarity of the tree branches is a lot worse than the JPEG or the AccuRaw conversion.

I have found that with a little bit of color noise reduction in Camera Raw, you can further eliminate the visible moire. Here are the same crops, but with “10” Color noise reduction applied in ACR to RPP and AR files:

xpro1RAWtest_2(1-2-12)

The moire is a lot less visible (though still present). It is interesting that despite Fuji’s claims, moire is still present in the file. It apparently requires some demoisaicing hijinks to remove. If I stare hard enough at the JPEG file it looks like perhaps the roofs with the worse moire in the RPP/AR files have a touch less detail….

 

 

Mini Lens Review: Nikon 35mm f/1.4 Ai (aka “the Pounder”) on the Nex-5n

Mar 252012
 

This is a special lens. With some warts. Here’s the main points for the lazy – corner sharpness eh (even stopped down), center sharpness awesome (even wide open), veils like mad wide open (and even a little stopped down), and HEAVY.

This lens, with a generic F-mount to E-mount adapter is around 500 grams. Over a pound. It’s big, too:

 

On my Nex-5n this combo is definitely front heavy. Not horrifically so (mostly because the Nex-5n is so small you have to have a good grip on the lens anyways). I’ve never held a Nex-7, but I imagine the 7’s bigger grip and heftier weight would make it a better partner.

The focus ring is smooth, but has more drag than my Nikon 24mm f/2 Ai-S. I’m not sure whether this is because Nikon slicked up the focusing ring for the Ai-S series or because this lens is older. Like the Nikkor 24/2 the aperture can only be adjusted in full stops.

As an aside, you may be wondering about the (non)Ai, Ai-S demarcations you see on older Nikon glass. Camera quest has a decent explanation of the differences. For alt-users (i.e., not using Nikon lenses on Nikon bodies), it doesn’t really matter whether you get a non(Ai) or a Ai-S lens. The differences between them mostly have to do with how much control the Nikon body has over the aperture. There are significant differences in price, though. Apples to apples, a Ai-S is worth more than an Ai and an Ai is worth a lot more than a non-Ai. Optically, Nikon usually keeps the formula the same as they updated the lens housing. So what I say for this lens should apply to the Ai-S and non(Ai).

Now for the sharpness/contrast/CA analysis. This lens is surprisingly sharp wide open, in the center, and maxes out somewhere around f2.8-4. Impressive. What isn’t impressive is how lousy the contrast is wide open. There’s a huge contrast improvement from f1.4 to f2. Still, as I’ll show you later, the low-contrast/veiling gives a beautiful rendition in some cases. Moving onto the corners: uber-fast lenses often have mediocre corners and this lens is not an exception. Even by f8 it’s not great. In the extreme corners (remember APS-C sensor, NOT full-frame), f1.4 has some detail and improves steadily to “OK” by f5.6. So if you are a hardcore landscape photographer, stay away. As for chromatic aberration, after f2, it’s easily controlled by Adobe Camera Raw’s built in tools (which I’ve used for these examples). Click on the image below to get the full 100% crops.

This lens, like the Nikon 24/2 I reviewed earlier, “veils” or “glows” wide apertures. Unfortunately this lens is more dreamy than the 24/2. I don’t have a direct comparison to show you, so just trust me. I can show you an example of the veiling and how it rapidly improves by stopping down from f1.4 to f2.

f1.4 (look at the blanket in front of Sam – it’s got a purply haze):

f2 (much much better):

All of this ranting about soft corners and poor contrast may lead you to believe I don’t like this lens! Which isn’t true. The Pounder, when used with these limitations in mind can give wonderful results. It gives a creamy smooth bokeh:

This lens is quite sharp wide open in the center. You can easily see out the bubbling paint in this 100% crop of a goal post:

It can focus quite close (the lizard is about two-three inches long):

With its massive light gathering ability, you can take pictures with virtually no light (1/20, f1.4, iso25600(!)):

