Frames are a tool in the photographers composition toolbox. Frames help the viewer by creating structure that gives a sense of order and calm, other than guiding the viewers attention.
On top of the image itself being a frame, you can have frames that sub-divide the image frame into smaller areas that are easier to digest. The subjects that act as frames can be positioned in a way that give a sense of depth or 3D to the image – see the image above. Frames within frames can really compensate for the lack of a 3rd dimension in an image.
A frame does not necessarily have to be a square or a sharp edged object, it might as well be made up of several objects that together make up a frame – in the example below the leaves on the top, the concrete at the bottom and the steel pillars to the sides make up a frame that leads the attention to the boat and the sun in the middle.
A frame does not need to be square or symmetrical or complete: circles, triangles, L-shapes and even just a line can help the viewer read your picture.
When you start to become aware of frames within the images you see, you will notice frames and their effect more and more as you study other photographers work. This is a great way to enhance your skillset and build both implied and explicit frames into your toolbox as a photographer.
If you ask me, one of the masters of using framing in photography is Saul Leiter. In most of his images he uses framing as a very dominating tool to tell a story and guide the viewers attention. Have a look at these color images for inspiration: Saul Leiter.
Leading lines are a tool in the photographers composition toolbox. Lines help the viewer by literally leading the eyes into the image, create structure, aid the storytelling, or a bit of it all.
Leading lines do not need to be straight – they can be curved as shown in the small bridge below. The point is that the eye naturally follows the lines no matter what structure they have.
As a photographer you are the director of the viewers attention and leading lines can be a powerful tool. The lines need not be explicit, they can be implicit as well – for example objects that due to their order and rhythm create a “virtual” line like the poles in the water below:
When you start to become aware of lines that lead and guide the viewer, you will notice leading lines more and more as you study other photographers work. This is a great way to enhance your skillset and build lines and leading lines into your toolbox as a photographer.
ILC is Interchangeable Lens Camera, basically meaning that you are able to shift between different lenses. The opposite to an ILC is a camera that comes with the lens fixed – as you know it from your smartphone or a point and shoot camera like the Sony RX100.
Although ILC judging from the name should cover all types of cameras with interchangeable lenses, the term ILC for reasons beyond me often is used to describe mirrorless cameras with interchangeable lenses. If the camera has a mirror built into it, the term DSLR is more frequently used.
To mitigate this confusion, some use the term MILC instead of ILC to underline that it is a Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Camera they are talking about.
The rule of thirds says that you should divide your frame by to vertical and two horizontal lines at equal distance, so you get 9 equal size areas:
The “trick” is now to place your subjects and whatever you want the viewer to focus on along these lines. Here you can see that the eye of the duck (we automatically go to the eyes of both humans and animals) is positioned at the intersection of two of the lines from the rule of thirds.
Nobody really knows why this works and gives better images. Maybe it really does not, but it seems we better like images where the subject is not smack in the middle, or landscape images where the horizon does not divide the image exactly in two. So give it a try and see if it works for you.
All composition rules are rules of thumb. Use them when you see fit, and break them when not. It is not intended to be a straightjacket, just a guide you can use whenever you see fit. As the photographer, you are the boss and the director when it comes to what you put in your frame.
Aperture blades sit inside the lens and are small pieces of fabric that move to reduce the size of the area that lets light pass on to the senor or film in the camera. The aperture blades and their position determines the aperture setting of the lens. In the picture below, you san see how the blades form a small circle:
On many lenses you can actually manually move the aperture ring back and forth and see how the size of the aperture changes. Take the lens off the camera and look into the lens the same way the light travels, as you move the aperture ring from min to max aperture. This is probably one of the best ways to understand how the blades work and what they do.
It may seem silly to not use all of the lens now that you have it available! Why reduce the amount of light that travels through the lens? The answer is can be that you want to control the depth of field that the lens produces: reducing the aperture size increases the depth of field. Or maybe you are outside on a bright day, and simply have to reduce the amount of light that the lens takes in to avoid over exposing the images. The pupil in your eye does exactly the same!
Blades come in 2 versions basically: straight and rounded. In the image above, the lades are straight, as this is a very old lens design – the Nikon 50mm 1.2 AI lens. Straight blades gives great sun stars but may also give bokeh balls that are not round – rather they have small edges. Rounded blades have the opposite effect – great bokeh, but less great sun stars.
When a lens is at is maximum aperture (lowest f/stop number) it is termed to shoot wide open. When a lens is wide open, the aperture blades are not engaged, and the bokeh shape is the same irrespective of straight versus rounded bladed.
