Frederik Bøving – Page 8

Nikon D4: Why not the D4S?

Some years back when I bought my copy of the Nikon D4, I did consider the Nikon D4s, but decided to go with the D4. I have since then made a few videos over at my channel about my experience with the D4 and over there I have several times got the question: Frederik, why did you go with the Nikon D4 and not the D4S? Clearly, the D4S is a better camera, seems to be the thinking behind the question.

Image of the Nikon D4 — My beloved Nikon D4.

Service

The D4S is a better camera than the Nikon D4, no doubt about it. It is also a younger camera, released in 2014 and produced all the way to 2016, when it was replaced by the D5. And this is probably one of the first differences between the cameras: because the D4S is younger, you can probably still get it serviced by Nikon. There is no official policy from Nikon on this matter, but word on the street is that Nikon will service and offer spare parts to cameras until they are 10 years old. And hence the D4S clearly has a better chance of being serviced today should something happen to it, rather than the D4.

The age is reflected in another difference: the price. At the introduction, the D4S was around 500 USD more expensive than the D4, but the relative difference now between the two is much bigger than that. The D4S price for a used copy is significantly more expensive, and I cannot imagine it is all related to the technical improvements. It has to be because photographers also factor in that if the camera breaks down or needs service, then the D4 is a dead end whereas the D4S still is “live”.

That said, with an expected shutter count around 400.000 and the knowledge that Nikon cameras often go way beyond the expected shutter count, I doubt that I will ever see the end of my D4. But it is of course a risk that I cannot get it serviced or repaired, if need be.

The Nikon D4 rear with backlit buttons. — If you shoot a lot in low light, you’ll love the fact that the buttons are backlit. And the small LCD enables you to see and set the ISO, white balance and image quality easily.

EXPEED

One of the major upgrades from the D4 to the D4S is the processor capacity, and the EXPEED 3 is replaced by the EXPEED 4 – about 1/3rd more computing capacity in the D4S.

I think this is one of the reasons why the D4S spec sheet wise is better when it comes to FPS and a more advanced auto focus system. The increased computing power simply gave the engineers at Nikon more headroom to develop the software in the AF system. And this could be important to you, but it is not important to me, as I am mainly an outdoor photographer. If portraiture or street photography is you line of business, then the improvements in the AF system could be vital for you.

There are other updates like a wider ISO range, a stronger battery and slightly redesigned joysticks for better comfort. But again, I think I’ll be fine without these improvements.

Conclusion

There are other differences between the D4 and the D4S and the intention was not to list them all. If you want to see a full spec compare, it is right here.

The D4 was one of the very best cameras the camera industry could offer approx. 10 years ago, and to me choosing between the D4 and the D4S is a bit like choosing between Bentley and Rolls Royce. Both are amazing!

The point is that the improvements made going from the D4 to the D4S simply was not important to me, and with the (in relative terms) significant price difference between the two cameras, my choice was easy.

But this shoe fits my foot. That does not mean it will fit yours. Your criteria are probably different and hence you will need to make your own assessment when choosing between the D4 and the D4S. But I hope my story here has helped you get a little closer to making the decision that is right for you.

Video link

What is color saturation in photography?

Intensity

I think the best way to describe color saturation is that a completely desaturated image is a black and white image! So the intensity of the color is the saturation. And a color that is completely desaturated is just a shade of grey.

The more grey you add to a color, the less saturated it is. (This is probably not technically correct, but I find it to be a good pragmatic way to think of it).

The saturation slider in Lightroom, here in the middle. Notice the value all to the left (grey).

The saturation of a color in real life is a given, but you can tweak the saturation of a color in post processing. The above I have cut from the post processing tool Lightroom, where the slider in the middle – in this example – allows you to take the intensity of the red color from grey (all the way to the left) to a very intense red (all the way to the right).

As colors speaks to and invoke our emotions, desaturating an image can make it more subtle and calm. So if you want the structures and textures to play a bigger role in your image, taking the saturation down can change the balance in what elements in your picture that dominates.

You can also use saturation to change the balance between different colors, so if you have a red field of flowers on a green bed of branches and leaves, you may want to desaturate the green color a bit to give room for the red flowers shine (relatively) more.

What is banding in photography?

