Frederik is a photographer, blogger and youtuber living in Denmark in the Copenhagen region. Outdoor photography is the preference, but Frederik can also be found doing flash photography applied to product shoots and stills.
Laurent Jullier works as professor at the University of Lorraine and is amongst other member of the Advanced Research Team on the History and Epistemology of Film and Moving Image Study at Concordia University, Montreal. So you would expect an academic approach to photography and this is indeed what you get with this pocket size book, covering 175 pages and with 103 illustrations.
Laurent clearly knows a thing or two about how to interpret a photography and the history of photography. So this book will not teach you about depth of field or the like – it is more about the photo as such: it’s history, context and interpretation. And, as he says in the introduction, a photography is first and foremost a way of looking and witnessing – a new pair of glasses to to see the world via. Laurent positions the book as an invitation to examine your own relationship with images and as yourself why this picture has an effect on me? And what do I see when I look at it.
After reading the book I will say: mission completed. It is an excellent introduction to the history of photography and how to interpret an image. As well as a balanced view on the different aspects of photography – for example documentation versus abstract; evidence versus fake.
Example if image analysis presented in the book.
I often find that interpretation of art – including photography – can be taken a notch too far; the image cannot “carry” the weight of the far fetched analysis and interpretation. However, in this book I found a good solid balance and the analysis and interpretation seems to be done with both feet solid planted on the ground. So although clearly academic in approach, there is a sensible balance found in the analysis work presented here.
In a world were many photographers are more interested in talking about camera technology than photography, and where our social media feeds constantly pump a never ending stream of pointless images our way, it it wonderfully refreshing to read a book just about images and their interpretation. And for that reason I can fully recommend you spend a few hours reading this book. It left me a lot wiser (some will say the starting point made it easy) and I often find I go back to re-read parts of it again. In my humble opinion, a sign of good quality.
The engineers at Laowa certainly had no ambition to create a perfect lens when they designed this super wide and compact lens. Instead, they wanted to create a small, light and budget friendly lens, that would allow you to go super wide without breaking the bank or your back. When assessing this lens, I think it is important to measure the success based on how well they succeeded with their ambition, rather than the obvious drawbacks this lens also has.
This lens was announced 12th of November 2024 and at that point had a retail price around 400 USD. Laowa kindly sent me this lens for review, but has had no influence on the content here.
The promise on the tin: wide angle, low distortion, compact and full frame.
Compact
The Laowa FF 15mm F5.0 Cookie Lens is indeed a cookie! Mounted on my Nikon Z6ii it almost looks a bit lost. And the 160 grams it adds to the weight of the 700 gram camera indeed makes it a lightweight combo!
Laowa FF 15mm mounted on my Nikon Z6 mk II. Notice the aluminium handle that controls the focus ring.
F5.0
With an aperture range of F5 to F22 it is not the fastes of lenses, but I doubt you want to shoot razor thin depth of field with this lens. As is often the case with wide lenses, you can go crazy close to your subject – 0.12cm!
The aperture blades are straight! Yes, yes, yes! This will give some bokeh balls that are edgy, unless you shoot wide open, but the big benefit is that your sunstars will be beautifully cut out. In my book, sunstars are more important that bokeh balls, but of course your milage may vary.
Sunstar a la iPhone!
Minimalist
The Laowa FF 15mm lens has no electronics whatsoever. No CPU contacts, no auto focus, nothing. It is really back to basics – metal and glass all the way.
You need to be disciplined when it comes to setting up the lens in the camera as the camera has no idea what lens is being mounted. Especially if you – like me – sometimes sort and filter your images based on the focal length. On the Nikon you have to configure a non-CPU lens and make sure to select it before shooting.
You may think that the lack of auto focus is a big drawback, but when you work with a lens this wide, you probably don’t want to capture birds in flight or a football player on the move. Landscapes and architecture has a tendency to be more still and you can take your time to get the focus right. Assisted by the focus peak highlights in the camera, I find manual focus to be a breeze.
Laowa FF 15mm has a focus ring closest to the camera and an aperture ring closest to the front.