When a lens is at its minimum aperture (highest f/stop number) it is closed down. Some lenses can close down to such a degree that the light almost find is troublesome to travel through the small hole that the blades leave open. When that happens, the image appears a bit out of focus (soft) and this is due to diffraction. So be careful not to close down the lens too much (f/16 and higher f-stops is typically where you see diffraction to set in).
The number of blades also varies. Typically older designs had fewer blades than what we see today. You can find the number of blades in the lens specification. In the image above there are 9 blades, which is quite high for a lens that old.
I must admit that I did not know of the company XTAR until they reached out to me and asked me to review the XTAR Camera Battery Charger. Apparently XTAR was Founded in 2006 as an electronic technology company in Shenzhen that specializes in development and manufacture of Li-ion batteries, smart chargers, and LED flashlights. Always good to have a product from a true specialist, so I happily accepted to review the product.
I did not know the city Shenzhen either, but apparently the city is located in the Guangdong Province, China, and according to google is a modern metropolis that links Hong Kong to China’s mainland. The 600m tall skyscraper Ping An certainly gives the city skyline a distinctive look.
Chargers, chargers and chargers
Some of the chargers that came with my cameras… All different in size, shape and how they work…
If you like me have a few cameras, then you also know that each of them comes with a separate charger, and even if you stay with the same camera brand, they tend to change the battery type and format over time, as the batteries get more and more powerful (and the cameras more and more power demanding). So it is a mess. And you have to remember the right charger(s) for your camera(s) when you travel and it all takes up space in your backpack.
I believe EU is working on legislation to make USB-C the common standard for chargers, and I really welcome this initiative, but when you like to buy cameras that are a bit dated (like the Nikon D750), then short term this is not much help. This is where the charger from XTAR can help you out.
XTAR solution
The XTAR charger is named SN4 and is in the bottom center of the image below. This is the backbone in the solution. A bit like Lego, you can click different types of so called charger plates onto the SN4. Each charger plate takes 2 batteries of the same kind, and the SN4 can take either 1 or 2 charger plates.
In the example below I have disassembled the SN4 from the charger plates, so you have a charger plate that fits Sony batteries (NP-FW50) bottom left, and a charger plate for Nikon batteries (EN-EL15) bottom right.
The XTAR SN4 is in the center bottom. The 35mm film top right (Ilford) is just to give you a feel for the size of the charger.
The SN4 takes a USB-C cable as input (yay!) and can be charged via the power supply from XTAR, named C45IC. It will give you a whopping 45 watts (!). In the image above it is show in the middle, just below the USB cable in the top.
Charging using a power bank as power source.
You don’t necessarily need the charger – you can use any USB-C capable power supply to feed the charger, but be aware that it may not give it all the juice it needs to charge the batteries as fast as it would with the XTAR power supply. In the image above I use a power bank to feed the charger.
If you look carefully, you can see the words NP-FW50 in the empty battery dock, so this one takes batteries for Sony cameras (I have the A7Rii). Also notice that I have only used half of the SN4 potential, as the right hand side has the plastic blind mounted.
When charger plates are mounted on both sides, it looks like the image below. Here I have Sony batteries left and Nikon right.
3 batteries almost fully charged. The fourth one is filled up (lights out).
Most of my chargers simply has a single LED that tells me if the charging is ongoing or complete. The XTAR is more advanced to say the least. For each of the 4 batteries there are 4 bars showing how the charging progresses. A solid light means the level is done, a flashing light means work in progress. When the battery is almost charged all 4 bars light up as in the image above, and once the charge is complete, all bars are turned of as shown leftmost.
In addition there is indicators below the bars showing how much current the battery gets (2A and 3A), albeit turned off when current is low.
XTAR claims that their charger is both faster and more gentle to the batteries relative to the chargers that comes with the batteries. This should give you less wait time and prolong the battery life time. I have not tested this as I normally put my batteries to charge over the night and hence the speed is of less importance to me. What is much more important to me is the ability to charge several batteries in parallel, and here I can charge 4 Sony batteries at the same time, provided I have the right charger plates.
Charger plates
XTAR currently deliver charger plates for Sony, Nikon and Canon. You can find the full list of available options here if you scroll down to the bottom of the page to see if your specific battery is supported.
There are plans to develop charger plates for Fuji, GoPro, Olympus, Panasonic and more. I will be waiting for the Fuji charger plates, as my beloved X-T20 is very happy to consume batteries at a fast pace!
