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.
I must admit that it was only because I read the manual, that it dawned on me that there is a thing called a wide-angle diffuser built into my flash. I think it is quite common for flashes, as I have seen it on both Yongnuo and Godox flashes.
In hiding
The wide-angle diffuser sits a bit hidden on the front of the flash. It is just a piece of clear plastic that you can pull out from its hiding and mount it over the front of the flash. It is hinged, so it is quite easy to do and it swings into position almost by itself when you pull it all the way out. The plastic has some structure or pattern in it, which helps diffuse the light.
The Wide-angle Diffuser sits hidden in the front of the flash. Here it is halfway out.
In position
When you have put the wide-angle diffuser in position, you will hear the motor in the flash working (provided the flash is turned on). When you engage the diffuser, the lens moves to the widest position it can offer, typically 14mm or 18mm. And you can no longer change the zoom – it is locked.
The Wide-angle Diffuser is here active and covers the front of the flash.
The the diffuser and the wide position of the zoom in the flash in combination is intended to diffuse the light as much as possible and give a more soft light. In my experience the effect is noticeable but no match for a large diffuser like a softbox or simply bouncing the flash against the (preferably white) ceiling. But in a pickle, it can mitigate the harshness of the light a flash produces.
In the image above, you may have noticed the little white piece of thin plastic next to the diffuser (a reflector). They sit in the same slot in the flash, and when you pull out the diffuser, the reflector tags along. You can push the diffuser back in the slot and have the reflector out still, as shown in the image below.
The reflector is here engaged to give catch light in the eyes of people photographed.
If you set the flash so that it points upwards to bounce against the ceiling, the reflector can be used to create catch light in the eyes of people photographed.
When you shoot a scene where there is very little light, say at a party late at night or a dinner at a restaurant, then a flash may be the only way to get sufficient light to enable you to capture an image.
The human eye is like the aperture of your lens: in low light it opens up the pupils (aperture blades) to maximise the light intake. Unfortunately, the light that enters your eye is also reflected by the eye to a very large degree. So wide open pupils equals lots of light returned.
A cat’s eye reflects even more light than the human eye, and the result can be quite erie when shooting with a flash!
Pre-light
A way to mitigate this is so simple it’s almost complicated: if your camera before firing the flash gives a strong light to make the pupils contract, then you have minimized the problem! The only requirement is that the pre-light and the flash are fired right after each other. The so called “red eye reduction” is an option available with many point and shoot cameras.
So, is this a good way of solving the problem? Well, it certainly gives less red eyes, but you will also see that people are not unaffected by the strong pre-light and often look as if they are looking into the headlights of an oncoming car. Which is actually pretty close to what has happened! And it is not the most flattering look!
Secondly, a lot of post processing software (like Lightroom) offers standard solutions to remove red eyes that is both efficient and simple to use. So for these reasons, I do not use red eye reduction when I shoot with a flash.
When you see a flash working, you are probably left with the impression that it emits the light in a binary fashion: it is dark, then very bright and then dark again. So from zero to full speed in no time.
Actually your flash takes a little time to build the light intensity to peak, and also a little time to turn it off again, so you get a curve that looks like a wave. Flash duration is about how long time it takes from the flash is fired until the light is turned fully off again.
Measurement
If the flash emitted the light in a fully binary fashion, it would be easy to measure the duration of the light being on. But when you have a curve, you need to find a point on that curve to use. So typically the flash duration is measured from when the light has reach 50% of full throttle to when the light has either dropped to 50% of full throttle. An alternative is to do the same, but for 10% instead. These two measurements are often named t0.5 or t0.1.
For producers of flash, the competition to have the best numbers in the spec sheet often leads them to give the 50% value, as it is the fastest number. If they don’t tell you how they have measured, my bet is that they have taken the fast number and put in the spec sheet, i.e. t0.5.
Power
Another complicating factor is that the more power the flash lets out, the slower it typically gets. So the flash duration is very fast if you only use a fraction of the power the flash can provide. For this reason, the flash duration is often listed in the spec sheet as an interval. The Godox V860II has a flash duration listed as 1/300 to 1/20000 seconds.