The Laowa FF 15mm lens has the aperture ring closest to the front of the lens and the focus ring towards the camera. This is opposite of what I am used to, so it took a little while to familiarize myself with this setup. Also, the focus is operated via a little handle sitting on the focus ring, and the throw is very short – only 70-80 degrees. Had this been a macro lens or a portrait lens, I would have considered this to be too short, but for landscapes and architecture, this will be less of an issue.
The user guide is as compact as the lens!
Image quality
You can find a small sample of test shots using this link to Flickr.
Both sharpness and contrast with this lens is good. The classic stress test is shooting wide open (F5) and looking at the corners of the image. You will notice that both contrast and sharpness drops significantly when you shoot wide open, but most lenses act the same way. And most worry about the center sharpness rather than the corners, although architecture photography may be the exception to that rule. But in my book, this lens is approved when it comes to sharpness and contrast.
F22 to the left, F5 to the right. This is heavily zoomed in on the top left of the image.
Although the tin promises “low distortion”, I do notice some distortion setting in when shooting tiles in my bathroom. If you are to shoot architecture with this lens, you need to make sure this will not be a problem for you.
The lens produces a rather dramatic vignetting, but you can fix this in post, so for me that is less of an issue.
Both at F5 and F22 there is noticeable pin cushion distortion. It is especially at the top of the lens I notice this distortion.
The green colour of the flare shows the dampening at work. Also notice the heavy vignetting (darkening of the corners).The flare is dampened via coating on the glass and it gives the well known green colouring of the light. Some photographers are fans of flare while others absolutely want to avoid it, so when it comes to flare dampening we are in personal preference territory. I have seen better dampening of the flare than what this lens has, but it is clearly having a reducing effect on the strength of the flare.
Close up shot of the light in an iPhone. Apterture at F5. The green color of the flare shows the dampening at work. Also notice the heavy vignetting clearly visible towards the white background.
As noted earlier, I absolutely love the simple and sharp sunstars the lens produces and I wish more lens producers would go with straight blades and prioritise the sunstars over the bokeh.
Summary
Clearly this is a highly specialised lens where low weight and low price has been prioritised by the lens designers. The vignetting is heavy and I cannot ignore the distortion when shooting wide open either. But if these are not issues for you and you are comfortable with manual focus, this lens may be the budget friendly wide lens you have been looking for. For me, I find that the price tag is a notch too high to justify the otherwise fun lens that probably many will enjoy as a light companion in their backpack.
With a price around 30 EUR (Europe), my first thought was that this little WiFi enabled camera could not be of much quality. But I was wrong! Read on to find out why!
I find the market for WiFi cameras very difficult to “read” – there seems to be so many vendors and so many options from each vendor, that it is overwhelming. Also, I know that once you get “stuck” in the eco system of a particular vendor, it can be an investment – both in terms of time and money – to switch to a new vendor. So after a few weeks of trying to find some way to navigate in this universe, I simply gave up and went for this relatively cheap camera just to see what it would do. And I was positively surprised.
My use case is simply to be able to follow what is going on in my summer house when I am not around. My plan is to start in-door – I may add outdoor cameras later. But I decided to start small and take it from there.
The TP-Link Tapo C100 camera as delivered before unboxing.
The TP-Link Tapo C100 camera is delivered in a small box with the camera itself, a small template to mount the 2 screws to hold the camera, a power supply and a super short user guide. The latter is more or less just a QR code to get you started downloadning the associated app. Once you have drilled the two supplied screws into the wall using the template, the wholes in the mount plate hook the camera to the wall and the major part of the HW installation is done. The TP-Link Tapo C100 camera comes with a small power supply that needs to be connected to the camera, so you need a location for the camera where a power plug is not too far away.
TP-Link Tapo C100 camera is to the left in the box, to the right is the black power supply and associated cable and to the very right the quick start guide, which is basically a QR code link explained in 37 different languages.
