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.
At 199 USD this is certainly one of the more affordable video lights. I do have to admit that COLBOR sent me this product for review, but they did not put any constraints on me or what I write in this review!
The build quality is not up there with the high end models, but as long as it gets the job done, I have no complaints. The buttons and dials actually feels ok.
Use
In terms of ease of use a video light is not that complicated – the COLBOR comes with a large centered dial to control the strength of the light – push it inwards once and it now controls the lights Kelvin value (warm vs cold), hit it again and you are back to controlling the strength of the light. The Kelvin steps are 10 and the power % steps are 5. You have a to turn a lot to go from one end of the Kelvin scale to the other, but I seldom do that, so steps of 10 is just fine for me.
In addition to the center dial, there is the on/off button, a mode selector, a group selector and a fan option.
The rear controls on the COLBOR CL100 Video light.
The dials on the back of the COLBOR CL100If you hold the mode selector for 3 seconds the COLBOR will enter boost mode, and for 60 seconds give you more light (120%) at the expense of running the fan at full throttle. Push the mode selector briefly and it toggles between different effects: candle, bonfire, blinking, faulty bulb, flashing and lightning. I never use any of these effect modes – if I would, I think the lightning mode is probably the most relevant as a “party trick” light.
The group selector toggles from A to E and is probably only relevant if you have more lights than one. I did not use it. And then you have the fan options to the very right – either SMART or QUIET. Strangely, I found the smart one to be the most quiet one. In general, and this is super important to me, the fan of the COLBOR is very quiet. I cannot count how many times the fan has been picked up by the microphones and I have had to edit that out in post. Not with the COLOB and that is a huge plus if you ask me!
The COLBOR mounted with my trusty soft box from Godox
I was happy to see that the COLBOR comes with a standard reflector mounted with Bowens mount. This enables me to re-use all the light modifiers I have on stock, as Bowens for me is the standard interface for light modifiers.
A shoot through umbrella.
Also, there is the option to mount an umbrella on the COLBOR as an alternative light modifier. It all works very well.
COLBOR CL100 remote control.
Currently the COLBOR comes with a remote control, and I find that it works really well. An app to replace the remote control is work in progress at the time of writing this review, so you may find that the remote is no longer supplied when you decide to order. I did tell myself that I would not be too lazy to get up and go over and adjust the light, but alas! I ended up using the remote anyway – it is very convenient, and then you just have to be a bit more active in the Gym to compensate.
Some may miss batteries if you plan to go outside for a shoot. I don’t – I stay indoor when it comes to video with light! You can get the COLBOR in an alternative version with batteries, so check that one out if batteries is important to you.
Power and warmth
I have a small studio that measures 3×4 meters and I find the COLBOR delivers sufficiently light for my purpose. My only wish is that I could have more lights to make cross light effects…
Sufficient power for my needs – here at 100%
In terms of Kelvin values, the COLBOR gives full range from 2700K to 6500K and does so with same light intensity. I have some LED panels that can only give full throttle when in the middle of the Kelvin scale; whereas the end of the spectrum they only yield half of that. Not with the COLBOR – same power irrespective of the Kelvin value – great!
Conclusion
What I like
The price
Sufficient power output
Constant power throughout the Kelvin range
The quiet fan
The Bowens interface + the umbrella mount
The convenience of the remote
That I did not pay for batteries
What I did not like
The effect modes – I have no use for these
The build quality (but factor in the price here!)
I have only had the product for a few weeks so I do not know if it will stand the test of time. So far it appears to me to be a durable product.
Review of the RAVPower PD Pioneer 2-Ports Power Bank with impressive specs.
Long name
The RAVPower PD Pioneer Power Bank actually has an even longer name: The RAVPower PD Pioneer 20000mAh 60W 2-Ports Power Bank!
The long name on the box reveals impressive specs for this no nonsense product.
And what’s in a name? Well, in this case, actually a lot! Notice the 20000mAh with can be translated to 20Ah! An impressive amount of energy, only found in batteries you would normally plug into your power tools – provided you have pro-level power tools, that is.
And further: 60 Watts! If you have ever tried to hold a light bulb back in the days long before LEDs and energy saving light bulbs were invented, you know how hot a 60 watts light bulb “classic” can get – it is an impressive amount of energy this little battery delivers!
No nonsense
4-level power indicator with blue LEDs. Here the power bank is fully charged.