Prices
You can find the current prices available directly from XTAR here. Here in October 2021 you can get the SN4 plus 1 charger plates (2 battery slots) and a USB cable for 39 USD. If you add a charger plate, it is an addition 10 USD, but then you have 2 charger plates (4 battery slots for 2 different batteries). If you want the power supply on top, it is an additional 20 USD.
If you want to go all in and have both a carry bag, SN4, power supply, 3 charger plates and a Sony charger plate F970, then the total will set you back 89 USD.
You can buy directly from XTAR as per the link above, but there are also many retailers that sell the XTAR products if that is to your liking.
Conclusion
While we wait for USB-C to become the standard way to charge a battery or charge a camera, the solution from XTAR certainly takes a good step in the right direction. It is a very compact and flexible solution, that will enable you to travel with a much smaller setup when it comes to chargers. And then it gives you better information as the charging progresses, plus you can charge up to 4 batteries in parallel.
In addition you can do without the power supply, as XTAR gave the SN4 a USB-C interface. This is where I find the solution changes from good to great. Provided you have a power bank or any other device that yields power via a USB-C interface, you can leave the power supply at home as well.
Prices seems fair. You are up and running for less than 50 USD with a 4 battery charge solution. I will happily pay that for a solution that makes my photography life more simple. And this one does. My only gripe is that I really hope XTAR come with a solution for Fuji batteries very soon! Other than that, I can recommend this solution if your pile of chargers is a nuisance to you.
Bokeh is just another word for out of focus, often abbreviated to OOF!
But why is that suddenly important in photography when everybody talks about sharp images and getting the subject in focus? It has to do with the isolation of your subject – to make sure that the background does not steal the attention from your subject, be it a flower, a tree or a model just to name a few examples. Just like in a movie where you want the main actors to stand out and shine, your supporting actors should be support the main actor without stealing the limelight.
In the example below the birch stem is the star, albeit not a very interesting one, but it illustrates background blur or bokeh very fine. What you see to the right of the birch stem is actually sun lit leaves, but because of the strong element of bokeh, it appears to be just a soft backdrop of white and brown colors.
There are several factors that determine the bokeh, but most notably the aperture you shoot at and the distance from your subject to the background. Larger apertures (smaller f/stop numbers) gives a more so called depth of field, i.e. the depth of the interval that appears to be sharp. So if you shoot at a very wide aperture, the depth of field is narrow and if you have focused correct on your subject, the background is more likely to be OOF Similarly, if there is a big distance from your subject to the background, then it is more likely the background is OOF as the depth of field cannot reach so far.
Photographers can study out of focus elements for hours and comment on their shape and size. In the example above the light behind the coffee mug is certainly out of focus, and the light appears as round balls. You can see that the rightmost ball is very round whereas the ones to the left are more oval – it has to do with how close you are to the corner of the image. Also, sometimes bokeh balls like these appear square rather than round – that is because the aperture blades are in use and determine the shape of the bokeh.
As a rule of thumb you want the bokeh to be creamy and pleasing to look at. In other words, the edges of the bokeh balls should not have rings or hard transition to the areas outside the bokeh.
SLR is an abbreviation for Single Lens Reflex. It simply means that there is only one lens and that you via a mirror look through the lens that sit on front of your camera. This is as opposed to a rangefinder camera, where the viewfinder gives you a preview of the scene based on another lens that what the camera will be using to capture the image. Hence only a single lens in a DSLR.
The mirror flicks away when you take the shot (and it makes a noticeable noise). This is why you will see the viewfinder go black during the exposure – the light is sent to the sensor rather than the viewfinder.
The D in DSLR is Digital, as your camera has a digital sensor rather than a piece of film. So it is Digital Single Lens Reflex camera or DSLR.
A mirrorless camera (ML) has no mirror and simply sends the light directly to the sensor, that then via a small electronic viewfinder (a small TV!) presents the preview for the photographer in real time.
I bought my copy of the Nikon AF-S 16-35mm ED 1:4G lens in February 2021 for around 730 UER, but here in October 2021 you can get a used copy over at mpb around 450 EUR subject to wear and tear. I recommend you get a used copy as the lens comes with a gold ring (Nikons pro level lenses) and is hence built to last. If not forever, then for a long time.
Specs and build
The Nikon 16-35mm lens
The lens ranges from 16-35mm and has a constant aperture of F4. That may not be the fastest of lenses, but a bit controversial, Nikon has supplied this lens with vibration reduction (2.5 stops claimed) which allows longer shutter openings without camera shake. Some report that they have shot razor sharp images down to 1/10th of a second.