I was pleased to find that the TP-Link Tapo C100 camera is small – I have seen other cameras designed for outdoor usage that are much larger and dominating. I feared that the video and lens quality would be sub standard because of the low price and the small camera, but it is not – the camera delivers a both wide and sharp image. Of course it is only 1080p, but on my iPhone (15) it looks really sharp and clear. You can zoom in by double tapping or pinching. As it is a budget camera, there is not mechanical tilt or panning available – the lens sits and gives you the view as you left it at the installation.
Hooking the TP-Link Tapo C100 camera up to my WiFi was easy – after you have installed the app, it will guide you through the installation process. It follows the same process as many other gadgets where you are asked to join the WiFi network the camera provides, and from here the camera does the rest.
TP-Link Tapo C100 camera nose down to the left, quick start guide and bottom right the yellow template for mounting the screws to hold the camera. The distance between the screws needs to be rather precise to fit the pre-made holes in the camera mount.
The camera has surprisingly much functionality – you can listen to what is going on in the room, and you can talk to someone in the room via the camera. The sound quality is not impressive, but if you want to say hello to your cat sleeping in your sofa, the sound is useful but far from beautiful.
TP-Link Tapo C100 camera view of my bedroom. You can see my cat sleeping in the middle. Notice the time and day is displayed top left and the buttons below the image gives the access to the different features. I find the app easy to use.
It also allows you to be alerted every time someone steps into the view of the camera. This is of course very useful to keep burglars out (you can shout at them via the speaker), but after 20 notifications triggered by my cat, I decided to turn it off. But it works really well, although it can be fooled by a ray of sun dancing on a wall, if the size of the sun-ray is sufficiently large.
Some of the more expensive cameras has a privacy mode where the camera mechanically blocks the lens. The TP-Link Tapo C100 camera cannot offer this mechanical privacy mode, but does offer a more digital one where it electronically turns off the camera and also the red LED in the camera, to show it is not recording. I would feel more comfortable with the mechanical privacy mode of course, but find that the option the C100 offers is ok taking the price point into consideration.
TP-Link Tapo C100 camera night view. It claims to be able to see 30feet during nighttime – it appears to be plenty to cover my bedroom!
The camera delivers colour images during daytime and black and whites during nighttime. In the example above you can see a screen copy from the app during nighttime. I find the night view useful – the camera can actually see more than I can during nighttime!
If you want to, you can buy a micro SD card and install it in the camera. This enables you to capture up to 16 days of live capture (claimed). I have not tested this part as I have no use for this feature, nor did I sign up for the cloud solution Tp-link offers to capture data. I would imagine these solutions to be helpful if you want to be absolutely sure to capture footage of potential burglars. You can initiate a video capture from the app and store it on your phone, but I would imagine this is more relevant for short videos for fun rather than surveillance videos to be used as evidence.
Summary
I have found the TP-Link Tapo C100 camera to be exactly what I needed – a simple camera that can help me keep taps on what is going on in my summer house when I am not around. The camera has more features than what I need so I did not really miss anything. If you are in the market for a more advanced camera or maybe an outdoor camera, TP-Link has plenty of additional models in their lineup for you to explore.
Plus
– Price point
– Image quality (considering it is 1080p)
– Nighttime view
– Ease of installation (both hardware and WiFi)
– Ease of app user interface
Minus
– Camera is fixed – no option to pan or tilt remotely
– Requires a power plug close nearby (and no battery backup)
– Motion detection can be fooled by sunlight or shadows moving
– No mechanical privacy mode, only digital
Not tested
– Alexa and google interface
– Micro SD card storage
– Cloud storage
Shopping link
If the TP-Link Tapo C100 camera has caught your interest, this affiliate link will take you to Amazon. Notice that transportation and import taxes may apply.
Keld Helmer-Petersen (KHP) was once described as “the best photographer you have never heard of” by the British magazine Creative Review in 2007. I really think that short sentence says it all. In my humble opinion, KHP should be right up there with Ernst Haas and Saul Leiter, but I guess fame does not always work that way. Keld himself was a humble guy and found it a bit funny when he suddenly got some fame at the age of 87!
