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.
What if I told you that there is a magic little gadget you can buy and install between your lens and camera, and all of a sudden the lens is significantly longer and has more reach? Does that sound too good to be true? Well, it is not. The name is teleconverter, and it comes in different variations but they all do the same: make your lens longer.
Teleconverters for Nikon comes in 1.4x, 1.7x and 2.0x meaning that the length of your lens is extended with 40%, 70% and whopping 100%! And good news is that the teleconverter is a relatively small device that does not add much weight to your setup. But it is not a free ride.
First, extenders are expensive. In order for the converter to work well and not deteriorate image quality, the glass in the converter has to be of super high quality. In addition the converter has to be 100% transparent in facilitating the communication between the lens and the camera in order for the auto focus system to work as efficient and fast as without the converter. That is a demanding challenge for the engineers. So good converters are expensive for good reasons.
Second, getting a teleconverter that works with your lens and camera may be a bit of a pain, especially if you say shoot with a Nikon body and a Tamron lens – should you then go with a Nikon teleconverter or a Tamron teleconverter? Difficult to say if you ask me. You can get third party converters that are more reasonably priced than the main brands, but make sure you study the spec sheet to see if your combo of lens and body is supported.
Third, the speed of your lens is affected negatively. How much depends on the specific model, but you can rest assured that if you have f/2.8 as your current widest aperture, then that max aperture will drop as a consequence of adding a teleconverter. So if you are shooting fast moving subjects, this could be a negative impact you seriously need to take into consideration before making the buy decision. And in addition most teleconverters will also give rise to a slight decline in image quality although the very best teleconverters will keep this decline at an absolute minimum.
And finally, if we are talking Nikon, the teleconverters only work on full frame lenses with built in auto focus motors. So AF glass will not do. Nor will APS-C glass.
So, as you have maybe guessed, I am a bit sceptical when it comes to teleconverters. I know many professional wildlife photographers use teleconverters with great success, but I just want you to understand all the down sides of the teleconverters before you go for it. Alternatively, of you have an APS-C camera lying around, try mounting that to your full frame lens – that will give you 40-50% more reach for free. Of course you then run around with a lot of glass you don’t use, but at least you are using the best part of the glass in the lens – the centre part. I have had my Nikon Z50 mounted with my 200-500 Nikkor lens and that gave a wonderful boost to the reach.
No introduction needed? In photography I guess Steve McCurry is as famous as Rolling Stones is amongst rock fans. An institution. Member of Magnum Photos of course. Long standing contributor to National Geographics. Ropert Capa gold medal. The list goes on.
Looking East, portraits by Steve McCurry.
His image of the Afghan girl spiralled him into fame a long time ago, and the circumstances in which the image was taken has recently just added to the myth and the fame.
But back to planet earth and this book. It is quite large measuring approx 28 by 38 centimeter and contrary to what I had expected, it is not a hardback. Despite this, there is still a premium feel to the book, as each image is given a full page with the opposite page simply listing the location of the shoot.
You’ll find 120 images all shot in South and Southeast Asia. All portraits: Men, women and children. There is very little text in the book – normally you’ll find some curator introducing a photo book with 3-4 pages of intellectual perspectives to the photographers work and how the specific collection in the book came about. Not here. Apart from some few notes on the cover the the book, you will only find 120 wonderful images. The Independent is quoted for writing that “his images often dance on a knife-edge between sensuality and tragedy, sentiment and anguish”.
The picture that made Steve McCurry famous.
My label on McCurry’s work is “intense”. It is a part of the world where the colours are intense as well as the people. McCurry’s photography work is of course technically impeccable, but add to that the ability to capture people in exactly that split second where they reveal something more than just a headshot. And then of course travelling a part of the world that has fascinated him ever since he crossed the Pakistan border for the first time, many, many years ago.
If you like portraits, if you like a good coffee table book and if you like South and Southeast Asia, then this book is an absolute must. It is priced around 25 pounds here in 2023 and if you ask me, it is worth every penny.