And so what?
I Granted, there are probably many flash photographers out there that really don’t care too much about the flash duration, unless they are specialized in super high speed photography. For me the importance of flash duration is to realize that your flash (often) is much faster than your shutter speed, and this is vital in order to understand other flash related concepts like front curtain synchronization, rear curtain synchronization and high-speed synchronization.
You may have or have seen some horrible images from a party or a vacation: people with red eyes in harsh white light, staring at the photographer like a deer caught in the headlights, and dark shadows right behind them that adds to the eerie feeling you get when studying the images! The only logical conclusion is: flash photography – no thank you! It is not for me!
But I ask you to consider this: Why is it that many professional photographers always use flash when shooting? Even when shooting outdoors on a sunny day? Do they not have the same horrible vacation images as the rest of us? Apparently not.
In this post I will briefly give a few motives for why to shoot with flash, and hopefully this may give some inspiration for getting started with flash photography. Or the opposite – basically confirming you in your choice to stay clear of flashes! We’ll see!
Signal to noise
Signal to noise. Sounds complicated, right? And it is, if you want to be an engineer and dive into this interesting concept. Lots of math and complexity. But for us photographers, all you need to know is that light is a signal and that your camera is a system that inherently holds or produces noise. So there is a balance between the input in the shape of light and noise during the production of the output, the image. That balance is signal to noise. And the stronger the signal is relative to the noise, the better, i.e. the more clean the image will appear.
If you have been shooting a low light scene with the ISO cranked up to ridiculous levels, then you will see the result of a poor signal to noise ratio, in photography that comes in the shape of grain and noise and washed out colors. The camera sensor simply gets so little light, that the noise is as strong as the light, and hence the sensor starts mistaking noise for light. And that is not good.
Flash photography has an amazing signal to noise ratio. The flash light is super bright (and super short lived) and that means all noise in the camera is effectively suppressed. And the result is super clean images with amazing colors and details. And especially portrait and fashion photographers love this, and the buyers have come to expect this quality.
Freeze!
A flash is fast. Very fast. So fast that your shutter speed relative to the flash speed is like your granny trying to keep up with Usain Bolt! And for that reason subjects that move fast will be frozen when caught in the light of a flash (provided the ambient light is kept out of the equation, but that is another story).
So flash photography can capture hummingbirds with still wings, balloons that explode, drops of water that hits a still surface, etc. The ability to freeze a moment is much better with flash than a shutter. And even if you don’t want to capture something that moves super fast, the flash can be a safe way to avoid blur from the subject or the camera moving. And this again aids the production of sharp images.
Control
If you are a landscape photographer, you have probably been up early in the morning to catch that special light in the morning when the sun rays travel the long distance through the atmosphere and yields that wonderful soft light and long shadows. And been equally disappointed when the sun promising weather forecast was wrong and the rain pouring down.
Flash photography is all about control. You can control the direction, intensity, temperature and color of the light. Nothing is left to chance – you have full control. Of course it comes with a price, that you need to have flashes and light modifiers and learn the trade of flash photography, but the reward is that you will have lots of control. And many professionals need that to secure that they make money – they cannot wait for the conditions to be right for photography. Every day has to be the right day!
Predictability
When you control the light, you hold the formula for success. If you are a portrait photographer and have learned a flash setup that gives exactly the rembrandt lightning that you want for you corporate headshots, then you are able to reproduce this over and over. So you don’t have to re-invent the wheel, but can do today exactly what you did yesterday. You have a formular for – if not success – then a formula for getting the same results over and over again. For a professional photographer the ability to reproduce the same results without the need to set off time for learning and tuning, is vital. Time is money. Literally.
What about you?
So how is this relevant to you? Well, it may not be. There are tons of adventure, wildlife and landscape photographers that do fine without flash photography. But if you want to dive into product shoots, portraits, event photography, macro photography or flower photography, then I think you will find that a couple of flashes and a few well chosen light modifiers may be what takes your photography to the next level.