The design is not very advanced: Only one button that activates the 4-LED power indicator and two connectors: USB-C and USB-A. It only comes with one short black cable for the USB-C port. The USB-C port will deliver 45 Watts when used together with the USB-A port delivering 15 Watts. If the USB-C port is used only, it will deliver up to 60 Watts using the so called PD (Power Delivery) technology! The instructions urges you only to use the supplied USB-C cable, as older cables may not be designed for as much power as the PD technology can deliver.
Two ports: USB-C and USB-A.
The power bank body design is of the no nonsense kind: a rounded black box weighing 370 grams, and with a size of 15 x 6,5 x 2,5 centimeters. (H x W x D). It is a little less than 2 iPhone 12’s on top of each other. So it fits nicely into one hand. You can also get it in white if you prefer, but that’s it!
Same height as an iPhone 12, but not as wide and approx. 2 times as deep…
Real world test
I bought this product to keep my demanding PC at work happy during the late hours of the working day. It is a Lenovo Thinkpad that requires 45 Watts power input, and it will certainly make you aware during boot if you try to feed it with anything less! Normally at 3 in the afternoon, the Lenovo battery runs flat and start to go into (intensive) power saving mode, then gives me half an hour more and dies completely. With the RAVPower attached using the USB-C connector, it keeps my PC going almost a full working day, and only towards the end of the day will the RAVPower run out, and the PC starts to make use of it’s own battery! That is truly impressive! The Lenovo charger can then stay at home, and I have the freedom to move around during the day without looking for a power plug or worry about battery depletion!
According to the marketing specs, the RAVPower can charge an MacBook Pro 13″ from 0% to 50% during an hour. I have not tested this, but I find it very likely based on my own experience with the power available in this little gadget. And with my 20 watts apple charger, I have found that in 3-4 hours the RAVPower is back from close-to-flat to fully charged.
Is it for you?
The RAVPower will set you back around 70 EUR here in Denmark, and I would imagine it can be found even less expensive in both the rest of Europe and in the US (although Amazon have removed products from RAVPower for reasons unknown to me).
I have not long term tested it and cannot say if the battery will stay fresh for many years, but the Chinese company behind RAVPower started their business based on battery technology, so I am optimistic it will stand the test of time.
So if you are in the market for a powerful no nonsense power bank , I think this option should be on your short list, if available where you live.
However, if you need more thank 2 ports, there are alternatives available with 2×2 ports, and if you need even more power, there are models with up to 26.000 mAh, but then you will also need to pay significantly more.
Thank you for reading this far! Questions and comments are more than welcome!
The Apple AirTag is as it says, a little tag that you can attach to literally anything, but most of us probably want to start with our keys. Then comes the wallet, backpack, laptop, etc. The options are endless. Thats probably why Apple offers a package of 4 with a good discount.
The leather key ring is designed to hold the AirTag and provide a key ring at the same time. It comes in many different vibrant colors, but as you can see I chose to go with a more conservative option:
Apple Leather Key Ring box to the left, Apple AirTag box to the right – combined result in the key ring in the middle.
Setup is easy
Setup is easy – hold the AirTag to your iPhone 11 or 12, and it will initiate the installation process. Select from the list of pre-defined options (in my case: keys) and you are good to go.
IPhone 12 and keys with the AirTag and Leather Key ring.
Use
The AirTag can be followed in the “Find My” app. It took me a bit to dig it out from one of the folders, as it was not an app I have used previously.
You can also just say “Hey Siri, find my keys” and it will activate sound from the AirTag and after that open the “Find My” app. It works really well.
The sound is especially useful if know the keys are close nearby, and you just forgot exactly where you left them. If distance is greater, the “Find My” app comes in handy.
The location of the AirTag is shown – the iPhone knows that it is my keys it keeps track of…
How it works
If your iPhone and the AirTag are close nearby, the the AirTag communicates with your iPhone via Bluetooth. If not, then the AirTag sends out a Bluetooth signal that can be received by Apple iPhones, iPads etc. close nearby. They listen to the Bluetooth signal, and forward the position encrypted and anonymously to you via iCloud. So provided you have “friends” nearby, the location of your AirTag can always be found. If not, then you can find the most recent location a “friend” of yours was close to the AirTag.
You can also register your AirTag as lost, and get a notification if it suddenly appears “on the grid”. It really is a clever design.
Conclusion
I cannot really find something not to like here.
Normally I find Apples prices a bit steep, but the price of 33 EUR here in Denmark seems more than fair, and you can drive the price down even further if you buy a package of 4 AirTags.
The design and ease of use is as always with Apple from the top shelf.
I cannot speak to the battery life. Apple promises that the batteries will last long as as it is an advanced version of Bluetooth that puts very little strain on the batteries, but that remains to be seen.