Keld Helmer-Petersen: Photographs 1943-2013 – the ability to find the extraordinary in the ordinary is perhaps one of the qualities of KHP that I admire the most.
The book in review here presents the full range of Keld Helmer-Petersen’s work across 7 decades. Each chapter has a short introduction with Keld’s own words introducing what you are about to see. In addition to this, there are two longer introduction sections at the beginning of the book.
Keld Helmer-Petersen: Photographs 1943-2013 – HKP pioneered the use of colour in his work, and the book contains a lot of the images from the book “122 Colour Photographs”.
Towards the end of the book there is also a transcript form a short interview with KHP that I found to be an interesting read.
Keld Helmer-Petersen: Photographs 1943-2013 – the graphical dimension in KHP’s work stands out very clearly in the black and white images – here from the praise of the railway.Keld Helmer-Petersen: Photographs 1943-2013 – here an example of some of the later work of KHP. I must admit that I like his earlier work more, but it does show another dimension of his astonishing talent.
If you are interested in KHP’s work and want a book that gives a comprehensive view into his work across 7 decades, then look no further: this is the book for you. However, if you like me are more fascinated by his earlier work, say the classic “122 Colour Photographs”, may be a better alternative to look into.
The title of this book sparks an allergic reaction in me, just like if the book was titled something like “how to get filthy rich in a matter of minutes”. It’s clickbait – it is impossible for anyone to live up to the expectations created by the title.
Read this if you want to take great photographs by Henry Carroll – front page.
But I do stand corrected. This is a great book about the basics of photography. And if you pay attention to what is being written by Henry Carroll and truly apply that to your photography, I am sure you will be a better photographer. Maybe your images will not be “great” as the title promises, but for sure they will be better. Much better!
Theory and practice
Henrys concept for the book is simple and yet powerful: each subject is presented using only 2 pages: one page elaborating on the subject and another page showing an image that illustrates how the subject presented has been applied by another photographer. So it is full of illustrations of how the principles and advice presented in the book has been used or applied by other photographers.
Read this if you want to take great photographs by Henry Carroll. Theory to the left. Real world example to the right. This is how I like to be educated!
This book is part of a series – Henry has written books more focused on say portrait photography or pictures of places. But this one is the basic one – the 101 so to speak. Yet it managers to cover both the very basics photography like exposure and the more artistic dimension to photography. And he does it in a way where the subjects are wove into each other in a very elegant way so you really don’t notice how much ground this little 140 pages book covers.
You will find books that are dedicated to say exposure, which this book deals with in a matter of a few pages. So of course you will not get all the details and all the angles. But you will get a very good grid or overview of what you need to know about photography, and then you can branch out from this book to other sources with more details.
Boom!
One of the sentences in this book actually hit me like a hammer – a big fat sledgehammer if you’d like. It said: “Average photographers imitate beauty. Great photographers create their own”. Maybe the reaction from my side is more a reflection of where I am in my photography life, but those two sentences surely put something straight that I had been struggling to understand for some time: why some of my images seemed to work while others were just meh.
I cannot guarantee that you will have a similar eureka! moment when reading this book, but I am certain that if you are new to photography and want to get a really fast run down and overview of the basics coupled with a few high flyers on creativity and art, this is one of the best books I have come across to meet that objective. Highly recommended!
I recently upgraded from iPhone 14 Pro to iPhone 15 Pro, despite the fact that I previously have jumped at least two generations to make sure I would notice the difference. Somehow the new features of the iPhone 15 Pro got me convinced – let me elaborate!
Same same but different
First of all, the similarities between the iPhone 14 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro are many more than the differences: the screen is the same, battery life is the same, water resistance rating is the same, the size is roughly the same with the 15 Pro being a little shorter and a little more slim, etc.
The first thing I noticed was that the iPhone 15 Pro is somewhat lighter than the 14 Pro, as Apple switched from steel to a combo of titanium and aluminium. It dropped from 206 to 187 grams, and although you may think this is a small change, the relative difference is around 9% and I was surprised to learn how noticeable those 19 grams are!
