NIkon – frederikboving

Review: Nikon AF-S 85mm 1.8G lens

I got my Nikon AF-S 85mm 1.8G lens over at mpb Europe for 334 EUR used – this was October 2021. The lens was rated by mpb to be in excellent condition, which in my experience is close to brand new! The same lens from new in Denmark is around 500 EUR, but mind you that here in little Denmark prices are per usual some of the highest in Europe. But still, I find that I save a lot buying used gear in good to mint condition.

The first that I noticed when mounting the lens is how big it is in terms of circumference. It protrudes beyond the f-mount size significantly as the images above and below show. I knew the 1.4G lens is a “dramatic” lens in terms of size, but it surprised me that the same can be said about the 1.8G lens.

The lens does not have a golden ring on the nose, so apparently Nikon does not think this is a professional grade lens; my guess is they left this to the 1.4G lens instead. The body is made up of plastic, and the f-mount is metal as we know it. The feel and appearance of the lens is quite good considering we have left the days of “all metal, all glass and made in Japan”. This one is made in China.

The weight is around 350 grams which is super light, especially considering the lens volume. Although Nikon does not market this lens as weather sealed, I did notice that there is a rubber gasket on the f-mount, so at least dust will have a hard time finding way in between lens and body.

Speaking of the 1.4G lens, your question is probably why I did not buy the 1.4G? I would have loved that lens, but the price tag is around 3 times as much as the 1,8G! And although I love fast lenses, I simply could not cough up the cash to go for the 1.4G.

The lens comes with a lens hood of good quality albeit plastic, it takes Ø67mm filters and there is no issue with moving parts out front, your filter will be sitting in the same position as when you mounted it!

The lens has no aperture ring – all adjustments to aperture are done via the camera body. There is only one button on the lens itself, and that is the auto focus to manual focus switch. The former can always be overruled by manual focus as soon as you start turning the focus ring.

I am happy to say that the focus ring works really well. There is no play as I reported for the 50mm 1.8G lens. The feel of the manual focus ring is not super smooth, but it works ok. The AF-S is as you would expect both silent and fast, but not the fastest Nikkor I have tested. But as this is mainly a portrait lens, maybe some street as well, I doubt that you would need blazing fast AF as you do for wildlife and sports. The built in AF motor allows you to use the lens also with AF on Nikon entry level bodies like the D3x00 and D5x00.

Minimum focus distance measured to 75cm; official numbers say 80cm.

The distance scale is there working from the minimal focus distance of 0.8 meters to infinity, although my own non-scientific testing showed that I could get 5 cm closer than that. They have even found space for DoF markings on the distance scale, although only for f/16. There are 7 rounded aperture blades, which is a bit on the low side, especially for a portrait lens where the bokeh per tradition is vital.

The lens comes with what Nikon calls SIC – super integrated coating, and the dampening of flare when pointing the lens to a street light at night is some of the best I have ever seen. The SIC is really sick, pun intended! There is no ED glass at all, so it is really a “back to basics” construction with no modern fancy stuff, but just good glass in a relatively simple construction.

Performance

This lens is sharp! You may have guessed that if you took a look at the MTF chart from Nikon or read other reviews, but it really is! Take a look at these two images from Lightroom measuring the center sharpness at 300%:

Lens center sharpness. — Center sharpness.

Wide open left (f/1.8) and stopped down a bit to the right (f/3.5). If you have seen other of my reviews, you know that I like to shoot a whiteboard with a few dollar and EUR bills to test sharpness and contrast, and when I can read the state names, then I know I am dealing with a very sharp lens. In this case I can read that NY is to the rightmost! The sharpness gets slightly better stopped down, but this is impressive performance!

Looking at the corner sharpness, it gets even better (still 300%):

This is from the bottom left, and the performance wide open (left) is impressive! I may be able to see that it stopped down has slightly better contrast (look at the white in the EUR sign top left), but still this is some of the best corner performance wide open that I have ever seen! Well done Nikon!

