October 2022 – frederikboving

Let there be light!

Some say that photography is writing with light, and as such the right light is more important than anything else! Here the Ninja 10B LED light from Viltrox comes in handy. It was kindly sent to me by Viltrox for review, but the review here is by me and not Viltrox.

Some prefer flash light in a studio, but for video that is not of much use and also steady light has the advantage that you can see how the light hits your subject(s) before you start shooting or recording; you don’t have that convenience when shooting with flash. In that sense there are many advantages to using steady light over flash light.

Viltrox Ninja 10B LED light — The Viltrox Ninja 10B. Here with the lamp cover mounted (yellow triangle in the centre). On the side you see the green handle bar for angle adjustment. At the bottom the handle for hand holding the lamp.

The Viltrox Ninja 10B comes in several variants, and if you want to go mobile say because you shoot outdoors, you should definitely take a closer look at the options with battery supplied over at the Viltrox homepage.

In the box

In the box the main items is the light itself, a reflector (Bowens interface) and a power supply – and it is all delivered in a nice little bag for easy storage and travel. There is also a lamp cover that protects the LED lights during transport – it is important that you remember to always put to cover back on the light during transport so the LED panel is not exposed to dust or hit by anything.

My copy came with a handle to use the light handheld. Weighing less than 500 grams, handheld is a good option, although I often mount my light on a stand.

A really useful item is the so called adapter retaining clip, that allows you to secure the power supply to the stand, so it is not hanging in the power cable on the rear of the light. It may sound like a small thing, but when you first get used to this adapter, you wonder how you could do without it!

The light is delivered in a nice bag that you can use for both transportation and storage.

The light

The light is a 120 watts (!) LED light with a color rendition index above 95, which is bound to give you precise colors at any color temperature. The kelvin values ranges from 2800K to 6800K.

My current studio light is around 100 Watts and I have never felt that 100 Watts was too little, so 120 Watts is more than sufficient if you like me work in a small studio.

Controls

Other than the on-off switch, the control that you will use the most is the big dial on the rear of the Ninja 10B: Turn it to control the brightness of the light (0-100%) and push it once to switch to control the color temperature (2800K to 6800K). Push it again to switch back to brightness control. A nice clear LCD on the rear will show you your selections.

You have 19 channels and 6 groups (A-F) to choose from, so I don’t think you will run out of options for finding an available combination.

Remote control

You can buy a remote control as an additional item – it is not supplied with the light by default. But I doubt you will miss the remote because Viltrox has an app to control the light entirely. Download the app, and you have a remote control at your disposal!

The number of options and details you can control with the app is much better than what the controls on the rear of the light offers, so I quickly got in the habit of using the app for controlling the light. If you like to have many pre-defined options to choose from, then you will love the app: you can choose between pre-defined scenes such as a campfire, an ambulance, candlelight, etc

A cool detail is that the app for this light is exactly the same as for the Weelight light sticks, and it works via bluetooth communications. I don’t know how they do it, but when you download the app, the app and the light is connected automatically. Not setup or connection procedure required! A cool detail is that you can turn the light off using the app!

Price and conclusion

The price of the Viltrox Ninja 10B here in October 2022 is around 330 USD (there is an introduction offer – you can take a closer look at Viltrox homepage to get the details). I think that is a fair price and you get a really good solid light with good build quality.

The only issue I can find with this light is that the fan is quite loud. Even though it is possible to adjust the fan speed into 3 levels (50%, 80% and 100%), it did not really change the fan speed, and the fan kept on going when the light was dimmed down to 0% or I had turned off the light via the app. For video recording, this is an issue, as the fan noise is picked up by the microphones mercilessly and it is difficult to edit out with noise cancellation in post. So you may find that this light is primarily for photography and video where the sound is added later.

Video link

Introduction

An 85mm lens is the classic focal length for portraiture, but I use it for many other purposes. If you are in the market for an 85mm prime, this could be your lens, but let me start with five cons before we get to the pros.

Price

First, this lens is not cheap. It may be because I am used to all the budget friendly high quality NIKKOR vintage lens glass, but a price around 670 EUR for my copy February 2022 is to me a lot of money. Here in October 2022, I found a used copy over at MPB for 650 EUR and Amazon offers a new copy for around 700 USD. Btw, this day and age the Dollar and the Euro is about the same.