With regards to anonymity of the data we can only hope that Apple delivers to promise, otherwise hacking these apps would be the shoplifters dream come true! And then of course you need a lot of “friends” out there, but I guess that someone eventually will drop by your AirTag if you live in a not too desolated area of the world.
At approx. 750 EUR the Landroid M700 is certainly amongst one of the more budget friendly lawn mover robots, but will it get the job done?
Price
The Landroid M700 will set you back around 750 EUR, and hence it is one of the less expensive lawn mover robots available. You should however be aware that it comes without GPS tracking, which is an additional 200 EUR approximately. It is sold as a separate module you plug into the Landroid. You may not need it if your WIFI covers your entire lawn and if you don’t want to be able to track your Landroid, if stolen.
How it works
The Landroid needs you to install a boundary cable that defines the area in which the Landroid is to work. It is very important that you follow the installation instructions and give sufficient room between the cable and objects, as the Landroid follows the cable when it returns home to the base.
Make sure to make room between the boundary cable and objects like stones and walls – here the Landroid cannot pass the concrete block….
Compared to more expensive robots that have a so called guiding cable, which is a separate cable guiding the robot back to the base, the Landroid finds it way back to the base by searching for the boundary cable and following this counterclockwise until it is at the base. Any object along the boundary cable that stops the Landroid will be a show stopper, as the Landroid logically follows the boundary cable to find home.
Two metal arms stick out to the right hand side of the Landroid and connects to the base for charging. The green flashing light shows charging is in progress.
It is also important that the lawn is free from any obstacles like fallen down branches, apples and tools from the shed, otherwise it will impair the operation of the Landroid. This was a little new to me, it is just like having a toddler where you keep objects out of reach to avoid problems…
The Landroid has decided to battle a rake and at this point it is difficult to call a winner…
The philosophy
Maybe a big word to use about a lawn mover, but it does operate somewhat differently from the Husquarna that I also have had the pleasure to test:
First, the Landroid has only one nose wheel, and this makes it very vulnerable to holes in the lawn. I had to fix several holes that I did not know I had before the Landroid would operate without interruptions. So you may want to get a lawn mover robot with 2 nose wheels if you plan to use it in less-than-perfect lawns.
Second, the Landroid only cuts 1/2 the width of the body. You can see here in the image below that the black area is where the crass is cut (my fingers show the cut area), behind the orange area there is nothing going on! So the Landroid needs to do a lot of back and forth in order to cut the lawn, as the blade is rather small. My guess is that the advantage is that the motor is less a strain on the battery and hence the Landroid can go for much longer stints than had it needed to power the motor to drive a larger blade. And it brutally drives the battery down to 10% before returning to base – other more conservative robots do that at 30%. And the battery can be used in other power tools from Worx and the other way around. So if you have several tools from Worx, you can share battery “pool” with the Landroid.
The “mouth” where the grass is cut. It is not the full width of the robot.
Third, the designers at Worx have prioritized that the robot is not to work when it rains! I have always been told that cutting the grass in rain is a waste of time, as the grass just bends and is not cut. But the much more expensive Husquarna I have tested did not have this ability.
The Landroid comes with sensors to detect rain, and if it is working, it returns to base, and if it is about to start, you can set up how long time it should delay its work, once the rain has stopped.
The rain sensor on top of the Landroid
In contrast to the rain sensor, the cutting height cannot be controlled via an app as some of the more expensive robots offer. On the Landroid the height is controlled by a large turning knob on top of the body that determines the cutting height in mm’s. It feels a bit primitive, but when I think about how few times I have changed the cutting height, this seems to be a good place to lower the ambitions.
Cutting height is set to 50 mm here.
Operation
The Landroid is rather quiet. You can hear it working, but it is certainly not bad at all. Actually, it has several times bumped into me, as I was so absorbed in garden work that I did not hear it approaching.
The name M700 indicates that it can handle a lawn up to 700 square meters – mine is a bit smaller than that, and the Landroid seems rather relaxed maintaining the back yard of my house. In order to also handle the very small front yard that I have, I would need to install a second boundary cable, and move the robot. The front yard is simply too small for that, so my trusty old petrol driven lawn mover is still with me, and we cut the front yard in approx. 5 minutes. Notice also that the Landroid does not do corners very well, nor the area just outside the boundary wire (remember: you need some safety margin) so the good old petrol driven one also helps me out here.