And when you shoot at f/1.8 you really get a shallow depth of field! I know that f/1.4 or even f/1.2 will give you more, but still:

Out of focus elements. — Out of focus elements – notice the cat to the left.

Same motive, but 2 different focus points: left the flower in the foreground and right the cat in the couch. Even when there is only 1.5 meter between the subject and your background elements, the latter gets rendered beautifully out of focus!

The bokeh I have found to be beautiful. When shooting wide open, the aperture blades are not engaged, and hence you of course get nice round bokeh balls, although the bokeh towards the corners tend to be more oval and shaped like an American football:

Beautiful bokeh. — Out of focus elements at f/1.8.

I had high hopes for aberrations, but apparently I can get any lens to generate at least purple fringing:

chromatic aberrations. — Noticeable chromatic aberrations to the left.

Wide open to the left you can see purple fringing in the high contrast zones of the tinfoil. Not so much stopped down to the right (f/7.1). So there is a bit of aberrations and shooting streetlights at night (yes, a hobby yours truly practices) it gets noticeable – but I have always been able to remove it in Lightroom by pulling a few sliders. And speaking of streetlights at night, my test of flare showed that this lens has some of the best control of flare that I have ever seen.

The lens does suffer from focus breathing, so if you are considering it as an option for videography you may find that this is a showstopper. Especially when you ALSO consider how well flare and ghosting is controlled by this lens (videographers for some reason love this stuff and do not want to well dampened lenses in this regard).

In my reviews I don’t test distortion or vignetting. The simple reason being that you can fix this in Lightroom with a push of a button. Only for demanding architecture or real estate photographers can I imagine that distortion and vignetting would be a problem, and I am pretty sure they are not in the market for a 85mm.

Conclusion

Pro:

Super sharpness, both center and corners
Super contrast, both center and corners
Light – 350 grams
Ok build quality, albeit no gold ring from Nikon
Well working manual focus ring
Takes filters with no issues
Good handling of flare and ghosts
Price performance
Works on Nikon entry level cameras

Con:

Not the widest of wide – there is the 1.4G to mention an alternative
Some aberrations in high contrast areas wide open
Not for videographers (flare too well controls + some focus breathing)
AF not the fastest in the AF-S family
Not sure how long-term durable the build quality is

You probably have picked this up reading the review above, but I absolutely love this lens. It is clear to me that all attention has been given to the internals of this lens, and hence you get a “budget-feel” lens on the outside and a top performer on the inside. If you are to prioritize, then if you ask me, this is as it should be.

Right now, I cannot think of a lens where the price / performance ratio is better than this one when we are talking modern lenses (vintage lenses you buy on a flea market may have a better ration, but that stems from the price primarily). So if you need a 85mm prime from Nikon, this one should definitely be on your short list.

My only concern is if the lens will stand the test of time – will it survive the constant use in a demanding pro environment? I am not sure; maybe better to go with a gold ring lens if you are a demanding pro.

Video link

Which Nikon lens type should you buy?

A long time ago…

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.

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.

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.

Nikon D700 versus D750

I guess anyone can read the specification sheet for both the Nikon D700 and the Nikon D750 and come up with a list of differences. But another thing is working with both cameras side by side for a long time. Then you get to know the differences from a real world experience. In this blog I want to share how it is to live and work with these two cameras, based on a few areas that I have selected as they mean a lot to me.

The hype

The Nikon D750 is a much younger camera than the D700. It shows in many ways: the pixel count is higher, it does video, etc. But the D700 is a legend, and many consider the combination of sensor and processing logic to be unique, actually so unique that Nikon never since has made a camera with color rendition and micro contrast as good as the D700. Especially skin tones are known to be unrivalled and unique for the D700. I leave it up to you to decide if you want to believe the magic and hype related to the D700 – myself I have seen it periodically shine and have a 3D pop I have never seen with other cameras, and many of my landscape pictures look more like paintings than pictures, so yes, I can confirm there is something about the D700, but I am skeptical if all of the hype is justified.