Colour is reproduced mixing 3 channels of primary colour (Red, Green, Blue) and the colour depth tells how much information can be stored per colour channel. As each bit can hold a value of either 1 or 0, and combining say 8 bits for one channel allows to store up to 2^8=256 different values.
If there is room for 8 bits per channel, the total number of colours will then be a combination of the 3 channel meaning 256*256*256 = more than 16 million combinations. So a 8 bit colour depth yields more than 16 million combinations.
Notice that if the image is monochromatic and e.g. only uses the red channel, then the number of combinations are dramatically reduced as the other channels are not used for storing information.
Ravens by Fukase is consistently proclaimed as one of the most important photo books in the history of the medium. That is pretty big words, but I must say that after reading the book, I tend to agree.
Ravens by Fukase comes in a grey cover to protect the black hardcover book.
Fukase’s life was certainly not an easy one and his studies of the ravens is all about solitude and feeling alone. So do not expect this book to be an easy read – it is as brutal and dark as it gets, and yet there is also a stunning beautiful side to these images. It is probably this stark contrast that makes this book so extraordinary. And of course the life of Fukase, which is the backdrop for the images presented in Ravens.
Ravens by Fukase – black hard cover.
Not everyone agrees that this is one of the most important photography books ever. Maybe it is because the book is more appreciated if you know a little about the life of Fukase? That Japanese mythology sees Ravens as omens of impending doom? That Fukase for many years photographed nothing but his wife? That his last 20 years was spent in a coma after an almost fatal accident? The saying that the photographs say more about the photographer than the subject is perhaps more true when it comes to Fukase than anyone else. Fukase said that he had become a raven himself.
Sample image from the book. The flash light illuminates the eyes of the ravens.
All this is as dark as it gets. But there is also great beauty to be found in this book if you look for it, and hence this book comes with my highest recommendations.
I must admit that I keep getting confused about specular light vs diffused light relative to soft light vs hard light. It is especially diffused light and soft light that I mix up, but let me give it a try.
If you see tarmac on a sunny day, the tarmac does not reflect very much light (it tends to absorb the light and get warm for that reason), but as soon as you have rain hitting the tarmac, the water on the surface will start reflecting the light and will do so in a way where the incoming light is reflected pretty close to how it arrived. So all of a sudden the reflections of the light in the water is very bright – I am sure you have tried this driving home late at night; the headlights from the oncoming cars is suddenly a nuisance because the rain set in.
So for me specular light is very much about the “dynamic range” of how the light is reflected on a surface. If the brights are very bright and the darks are very dark, then the light is specular. Remember here that the nature of the light is assessed looking at how it is reflected by the subject.
Diffused light however will have much less contrast between light and dark. It tend to be more “shades of grey” than black and white, to put it simply. The subject appears more evenly lit.
One of the tests that I often do when reviewing a lens is to shoot a piece of tinfoil curled up into a ball. Such a subject will yield specular light where the brights are very bright and the darks are very dark; excellent for revealing issues with chromatic aberrations, which you will often see where the contrast between bright and dark meet.
Shooting tethered is great if you want to see the result of your work in large format right after you have hit the shutter! Or if you want to present the client with the result instantly – the feedback can be valuable and you can change the scene or the setting on the fly rather than the client being disappointed seeing the result some days later. No much how much editing you do, it is difficult to change a headshot if the client suddenly sees that the shirt he is wearing is not fit for purpose, or the like.
What you need
You obviously need your beloved Nikon D4 with a charged battery and a lens mounted, but in addition you will – as the name indicates – need a cable. They come in many shapes and forms and different lengths, but you can start looking for what you’ve got on stock to see if you can get going without buying a cable. It is a regular cable, a USB one, with a USB-A connector in one end and a mini-B in the other.
The cable needed for shooting tethered with the Nikon D4 is a SUB one with USB-A in one and mini-B in the other. I got my camera used and the cable came with the camera.
The second thing you will need is a piece of software to communicate with the Nikon D4. I am not sure of NX tether will work with the D4 or D4S as the spec sheet only promises it will work for the D6 and more modern cameras.
