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28mm field of view – Nikon Series One and other Options

Woman on the Phone - Street shooting with Nikon V1- 10mm f.2.8, 28mm Field of view
Woman on the Phone – Street shooting with Nikon V1- 10mm f.2.8, 28mm Field of view

As you might have realised, I am quite taken with the Ricoh GR V and the Fuji X100s. Both of which I have tested recently. I prefer the X100s, due to its optical viewfinder and direct controls, but I prefer the sensor of the older Fuji X100 and the Ricoh GR.

The Ricoh is one of the most customisable compacts available and the latest version with its large DX sized sensor and no AA filter is great value. Its size means one can always carry it with you.

I have two issues with it. It has a 18.3mm lens (28mm field of view on DX) and it has no viewfinder. The X100s has one of my favourite fields of view at 35mm (equivelant to 35mm film/sensor size), but having a Leica M4 and M8 (with the M8.2 upgrades) and a Leica 35mm Summicron lens, means the X100s does not really bring me anything new.

Its a compact I want for when I do not want to carry a ‘real camera’. But what compromises am I willing to put up with?

Nikon V1 - 28mm fov-3
Buskers – Street shooting with Nikon V1- 10mm f.2.8, 28mm Field of view

Looking at the current options, I like the Ricoh, the Nikon Coolpix A, the Sony RX-100, the Sony RX-1 and the Canon S95. But while I want a compact I still want the performance of a ‘real camera’. Its the Ricoh GR V, Nikon Coolpix A, Sony RX-100 and Sony RX-1 that fill that need.

The Sony RX-1 is a killer of a camera, it rivals the Leica M, and the Nikon D800E with a form factor that can fit in your pocket, but in truth its overkill. Hand holding a camera like this is a waste. It should be on a heavy series 5 Gitzo tripod to make the best of its performance. That kind of makes its lightness and compact size pointless. There is also the price. I can buy some serious Leica M glass for the price of a Sony RX-1. So why have I dismissed the very good Canon S95, well its a compact and a very good one, but its still got that small compact sensor, and I want something better. With that in mind one comes to the sony RX-100. This is a great little camera and the newer version just announced is even better. Its a real rival to my Nikon V1 with a sensor the same size.

Nikon V1 - 28mm fov-2
Crossing the Street – Street shooting with Nikon V1- 10mm f.2.8, 28mm Field of view

Oh yes the Nikon V1 my current ‘compact camera’. Well last Friday after handling the Ricoh and the Sony RX-100 I hit the streets and took the shoots you see above. As you can see its a great camera and with its interchangeable lens very flexible. I fitted the Nikon Series One 10mm f/2.8 lens. This gives the same field of view as the Ricoh, i.e. 28mm FOV on a 35mm sensor size, I have to give the focus speed award to the Nikon V1 its simply stunning for a compact camera. The Nikon V1 and V2 has issues and there are things to do with the handling that I hate. Nikon did fix a few issues in the V2 but not enough of them, certainly not enough to make me think about upgrading, but it can certainly produce the goods. The Nikon V1, but even with the 10mm f/2.8 lens fitted is larger then the Ricoh. The Ricoh is smaller, more pocketable and with its controls, a lot easy to use. With the bigger sensor it offers a number of advantages, but can I live with the 28mm field of view.

Nikon V1 - 28mm fov
Waiting for the meeting – Street shooting with Nikon V1- 10mm f.2.8, 28mm Field of view

Well this shooting session was in a way a test.

a) could the 28mm field of view do the kind of street of shooting I do, when I usually use a 35mm field of view, and

b) do I actually need it? Will the Nikon V1 with its 10mm f/2.8 do the job.

Well these shots confirmed two things:

  • The V1 is a great camera capable of capturing great shots with wonderful image quality, and its interchange lens makes it a very small flexible interchangeable lens system. In many ways a great alternative to cameras such as the Micro FourThirds systems and the Sony Nex. For the money its one of the fastest focusing quick reacting cameras money can buy with image quality far better then many of its larger sensored rivals.
  • When you need to change a setting quickly its one of the most frustrating cameras money can buy and you really wonder why you wasted your money on such a limiting system, when cameras such as the compact Ricoh GR V can offer the enthusiast photographer more for less money.

Its a real Jekyll and Hyde camera, and for now my choice of compact camera, but I hear the Ricoh calling to my photographers heart.

Oh and can I live with a 28mm field of view? Well its a little early to tell but the shots above do seem to indicate that I can work well on the street with that focal length.

Still all of this is a very good excuse to hit the streets some more and shoot with the Nikon V1, but I better keep out of camera shops that stock the Ricoh, especially if I have my credit card with me!

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Ricoh GR V – Large sensor goodness in a Compact

Ricoh GR V - Grap Shot on the street
Ricoh GR V – Grap Shot on the street

You might have wondered where I was leading with the last post on bigger is better, well here is a demonstration that we can have a small body and a big sensor.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to test the Ricoh GR V.  This compact, fits into your pocket but has a huge SLR sized DX sized sensor.

Ricoh GR V - Straight from RAW mixed light
Ricoh GR V – Straight from RAW mixed light

The controls are excellent and the compromises are few.  The biggest issues for me are the lack of view finder and the fixed 28mm lens.  If you want more range then the new Sony RX-100 may be a better option with it being slightly smaller and incorporates a 28-100mm zoom lens which starts at f/1.8.  The compromise is the sensor is smaller and the image quality not up to the Ricoh, but its close.

I had to admit, the camera felt great in the hand, its slightly rubbery grip felt good in the hand.  I would have no worries carrying this in my hand all day.

In good light the speed and responsiveness was excellent and even in the high contrast mixed light of the shop, it handled well.

Ricoh GR V - Massive underexposure and contrast - mixed light
Ricoh GR V – Massive underexposure and contrast – mixed light

As a bit of a test I metered for the highlights outdoors in the top shot and massively underexposed the inside.  Then with lots of use of the shadow and black sliders in Adobe Lightroom I tried to recover the back underexposed inside of the shop.  As you can see, while a little noisy, its done a great job.  I don’t believe the Ricoh GR V is officially supported yet by Lightroom or Adobe Camera RAW, so things are likely to improve but as its shoots DNG’s I could at least do something with the files.  Why is it so few camera manufactures adopt open standards for RAW, it really makes life easier.

Ricoh GR V - OOC JPeg
Ricoh GR V – OOC JPeg

If your interested here is an out of camera jpeg,  I have lightened it slightly.

All in all a stunning camera, would I buy one, not sure if could I live with the fixed 28mm lens on a compact.

Today i’ll go out and do some shooting with my Nikon V1 with the 10mm f/2.8 lens, this is close to the Ricoh in field of view, are they to similar? We will see.

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Size Matters

sensorsizesoverlaidinside-updated

 

People want small light cameras.  They want zoom ranges from 24-300mm and a aperture starting at f/1.8.  They also want high quality images, high iso performance and the ability to use shallow depth of field.  All of this should fit in a man’s shirt pocket.

I have to admit I would like this to, unfortunately I also understand the laws of physic and modern optics and understand why all cameras are compromises.

Image quality is generally linked to sensor size as is depth of field.  Small fast lens cannot cover a large sensor area, thus we have the conflict and its thus we have to make compromises.

What would your compromise be?

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Carry Everywhere Camera – but which one

Tintern AbbeyI have a number of cameras for various purposes.

From my SLR’s which I use for wildlife, weddings, portraits and sometimes landscapes.

My Medium Format and Large Format cameras get used for my personal Landscape work.

But what about the carry everywhere camera.  Well currently; sometimes its Leica M8 or M4 and sometimes my Nikon Series One V1.  The V1 with the lens ranging from 10mm to 110mm gives great flexibility, but its frustrating to use in some situations.

I still keep looking for a carry everywhere camera.  Currently these duties are spilt between my iPhone and the Nikon V1.  I keep thinking about the Fuji X100, or the new breed of large sensor’ed like the Ricoh GR V.  Both of these are less flexible then Nikon V1 but offer better image quality.  There is the Sony Rx-100 with  the same sensor as the Nikon Series One.  Then there are the smaller sensored compacts like the Panasonic LX-7 and the Canon S95.  These have sensors even smaller then the Nikon V1.  The small sensor of the Nikon Series is one of the biggest criticism of the system.  The sensor is smaller then the Micro FourThirds system but still larger then most compact sensors.  The shot at the top of this article was shot with the V1, so as you can see it produce some lovely images.

Below are some crops comparing three of my cameras:

Summicron Wide Open
Summicron Wide Open
SLR Wide Open
SLR Wide Open
V1 Wide Open
V1 Wide Open

I was shooting a few test images at the weekend under the harsh midday sun.  These were taken with my Leica M8 and 35mm Summicron, Nikon D200 SLR and 24-70mm f/2.8, and the Nikon V1, shot at the equivalent of 35mm field of view for a 35mm film/sensor.

Under the bright if hard light all three cameras have done a great job.  With the manual focus Leica, I think I have missed focus slightly but all three images look pretty good.

I also shot the same tests at f/8.  It was here that the Nikon V1 looked noticeably soft in comparison.  After f/5.6 diffraction sets in and the image quality starts to suffer.

SLR f/8
SLR f/8
Summicron f/8
Summicron f/8
V1 f/8
V1 f/8

Below is a shot taken with the Leica.  If one ignores the cameras, the shot at the top is a great shot, as is the shot below.  It shows that a camera when used to its strengths can produce excellent images.  The old adage its not the camera but the photographer is certainly true.

Family Grave Its also true that the best camera is the one thats with you.  Thats why I am thinking so hard at the moment about small compacts, its finding one where the limitations do not limit me.

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Waddington Air Show – metering for planes

This weekend its the annual Waddington Air Show.

Waddington Air Show

Whether you have the latest SLR’s and big fast glass or a basic compact, with its mix of static displays and flight demonstrations, there is plenty for everyone to photograph.  One common disappointment is that often the photographs come out too dark.  Shooting into the bright sky can fool many light meters.  Back in the old film days I would switch to manual and take a reading from a grey card I would place in front of me to meter off.  The same light falling on the grey card was also falling onto the aircraft and this would give me a good basic exposure.

In case your wondering about the shot above, its a rather poor composite of two different shots I took when the Red Arrows flew over Lincoln.  A bit of fun you might say in Photoshop.

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Lightroom V4.4.1 Update Released

Lightroom V5 crop toolIt was a bit of a surprise considering that version 5 is now out but an update appeared the other day for version 4 users; version 4.4 was updated to version 4.4.1, mainly a bug fix but still nice to know V4 users are still getting some support.

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Colour Spaces & Working Spaces

For those of you who shoot jpeg, do not edit in post and send your images off to typical print shops, then you probably just have your camera set to sRGB. sRGB is a very limited colour space and cannot show as many colours as modern printers can print. Its the typical output of a standard cheap monitor. In fact many high end displays can only display sRGB, but it is most cameras default setting, and what most print shops assume your camera is set to and what the file is set to.

If you are interested in producing the best output possible then you need to set your camera to AdobeRGB, this colour space can show more colours.

When editing even AdobeRGB cannot handle as many colours as your camera may capture or in fact what a high end pigment printer can print. If you are after the best results then you want your working space to be ProPhotoRGB.

Recently I upgraded by computer by installing an SSD, best upgrade ever and now my four year old MacBookPro is as fast as when I originally bought it even running the latest software.

I decided to do a fresh install of my applications. Unfortunately this caught me out recently, when I discovered some of my recent edits have not been quite as good as they could have. Unfortunately some of the defaults for Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop are less then optimal.

Lightroom Preferences

Now Lightroom is very good; you cannot actual set a working colour space, it uses its own created by the main developer but it can be considered to be similar to ProPhoto, the difficulty is if you export it to a third party program, if the third party program will accept it you need to set the Colour Space to ProPhoto RGB, by default Lightroom will export it as sRGB in 8 bit. This can be limiting and can cause issues with banding and artefacts appearing in finished image.

Photoshop Colour Settings

In Photoshop you get to the colour settings by pressing Shift-CMD-K. I would suggest you start by choosing either Europe General Purpose 3 (for Europe) and America General Purpose 2 for the USA.

Default Colour Settings for Photoshop

As you can see the default is sRGB which needs changing to ProPhoto RGB, Gray wants setting to Gamma 1.8, yes there is a Grey Colour Space which consists of shades of Grey! Once these are set to your likings then I would suggest you save it. If your copy of Photoshop does not show as many options as above then have a look to the right, there is a button marked more options. Press this and more options will appear.

So is this extra effort worth it, well it only needs configuring the once so its not really any extra effort but i’ll let you be the judge, here is the final edited picture of Lisa.

Lisa

In case you are wondering this image as been converted back to sRGB to be put on the web. Many web browsers cannot cope with anything else then sRGB and do not support colour management. It is getting better as Safari and Firefox now both support colour management.

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Birds in Flight at Whisby Nature Reserve

Last weekend we headed to Whisby Nature Reserve, the aim was to practice my bird photography.  We packed the car with the big Gitzo tripod and my longest SLR lens.  Once there we setup and I practiced on the local gulls and terns.

Most modern SLR’s have quite customisable focusing systems.  While shooting I tried various groupings of focus sensors, i’ll also limited the number of focus sensors in use, so the computing power in the camera could concentrate on just a few.  It meant my targeting had to be a little more accurate but from what I had read, it could speed up focus.

The other main setting I kept changing was the focus timeout for lock on.  This controls how long the system looks at that focus distance when there is nothing there anymore before searching again for a new lock.

Many people do not try customising their cameras and find they are not getting the shots they want as the focus performance is not up to the task.  So each year they buy the latest and greatest camera instead of truly learning how to customise and fine tune the camera they have.

That saying, if someone wants to give me a Nikon D4 or even a D3s I’ll happily snap there hand off ;).

The Black Headed Gulls still had young on the island and a number of times when a Mute Swan got to close they dive bomb the intruder and attempt to move them off.  The Swan did not seem to bothered and ignored them.  Also paying a visit was some Greylag Geese, which just trampled over the island ignoring everyone.