Further, the 15 Pro comes with a newer chipset (A17) that boosts performance both CPU and GPU wise, but unless you are using some very demanding (game?) applications, I doubt you will notice the performance difference. Maybe some more demanding future applications will highlight the difference between the chipsets, but for now I really doubt you will notice at all.
The button top left on the iPhone 15 Pro is new (you may recall the old slide button previously).
The little slide button top left on the iPhone 14 has been replaced by a push button in the same position. This button is configurable, but out of the box it does the same as the old one – switch between ring and silent. I like this change for sure, but a revolution it is hardly.
Industry standard (in EU at least)
One of the big changes from 14 Pro to 15 Pro is the switch from the lightening port to USB-C. I was hoping and waiting for for Apple to make this change already in the iPhone 14 generation, but I was disappointed. Not this time around, though!
The iPhone 15 Pro has a USB-C connector that allows you to connect both chargers and external storage to the iPhone.
If you like USB-C or not is of course personal preference, but owning an iPad for several years where USB-C is the norm, I really welcome the USB-C connector. I have lots of chargers and cables that use USB-C and being able to reduce the number of cables an chargers I use is a very welcome change.
I use a lot of different cameras where the more modern ones have made the switch to USB-C for both charging and data transfer. But not the older ones. If you knew how many different chargers I have owned over the years for proprietary charging systems and batteries, you would also welcome the simplicity and standardisation of USB-C!
Serious video camera!
The iPhone 15 Pro is indeed a very serious video camera: ProRes LOG in 4K at up to 60 frames per second (fps)! Wow! Not all newer dedicated video cameras can keep up with this! The ProRes LOG format gives you lots of headroom and options for editing in post to color grade and edit your footage. If you just want the video to be ready out of the camera, then ProRes LOG is not for you, but if you want to do serious editing and have as many post processing options available for you, this is the format you want to use!
Now, here is where the iPhone 15 Pro really stands out: if you want to shoot ProRes LOG in 4K at 60 fps, then you need to make use of an external drive or storage facility to transfer the required amounts of data fast enough! If you drop to say 24 frames per second, you can make do with the internal memory. But for 60 fps, the internal memory transfer speeds can’t keep up! And this is where the upgrade to USB-C comes in handy: it offers transfer speeds to support this demanding flow of data!
The iPhone 15 Pro give you 4K in ProRes LOG at 60 frames per second IF you attach an external data storage facility via the USB-C connector.
With an external drive, the iPhone 15 Pro turns into a professional level video camera and if you consider buying a dedicated video camera or a capable hybrid camera, then the capabilities of the iPhone 15 Pro may save you this investment! Of course, if you are planning to use long lenses on a video camera, then the iPhone can’t keep up, but for most other applications the iPhone 15 Pro with an external drive may well be all you need!
Conclusion
I am currently evaluating the video performance of the iPhone 15 Pro, but so far – a few weeks in – I really like what I seen and I am seriously considering switching from system hybrid cameras to the iPhone 15 Pro for video recording. And as such, I find that the iPhone 15 Pro is a really interesting offer and alternative to a dedicated video or hybrid camera. And that is what drove me into the arms of upgrading to iPhone 15 Pro. The USB-C is a nice bonus, other than being a precondition for the high data transfer speeds required for recording in ProRes LOG at 60 fps.
If you have no ambitions for shooting video and the proprietary flash connector does not bother or annoy you, I doubt that the move from iPhone 14 Pro to 15 Pro is worthwhile.
Admitted, when you see this book for the first time, you will not think much of it: it is very small relative to other photo books, measuring only 18 cm across and 13 cm down. But I think you will find that the images will grown on you once you take a closer look.
Still lifes, California by Rudy VanderLans
The book is approx 250 pages presenting around 125 images from the California region. It is purely landscape or outdoor images and you will find no people portrayed, other than images of people on a few billboards. The title “still lifes” is rather precise!