Transitions

Banding is when the gradual transition from light to dark is not represented in a smooth and gradual way in the image, but rather abrupt changes from one level to another. It often happens in bands, just like you can see a height curve on a map. So that beautiful setting sun is not so beautiful, as the sky above it is shown as bands of red, orange and yellow!

Image with banding. — Left: Exported with a image quality of 10%, right: ditto at 100%. The banding is visible in the image left as lines tilting to the left.

On this homepage you will find a lot of banding going on, and that is because I have to export the images highly compressed to support fast load time.

Black and white image with banding — Banding is not for colors only. Here the same image as before, but zoomed in a bit more ad converted to B&W. Banding is just as visible in the shades of grey as it is in colors.

So banding is very often caused by compression, i.e. that a JPG image is throwing away too much information as it compresses the file to save space. Being a bit of a photo nerd, I often notice banding then I watch a movie on my 48″ LG TV, and I think the banding also here is caused by compression.

Banding is easy to see when a color is transitioning slowly from dark to light, but it is just as noticeable in black and white (see above).

Resolution

Banding is not because the image has too little resolution, but because the information stored to reproduce each pixel is too little. So a fix can be to make sure the images are stored with 16-bits of information per channel rather than 8-bits, i.e. to shoot in RAW or TIFF formats and make sure the information per channel is 16-bits. However, the issue with banding is often not at the source, but when exporting it to JPGs and my best advice here is to go as light as possible with the compression.

Another fix is to introduce a bit of noise when editing the image, so the noise acts as details added to the image and hence softens the transition along the banding. This can be a good strategy if your image is created with too little information per pixel.

You can get into some very technical discussion around banding and why it happens and some photographers are very frustrated to find banding in their prints that is not on screen etc. I am no expert here and do not have all the answers. My ambition here was just to give some insights to what banding is and a few high level fixes should it come your way.

Is JPG a bad format for photography?

RAW!

You will often hear experienced photographers talk about the JPG file format as a bad thing and RAW as the way to go. But I think there is a nuance to this: horses for courses.

It is true that JPGs are more “locked in” in terms of what you can do in post processing. Some have described RAW as the ingredients in a meal, and the JPG as the cooked food, and the comparison is not that bad. The RAW format gives more headroom in recovering details from bright highlights and dark shadows and you can also do much more editing if colors and white balance etc than JPG allows. And the quality of the JPG file is subject to the in camera processing of the image and hence the quality of the software in the camera.

But it comes with a price, and the price is disk space or storage space. RAW files store a lot more information per pixel than a JPG does, and this is why JPG files are so popular on the web where fast load times are a key factor. The resolution of a RAW image and a JPG image is the same, but the amount of information stored per pixel in the RAW format is much more than the JPG. Also, the JPG file will be subject to compression where a lot of information can also be lost.

So to say that RAW is good and JPG is bad is to simplified. Sometimes you just don’t need all the flexibility that a RAW file offers, and if you shoot a lot of images the amount of space saved can be significant. Also, if you plan to use the images as JPGs because they need to be small, shooting in JPG directly saves you the conversion from RAW to JPG in post processing. So you may save both time and storage.

I often shoot JPG when I have a very controlled environment like a studio with flashes in a tethered setup where the image is loaded directly into Lightroom for viewing large scale. Here I can quickly see if the colors and metering is spot on or not and adjust accordingly. Where I need the RAW file flexibility is when more variables are not under my control. Like when shooting in low light or shooting into the sun. Here I prefer the headroom in post processing that RAW files give.

What is a softbox in photography?

Soft light

So a softbox is a device that gives soft light, right? Well, yes and no. A soft box is a light modifier, intended to make the size of the light source bigger. And all things equal, when the light source gets bigger relative to the subject, the light gets softer. And then the softbox also helps making the best use of the light by redirecting the light that would otherwise not have hit the subject.

Softbox example

Softboxes can be used for both steady light and flash light, but in the following I will assume that we are talking flashlight.

A softbox from Godox. The front fabric is all lit up when the flash fires.

Bigger softboxes are often made as a umbrella like construction, where a set of wires defines the shape of the box. And just like an umbrella, the softbox can be folded to take up very little space when not in use. In my case the softbox is square, but many other shapes can be found.

Inside the softbox the sides of the softbox is fitted with reflective material to make the best use of the light. On the front of the softbox a white fabric is mounted and this is all lit up when the flash fires.