Build quality

One of the things difficult to see from a spec sheet is the look and feel of a camera, and here the D700 and D750 are like night and day. Many say that the D700 is “built like they don’t make them anymore”, and I have to agree 100%. The D700 is – to use a cliché – built like a tank. A brick outhouse. You’ve heard the lingo. But it is. A Land Rover with a Range Rover on top. It is massive, made for endurance. If you don’t like a heavy camera and a bulky one too, then stay clear of the D700.

The D750 is more a camera like they build them today. It is more compact, lighter and has a much less solid feel to it. When you go from the D700 to the D750, you definitely feel like the D750 is more like plastic. Not that the D750 is of poor build quality – the D700 is just so much better. The grip on the D750 is deeper, but you quickly get used to the D700 if you – like me – have big hands.

Live view

You may not use Live View much, but if you do, then this is one of the areas where the D750 shines relative to the D700. I think the Live View implementation on the D700 was one of the first implementations Nikon did, and it is a bit quirky. There is no dedicated Live View button and you have to select between two different Live View modes. And the auto focus is slow when you opt for the “Tripod” mode, as it is called. Add to this that the D750 has a higher resolution rear LCD screen that tilts, and you will quickly enjoy the Live View implementation on the D750 with a dedicated button.

Nikon D750 versus D700 — Nikon D750 to the left. Notice the tilt screen and the dedicated Live View button to the bottom right. The D700 has the vertical grip mounted, which of course does not make the weight difference between the two any less…

Pixel count

Many shy away from the D700 when they understand it “only” has 12MP. But I say: fear not, it is plenty! Unless you want to make very big prints that needs to be viewed very close up, or you want to crop your pictures heavily. If not, then 12MP is more than enough. And when you load your pictures into Lightroom or wherever you do your post processing, you will enjoy the smaller file size. And storage wise you will find that the D700 files take up less space on your hard-drive and backup storage facilities. So I will claim that the smaller pixel count makes living with the D700 much easier than the D750. And you will most likely never miss the 24MP resolution of the D750.

Viewfinder coverage

You may not think that the viewfinder coverage is a big thing, but to me it is, and actually one of the few areas where the D700 annoys me. I love that camera, but the fact that the frame is slightly bigger than what I see in the viewfinder is a nuisance. When I shoot, I frame very carefully according to the viewfinder and when I then get back home and open the file on my PC, I find it truly annoying to start my editing by cropping as I saw it in the viewfinder. The D750 does not have this issue.

Dynamic range

The D750 if notorious for its ability to do auto focus in low light situations – it literally sees in the dark. Truly impressive. The D700 not so much, and the dynamic range of the D700 is not as good as the D750. This may not be important to you – the ability to have both very bright and dark areas in the same frame is not important to all, and with exposure bracketing you can compensate a lot for lack of dynamic range. But I will say that in a low light situation – for example shooting in a restaurant without disturbing the guests with a big fat flash, my choice is the D750. Every time. Don’t believe the D750 has better dynamic range? Head over to DXO mark and see for yourself.

What to choose?

If you are about to choose between the D750 and the D700, then you are in for a tough choice. Boiled down to one sentence? You choose the D700 with your heart and the D750 with your head. The D750 is a more modern camera, lighter and easier to work with. But sometimes that is not what counts. Love conquers all, as they say.

Shopping link

Affiliate link to the Nikon D750 (body only).

Which Nikon camera body to choose in the 24MP range?

Here at the brink of 2021, Nikon offers the enthusiast photographer more options than ever before. This is both wonderful and frustrating, as the obvious choice seems harder to find as the number of options increases. And there are no simple answers unfortunately, it all seems to come back to the classic counter question: “it depends…”. In this post I will try to distill the options Nikon offers in the 24MP range – typically aimed at the serious enthusiast and/or the freelance photographer.