Dismal
Rudy introduces the book by noting that the Californian environment is at times beautiful, incongruous and dismal. I must admit that I had to look up “incongruous” to undestand that it is “not in harmony” or something along those lines. Rudy’s ambition has been to capture pictures that are beautiful, incongruous and dismal at the same time, but he notes that he is happy when succeeding with 2 our of 3 in the same image. Using Rudy’s own success criteria, I think he has been successful with most of the images in this little interesting book.
Film look
When I looked at the images my first thought was that they were shot with a film camera. However, as far as I have been able to google, Rudy shoots mainly digital. But the images are clearly color graded in a way that makes you think of a film camera. Not to start a long discussion about shooting film versus digital, but I do find it interesting that you can get something that looks so film-ish out of a digital camera!
Still Lifes, California by Rudy VanderLans
Graphical
If you look up Rudy VanderLans, you will find that he is a graphical designer by education and it also seems to be in the graphics design area he has had the most successes and is the most famous. I think you will notice this when you study his images, and I mention this in a positive spirit.
Still Lifes, California by Rudy VanderLans
I find find most of the images absolutely stellar and worth a closer study every time I open the book. I guess that is one vital quality of an image or a series of images: that they make you take a closer look and want to see more. In in this regard, I find Rudy’s work in this little book to be of very high quality.
I have the Nikkor 16-35mm zoom lens for the F-mount and I have so far been a happy camper as this lens allows me to do both landscape, architecture and street photography. But recently I took some photography training and the coach was rather insisting that I gave a 35mm prime a try. The training was otherwise very much about the process of photography and very little about camera gear and technique as such, but having seen my style of shooting, he was very insisting!
So approximately 2/3rds into the training (a 10 week course) I got this lens and fell in love with it immediately! And my assessment of the lens was confirmed by my fellow students, who noticed the difference in quality of the images I presented as part of the training! It was quite convincing as they noticed the lift in image quality without me mentioning the change of lens.
Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 S mounted on my Nikon Z6ii
The lens as such
Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 S is surprisingly long measuring 8-9 centimeters.
If you were hoping of a small and flat pancake like lens, then I have to disappoint you! This lens is surprisingly large given that it is only 35mm and I measured it to be around 8-9 centimeters (3.5 inch) long without the lens hood. Adding the lens hood, you are looking at a lens around 13-14 centimeters (5.5 inch) in length. Not exactly a lens where it is easy to hide what you are doing if shooting street photography where discretion can be a blessing!
It is not particular light either – around 370 grams. Not that it feels heavy in any way sitting on my Nikon Z6ii, but I was surprised that it was this heavy. I am not a lens engineer, but my guess is that Nikon prioritised performance and let the lens take the size and weight required to reach that goal.
The lens comes with a large and easy to find focus ring. The ring takes up half the length of the lens (approx 4 cm) and is obviously very easy to find when you have your eye in the viewfinder. Other than the A/M switch for moving between auto focus and manual focus, this is the only movable item you will find on the lens.
The design is very tight – some will say boring, but you will not be confused by a lot of buttons and dials as this lens is basically only a black “tube” with a focus ring and an A/M switch. Actually, I should not say focus ring, because the function of the lens control ring is configurable in the customs control menu f2. Here you can configure the lens control ring to control aperture, exposure compensation, ISO or focus (obviously). You can also select to give the lens control ring no function at all.
The auto focus motor is super silent. I have a lot of Nikkor lenses (both for the Z and the F-mount) and this is probably the most silent I have tried. It is not super fast – but with a 35mm I doubt you will be dependent on a speedy AF motor as you would when shooting birds in flight with a 500mm. I just enjoy that when half pressing the shutter the viewfinder moves from blurred to tac sharp with hardly any sound. I find it to be a bit fascinating (you may be thinking “nerd alert!” and you are absolutely right!).
Aperture and blades
The aperture ranges from f/1.8 to f/16. There are faster alternatives, but I do have a 50mm f/1.2 and although I enjoy all the fun you can have with a super slim depth of field, I have also come to realise how seldom I use the lens wide open. So for me it is not an issue that the lens is not able to open up to say f/1.4, but we are in personal preference territory here.