The Landroid drive is pretty powerful. The two large rear wheels and a very small front wheel gives it lots of traction and it happily pushes smaller chairs around on the patio. It also detects non-movable objects such as a wall and makes recovery moves to get on with the job. In few cases have I seen the Landroid trapped, but that has been when the arms on the right hand side of the body have been caught in a branch or two, otherwise the Landroid does an pretty good job of pulling itself out of problems. But mind you that it does not like lack of space between the boundary cable and solid objects. And if holes in the lawn catches the tiny front wheel, then the Landroid gets stuck.
In terms of configuration I have simply asked the Landroid to generate a standard scheme, and made a few modifications on top of that. That works fine. You can see here in the display below that the Landroid is charging (43%) and that the schedule covers all days of the week – if no black box behind the letter of the day, then the Landroid has a day off (I’m a tough employer and it has duties all 7 days a week, but starts later in the day Saturday and Sunday).
You protect the Landroid settings with a passcode, but I am not sure how effective that is when it comes to theft – in that case you need to buy the GPS module to find your Landroid again.
The Landroid will make lines in the grass when cutting. In the image below, the morning dew clearly shows where the Landroid has been, but that quickly disappears and in general the lawn appears very neat and tidy when the Landroid takes care of it.
What is worse is that the Landroid works along the boundary cable so much that it eventually makes small tracks in the grass… Even if you ask the Landroid not to cut along the boundary wire, the Landroid will make tracks in the grass. Here I really miss the guiding cable from more expensive models…
Conclusion
What I like:
Price
Battery life / stint duration
Quiet operation
Easy setup
Good traction and trap recovery
Battery share with other Worx products
What I did not like:
Leaves tracks along the boundary cable
Does not handle corners well, nor the outside if the perimeter cable
Only one nose wheel – vulnerable to holes in the lawn
No GPS tracking (additional investment)
Vulnerable to boundary cable blunders
App does not work then WiFi coverage is missing / weak
Chromatic aberrations, often abbreviated to CA, is lines of color, typically along high contrast areas in your image. These lines do not reflect what the lens actually saw – it is created in the lens as the light travels through. It is also known as purple fringing or color fringing. So your lens simply adds a line of color along a high contrast area.
Chromatic aberration – notice the line to the right of the stem…
In the image above shot with the Nikkor 28-105mm (formerly a kit lens), the CA is really bad – notice the vertical line that follows the left hand side of the stem, but also all the leaves with white background suffer from serious CA – they are almost more purple than green!
The reason for this is a fault in the lens, where it does not manage to align the different wavelengths of light correct. The reason can be the lens design, slight movement of the glass over years (wear and tear simply) or a combination of the two.
If you notice CA while shooting, you can try to stop down the lens a bit, i.e. go to a higher f-stop number. CA is known to be worse at wide apertures, so this may help you reduce the problem.
Your post processing software can remove some parts of the CA, but not necessarily all. Lightroom has different sliders that you can try to use, if the standard checkbox “remove CA” does not work. I find that in many cases it works, but there are still a few images where I have not been able to remove the CA. If the CA is too bad and it cannot be removed in post, the only option left is to convert the image to a B&W image, as the CA is reduced to a slight blur in the image.
The Fuji X-T20 is far from the latest and greatest from Fuji – the X-T30 was released in 2019, two years after the release of the X-T20. So firmware updates apart, the X-T20 is approaching it’s 5 year birthday, and in the world of technology that is simply forever! And with the X-T40 rumored for 2022, the X-T20 falls even further behind relative to the latest and greatest, not to mention the big brothers, the X-T3 and the X-T4. And that is probably also why Fuji has stopped the production of the X-T20.
So why bother with the X-T20? Well, I have 2 principles when I buy gear: I try not to buy the latest model, and I if I can, I try to get a (slightly) used copy. It’s all about budget and price/performance ratio.
Camera manufacturers will exaggerate improvements from one version to another and make it look like a revolution that will change your photography capabilities dramatically and take you to a new level. However, this is seldom the case. Camera technology evolves in fine steps, and true ground breaking cameras are seldom, more often it is minor steps like:
a bit more frames per second,
better resolution in the electronic viewfinder
slightly improved ISO performance
improved battery life
60/120 frames per second in video to replace 30/60 frames per second, etc.
But I get it – the camera industry makes a living selling new cameras. If you buy a used copy of the X-T20 over at mpb.com then Fuji makes no money from that transaction. So of course they will market the marginal improvements as giant steps, and for many professionals these minor improvements can save time and workflow, and as the saying goes: time is money, so buying the latest camera model makes a lot of sense for hard working professionals.
The Fujifilm X-T20 close up. Here in the silver version, it also comes in black.