On my YouTube channel I am a big ambassador for the Nikon D700, a classic and legendary DSLR that although “only” offering 12MP is probably one of the best DSLRs ever made for the enthusiast photographer. As it is no longer in production, it is only available used for around 400 EUR. This camera in terms of value is probably one of the best cameras for the enthusiast. However, many are not comfortable with the 12MP “only” and it seems like the camera producers center around 24MP as the sensor resolution for enthusiasts. If we go up higher to 48MP as found in the D850 or the Z7, then we are more into the professional segment, so in this post I will stick to the Z6, D750 and the D780 as they are all in the 24MP range.

The D750 is the oldest of the 3, but still today a very capable camera. The video specs are not up to what a modern hybrid camera can offer, but if you are into stills only, this can actually be an advantage as you are not paying for features you will not be using. The ergonomics of the D750 is excellent as we know it from Nikon, the menu systems are well organized and intuitive and the image quality is still today excellent. The body only price is around 1500 USD here in December 2020, but black Friday deals or other kinds of offerings can probably get the price even further down. And the camera body has a built in auto focus motor, meaning that you have access to a huge amount of used AF Nikkor glass available on e-bay and the like. In terms of value, the D750 is hard to beat when talking stills only.

The Z6 was the first mirrorless from Nikon, and they did their homework well and hit the mark pretty well with this first generation mirrorless camera. It is known to be a very good all round camera that does most things well, both stills and video. The critique of the camera was primarily that it only has one card slot and that there is no option to add a vertical grip, as the contacts are missing. This was fixed in the Z6 mark II, which in addition to fixing these shortcomings also added more computing power to the camera by adding an EXPEED processor. The introduction of the Z6 II gave rise to a price drop on the Z6, and the Z6 is around 1600 USD with an FTZ adaptor whereas the Z6 II is a 1000 USD more expensive than that. So if you are not nervous about SD cards failing and not planning to use a vertical grip, the original Z6 seems the value choice of the two. And both of them have in-body image stabilization (IBIS) to help you avoid camera shake when you need to keep the shutter open for an extended period of time.

The big disadvantage of going mirrorless is the fact that Nikon changed the lens mount system, so that is is no longer compatible with the notorious F-mount system. The motivation for this move yielding a shorter flange distance is – other than giving the IBIS room to work – that it gives new options for designing simpler and better performing lenses. It quickly gets technical, but that is the gist of it after reading Nikons explanation.

You have to buy an FTZ adapter, that can be had for around 100 USD when you buy it together with the camera body. But, there is a big but: The adapter does NOT have an AF motor, nor does the Z6 camera body, meaning that all the Nikkor AF vintage glass is now suddenly manual focus. This is where things to get complicated in terms of choosing between mirrorless or DSLR: The Z6 cuts you off from using mechanical auto focus on a lot of good vintage glass. And mind you that the glass that fits the new Z6 mount is expensive. You may be able to make a good deal if you buy a kit zoom lens together with the camera, but building your lens portfolio after that is VERY expensive relative to the DSLR options.

The Nikon D780 seems to try to bridge between the two worlds described above. It is a merger of the Z6 and the D750, so that in Live View mode, the camera is very similar to the Z6, whereas shooting via the viewfinder is very similar to the D750. So you get the best of both worlds, and maintain access to vintage glass with mechanical auto focus. And price wise the body alone is around 2300 USD, and hence significantly more expensive than the Z6, but that money could easily be saved when building (or re-using) a lens portfolio.

So what to choose as an enthusiast? “It depends…” – the most annoying answer of all, but unfortunately it is true.

The first thing I would ask myself in choosing between the 3 is: How important is video? One area where the cameras get better and better is video capability and if video is important to you, the D750 is struggling. But also think about how demanding your video requirements are – a GoPro next to your D750 could be a solution? Or maybe 1080p is all you need? Anyway, the more demanding your video requirements are, the less good and option the D750 is.