In the other end of the scale I was surprised that the ability to close down stopped at f/16. I know that some will start talking about diffraction going beyond f/16 but with other lenses I actually enjoy closing down to more than f/16 especially when shooting into the sun and working with the sunbursts produced.
Sample sunstar produced by the Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 S at f/16
I love straight blades as I do a lot of work shooting into the sun to produce sun bursts. Rounded blades do not work well here, as they give a less well defined sunstar. However, I think Nikon in this case has found a good compromise between rounded blades (and nice bokeh) and straight blades producing nice sunstars: closed down to f/16 it appears to me that the blades are almost straight or as straight as they can get when still being part of a more rounded structure when the lens is not fully closed down. In the image above the sunburst is well defined IMHO, but not as well defined as in the case of straight blades. But as as compromise between sunstars and bokeh, this works well for me.
An example of the blurred background produced by the Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 S. Here at f/1.8, 1/1000th of a second, ISO 200. Nikon Z6ii.
In terms of the out of focus elements or bokeh, I have no complaints in this department with this 35mm lens, but I do know that there are other reviewers who care more about the bokeh that I do. Above and below are examples of how the lens renders out of focus elements so you can see what you think of it.
Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 S – sample image with out of focus elements both in the distance and close up.
Price
The Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 S set me back around 700 EUR in November 2023. With the cost of living crisis and inflation sky rocketing, quoting a specific price is perhaps not all that useful, but it is clearly an expensive lens! I have gotten used to all the great AI/AIS/AF/AFS glass that Nikon has produced and the associated bargain prices, so paying that amount of money for a lens is clearly new territory for me! But I was not disappointed! However, if you do not need the last few percentages of performance relative to say an AF-S lens, then paying that amount of money for a short prime seems eye watering expensive. But for me it made sense as I could use all the detail the lens provides. And I expect to use the 35mm for a very large part of my shooting. But if you find it expensive, I agreed, and F-mount alternatives certainly can and do produce a more meaningful price performance ratio.
Technical performance
As mentioned, I find the image quality to be absolutely astonishing, and the MTF chart below seems to confirm my observations. As you probably know, high and straight is better and especially the contrast shows an exceptionally high level, and be mindful that this is at f/1.8. Stopped down a bit the lens will show an even more impressive MTF chart, but unfortunately Nikon has only provided the MTF chart wide open for a prime.
Nikon 35mm f/1.8 S MTF chart – source: Nikon home page.
Some will miss vibration reduction in the lens, but with a short lens and knowing that the image stabilisation in the Z-bodies will do a great job stand alone, I have never missed image stabilisation in this lens.
Control of chromatic abberation (purple fringing) is some of the best I have tried. I usually have a little test where I shoot a ball of curled up tinfoil with a flash throwing hard light at it, but there was noting to see with this lens and for all practical purposes as far as my shooting goes, there is no CA at all, period.
The minimum focus distance is 24 centimeters. This is close (!) but it is not unusual for a wide lens. You can really make some fun and creative shots with a lens that is able to go this close to the subject, especially when you consider that the focus distance is measured from the where the sensor sits and not from the tip of the lens!
Image quality
The image quality of this lens is simply amazing. I did not only notice this myself, but my fellow students in my training course did as well as I reported earlier. Be mindful that the quality of this lens is to some extend lost on my Nikon Z6ii as you would need a high resolution sensor with way more resolution than 24mp. But even on my Z6ii it has impressed me.
An example of the details and contrast the Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 provides.Low light image of a laundromat. The image is exposed for the highlights. Notice all the details on the silhouettes of the bikes.Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 SNikkor 35mm f/1.8 SNikkor 35mm f/1.8 SNikon 35mm f/1.8 S
Conclusion
I know that this has not been a technically focused review, but I think you can find such in other reviews – there is an excellent one by DxO Mark where they also look at alternatives to the Nikon 35mm lens. Here I just want to share that I am very happy with this lens that I mainly use for street photography and landscapes. And, as those of you who follow my youtube channel knows, I repeat the point that the Z-lenses from Nikon are next level. Yes, they are expensive, yes, not everyone needs this level of performance and yes AF-S glass price / performance wise is often superior. But when you have tried this lens and seen what it will do to your images, you don’t want to go back. Sorry, that was a generalisation: I don’t want to go back. Thank you for reading this far!