The lens takes Ø77mm filter threads – no issue with rounded glass in the front or the front turning. At 15cm the lens is somewhat longer that what you would expect from a wide lens, but it balances well on a Nikon D4 with its 680 grams. Lighter cameras like a Nikon D750 makes the combo a bit “nose heavy”.
The lens comes with a very short lens hood, which is what you would expect when the widest angle of view is 107 degrees. There are buttons to turn VR and autofocus on and off.
Lens hood.
There are 9 rounded aperture blades inside the lens, along with ED glass and aspherical lens elements. Nikon has made the lens since 2010, so the design is relatively new (coming from a vintage lens enthusiast!). The focus motor is built into the glass (SWM – silent wave motor) and works silent and fast; albeit it is not far the glass has to be move to go from 16 to 35mm.
The lens is all made in plastic except for the lens mount, but feels solid and in good quality. My only issue with the lens build quality as such is the manual focus as there is a bit of play when you turn the focus ring before it engages and actually gets the glass moving. Plus the throw is rather short at around 90 degrees. Other than that, it seems like they have made a good job in Thailand assembling this lens.
Daily use
At first I was skeptical to the idea of both VR and a zoom lens – why not just give me a fast prime? But I must admit this lens has grown on me. The ability to zoom in and crop a bit where relevant is great when you are shooting with not-too-high-resolution cameras like the D700 or the D4. Here the zoom allows me to get the framing right in camera so I don’t have to crop in post.
The VR in combination with the not-so-fast aperture actually works really well. I think Nikon knows that a lot of issues occur for fast lenses wide open, so by stopping down to f/4 by design and adding VR instead, you get a really useful combo. Not great if you want to shoot fast moving subjects, but I think this lens is made for landscape photographers primarily.
I find the AF less useful. Don’t get me wrong – I am as lazy as anyone else, but I often take my time to focus when I shoot landscapes and AF is really not that important. I would much rather pay a little less for the lens and skip AF. What I instead could use was some depth-of-field markings on the distance scape. That is useful for finding the hyper focal distance. And then I would like to get a better manual focus ring that has a long throw and engages immediately.
I have a few times, especially when shooting at the ocean, missed the ability to go wider than 16 mm. I can see the difference to my 14mm Samyang prime, and believe it or not, the last 2mm makes a HUGE difference. So it would be nice if the next version of the lens could go a tad wider.
Image quality
The performance of a lens is always a co-operation between lens and camera, and there will be sample variations from any production line. For these reasons a MTF chart is more an indication than the absolute truth. Having said that, the image quality from this lens is from the top shelf. The red lines below in the MTF shows impressive performance in terms of contrast also close to the edges, whereas sharpness starts lower and declines more, but both in tele and wide we are at 0.9 or above, which in my opinion is very high. Now wonder Nikon gave this lens a gold ring.
I have shot more than 4000 images with this lens in the 8 months I have owned it, and I can confirm that the image quality is stellar. There are of course some that will be able to see the slightly softer corners, but I really doubt anyone will notice.
A beautiful sunset.
Sun stars and bokeh
I doubt anyone buys this lens for it’s rendering of out of focus elements – that is probably more relevant for a 85mm portrait lens. But of course there may be an architecture or real estate photographer that appreciates good bokeh. Being a landscape photographer, I am not a bokeh fanatic.
But what I am very interested in is sun stars. And these do not look great when the blades are rounded – see the example above? I prefer sun stars from straight blades any time.
Vignetting and distortion
Vignetting and distortion is bad, especially distortion. Good news is that it is only a click away in Lightroom. You can literally fix both issues by two clicks in Lightroom. However, if you are a real estate or a architecture photographer, then this could be an issue for you, so know that this lens comes with these issues.
Aberrations
Contrary to what the MTF charts show with the solid and dotted lines moving apart towards the corners of the lens, I have found aberrations very well controlled in this lens. Only if I shot at 16mm and in Lightroom zoomed in at 400% in the corners, was I able to find purple and yellow fringing, but for most users of this lens I think the bottom line is that aberrations are controlled so well that it is no issue at all. The fringing I did see was removed immediately when I hit the “remove CA” checkmark in Lightroom.
Flare and ghosting
This lens has Nikons latest and greatest ED coating, and flare and ghosting is very well controlled, actually to a level where I think this could be a showstopper for a videographer (they love flare!). Not that I think a videographer would be interested in this lens, but just to illustrate how well it is dampened.
