Night, frozen, still … life?
There is a garden closed by night…
…there is a path going through the garden…
…there are lamps at the side of the path.
Each lamp has something to show…
…in this frozen…
…white night.
The line of human life
Steep, uphill, bent and muddy
but no roots to keep us grounded:
we reach the sky … we fly!
Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II Lens on D800: exciting news, old problems
I recently mounted on my D800 a new 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II lens. This tele, as expected, provides excellent results. Here are my first tests on quite dull, but distant, subjects (100% crop from full pictures shot in the same conditions with a 50mm f/1.4G and this tele). Colors, contrast and speed are exceptional at every length. Autofocus is ultra silent and ultra fast, as well the stabilizer worked solid with me also with slow times.
The lens weight is still acceptable, although I should try day-long hikes before writing anything about it. With its f/2.8 it’s easy to shoot fast moving objects and situations with poor light conditions (click here to watch).
However, such broad apertures (and, although less, even higher) are not really compatible with D800 still having the infamous left AF issue. Although my camera already went through service at Nikon Switzerland, at f/2.8 the image focused using the the left AF bank, whatever fine AF correction value used, is always blurred.
This is the second lens having such problem with my D800: time to ring Nikon Service Switzerland ? Click on the picture for a bigger version.
Learn the lens you own, find their limits: the Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G example
The Nikkor 50 mm f 1/4G is a very nice lens, as also reviewers on Nikon USA write … but like every lens it has its limits. Finding them should let you adapt to your lens in difficult situations.
For example, hand-held night shoots mounted on a full frame camera like the D800. Sharpness with ISO 4000 and close to f/2 is not excellent as expected, but optical aberrations at the borders are quite annoying. Click here for a full size zoom/pan version on zoom.it or click on the post picture.
At f/1.4 it is of course even worse and all the picture lights suffer distortion (click here to see a convincing full size example).
With night shoots I would recommend to remove the UV filter you possibly forgot mounted, unless you like green ghost fireworks on the picture, click here for a clear example.
So, when similar results pop out, keep your subject just in the middle, go up with the aperture when possible or find somebody to carry your tripod along!
How to photo retouch your pale shots into real black&white art
Let’s say you had a wonderful day on the snow, though without too much sunlight. Most colours in your pictures look like 70s’ toilet paper (pale blue, pale green, pale brown and so on). Pity, you could have had so beautiful shape/contrast silhouette with those black trees, people and white snow background.
It is time to open your photo retouch software and pimp your snow day:
– convert to black and white
– choose maximum whites
– enhance the contrast with blacks
– level blacks and whites up
In this way you get real black and white pictures and not boring shadows of grey. Dare with dark blacks and white whites the more you can and let the atmosphere you enjoyed pop out of your art!