Sample images
I have a Flickr album where I have collected some of the shots I have done with the . You can find the link clicking here. The Flickr page gives you some options for viewing the image quality in greater detail and see for yourself what you think of the lens performance.
Bruce Barnbaum has photographed for more than 40 years and has been so lucky as to have studied in workshops held by Ansel Adams! He apparently worked as a programmer and mathematical analyst and abruptly left the field 40+ years ago and never looked back! His best seller The art of Photography: An Approach to Self Expression was published for the first time in 1994 and I think you can see this book The essence of photography as a follow-up to his classic book, as he makes several references to The art of Photography. So maybe you want to start there? I did not, I dived right into The essence of Photography!
The essence of photography by Bruce Barnbaum. Approx 180 pages mesuring 25×25 centimeters.
The book is beautifully illustrated with lots of predominantly black and white images of landscapes, architecture, abstracts and nature. Always tack sharp – no intentional camera movements or out-of-focus images; all very disciplined and true to the subject.
One of the beautiful images from the book. Less is more.
Bruce covers a number of subjects throughout the book:
Finding your own approach to and passion for photography
Professional vs amateur photographers
Realism vs abstract images
Classes and workshops
Composition rules and why to ignore them!
Throughout the book the arguments for a certain point of view are presented in a very balanced way – you can clearly tell that Bruce has had a lot of studens passing through his workshops and he has listened to many different arguments pro/con a certain subject. And in my humble opinion, it is a pleasure to read the balanced views presented by Bruce. You have no doubt where he stands and what his view is, but it is presented in a way where also the imaginary opponents get their say. We could surely use some more of this, both in social media and politics if you ask me!
A classic landscape image by Bruce. From the book of course.
Towards the end of the book, Bruce tells his own story about his love for nature and preserving planet earth as much as we can, and how he has tried to contribute to this end via his photography. And how photography is his passion in which he tries to contribute to preserving what he loves: nature. And that is a nice wrap to a really inspiring book where he uses himself as an example to how to find the passion for photography. He really walks the talk.
On a more personal note, there were 3 points that I really liked about this book: (1) there is no formula to success, (2) rules of composition should be ignored and (3) why some professional photographers are worse photographers than amateurs! If you are tempted to dive into these 3, then you will find this book of particular interest. If not, I would still recommend this book for anyone seeking ideas and stimulation rather than step-by-step instructions for photography.
David DuChemin’s book: The Soul of the Camera has the subtitle: the photographers place in the picture making. And for me the subtitle is a much more precise description of what you can expect from this 270 page book about the soul of the photographer.
Perfection is overrated, and not to be confused with mastery.
David DuChemin
David’s book is not about aperture or camera settings or composition or the more traditional subjects for a book about photography. Rather, it circles around the photographers process and workflow, looking more at the process of taking good pictures, why some pictures work better than others and a bit of the psychology of photography (the need for openness, patience, curiosity and courage – just to mention a few).
Putting the photographer in the center rather than the camera or the end result was for me refreshing, and I really enjoyed reading this book. You can tell that David has done a lot of photography teaching and reflections, he has used this as a foundation for writing this great book.
Towards the end of the book, David argues that you actually don’t need another book about photography, not even this one! His point is that he has learned more about photography from practicing photography in real life than from any book. He does buy books about photography, but only books that shows the work of other photographers. The study of other photographers has according to David taught him more about photography than any textbook. He also argues that we don’t need better cameras, but we need better photographers.
You don’t need another book (about photography)
David DuChemin
The book is filled with great photos!
So despite Davids remark that the world does not need an additional book about photography, I will say that if it needs just one more, this would be the one in my humble opinion. Looking at the photographer and the photography process is for me the right place to look, once you get past the initial study of camera settings and composition and the like. David knows that there is a lot of psychology involved in taking great pictures, and he circles around this subject very well in this interesting read. Comes highly recommended.