When a subject is captured by the lens and projected onto the camera sensor, the ratio between the subject and the projection is the reproduction ratio. So if you shoot a small ant that is 0.2 centimeters long in real life and it is projected to the sensor as being 0.2 centimeters long on the sensor as well, the reproduction ratio is 1:1. Had the ant been only 0.1 long on the sensor, then the reproduction ratio had been 1:2. Some also write this as 0.5x.
So why should you care? Well, unless you are a macro photographer in search for a lens that will zoom in on your tiny, tiny subjects as much as possible, I think you can lead a great life as a photographer happily ignorant of the term reproduction ratio!
The reproduction ratio is influenced by the distance to the subject, and the distance to the subject is limited by the minimum focus distance of the lens. If you cannot get the lens to focus on something very close to you, try to take a step back and see if it gets better. If it does, you have tried to focus closer than what the minimum focus distance allows. When you focus as close as the lens allows, you have reached the maximum reproduction ratio of the lens. You can find both the reproduction ratio and the minimum focus distance in the lens specification list.
Above is the specifications for the Nikkor MC 105 2.8 S macro lens. The circled in lines show that the closest it will focus is 29 centimeters, and the maximum reproduction ratio is 1:1 or 1.0x.
You can get some very specialized lenses that will yield a reproduction ratio of more than 1x, but I think they are rare. In the case above, I think it is more than fair that Nikon calls this a macro lens.
As a fun fact, even though the minimum focus distance allows you to go crazy close to the subject, then this is no guarantee for a large reproduction ratio. The Nikkor 20mm S lens has a minimum focus distance of 20 cm (!) but still only has a reproduction ratio of 0.19x.
There are many 50mm lenses. It is probably one of the most versatile focal lengths of all, and loved by most photographers. So every vendor has at least one 50mm lens, and Nikon – being a big player – has many 50mm, both in current production and as vintage lenses.
Aperture blades on the 1.8G lens – and the coating is also clearly at work here.
In this blog post I want to dive into two current Nikkor 50mm lenses and point to some differences to help you decide between the two. I will not make the decision for you as it comes down to your personal preference and decision criteria, but I will give you some information that can help you make an informed decision.
Looking at the names of the lenses, one could be tempted to go with the Nikkor 50mm 1.4D lens, as it is faster. And faster is better in many cases.
Relative to the 50mm 1.8G lens, the 1.4 wide open lets in 2/3rd stops of light more than the 1.8G lens, and if you need the light intake because you shoot in low light settings where flash is not an option (say restaurants at night), then the fast lens may be the right option for that reason alone. The faster lens also gives a more shallow depth of field (DOF) when wide open – shooting at a distance of 2 meters on a FF camera, the 1.8 lens has a DOF of 17 cm and the 1.4 lens has a DOF of 13 cm. And for making the subject stand out against a soft background, this extra shallow DOF may be exactly what you need.
Technical performance
One of the challenges for lens designers is that the wider the lens needs to go, the more difficult it is to have the lens yield good sharpness and contrast.
Wide open performance of the 50mm 1.4D – Credit to Nikons homepage.
The above is the MTF chart for the 50mm 1.4D lens wide open. If you are not too familiar with an MTF chart, then the gist of it is that lines that are flat and high is better, and that the red is sharpness and blue is contrast. And all above 0.7 in my book is good performance. As you can see, the 1.4D is not a top performer in the MTF chart above.
If you compare it to the MTF chart in for the 50mm 1.8G that you’ll find in the review of that lens, the performance is much better. But be mindful that the charts are wide open, and as the 1.8G cannot go as wide as the 1.4D, we are not comparing apples and apples. But you will find that the 1.4D is a bit soft wide open – stopped down, it will perform better. But then again, the point with wide lens is to be able to use it wide, right? That is what you pay for and what carrying the extra glass around is all about.
The lack of sharpness and contrast in the corners may be less of an issue for you if you are a portrait photographer, where the centre sharpness is vital. And some softness (and hence forgiveness) may be the preference for some photographers, that may not need the super clinical and technically perfect image that will survive a pixel peeping scrutiny and MTF chart mapping. In other words, sharpness and contrast may not be the deciding factor for all photographers.