Here in September 2021 I found a used copy of the X-T20 over at mpb.com for around 450 EUR. Compare that to a new X-T30 that Amazon.de sells for around 900 EUR. Both prices are body only. I hope that my point about (1) buying used and (2) not the latest model, makes sense now.
Why I love this little camera…
To me the Fuji X-T20 is an excellent combination of weight, size and image quality. It often competes with my Sony RX100 when I have to decide which camera to throw in my camera bag.
The Fuji is larger and more heavy than the Sony, but still small and light (830 grams body only) and it does not bother me too much when biking or hiking. If you can, see if you can get the body in combination with a kit lens, say the 18-55 mm (27-82mm full frame equivalent), and you have a really good lightweight solution. The Fuji X-T20 is a cropped sensor camera (APS-C) and I find the lenses to be really light and compact relative to full frame.
The XF 18-55mm zoom lens is an excellent first lens for the X-T20
The image quality (IQ) is really good and I find that the RAW files are of excellent quality. The 24MP sensor gives more than enough resolution. Only if you want to crop a lot, you may lack resolution, but for most 24MP is more than plenty. My trusty old Nikon D700 has 12MP and that works fine as well, just to give a reference point.
The APS-C sensor struggles in low light however – this is not a Fuji specific observation. I have had the same issue with Nikon D5600 and D7500 that are also cropped sensor cameras. For low light photography I prefer full frame and even though modern sensors can successfully crank up the ISO to compensate for lack of light to a large extend, then full frame will always come out on top. So for low light, I would not use APS-C cameras. But for just about any other situation, I find the IQ is great!
Comparing the files that comes out of the X-T20 with the ones from the X-T3, I must admit that I cannot see the difference! I think this is more a tribute to the X-T20 than it is criticism of the X-T3, as the files look great! So in terms of IQ the little X-T20 gets top score from me!
If you really want to see the RAW files shine, then give Capture One a try. I normally use Lightroom as I find the file management to be the best, but Capture One has an edge when we are talking Fuji. Some of the images – not all, but some – turn out a sharpness and contrast that I have never seen in Lightroom. I even tried to import an image in both Lightroom and Capture One, and the difference was astonishing. So if you go for Fuji, I will strongly recommend you give Capture One a try as your post editing software. Mind you however, that it is not in all images I have noticed this difference.
The ergonomics of this little camera is not fantastic, but OK. It helps a lot that it is light and small and I like it so much more than the big brother X-T3 that I found way too heavy for my liking. The X-T20 is a 3-finger-camera and you don’t need to have all of your hand engaged to feel you have control of it.
I have added a grip to the camera to improve ergonomics.
However, in order to improve the ergonomics just a bit and give me more to hold on to, I have added a grip. I also, maybe more as a gimmick, added a little red metal button on top of the camera to make it easier to switch on/off + release the shutter. It is not a must have, but a small improvement, that once you get used to it, you don’t want to go back.
Fuji is notorious for it buttons and dials that shows you the settings directly rather than some value in an LCD. I think this works fine, but also feel that this small difference from a more traditional camera is often exaggerated to a level where I think: “Hey, take it easy, it’s just a camera…”.
Shutter speed dial to the left, exposure compensation to the right.
Contrary to Sony, the menu systems are logical and well organized. And especially the quick access menu that enables you to get to some of the most frequently used parameters really works well
The Q-button over the command wheel to the right gives access to the quick menu.
Things that could be better…
Relative to the X-T3 that I have owned and sold again, the buttons and dials of the X-T20 are not as rock solid in build quality. That is what is to be expected as the X-T20 is the little brother, but going back and forth between the two, you will notice a difference. Also, the X-T20 clearly has less computing power, and to boot the camera you will notice that the X-T20 is significantly slower here. Not a big thing when you get used to it, but if these things are important to you, then you may want to look at the X-T3 or X-T4.
The rear LCD is not fully articulating…
The LCD is not fully articulating, and if you plan to use this camera for Vlogging, this could be a showstopper. Mind you that the X-T30 albeit more resolution, also does not have a fully articulating screen.
I have never missed anything when it comes to the X-T20 and auto focus. With 325 focus points I find that is more than enough for my use, but mind you that I shoot more landscapes than portraits, and for portraits eye and face recognition is vital to secure you come home with razor sharp images solely. Also, for sports and things moving fast, I would imagine the AF system in the X-T20 would struggle as the computing power is on the low end relative to more modern cameras. They do put more and more computing power into cameras these days, and the firmware updates make sure to improve the AF capabilities and use the hardware to full extend, so this is probably an area where the X-T20 will feel dated if you compare to a more modern camera.