The second thing I would ask is: How important is auto focus? If you shoot things that are moving fast (sports and wildlife), then using vintage AF glass on a Z6 is a no go. You either have to buy F-mount glass with built in motors (AF-S) or go for glass that fits the new Z-mount directly. If you are on a budget and auto focus is important, your cheapest option is to go for the D750/D780 with vintage AF glass. But again, if face detection and eye recognition is important because you shoot a lot of portraits, then you have to use the D780 in Live View mode or go for the Z6. If auto focus is not important to you, then you are in luck: the Z6 will offer you the option to use cheap vintage glass via the FTZ adaptor and you will get focus peak assistance to help you obtain focus precisely and with great illustration of the focal plane.

The third thing I would ask is: How much vintage glass have I got to re-use? If you have a large portfolio of Nikkor vintage glass, and a good deal of this is with mechanical AF, then you can protect that investment with the D750 or the D780. Provided of course that you love your glass and want to continue to use if. If you are more meh-he, then the better option may be to sell your glass and go for the mirrorless Z6 or Z6 II. Your experience from building a lens portfolio then comes in handy, so you have a more focused mind when building your new portfolio.

What have I chosen to do? I am still with my D750. I shoot video on a Sony A7 RII so I have no need for better video capability currently. And the D750 with the mechanical AF motor built in, makes my collection of Nikkor vintage glass a joy to use. And as I seldom shoot anything fast moving, my auto focus requirements are all solved using single point focus. But mind you that this is what works for me given my situation and what I shoot – yours is different I am sure, so what fits me surely is no guarantee to fit you.

Thank you for reading this far! Comments are more than welcome!

Review: Nikon AF 24mm f/2.8 lens

Best VALUE landscape lens for Nikon F-mount?

Spoiler alert: Can I recommend this lens? Yes! But the recommendation comes with 3 caveats. Let me take you through these and then review this lens with sample pictures. It will not be a scientific review with pictures of brick walls showing how soft the lens is in the corners wide open, more a does-it-yield-great-pictures kind of approach.

Nikon Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 - a gem in the Nikkor vintage lineup — Nikon Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 – a gem in the Nikkor vintage lineup

The lens comes in different versions. The older ones does not have distance information (hence the name 2.8 without the D) and also the manual focus ring is very thin and plastic-ish. You can see that my 50 mm lens to the right below is the right version. The one to the left is the version you should not buy:

*The Nikon 50mm to the right with the wider manual focus ring.*

To my knowledge there is no major changes done to the glass from 1985 to now, so if you don’t mind the flimsy focus ring and do not miss distance information, the older ones may work well for you – bonus is that you may find a very cheap older copy on e-bay or amazon.

There is no need to buy a brand new copy of this lens. My copy is around 35 years old, and everything works like a charm and the glass is great. But make sure you check the glass well before you buy.

Make sure you need this lens (2/3)

This is a prime lens. If you plan to have the holy trinity of zoom lenses then this lens may not be for you. The 24 mm sits right between where a zoom set of lenses would shift between normal zoom and ultra wide:

So you may find that the 24 mm replaces both the extremely wide zoom and the standard zoom, in which case you have saved a lot of money and weight. On the other hand, you may find that the 24 mm is an odd animal and that you prefer to use your zooms. In that case, the 24 mm probably never leaves your camera bag and is wasted. Here it comes down to personal preferences. All I ask is that you check if you think you really need this lens.

Make sure you have an AF motor (3/3)

The tin may say auto focus, the lens may say auto focus, but if you have an entry level Nikon camera, then the AF will not work. The reason you see below in the picture – Nikon D5600 on top, D7500 below:

The lens needs a motor in the camera body in order for auto focus to work.

You should also be aware that some copies have a problem with the rear glass (known as the CRC) which yields out-of-focus pictures very consistently. This could be what why this lens has received some lukewarm reviews from many respected reviewers. Make sure before you buy that your copy does not have this issue (or simply ask the seller to confirm this is not an issue). Best way to mitigate a mis-aligned CRC is to test the lens before you buy.

Specs and review

Ok, with those 3 caveats out of the way, lets look at what this lens is all about. It is an old construction, so no image stabilization and no silent AF motor built into the lens. Just good glass and a mechanical AF system.