Comfort and silence
The AF-S or G lens comes with a built in autofocus motor. The AF-D is dependent on the AF motor to be built into the camera body and driven mechanically via the “screwdriver” link between the lens and the camera.
In my experience, the AF-D works well and fast in general, but it is a bit noisy relative to the built in motor in the AF-S lens. And the dependence on the motor in the camera body means that you cannot use the AF if you later want to move to the mirrorless (ML) cameras from Nikon, as the ML cameras have no AF motor built into them. And if you plan to use the lens on some of the entry level APS-C cameras like the Nikon D5600, the situation is the same: no motor in the camera body, and you are left with manual focus.
The Nikon 50mm prime lens 1.8G – a general purpose focal length.
Size and weight
Usually you get a big weight penalty for faster glass, but in this case it is not too bad, as the 50mm focal length does not require that much glass after all. The weight of the 1.4D is 230 grams whereas the 1.8G is 185 grams. In absolute terms this is a small increase, but if you are a hiker running up and down mountains all day with your camera, this could be a factor in your decision.
In terms of the size, the diameter of the 1.8G is larger at 52mm versus 42mm for the AF-D lens; my guess is that the focus motor in the 1.8G lens takes up some space outside the glass itself and yields the larger diameter. The 1.8G lens is also a bit taller at 72mm versys 64mm, but I would say that both lenses are rather compact despite these differences.
Prices
The 50mm 1.4D over at mpb.com is available here in December 2022 for around 150 EUR used, whereas the 1.8G is available for a little less, around 120 EUR used. It is quite common to see that faster lens is more expensive, even factoring in the auto focus motor on the G lens. But both lenses, if you ask me, are a bargain and yields an outstanding price/performance ratio.
Conclusion
I have only zoomed in on a subset of differences between these lenses, in the hope that these differences are the vital ones for making your decision.
There are other factors of course like bokeh, aberrations, vignetting, distortion, color rendition, etc. But I think you will find that these two lenses are close in comparison on these other relevant parameters.
Best of luck with your search and decision making!
One of the fascinating things about flash photography is that your flash, besides being able to put out an impressive amount of light, is also able to do so in a very short interval of time. In fact, it is so fast that relative to a shutter speed of 1/20th second, the flash sees this as a barn door of time!
Decisions, decisions
Provided that the flash is fast and the shutter is slow (even when fast!), this gives an interval – a string of options for when to fire the flash when the shutter is open. Most cameras will default to firing the flash at the beginning of the shutter being open, but there typically is also an option available in your camera settings to fire the flash towards the end of the shutter being open. So the “string” of options is on most cameras reduced to two options: early or late. The late one is often called something like rear curtain sync.
Subject move
If you take a picture in a low light situation where you need to keep the shutter open for say 1/10th of a second, you will see that anything bright and moving will leave a trail of light. So the headlights on a car on a highway at night will leave a trail of lights as the car moves through the frame.
Now on top of this ambient exposure comes the flash. And it can be added early or late in the exposure. Again, remember that the flash is blazing fast and only uses a tiny, tiny fraction of the 1/10th in the example. Provided the flash is strong enough, it will add an additional exposure of the car, where the car stands out much stronger relative to the exposure done by the ambient light. In fact, the car may not be visible at all in the ambient light exposure – only the headlights.
So here is the thing: do you want the car to be exposed as the headlights start to be captured or towards the end of the headlights being captured (= rear curtain synchronization). That is basically what the rear curtain sync option governs. Most cameras will default to early sync, and have rear sync as an option you need to actively select.
If this sounds all mysterious and convoluted, my best advice is to give it a try. Shoot something bright moving at night and see the effect of turning rear sync on and off. It is the best teacher. Far better than any blogger! Enjoy!
If you are new to photography, then color temperature may not be the first thing you worry about. There are many other dimensions of photography that demands you attention, ranging from selecting the right camera and lens, to composition and exposure. However, when you have found your feet and start getting the results you want, then white balance and the color temperature of light may start to be one of the more advanced subjects that you want to dive into.