I use Lightroom and it works ok, although on my Mac it has a tendency to crash often – usually in the beginning of a session and then it stabilises. I don’t have that issue on my Windows laptop.
I know that many portrait photographers prefer to use Capture One and that is an alternative to Lightroom. I am not aware of any freeware that will support tethered capture.
The final thing you will need is a computer with a screen. If I am out and about I use my laptop and the screen it has – it is clearly not as big as my office monitor, but so much bigger than the rear LCD of the Nikon D4. If I am in the office I use my mac mini with a 32″ monitor attached.
How
If you hook up the Nikon D4 to the laptop / PC / mac with the USB cable and make sure the camera is turned on, the only thing to do is to activate tethered capture in (in my case) Lightroom. I do that by simply selecting: File > Tethered capture > start tethered capture, and confirm using the window that appears. You will start session where the images are transferred to a dedicated folder in Lightroom and they will emerge as you shoot – one by one. The transfer time is rather fast – I would estimate it to be 1 second or thereabout.
Backup
Be mindful that the images are NOT stored on the memory cards on the Nikon D4 when you are shooting in tethered mode. They are transferred directly to the laptop / PC / mac and only stored there. I recommend that you asap and preferably in real time take a backup of the images.
When you shoot with the Nikon D4 without tethering and with 2 card slots, you automatically have a backup as the images are written to both cards. This is not the case when shooting tethered, so make sure you have a process for making backups asap.
Other than that, there is not much to it! I wish you all the best with tethered shooting.
Front page of Josef Koudelka’s book Exiles. The front page image is probably the most famous of all Koudelka’s work.
Koudelka is right up there with some of the biggest photographers of all time like Henri Cartier-Bresson, so if you are interested in photography and you have not enjoyed the work of Koudelka, you have something to look forward to! In the book by David Gibson with 100 iconic images, of course there is one by Koudelka, actually exactly the same as covers the front page of this book: Exiles.
Be aware that the book has developed since the 1988 classic was published, and more images have been added, so if you want the full monty, make sure to get the latest version of the book (shopping link right here).
Simple and yet very powerful. That is my best way of describing many of Koudelka’s images. “Simple” is not a good word as it may give the wrong associations, but is the best I can come up with.
Cornell Capa is quoted on the cover sleeve to say that “Koudelka’s unsentimental, stark, brooding, intensely human imagery reflects his own spirit, the very essence of an exile who is at home wherever his wandering body finds haven in the night.” So you can really put some serious words and analysis to Koudelka’s work, and curators and others absolutely love to add some of the most complicated words available to praise Koudelka’s work. I have no ambition to compete with all that.
I’ll let the image speak for itself.
Rather, I would quote Leonardo da Vinci for saying something close to this: “Simplification is the ultimate sophistication”. I know wise men debate if it was actually Leonardo saying this and if these were the exact words, but the gist of it is what I want to get to, because it describes how I see Koudelka’s work. His images are so powerful and clear in their communication, and there is not a single distraction or any object in the images that do not aid the storytelling. The motto of photographer Joel Sartore is that if something in your frame is not working with you, it is actually working against you. It seems to me that Koudelka, who probably knows nothing of Joel’s motto, is the embodiment of working according to this rule.
You can analyse this image from a composition point of view until you drop dead. Or you can just enjoy the image of a master.
So Koudelka is a big inspiration for my aspirations as a photographer. And for that reason and of course I can recommend this book about Koudelka. There are a few interesting introduction pages, but otherwise the book simply present 75 of Koudelka’s images (+ index). And what images! In this blog I have shared 3 examples beyond the front page, and I hope they will inspire you to seek out more of Koudelka’s outstanding work.
DPI is dots per inch, and is often used to describe the (max) resolution a printer can offer, but it is also applicable for scanners. Contrary to PPI, the DPI for a printer or a scanner is not fixed but can vary subject to the print mode. So you can print and scan at different DPI levels, subject to your needs. The higher the resolution required, the longer the scan or print will take, so when you don’t nee the high resolution, it is nice to be able to prioritise speed over resolution.