The lower-contrast and dreamy look gives a beautiful rendition to black and white converted images (f1.4):

When you don’t want the dreamy look, you can just stop it down a bit:

A big benefit of the f1.4 aperture is that the Nex focus peaking is quite precise. It’s easy to do the peaking at f1.4 and give a quick twist of the aperture ring before snapping the picture:

In summary:

Likes: central sharpness (even wide open!), speed, build quality, focus-peaking ease

Dislikes: poor contrast wide open (but very nice for b/w conversions), corner sharpness, veiling

Bottom line: if you are willing to handle the heftiness of this lens, it’s very versatile – the speed and focal-length make this lens useful in all kinds of light.

A gratuitous picture (thanks for reading!):

Mini Lens Review: Nikon Nikkor 24mm f/2 Ai-S with a Nex-5n

Mar 252012
 

Much of the fun of my new Nex-5n is being able to use virtually any glass made. Practically any 35mm lens can be adapter to the E-mount for minimal expense. The only negative of using “legacy” glass? Lack of auto-focus. With Sony’s semi-excellent focus-peaking, this isn’t a huge issue.

Over the past month I have collected a few nice lenses and thought it would be useful to write up my comments on them.

Right now I’ve got the Nikon 24mm f/2.0 Ai-S, Nikon 35mm f/1.4 Ai, Konica Hexanon AR 57mm f/1.4, Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 LTM, Voigtlander 40mm f/1.4 MC, Sony 16mm, and the Sony 18-55 kit lens (used to take the picture).

First up! The Nikon 24mm f/2.0. Got this lens locally from a fellow slowly unloading his camera gear. As an old Canon user, the first thing I noticed is that everything is backwards. Nikon focus and aperture rings go from near to far (and open and close) right to left instead of left to right. Very disconcerting. It’s been a problem since I’ve got plenty of non-Nikon glass in my collection.

The focus ring is very smooth. Maybe a little slicker than I prefer. The aperture only clicks on full-stops, which I find a bit strange.

Wide open the lens is fairly sharp in the center. The biggest problem is that the lens veils a fair amount at f2. By f2.8 it’s well under control and by f4 it’s gone. In terms of sharpness it improves steadily up to f5.6-8. In the corners it’s a mess at f2 (not a surprise) and becomes OK at f4 and sharp at f5.6-8. There’s a bit of CA, but it’s controlled easily enough by Adobe Camera Raw’s slider. Don’t believe me – see for yourself (click to see the full 100% crops, processed with ACR and sharpened a bit):

Here’s an example (100% crop) of how the lens “glows” wide open whenever there’s light pointing anywhere near the lens. Not horrific. But it definitely gives some “character”:

Flare? Not bad for a wide-angle:

In terms of distortion, this lens seems pretty damn good. I’m not very discerning about all of the forms of distortion. Hopefully this image is useful for those who are:

 

With the 1.5x crop, this 24mm lens gives something like a 36mm output. Which is my favorite focal length. It’s a very natural length to me – when I look at a scene I see it about about this focal length. So it works well for street shooting. Especially since by stopping down to f5.6 or more you can zone focus and snap away:

 

I really like fast glass because 1. more speed inside and 2. more DOF control. If you can get close to your subject you can get some actual blur (though this lens, being a wide-angle, doesn’t give particularly pretty bokeh).

In summary, this is a really nice piece of glass. It’s a solid, reassuring piece of metal. The focus is nice and smooth. It’s fast and reasonably sharp wide open. It’s not insanely expensive (they seem to sell roughly between 300-400 USD). It balances fairly well on the tiny Nex-5n. The biggest problems I have with it is the veiling wide open (sadly common on older fast glass) and most of all, how all of the operations (focus, aperture, mounting) are backwards! Assuming neither of this two are a deal-breaker (if number one is an issue, then you’re going to have to spend a LOT OF MONEY or accept a slower max aperture) then this is a lens worth looking out for.

One more for the road: