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By Brian Tan, January 3, 2010 7:34 pm

I have not done a post on photo equipment for some time, and I think I should at least do a new series for a test I am doing for the new Nikon D3s. Before this I have been using mostly film and a portable D300 for most of my landscape trek. While I love the rendering of the D300 and the D2 series camera, there are always something lacking in them. On the D300, it was the ergonomics for me as I hate to go into the menu to adjust something on the field, especially with light diminishing quickly during dawn or dusk. With the D2 series cameras, anything other than base ISO just wouldn’t cut it. It might be fine with the D2x, but with the D2h, even at base ISO, shadows can get blocky if you are not careful.

So, in anticipation of a long trip to South America at the end of 2010, I decided to pick up a D3 to familiarize myself with its high ISO performance. My thoughts at that time was that a D3 for main body and D300 for that extra DX reach would be ideal for a long expedition. And just before I was going to ask my usual dealer for one, the D3s was released, and just as well.

Long story short, I now have a D3s. And in summary: while I’m not new to photography, nor digital photography, this camera does induce a bit of an extra learning curve.

First test as I shoot my first 1000 pictures: ISO performance. I don’t intend for this to be a review, hence I don’t plan to include sample pictures. The early feedback from the internet forums is that this camera performs about 1-1.3EV better in ISO compared to the previous high-ISO champion, the D3. As I do mostly landscape with this camera, I intend to test it only for that purpose.

I did 3 tests today, first was a landscape shot with camera focused at infinity in bright daylight, a second scene with an close-up object (confession: a pretty wartime Leica IIIc) with proper illumination, and third was a city scene from the top of a tower.

Results:

What I can say is that this camera’s ISO performance is amazing.

Continue reading 'Nikon D3s Test 1: ISO, ISO & ISO!'»

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By Brian Tan, June 20, 2009 7:30 pm

Pancake lenses. Not many people use it nowadays, preferring the do-all zoom lenses. Going back to the old days when photographers would carry one prime lens per camera, and still be able to take amazing photographers, there is nothing a prime cannot do in the hands of someone with the right photographic vision. In short, nothing wrong with a pancake lens. In fact I love pancakes because it keeps the camera side profile smaller, making it possible to squeeze a pro-body with built in grip into a small bag. And most of the time you can zoom with your feet anyway.

Profile Comparison. ULTRON on the right, AIS on the left.

A pancake lens is the name given to low profile lenses, normally around the 50mm focal length range. Up for this test are the two that I own. First up is a Nikkor 50mm f1.8 AIS. Now there are many versions of this lens, and the 0.60m minimum focal length version is the one I have, which is noticeably shorter than the other models. The other lens I have been using quite a bit is a Voigtlander 40mm f2 SL ULTRON. Yes a mouthful, I’ll just call it AIS and ULTRON for the short version hereforth. They’re both manual lenses. And they only meter on Nikon’s semi pro bodies like the D300/D700 and up.

This is not meant to be a full on test, so I will not bother to perform an exhaustive test on it. On the question of bokeh, I have noticed that the ULTRON has this harsh donut shaped bokeh, perhaps because of the Aspherical element in the lens. But I’m not a bokeh freak so it is not an issue for me.

Continue reading 'Lens Test: Tale of two pancakes'»

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By Brian Tan, January 4, 2009 2:22 pm

ERA100 Flatenned Film Packaging

I have been quite adventurous with film. For serious shooting, I’m sticking to Tri-X and just recently 125PX but every once in a while, as I now live in Shanghai, I would try out a Chinese film or two to see how they perform. The first thing that would catch my eye would be the cost of one roll of these local film. ERA 100 costs 10 RMB, or right about $1.5 USD. I have heard a lot about this film from local shooters. The other popular Chinese film is Lucky SHD100, but the only problem I find with it is that it is good for flat scenes, but once you have plenty of contrasts, you’ll find that the chemical tends to leak or diffuse across the border, giving the “glow” look of older RF lenses. 

This was the first roll of film I shot this new year, and over the long weekend I took a long walk around Shanghai Puxi area with my Leica M3 and 50mm f2 Summicron loaded with ERA100 for some street shootout. First thing I noticed was that the film base seems a little thicker than Lucky films, which is a good thing. Lucky has been known to have very thin film, sometimes breaking when the rewind motors are strong.

Continue reading 'Cheap Films: ERA 100 Panchromatic Film Adventures'»