When printing, the DPI needs to be significantly higher than the PPI for a screen, and this is because the printer builds a colour combining different base colours, and hence more base colour dots in combination are needed to make up for a similar dot on the screen. So when you read the spec sheet for a good colour printer, the DPI is often much higher than the PPI for a screen.
At the last routine check my dentist was rather insisting: “You got to clean especially your gums and the room between your teeth much better than what you do today!” She was unusually upset!
There is a thing with me an dentists: I never get any praise, rather the opposite! But this time around the dentist was a bit more insisting that usually! I thought I was about to get a little bit of praise having replaced my trusty old classic toothbrush with an electric toothbrush, but no, she apparently wanted more!
“You got to go and buy a Oral-B, the IO series, and it has to be at least number 8!” – “Ok”, I thought, that was pretty direct instructions, and after having checked she herself did not sell it (and hence her advice might have been a bit biased) I headed towards to local hardware store to get as prescribed.
Unfortunately the local shop only had series 4 and 5, and the instruction was to get IO 8, so I had to order online to get my copy for around 220 EUR! Not cheap, but what do you not do to make your dentist happy!
The Oral-B IO 8 has two buttons only: One to switch on/off and another to change between different programs for brushing your teeth.
I do not have a full overview of the Braun Oral-B series of products, but my best guess is that they get more and more expensive and advanced as you move up the number series. The IO 10 is the top of the pop, but apparently I could do with a version 8.
In the box
In the box: A little pouch (top), a plastic box to hold 2 brush heads, the brush head and a magnetic charger (right). Of course also the brush itself, which is not shown here.
In the box you will find the brush itself, a charger, a brush head, a container for 2 brush heads and a little pouch for the brush and accessories.
The manual looks overwhelming, but it is only because many languages are supported. After reading 2 pages approx, you are good to go. The graphics are simple and easy to understand.
The manual is actually only a few pages in many different languages, so it is quickly read, and it is supplemented by some graphics that are easy to understand. You’ll be up and running in no time. One of the most important features is the backlit ring at the bottom of the brush head – this ring will tell you if you apply to much, to little or just the right amount of pressure to the brush when holding it against your teeth and gums. I was surprised to learn that apparently I apply way too little pressure! Another thing is that you have to brush your teeth in front of a mirror, so you can continuously monitor that you apply the right amount of pressure.
App and bluetooth
App and brush. The app will guide you though the brush process and give you real time feedback on your performance. And of course keep stats on all your tooth brush sessions!
Of course this toothbrush has an app that will give you guidance and tell you how well you are doing in terms of brushing all your teeth and brushing them well! The most complicated in terms of getting to know the brush was to download the app, but I found it in the App store almost immediately. The brush and the app hook up via bluetooth when within close range. You just shake the toothbrush, and it will activate the bluetooth connection.
With the app on the phone, you can follow your progress as you brush your teeth. The blue graphics changes from blue to white as you progress.
During the process, the app will colour from blue to white according to your progress with brushing your teeth clean. I find it a little bit difficult to both keep an eye on the colour on the toothbrush itself (right amount of pressure) and an eye on the app (brushing completeness).
The light ring at the base of the brush tells you if you apply sufficiently pressure: Green = ok. Red = too much. Blue = too little.
Daily routine
Charging is as easy as it can be: simply leave the brush on top of the charger and it takes care of the process. The battery is a Li-On battery and that usually means the battery will last for a long time without charging – I have not stress tested this specifically but it easily does my tooth brushing for several days with no need for recharging.
Relative to my more traditional Oral-B electric toothbrush, this one does not have a large hole at the bottom. That means it is much easier to keep the charger and the bottom of the brush clean.
In your bathroom cabinet you will find that the toothbrush takes up very little space. It is tall, but otherwise takes up less space than say a tube of toothpaste.
The Oral-B IO 8 does not take up much space when viewed from this angle!
Using the brush is not complicated, but it did take me some time to learn to brush my teeth in front of a mirror in order to read the pressure colour ring.