My softbox from Godox is also fitted with a diffuser fabric in the middle so the flash fires straight into the first layer of fabric than then diffuses the light and makes sure the light is distributed evenly within the softbox to make the final light on the front as even as possible. The ideal softbox gives a evenly lit up surface on the front of the softbox – if your softbox does a bad job here, you will see that the light is stronger in the centre than in the corners.

The rear of the softbox typically has a Bowens interface that allows you to mount the softbox directly to most light systems. In my case I used the supplied holder shown above, that connects with the softbox via the 3 pins in the Bowens interface and to the stand via a locking mechanism. In the centre of the ring above, the flash is mounted and of course it needs to be radio controlled (or in optical slave mode).

Why a softbox

As mentioned the softbox is intended to make the lightsource bigger and hence give more soft light. Relative to shooting through an umbrella, the soft box gives much more direction to the light and the light is also more evenly distributed.

What is optical slave mode in flash photography?

Radio constraints

Most pro photographers will tell you that getting the flash off camera will be a much better option that having it on camera, as the options for positioning the flash grows to infinite. But to do so, you either need a cable between the flash and the camera (not recommended – limited reach + cumbersome) or you will need some sort of radio communication between camera and flash.

Many modern flashes like the Godox V860III comes with radio receivers, but you may not have a transmitter to put in the hot shoe of the flash, or you may want to use an older flash as fill light and don’t want to invest in a receiver. What to do?

Optical slave mode

To the rescue comes optical slave mode. Not all flashes have this feature, but many do: in the flash there is a small unit that looks for other flashes firing and when they see one firing, they follow suit. Of course, if you have set it up to do so.

You may ask how this is possible? Well, the time the shutter is open, say 1/100th of a second, is a barn door of time for a flash, so it is plenty of time for one flash to fire, another to see it and fire shortly after, and still stay within the time when the shutter is open. Flashes are unbelievably fast!

The optical slave mode on the Godox flash is found in manual mode. Notice the S2 to the right in the LCD: It will work with a TTL controlled flash and ignore the pre-flash.

Built in flash

If you have a camera with a built in flash like the Nikon D750, you can use the built in flash to trigger the off camera flash. If the camera shoots in TTL mode (the automated flash mode), it will fire a pre-flash to measure the light and immediately after fire the flash for exposing the image. It happens so fast you won’t notice the two flashes, but your slave flash will! Therefore, you need to tell the slave flash to ignore the pre-flash and only fire when the main flash fires.

On my Godox V860III the flash has two slave modes: S1 – will fire every time a flash is seen, S2 – will fire at the second flash and hence ignore the pre-flash. So when I control the built in flash manually, I set the slave flash to S1, and when I shoot TTL, I set the slave flash to S2.

Limitations

Some say that the slave flash needs to have line of sight to the main flash, but I have been able to get the slave flash to fire even without direct line of sight. But you will need to try this out and see what works with your combination of flashes. I will say though that the slave flash will need to see a lot of light in order to be able to react, so direct line of sight is probably the safe way to go.

Another thing to notice is that the strength of the optical slave flash can only be set manually. There is no communication between the camera and the slave flash at all – only a visual signal saying: please fire! This is one of the main limitations of optical slave flashes relative to radio controlled flashes. On that note, if the camera with a built in flash is in TTL mode and the optical slave flash is set to S2, then the camera will not be able to factor in the optical slave when it meters the scene with the pre-flash, so remember to factor in the additional light using flash exposure compensation or set the strength of the optical slave flash low.

Flash in hiding — A flash in optical slave mode is hiding in the bowl!

Several flashes

If you have a trigger on the camera and a radio controlled (off camera) flash, it is still possible to use an additional flash in optical slave mode. It just reacts to the radio controlled flash. This way you can bring the radio controlled and the optical slave flashes closer to each other and hence be more sure the optical slave flash will fire.

What is the Purkinje Shift in photography?

Low light

You may have noticed that your eye works a bit differently at night than at daytime. Due to the way your eye is constructed, the colors red, yellow and orange will appear less bright relative to blue and green colors, when perceived in low light.