Every light source has a certain color temperature. It is measured in Kelvin, and for reasons beyond me, it is typically on a scale between 2000 and 10000, and to signal it is a value on the Kelvin scale, a “K” is added after the number. So for example candlelight is 2000K whereas an overcast sky is around 6000K. So low values equals more red, high values more blue and in between is white.
You are fast!
No, I don’t write that headline to charm you, but it is a fact that your brain adapts to new light sources with astonishing speed and probably without you noticing. So if you walk from noon daylight (5200K) into a tungsten lit living room (2500K), then you’ll adapt to the new temperature of the light super fast and probably without noticing. And colors will look like they always do, and white will look white, simply because you adapt fast to a new light source. It is really smart design!
Your camera is not so smart
You camera is not so smart. In order for it to record the light in a way where the images that comes out of it look natural (e.g. white looks white), then the camera needs to know the temperature of the light. If it doesn’t, then I can assure you the colors will be strange – white will be yellow and blue will be purple, etc. So you need to tell the camera what color temperature you are shooting at.
Auto white balance
Luckily, most modern cameras has an option named auto white balance where the camera itself reads the light and figures out the color temperature of the ambient light. It works really well in most cases. You can try to play with a manual setting of the white balance, just to get a feel for what happens if the white balance is off and what options this gives you for giving your images a distinct look. If you have ever seen images by Bryan F. Petersson, you can find some amazing images where he gives the night sky a distinct purple look using manual setting of the white balance.
As strange as it may sound, white is not just white. Subject to the temperature of the light, measured in Kelvin, white is many different shades of yellow! Why is this hard to believe? Because your brain does an amazing job compensating for the color temperature, so that different version of white always appears to be the same white to you.
Unfortunately your camera is not as smart as your brain! Your camera needs to know what the color temperature of the light is in order to reproduce white (and colors) so that it looks credible when you see it in the screen or the print. If the white balance setting is off relative to the temperature of the ambient light, the colors (and the white) in the image will look unnatural. This can be used as a tool for making your images stand out, but for now I just assume that you want your images to look natural.
Auto white balance
Most modern cameras has an auto white balance function that in far most cases will give the technically correct white balance settings. Also, if you shoot in RAW format, the options for adjusting the white balance as part of the post processing work makes the wrong white balance settings less of a catastrophe – of course it is always nicer (and less work!) to get the white balance settings right in camera, but when shooting in RAW, hard work in post can make your images look right.
Manual white balance
You can set the white balance manually also. Typically your camera has two options, either you can go hard core manual and enter the Kelvin value directly (typically between 2500K and 8000K), or you can select between some predefined values such as sunlight, overcast, tungsten, incandescent, and so on. These names are just name for a specific Kelvin value – if you for example have a value on your camera called “overcast”, it is the same as entering a Kelvin value of about 6000K to 6500K.
Several light sources
Recently I was shooting images at a lunch party, where the party was held inside with tungsten light, but the light from an overcast sky seeped through large windows that (unfortunately!) served as a backdrop for many of the images. Although the auto white balance in my camera did it’s best, the mix of two different light sources with two different Kelvin values did not work out well for my images. The people at the party either had a very red color in their faces, or if I adjusted so that they looked more natural, the light from the windows started to look weird. That taught me to be careful mixing different light sources – had I chosen to frame the images differently (without the windows), this would not have happened.
Bottom line
If you are new to photography, I would not worry to much about white balance for starters. Set your camera to auto white balance, and focus on other matters like composition and storytelling. However, if you want to dive more into playing with color temperature and see what it can do for your images, try to study the Kelvin scale and start to set the white balance manually. Once you are comfortable with manual white balance, next step is to play with white balance settings on your camera that do not match the available light! Have fun!
The Swedish authorities (“Konsumverket”) have late 2023 stopped all sales of the Hövding 3 in Sweden until the safety issues have been investigated. It appears that the Hövding 3 in not all cases has provided the protection expected according to EU legislation and hence the sale of the product is on hold until further notice. Also, according to Swedish authorities, the helmet has not been tested at speeds above 20 km/h. The stop of sales has unfortunately challenged the company financially so much that they in December 2023 decided to file for bankruptcy.