Conclusion
I do not know yet if I have passed the exam, as I have to visit my dentist yet one more time to understand if she is happy with my work with the new brush. I will say though that it does feel like my teeth are more clean than ever, and the app and the brush has provided much guidance and feedback that I would not have got with a more basic electric toothbrush.
The price is steep, but if you look at it as insurance money intended to protect you from some nasty dentist bills coming your way, then you might find that in the long run the Oral-B IO 8 is worth every EUR, and then some.
The Nikon D4 is a professional level camera announced by Nikon back in 2012, and measured in terms of technical development, this is really a long time ago! A lot has happened to the cameras in terms of video capability, computing power and the notorious move to mirrorless cameras.
Within the professional series of Nikon cameras, the D4 is now several generations old. So it is a bit up-hill for this trusty old DSLR. And to make it worse, the D4 was replaced by the D4S with even better specs, but of course the D4S comes with a somewhat higher price tag. You can find my reasons for choosing the D4 over the D4S right here (yes, I am cheap!).
Convincing build quality
When you hold the Nikon D4 for the first time, you will notice the size of the camera! It is huge and heavy! My Nikon D700 plus a battery grip is also big and heavy, but the D4 is just a little bit more bulky. When I add my 70-200mm f/2.8 G lens, the combo becomes crazy heavy. If you are an event shooter that needs to hand-hold the camera throughout the day, make sure you try the camera with your lens of preference before you invest.
You have a feeling that the D4 can roll down a mountainside and the only thing that will happen is that the mountain will be hurt! Jokes aside, it is a very convincing camera in terms of its build quality. But if you don’t like a heavy camera, stay clear of the Nikon D4. It is the biggest camera I have ever owned! The D4 body is 1.2 kilos!
The feeling of top level quality continues when you hit the shutter: it is a heavy sound that shutter makes! If you put the camera in continuous mode, the sound is like a machine gun! I am not a camera engineer, but just from using it, I am left with the impression that this camera will last for years and years. Specs say the shutter will last 400.000 actuations, but IRL the shutter will probably last much longer.
The D4 was built for speed with especially sports and wildlife photographers in mind. For it’s time, it can move a lot of data from the sensor to the buffer and stay at 10 FPS. The buffer can hold up to 100 RAW images. You may think that I am crazy getting the Nikon D4 when I have no need for the speed really, but I simply had to try one of the professional level cameras, and the D4 was the most affordable without being antique.
Ergonomics
I’ve got big hands, and the D4 is a wonderful camera to hold, despite it’s significant weight! Across the D700, D750, D7500, D5600 and Z6ii that I have tried, the D4 has the best ergonomics of them all.
The joystick of the Nikon D4 sits just above the command wheel.
The button layout of the D4 reminds me of what you’ll find on a Nikon D700, but there are some twists. It seems that Nikon constantly try to improve the shooting experience, and hence makes little tweaks from one camera generation to the next. One of the things many love to hate is the joysticks to move the focus point around – they find them too small, to flimsy and report that they simply fall of the camera after a while. I am happy to report that mine are still around, and serve me well, but if you have small hands, you may find it a bit difficult to get your thumb to reach the joystick as you have to get passed the command wheel!
The rear LCD works really well, but forget about a a tilting or an articulating screen – this one sits in the camera body and stays there! Also, if you have gotten used to zooming in and out by pinching and zooming on the screen, you will need to re-learn to use the + and – buttons in the left side of the camera. The screen will ignore you otherwise! So here the cameras age starts to show. But then on the other hand you get a pro level camera where the buttons are backlit (!) which when shooting at night / low light is an absolute blessing that I wish Nikon would bring to their enthusiast level cameras.
The expected battery life of 2600 shots seems absolutely mind-blowing! This I got from the spec sheet, but in real life the battery life is impressive, actually so impressive that I often forget to charge the battery on a regular basis! There is no need! Be aware though that if you shoot in Live View a lot, then the rear LCD will drain the battery a lot faster.
Two cards slots of course in the Nikon D4.