This can lead to some frustrations as a photographer, as your camera does not follow this logic and simply register the light as is. So what you remember to have seen at night may not be what you find when you open the image in your post processing software! The solution is to color edit the images to make the red, yellow and orange less intense so the image is better aligned to how you remember the scene.

Low light image. — At night your eyes will be better able to see green and blue relative to red and yellow.

Color composition in photography

Emotions

Colors and emotions go hand in hand like horse and carriage from that famous song by Frank Sinatra. And as such it can be used as a tool for your photography and the emotions you want to induce.

Think of a midsummer morning where the sun is just rising, filling the room you are in with warm light and long shadows. What colors do you think of? Probably yellow, orange and red. If I had asked you to think of a frosty windless winters morning, what colors would then spring to mind? Probably more cool blue or white. Filmmakers are exceptionally good at using colors to underline or emphasize a mood using colors – I often notice the color coding they use (and the music of course) to create a certain mood. In dystopian movies like Blade Runner the blue and brown colors are often dominating to underline the unsettling look into the future.

Beech leaves in the woods. — The warm and golden colors of the beech leaves are a stark contrast against the dark background made up of the trees in the wood. The effect is achieved using a flash and the effect of light falloff.

Orange leaf. — Blue and orange are complementary colors and gives a pleasing contrast.

Colors not only induce emotions, but can also be used to create patterns and connect objects that would otherwise seem without relation.

Green bokeh. — Green is often associated with nature and harmony which is probably why this image signals a calm atmosphere more than anything.

A black cat. — Sometimes less is more. The cat here is by nature black and white, and the colors of the eyes hence makes a big contrast.

Desaturated but natural colors. — The colors here are desaturated and underline the tranquil scene. The stronger the colors, the stronger the effect. Desaturated colors calm the mind.

Leaves on a wet table. — Here the color of the leaves help bring them together despite the more structural elements in the composition pull in the opposite direction.

Winter landscape. — White and blue are often associated with calmness and clarity. Also sterile and purity, which is why these colors are often used in bathrooms!

Winter silhouettes. — By altering the color temperature to a colder tone, the freezing cold winter day is emphasized.

Next step

One way to study the effect of colors using your own reaction as guide, is simply to make both a color and black and white version of an image and see how the different versions work for you. You can also try to alter the colors in post processing and play with saturation, hue and brightness.

The point with this post is not that there is a right and a wrong when it comes to colors. If you learn how to use the colors to achieve a certain effect, then your images will have a much bigger impact. And of all the tools in the photographers toolbox (composition, exposure, etc), color is the strongest of them all.

Filling the frame in photography

Use it all!

I often find that some of the most simple or fundamental techniques in photography are also the ones with the biggest impact. So when it comes to filling the frame, there really is not that much more to tell than: fill the frame with your subject.

A glass of wine. Filling the frame. — A glass of wine. But where is it? A restaurant? At home? That for the viewer to figure out.

Filling the frame does not necessarily entail a macro shot, although you often will go very close to the subject to fill the frame. But the point with filling the frame is that the “stage” for the subject is lost and only the subject is left. So a lot of storytelling and the relationship between subject and surroundings is gone when you fill the frame.

A leaf. Filling the frame. — The background here is so much out of focus that there is almost no information about how this leaf “sits” in its environment.

You can fill the frame when shooting, but if your camera has sufficient resolution, it is certainly also an option to crop the image in post processing and get the same effect.

Two leaves. — The stark color contrast underlines the different stages of life these two leaves are at.

In the example above, I chose to frame the image with a lot of context information. I could have gone much closer to the withered leave in the center and gotten a very different expression, focusing more on the withered vs living leaf relative to the rainy day scene surrounding them.

There is no right or wrong here – just different expressions. So it comes down to what story it is you want to tell and the expression you want to come across. Filling the frame is just one of many options for you to compose your image.

Ricoh GRIIIx: Focus modes explained

Starters

Before diving into the details of the focus system on the Ricoh GR3x camera, I just want to make sure you do not have the camera in macro mode.

Ricoh GRIIIx: Focus modes explained — The little flower on the screen (red arrow) tells that the camera is in macro mode. Push the button at the blue arrow to toggle in and out of macro mode.

In the image above, push the button shown with the blue arrow to toggle the camera in and out of macro mode. In macro mode, the camera will not focus to infinity, but on the other hand it can focus very close to the subject. I have many times been struggling to understand why it would not focus, only to find that macro was engaged.