The viewfinder is not the best I have tried – relative to the X-T3 it leaves a lot to be desired. But you will be surprised what you can get used to. And it does get the job done, but clearly the viewfinder could be better. I suspect that Fuji deliberately makes the X-T4 viewfinder so much better to give a distinct differentiation towards the X-T20 and X-T30 (+ II), but I have no evidence to back this claim.
Being the budget version of its big brother the X-T2, there is of course a number of things that you miss when using the X-T20:
The single card slot
The lack of weather sealing
The lack of a battery grip as an option
The lack of a joystick to move the focus point
Etc
But I have learned to live with these setbacks just fine. Bring an extra battery as they run down fast, wrap the camera in a plastic bag in harsh weather, use the rear LCD to move the focus point around, etc. Of course it would be ideal to have all this solved using the X-T2 or X-T3, but I am surprised how easy I find it to live without these features.
For video, I have used the X-T20 a lot, and for its age it is impressive that it gives 4K video, albeit not at the crazy high frames per second rates that are in fashion these days. I did at some point experience that the recording of image and sound got out of sync, and as I could not figure out what was wrong, I ended up not using the X-T20 for video. Also, the fact that the LCD is not fully articulating makes video framing a bit cumbersome for my video needs. So I use other cameras for video now.
Conclusion
If you are after a small and light, easy to use all round camera and you are not into low light photography or a demanding videographer, then the X-T20 in my mind is an option that should be on your short list. Find a used copy in good condition, preferably including a kit lens, and you have a combo that will give you lots of great images. The fact that it has a vintage look and that you can get leather cases that will make it look even more cool, may also fit some of the more fashion conscious. And if you decide to invest in Capture One post processing software, the image quality may sometimes go to levels new to you.
When you zoom in and zoom out you expect the effect to be a change in angle of view, i.e. that the subject moves closer to you or further away.
When you turn the focus ring on your lens, you expect the lens to move the focal plane back and forth to focus on different subjects in the frame.
Focus breathing is when your lens does both at the same time! As you turn the focus ring the angle of view changes as well. In other words, the closer to yourself you zoom, the shorter your lens becomes! For example the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 is actually a 120mm when it focuses to minimum focus distance at 200mm!
Focus breathing is for most of us not an issue, but in two cases it can cause you a headache:
In a scene where you have two persons in the frame talking to each other and you want to focus back and forth between the two as they speak, you really don’t want to change the angle of view. It needs to be constant, otherwise the viewer gets confused at best, and a bit seasick at worst. You want that framing to be constant. For this reason, videographers absolutely do not like focus breathing.
Macro photographers struggle with focus breathing when doing image stacking, that aims to compensate for a very shallow DOF by blending images that have been shot of the same subject with varying focus points. Here you absolutely need the framing and angle of view to be constant, otherwise the image will look very strange or at worst your post processing software wont be able to blend the images.
So should you worry about focus breathing? Not really, if you ask me. Only in the two above specific cases would I worry.
Of course it can be annoying to know that your wonderful lens has focus breathing, but now that you know what it is and in which cases it is a problem, in all other cases you can disregard focus breathing.
Thank you for reading this far! Comments and questions more than welcome!
I have been bitten by the photography bug! And seriously! Hope you will to! In this short post I try to explain why I think photography has got under my skin so very fast and probably will sit there until I drop!
Starting to see
Photography really changed the way I see the world. I am not sure to what extend I actually saw it before I started to get serious with photography. It is as if photography opens your mind to new ways of of seeing the world, you will start to notice things that were irrelevant to you before or you simply did not care.
Mental side to it…
You will find that when you get serious with photography, then there is a mental side to it that starts to appear: you find that your concentration and focus while shooting pushes every other thought or concern away, leaving you fully engaged into the photography work. This is both refreshing and charges your batteries in a way that not many other activities do. To me photography has an element of mindfulness to it that you become more and more aware of the more you shoot.
Beautiful sunset made up of several images blended in post.
Meaning…
If you ask me to go for a walk, a hike or bike to a nice location, you probably would be able to persuade me into the activity. Repeat that, and remind me that I can bring my camera, and I am all onboard the proposal! To me photography brings meaning or an additional element into activities like that and I find that almost anything (like taking the bus to work) is an opportunity for photography. It may sound silly and it may just be me, but that added dimension to an activity means a lot to me!
Opening presents all the time
In a video with photographer Fiona Lark, she described the process of opening images in post processing software as opening little presents and see what they contain! I fully agree! Most of the time I am disappointed I must admit! But just once in a while I am positively surprised by what I have captured and what I can do with it in post processing. And to my surprise it is often those images that I think nothing of during the shoot that are the best when I get back to the computer.