Speed

Secondly, this lens is not super-fast. At 1.8 you may want more, say f/1.4 or f/1.2 and here we are in personal preference territory. I will say that I find that I can get a lot of background blur even when the subject and the background are close. But if you need a faster lens than 1.8, then obviously this is not the lens for you.

Appearance and Features

Third, if the look and feel of the lens is important to you, then this lens may disappoint, especially if you are used to the vintage lenses – all metal, all glass, made in Japan. This lens is not bad in terms of build quality or appearance, but I think many will find it a bit boring, like sticking your tung out the window; it doesn’t really taste of anything.

The switch from autofocus to manual focus

There is a switch to move between manual and automatic focus plus a large configurable control ring, but other than that the lens is just a black metal tube with a flimsy lens hood made of plastic. That’s it. No golden ring. No programmable buttons. No switch for vibration reduction, as it has none and you must rely on the VR in the camera body. Just a weather sealed black tube.

Minimum focus distance

Fourth, the minimum focus distance is 0.8 meter which is way too much for me – I want to get closer to my subject. If you are like me, the 105 macro lens is worth a consideration as it has a minimum focus distance of 0.3 meters.

Focus breathing

Finally, if you are a videographer, you may not like the focus breathing this lens has. It is significant. When you move the focal plane, it changes the field of view so much that you avertedly may think that you are working with a zoom lens. This is normally not a problem for photographers, but if you are a videographer, you will not like this “feature”.

Sharpness and contrast

So, why did I then buy the lens anyway? Well, let me say that if there is an academy where they teach lens designers what a MTF chart for an outstanding lens looks like, they could pull out this chart as an example for the students.

But this is not a theoretical example, this is the MTF chart for this lens. This is outstanding performance in terms of both sharpness and contrast. Centre to edge. If you don’t believe me or don’t know what a MTF chart is, see here the words of DXOmark. They test lenses and sensors day in and day out:

“We tested the Nikkor Z 85mm f/1.8 S on the high-resolution Nikon Z7, where the lens combined with the 47 MP sensor achieved a DXOMARK score of 49. This short tele has very high and uniform sharpness at all apertures and ranks as one the best performing NIKKORs in our database.”

Notice especially the last part “one the best performing NIKKORs in our database”

And DXOMar continue: “Overall, this Nikkor lens is a top-tier performer which can rival more expensive models in optical quality.”

This lens is a top performer. Full stop.

Chromatic Aberrations

One of my few party tricks is that I can get any lens to exhibit purple fringing. The reason being that I shoot a lot into the sun. And in high contrast areas almost any lens, especially wide open and in the corners, will yield chromatic aberration. This lens is no exception, but it is by far the best controlled aberrations I have ever seen. Only in the corners was I able to squeeze purple out of it, and you really have to pixel peep to see it.

Distortion and vignetting

The lens has very little distortion and vignetting and whatever is there, is automatically corrected. You need to switch off the correction in post in order to see it. I doubt you will shoot architecture with an 85mm lens, but if you do, I doubt distortion and vignetting will be an issue for you.

Flare control

Nikon has thrown all its coating technology into this lens, and flare is probably some of the best controlled I have seen in a lens. Videographers love flare and will not like the suppression this lens provides, but as a photographer I am happy with the results this lens yeilds.

Bokeh and sunstars

The lens comes with 9 rounded blades, and I appreciate that rounded blades are necessary to get good bokeh.

But it comes at a price, the price being the quality of the sun stars. I really don’t like the sun stars this lens produces, but I respect the prioritisation of bokeh for a portrait lens. I wish the lens producers would give us 2 sets of aperture blades – straight and rounded, and a button to select between the two.

Color rendition

Colour rendition is subjective, and I am in general cautious to comment on this in a lens review. If you in general like the way Nikon lenses renders colours, then this lens will not disappoint you. You could fear that all the coating this lens had would influence the colour rendition, but as far as I can tell, this is not the case.

Auto focus

The auto focus is both silent and fast – maybe not as fast as you want for a wildlife lens, but for portraiture this is all you need. Nothing is fully silent, but it is very discrete, even when you shoot with continuous focus.

Conclusion

You have probably guessed that I love this lens. And that is the bottom line of this review. I think it shows that the Nikon mirrorless lenses have taken the quality of photography gear to a new level.

A phony salesman once said to me that the product quality lingers on long after the price is forgotten. I laughed at his pitch back then, but today I must admit he had a point.

Month: October 2022

Review: Viltrox Ninja 10B LED light