The review below does not look into the efficiency or completeness of the safety provided by the Hövding 3. I simply review the product from my experience with daily usage, and luckily I have not yet been in need of the Hövding 3 actively providing protection for my head during an accident.
I suggest you consult with the latest status from the Swedish authorities and the bankruptcy case so you can factor this in when deciding if the Hövding 3 is the right product for you.
Cycle helmet alternative
In this review I will give you my thought on the Hövding 3.0 airbag for cyclist from a user perspective, assuming it works as promised should an accident occur. I have fortunately never needed the Hövding to do its job, and hence it is not a test or testimony related the ability of the Hövding to protect you when needed, rather it is my view on the Hövding as part of my daily commuting routine.
Notice that there are several generations of the Hövding, and the one in review here is version 3.0 – so if you are considering another version, the content of the review may not apply.
Size specifications.
Also notice the size specifications. It does come with adjustable size around the neck, but you may want to consider if the ranges provided are acceptable to you.
The size around the neck can be adjusted with a system similar to what many race cyclists know from their shoes or skiiers know from their boots.
In my case, with the Hövding at its widest position, it is a bit tight around the neck. I survive, but could have used just a few more centimeters of space. But I guess that safety is first, and that the design is made this way for safety reasons.
Angles matter
Be aware that the Höwding is not made for racing cycling or cycles where you do not sit up right when you bike. If you sit in a position where you lean too much forward, the Hövding will not be comfortable to wear. The lump at the rear of the Hövding will become more noticeable as you lean forward. So only for upright cycling!
Heavy Duty
Before you try on a Hövding you may think that it is super light, but that is not the case. You get rid of the helmet and can choose to wear a hat or whatever is to your liking, but it is at the expense of adding weight. My cycling helmet weighs only a fraction of the 800+ grams the Hövding is.
Be prepared to carry some weight.
That said, the weight is well distributed and a big part of it sits in the centre around your neck, so it feels less of a pain.
A good deal of the weight is sitting in the black lump in the centre of the Hövding. It also holds the charging USB-C port and led status.
But I was surprised the first time I put on the Hövding how heavy it was. In all fairness, after some time, you get used to it!
However, what I still struggle with is the fact that the Hövding is like wearing a scarf constantly! It is fine in the winter time, as you would do that anyway, but during summer I find that it is an absolute pain and prefer a traditional helmet for that reason.
Electronics
The Hövding charges via USB-C and thank you for that! Great that an industry standard for charging is catching on! There is a small charging light and a button to push to get the battery status, and that is actually the vitals in terms of the electronics.
USB-C – Yay!
When you close the Hövding, a clear sound signal tells you that the helmet is now operational and will protect you if you fall. The instructions underlines the importance of only doing this while on the bicycle! Similarly, when you open the helmet, a different – but equally clear – sound signal tells you the helmet is no longer operational (and the light turns from green to red).
Green light indicates the Hövding is closed and operational.
Of course the Hövding has an app, and it talks with the Hövding via bluetooth. The app works well and also keeps track of how far you have cycled and how many times you have been on the bicycle. And of course gives you a good conscience keeping track of how much CO2 you have saved the planet for, relative to travelling the same distance in a car.
An app, of course!
Storage
The Hövding is fairly small folded and can be fitted into most backpacks or the like for storage. It also has a small strap that allows you hang it on a hook easily when not in use.
The design includes a strap for hanging the Hövding on a hook.
Price and conclusion
The Hövding is a little less than 300 EUR here November 2022, but with the inflation numbers we are seeing this day and age, it is probably wise if you check the current prices. The Hövding is a use-once-only product, but I find that 300 EUR for avoiding a serious head injury is what I am more than willing to pay. My main complaint when it comes to the daily use is that it is warm to wear the Hövding, and as such I only use it during winter time. The rest of the year I prefer a traditional cycling helmet. But it is great to be able to use it during winter time and wear a warm hat at the same time – the latter does not fit well under the “hood” of my cycling helmet.
The Wide-angle Diffuser sits hidden in the front of the flash. Here it is halfway out.