A continuous process
I recently did an exhibition where I had to select which images to go on the exhibition and which to stay home. I absolutely hated it! Reflecting upon the reason for this, I think it is because photography to me is 90% process and 10% result, and when you are forced to draw a line in the sand and present your portfolio, you are confronted with the 10%. But to me that is not the vital part, and I have feeling that later today or tomorrow, I can do and will do better than what I have done so far. So if I can just get 5 more minutes before I have to present my work…. So the ambition and the work to make my work better and occasionally succeeding is what makes photography a lot of fun.
All the way…
As you get older, there are probably a few things that you have to drop either because it is no longer an interest of yours or you simply get too old. I can still both hike, bike, run and swim, but skiing and roller blades are no longer on my agenda, and as I get older, I expect the list of things I can do to be shorter and shorter. Photography is one of those things that I both hope and plan can stay with me all the way; maybe I cannot climb the highest of mountains to get the best views for my images, but less can certainly do! And I am sure I will enjoy it as much as any other photographer, both younger and more fit than me!
A short description of lens distortion, the two main types and to what extend you as a photographer should worry about distortion.
Straight lines…
Lens distortion is when a straight line in reality is not represented as a straight line in your image. It is caused by the lens and the way the lens glass elements shape the light on its way to the sensor or film in your camera.
Barrel distortion makes the center of the image pop out to appear closer to you even if the wall with these tiles is as straight as they come!
Modern lens constructions seldom have significant lens distortion, as the lens designers know that reviewers by tradition will test the lens for distortion and make a point of it if the lens suffers from distortion. In reality, most of us will never notice the distortion, and only if you shoot architecture, real estate or landscapes with edge-to-edge horizons will you notice the potential distortion in your lens.
Pincushion distortion makes the center of the image appear further away….
Wide lenses, i.e. lenses with a short focal length, suffers more from distortion than longer lenses. The wide field of view that a wide lens has makes it more of a challenge for lens designers to make the edges of the image free from distortion. A good example where the designers deliberately have given up is a so called fish eye lens (say 8mm focal length), where the distortion to a large extend is the point.
In Lightroom and similar editing tools, the lens profile is available to the software and hence the distortion can easily be corrected in post, just by ticking off an option during post processing. In some cases the camera and the lens in combination is able to remove the distortion as part of the cameras internal processing of the image, and hence the image that you find on the memory card of your camera is distortion free from birth.
Thank you for reading this far! Comments and questions more than welcome!
Back in 1947 Nikon started making lenses and cameras for the F-mount, and even today (September 2021) they make both the lenses and DSLR cameras for this legendary mount. Contrary to Canon, Nikon’s F-mount is to a large extend backwards compatible all the way to the very first lenses.
Z-mount for mirrorless
A few years back Nikon introduced the Z-mount for their mirrorless camera series. The mount is bigger and has a smaller flange distance, which according to Nikon should give better image quality. I think this is most relevant for short lenses as long lenses will angle the light the same way irrespective of the mount size.
The Z-mount is not directly compatible with the F-mount. You need a so called FTZ (F-mount to Z-mount) adaptor to use the F-mount lenses on the mirrorless cameras. More about this later. Nikon is working hard to deliver more and more lenses to their mirrorless cameras and they have a roadmap defined for when what lenses comes out, but currently there are a lot to be desired and at the time of writing this, it is regarded as one of the drawbacks of the Nikon mirrorless cameras.
F-mount History
In very broad terms, Nikon has made 3 types of lenses for the F-mount:
1947: Manual focus (pre-AI, AI and AIS)
1986: Mechanical auto focus (AF and AF-D)
1998: Auto focus with a focus motor built into the lens (AF-S or G-series)
(1) The manual focus lenses of course do not provide any sort of automated focus capabilities; they were designed long before auto-focus technology was invented. So no matter how advanced your camera body is, the manual focus lens will stay manual focus.
(3) The auto focus lenses with a built in motor (AF-S) is the latest and greatest technology for the F-mount. A built in motor enables the focus to work both very fast and very silent as the motor can sit very close to the glass it is moving. It is a engineering masterpiece in terms of space management, as the motor and mechanics has to be squeezed into a very small space.
(2) The mechanical auto focus (AF) is based on a cooperation between your lens and the camera body – it is a very good practical illustration that it takes two to tango: The focus motor sits in the camera body and drives a metal piece that sticks out of the camera body, whereas the glass has a purely mechanical focus drive that links into the motor of the camera body.