Conclusion
On the plus side:
Price (450 EUR used)
Useful zoom range (16-35mm)
Vibration reduction (tripod less needed)
Super center sharpness
Super contrast
Not too heavy (680 gram)
Takes 77mm filters
Weather sealed
Constant aperture
Aberrations and flare well controlled
Can focus close (29 cm)
Color rendition as we know Nikon (which is good if you ask me!)
And the less positive:
Some softness in the corners
Would be nice to go even wider than 16mm
Heavy vignetting and barrel distortion (easy fix in post)
Rounded aperture blades (sun stars not super pretty)
Manual focus ring quality (play)
F/4 not the fastest wide lens (but VR compensates)
No aperture markings on the distance scale
And things where I cannot mobilize a strong opinion:
Built in AF (I could easily do without – if the price came down)
Bokeh is fine (but I don’t really need it for landscapes)
Focus breathing is an issue, but I doubt videographers or macro photographers would choose this lens, and for the rest of us it is not important
Longer than you would maybe expect at 15 cm
So can I recommend this lens? Yes, absolutely, provided of course you need a wide lens. But get a used copy. There are plenty out there, and it comes with Nikons gold ring (pro level lens) so it is built to last.
Alternatives
If you want the very best wide angle in the Nikon lineup for the f-mount, you should take a look a the the 14-24mm f/2.8. It is a super lens! It is in almost al dimensions superior to the lens under review here, but be aware that the lens is 1 kg (!), does not take filters due to the rounded front glass and the price is close to double up! But if you want the best from Nikon – this is it.
If on the other hand you want something smaller, lighter and much cheaper, the little 24mm prime from Nikon that I have reviewed here could also be an alternative. It is going in the opposite direction in terms of price and size and zoom range, but it all comes down to what your requirements are and how much you want to invest.
PASM is abbreviations for program, aperture priority, shutter priority and manual exposure modes. You typically find these modes on a dial top left of your camera. If you are shooting Fuji, you will not have a PASM dial – the camera figures out the mode based on your selections.
The PASM dial on a Nikon D750. Most manufacturers name the modes the same way you may find that S is called Tv and A is called Av.
The point with the PASM dial is to control how much control you have of how correct exposure is achieved. You may recall that the exposure triangle gives 3 variables to control the exposure: Aperture, Shutter speed and ISO. Lets get back to ISO a bit later, as ISO is not controlled by the PASM dial.
(P)rogram mode: Camera controls aperture and shutter
(A)perture priority: You control aperture, camera controls shutter
(S)hutter priority: Camera controls aperture, you control shutter
(M)anual mode: You control aperture and shutter
So what is the point with different degrees of control? It all comes down to what it is your are shooting and what you want to achieve. Not a very helpful answer, but some examples might help:
Lets say you want so shoot something that moves very fast and you want to freeze the action. In that case you want to secure that the wings for the bird for example are not a big blur but is captured razor sharp. So here shutter priority is a good choice, as you set the shutter speed to say 1/1000th of a second and ask the camera to adjust the aperture to get a correct exposed image.
In another situation you are shooting a landscape with very little moving parts. But you want to have as much of the landscape sharp as possible, so you set the aperture very narrow to maximize the depth of field. You leave it up to the camera to determine the shutter speed.
The thing to realize is that your camera, no matter how clever it is, cannot tell what it is you are shooting. Only you know that. So if you go for the automated (P)rogram mode, you get some “middle of the road” camera settings that may not work for what it is you want to achieve. So by taking the camera out of the automated exposure mode (P) and move to the semi automated modes (A) and (S), you get more control. And the top of the pop is manual mode (M) where you can control both shutter speed and aperture at the same time. This can be used for example to deliberately under or over exposing your image to achieve a high key effect. It all comes down to what you want to achieve.
What is then the difference between Auto mode and Program mode? You probably have auto mode as a green option on the mode dial on your camera. In auto mode, the camera controls EVERYTHING – you are really going with an auto pilot here. In program mode, the camera only automates the exposure settings – you control many other options, for example if a flash is to be used or not. In auto mode, the built in flash (provided your camera has one) pops up as soon as the camera finds there is too little ambient light.
What about ISO then? ISO is typically controlled irrespective of the exposure mode. You can control ISO via the menu system and sometimes via buttons on the camera body. ISO comes in 2 option: Auto or a specific value. If you set the camera in Auto ISO mode, it is one more dimension the camera can use to get a usable image. But be aware that you pay a price for using high ISO values: grain. There is no free lunch in photography.
A frame does not need to be square or symmetrical or complete: circles, triangles, L-shapes and even just a line can help the viewer read your picture.