The D4 of course comes with 2 card slots, but be aware that one is an XQD slot, the other is a CF (Compact Flash) slot. The XQD card type never really caught on and for that reason only few vendors produce the card today, which drives the prices upwards, unfortunately. Add the price of a good XQD card to the price of the camera before making the purchase decision, in case the XQD card is not included.
Video
The Nikon D4 does decent video (1080p), but if you look at what a modern hybrid mirrorless camera can do in terms of resolution and FPS, then the D4 cannot keep up.
The video capabilities of the D4 do not impress anymore.
The D4 is well connected with ports for HDMI, network, USB, microphone and headset. WiFi or bluetooth or other similar wireless options are not built into the camera, and again the age starts to show.
The Nikon D4 has lots of connectors and each is behind it’s own separate door.
I must admit that I have not used the D4 for video as my Nikon Z6ii is so much more capable with more resolution, more FPS, IBIS, etc, and I think most hybrid shooters today will find that the D4 is a tad too old to serve as their camera.
Image quality
The image quality of the D4 in one word? Outstanding!
I know that many will wrinkle their nose when they in the spec sheet read that the sensor has “only” 16mp resolution and wonder if that will ever suffice. Many entry level cameras today have 24mp and the number seems to go up and up. But be mindful that the camera producers are very aware that this is one of the parameters buyers can relate to and are looking for – so it is a competitive parameter more than it has to do with image quality. Just like an amplifier for your stereo equipment does not get better the more watts it can output, the same way your camera body’s quality is not directly correlated to the resolution of the sensor.
The images that the D4 produces are stellar, and I am particularly fond of the colour rendition. Many praise the D700 for being a special camera with a special sensor, but when it comes to colour rendition, the D4 IMHO is the best camera I have ever seen across all the different Nikon cameras I have tried. This can of course be related to my copy of the D4, what I shoot or what I look for, but I am still convinced that the D4 is some of the best I have ever seen.
Example of the colours the Nikon D4 provides.
If you want to see with your own eyes, go to flicker or the like and find images shot with the Nikon D4. I can provide a few examples via this link.
I think you will be positively surprised by the performance by this 10+ year old camera, despite it’s relatively low pixel count and the sensor having no IBIS or BSI or whatever is the latest fashion.
Auto focus system
Being frustrated with the focus system on the mirrorless cameras (like the Nikon Z6ii), I am happy to say that the focus system on the D4 works like a charm. It is professional grade stuff and for my “catch a bird in flight” once in a while shooting, I have never met the limits of the AF system. It appears to me that the AF system of the D4 is blazing fast and rock solid.
Nikon D4 focuses really well with my beloved Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 AF-S
Be mindful that the performance of an AF system is always a co-operation between the lens and the camera. Slow lens and fast camera does not really cut it. I have primarily been shooting with my beloved 70-200mm f/2.8 G series lens, and it co-operates with the D4 beautifully.
Summary
When the D4 was new, the price was around 6.000 USD. We are now approaching 1.000 USD used. You get a very good used professional level camera if you go for the Nikon D4.
My main concerns on your behalf is the weight. It is a heavy camera. Also, the ergonomics are probably betters suited people with big hands. So try the camera before you buy.
You will have to live with a few dated features: the video capabilities is not up to par with a modern camera, there is not articulating screen, the camera is noisy, etc. So for me it is a photography only camera. But if you put some good glass in front of it, you will have a reliable workhorse at your disposal many years to come. Be aware though that servicing of the D4 has probably come to an end, so when the camera stops working, it is probably the end of it – unfortunately – unless some non-Nikon workshop can fix it.
The rear LCD works really well, but forget about a a tilting or an articulating screen – this one sits in the camera body and stays there! Also, if you have gotten used to zooming in and out by pinching and zooming on the screen, you will need to re-learn to use the + and – buttons in the left side of the camera. The screen will ignore you otherwise! So here the cameras age starts to show. But then on the other hand you get a pro level camera where the buttons are backlit (!) which when shooting at night / low light is an absolute blessing that I wish Nikon would bring to their enthusiast level cameras.