Another thing to check is the firmware version. My copy of the Ricoh GRIIIx was sent with version 1.1 of the firmware, so I have never tried version 1.0 but the word on the street is that version 1.1 is much better and hence upgrading the firmware is worth the while.

Basics

The Ricoh GRIIIx works like many other cameras when it comes to focus: if you half press the shutter the camera focuses, and full press takes the image. You can touch the screen to select the area for the camera to focus on and this presents a little box that frames what the camera will focus on.

That little box can be moved around with the command wheel if you before that press the OK button.

If you long hold the “Disp” button bottom right on the rear of the camera, the LCD will zoom in, and again you can use the command wheel to select the area to view. Press “Disp” again to leave zoom mode.

Focus modes

The Ricoh GRIIIx comes with a series of focus modes that give different levels of control vs automation. You can go into the large menu system and select the focus mode, but I find that pushing the so called compensation lever top right on the rear of the camera is easier – it takes you into a smaller menu system where the image profile, focus, etc can be adjusted.

The focus menu is the second from the left, where the first one is image control. Use the control dial to move the cursor in the menu system – the selected value is highlighted in yellow. Push the OK button in the center of the control dial to select an option, and press the Menu button to leave the menu system.

There are a total of 9 (!) different focus modes:

Auto-area AF is the most automated one and you have no control whatsoever. The camera chooses what to focus on. This is a good option if you want to use the camera in a “point and shoot” style. If you tab the LCD, a box will appear and the camera will focus here, but only for 1 image! After that, it is back to fully automated.
Auto-area AF (centre) is like the first option, but it prioritizes the center of the frame when choosing what to focus on.
Select AF gives you a little square on the LCD screen, and whatever is in that square is what the camera will focus on. You can move this square around with the control wheel as described above, or just tab the LCD to position the square where you have touched the LCD.
Pinpoint AF is the same as the 3rd option, but the area is smaller. Good if you have something very small that you want to focus on hiding behind other objects that are closer.
Tracing AF works like Select AF, but it keeps track of whatever you selected if either the subject moves or you move the camera – provided of course it stays within the frame. This is great if you have something moving within the frame or if you want to focus and then recompose. I use this option a lot.
Continuous AF adjusts the focus as you half press the shutter. This is great if your subject moves closer to or away from you, as the camera will adjust focus accordingly. For example someone walking towards you.
Manual Focus is where you select the position of the focal plane by turning the control wheel. I do not use this option a lot even though I usually like manual focus. The reason is that you have to turn the wheel a lot for the focal plane to move and this makes it very cumbersome to use.
Snap is where the camera focuses on a pre-set focus distance. If you hold the macro button in and at the same time turn the front dial, the value can be changed. The options are 1m, 1.5m, 2m, 2.5m, 3m, 5m and infinity. Notice that if you press the shutter fast (i.e. no pause half pressed) the camera will focus using snap focus.
Infinity is where the camera focuses to infinity and this can be useful if you don’t want the camera to “hunt” to find focus. But of course your subject then also has to be something where focus to infinity is meaningful.

Other options

If you hit the “Menu” button the full menu system of the Ricoh GRIIIx is displayed and in here many of the same options as in the control lever menu can be found.

However, there are more options and details in the menu system. One useful option is to turn the face and eye detection on and off, you can control if the auto focus assist light is to turn on or not, if focus peaking is to be shown, etc.

Also, if you scroll down to the customize controls menu, you can turn the touch sensitivity of the LCD on and off, and you can also control how much the camera does when the LCD is touched, and if you take the most elaborate option, the camera will both move the focus point to where you touch the screen, focus and shoot! Enjoy!

Shopping link

Affiliate shopping link for the Ricoh GRIIIx (40mm FF equivalent).

Service

EXPEED

Conclusion

Video link

Related reading

Intensity

Related reading

Transitions

Resolution

Related reading

RAW!

Related reading

Soft light

Softbox example

Why a softbox

Related reading

Radio constraints

Optical slave mode

Built in flash

Limitations

Several flashes

Related reading

Low light

Related reading

Emotions

Next step

Related reading

Use it all!

Related reading

Starters

Basics

Focus modes

Other options

Related reading

Shopping link

Video link