The focus motor drives shown here – it goes flush with the lens mount when the switch on the camera body is change from AF to M
The camera body can then via commands to the motor drive the lens glass back and forth. Such glass is typically named AF or AF-D by Nikon.
Mechanical AF
One of the Nikon related questions I get the most often relates to AF glass: Will the auto focus work for this lens? The answer in most cases is yes, but there are a few exceptions: these are what Nikon call the entry level camera bodies in their DSLR setup. The Cameras named D3x00 and D5x00 (e.g. D5600) do not have the focus motor built into them and hence there is no way the camera body can drive the mechanical auto focus. That is why I do not recommend the D3x00 and D5x00 camera bodies. It is not because these cameras are APS-C cameras (i.e. cropped sensors relative to full frame) but because Nikon decided to leave the motors out of these bodies in the expectation that buyers of these bodies were unlikely to buy AF glass. For enthusiast level APS-C cameras such as the D500, D7100, D7200 and D7500 there is a motor in the camera body.
Here is the little screw that drives the mechanical AF. You can actually take a screwdriver and turn the AF yourself to get a feel for how it works!
Unfortunately Nikon did not build an autofocus motor into their mirrorless camera bodies, and hence these share the same fate as the D3x00 and D5x00, i.e. that AF F-mount glass will not yield auto focus. One could have hoped that Nikon would have built the motor into the FTZ adaptor, but so far this has not been the case. We are still many that hope this will come, either from Nikon or a 3rd party provided, but so far (September 2021) no luck! The AF-S series lenses where the motor is built into the lens will work with the FTZ adaptor, and hence some F-mount lenses do give auto focus on a mirrorless camera, but not those with mechanical auto focus.
Distance information
The difference between AF and AF-D lenses is that the -D ones gives distance information as well via the CPU contacts. This helps the more advanced metering options such as the matrix metering to give better results. As a rule of thumb, the AF-D lenses are optically similar to the -D lenses, but there may of course be slight variations for specific lenses.
The Nikkor 35-70 is a classic lens in the AF line-up, and it gives distance information
Lens motor built in or not
Should you buy AF or AF-S glass? It depends very much on your budget and ambitions. AF-S glass is significantly more expensive than the AF glass, but it also works fast and silently, so for e.g. wildlife shooters or video shooters with a microphone close to the lens this could be crucial. Also, AF-S glass will work on a mirrorless camera with a FTZ adaptor, so if your plans are to go mirrorless at a later stage, then the AF-S glass is “future proofed” with autofocus.
AF glass on the other hand is available on say e-Bay for a bargain, and if you buy from a seller with a good reputation (and even factor in import taxes and transportation costs), you will find that you can get glass that is of astonishing quality for a fraction of the price of modern glass. But your camera body needs that AF motor…
Nikon 28-105mm with variable aperture and a macro mode. It is surprisingly light for a zoom lens and the image quality is really good. Only issue is the bad CA and that getting a good copy can be a challenge. AF on this one only works of your camera has a built in AF motor, e.g. AF will not work on the Nikon D5600.
Back to the past…
Glass that is older, i.e. AI, AIS and pre-AI, can also offer price/performance ratios that you will never get close to with modern glass. The further you go back, the more challenges you will face. The pre-AI requires you to modify the lens mount slightly to fit on a modern camera and the older lens constructions often have optical flaws and limited control of flare or distortion etc. So for these lenses you may want to do your homework carefully before buying, check that you don’t mind focusing manually AND make sure to look in the mirror and confirm that you see a vintage lens enthusiast before you buy.
Zoom versus primes
Zooms versus primes is a debate as old as photography itself. Back in the days the primes were clearly more sharp than zooms, as the construction is much simpler and hence easier to make consistent from copy to copy.
Variations between copies from the same production line is a known issue – Nikon has always been good at managing this, especially for lenses “made in Japan”, but the wear and tear on any lens can deteriorate performance, no matter how perfect it was when it left the production line.
More modern lenses have clearly proved that zooms are at level with primes, so I think that most AF-S zoom lenses can be considered as sharp as a prime. But the zoom still has two major disadvantages: weight and price. And if a zoom has to cover a large range, it becomes difficult for the lens designers to maintain a constant maximum aperture – here the (short) prime often makes mincemeat of the longer zoom lenses.
So if low weight and small size is important to you, then a prime may be the way to go. Also, a prime can be a true challenge as you impose a limitation that the zoom does not, and that limitation can spark some creativity that you did not know you possessed! And both weight and cost wise, you can “afford” two primes in the camera bag (say a 24mm and a 50mm) and still be below the price of a zoom to cover the same range.