The price I paid for my 35 year old copy was 220 EUR, but I am sure you can make a better deal if you look carefully and have a bit of patience. I bought my copy in Europe, but in my experience the prices in the US is much lower. So around 200 EUR for this gem of a lens! Notice that in this price range you also find the Samyang 14mm ultra wide lens, and it is also a great lens with lots of super positive reviews, but it is also more heavy, larger and the front glass is round, meaning that buying any kind of filter could prove to be costly. But the Samyang should definitely be on your short list of ultra wide lenses to consider, before you make your decision.

It is a relatively small lens that takes up the same space as the classic nifty fifty that I showed above. At f/2.8 it is not as fast as they come, but unless you shoot indoor in low light i doubt the 2.8 will be a problem for you. The advantage of the 2.8 is that the construction is light at 275 grams. The angle of view is 84 degrees and that is more than double the nifty fifty at 40 degrees. You can really tell the difference.

Color rendition is very much up to personal preference, but I have always been a fan of Nikon in this regard. The below pictures show a piece of art from the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art north of Copenhagen in Denmark, and the colors are reproduced exactly as I remember them. In my mind Nikons color rendition is spot on, and the 24 mm is no exception.

From the shop at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

The minimal focal distance is where this lens really shines. Have a look here what you can do with this lens, where the art piece to the left is sharp and close up:

From the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

The minimal focal distance is 30 centimeters, and as you can see, you can get really close to your subject and still have it sharp:

Another area where this lens shines how much you can include in the frame. Below an example where I have shot with both the 50 mm and the 24 mm.

Wrap up

Ok, I hope the above gave you some idea about what the 24 mm lens from Nikon can do. I have not talked about distortion because these can be fixed in post, so why worry? The sharpness is great in my humble opinion, but I have only the pictures to judge from – no studies of brick walls under microscope. I think others have done that, and concluded this is a sharp lens!

So in conclusion, if you need a 24 mm in your lineup and f/2.8 does not scare you off, then the value for money you get with this little lens, makes it very easy for me to recommend this lens with the aforementioned caveats.

Nikkor 24mm, Nikon D750: Video link

Nikon D750: How to use manual mode – the basics

Manual mode

Manual mode is to many an off limits discipline, but there is no need to shy away from manual mode as it is a small investment to learn, and it pays off in great dividends in terms of better control of the camera and hence the pictures you take. And the good side effect is that by knowing manual mode, you also automatically know Shutter priority and Aperture priority, as these are “sub sets” of manual mode. But I advice you to practice manual mode until you have it “under your skin” and the controls and dials are – if not second nature – then at least part of your muscle memory, so you don’t have to think too much about the controls when you start shooting in manual mode for real.

If you want more detail on the exposure triangle, this post may be of interest to you.

Manual mode selector

To initiate manual mode, you need to select mode “M” on the mode dial, located on the top left of your D750 camera. Remember to push down the center button while turning the dial, otherwise your camera is less cooperative.

Aperture

The aperture is controlled via the command dial on the top right front of the camera. By turning the wheel left and right, the aperture changes accordingly. In the LCD display on the top right of the camera, you can see the selected aperture. In the picture below, the aperture is set to F/10:

Shutter speed

The shutter speed is c controlled via the command dial on the top right rear of the camera. By turning the wheel left and right, the shutter speed changes accordingly. In the picture above, the shutter speed is set to 1/1000th of a second, which is pretty fast. This is shown as 1000 – the “1/” is implicit. So a quarter of a second (1/4) is shown as 4.

ISO

The ISO has a dedicated button at the bottom left if the camera, the second button from the bottom.

The ISO button on the left side of the D750

When you push and hold that button as shown below, the ISO selection menu appears. Notice that only bottom half of the screen relates to the ISO – it is boxed in by a thin frame. The front command dial now controls the ISO auto setting (on/off) and the rear command dial controls the ISO value. You can see the graphics illustrate this to the very right. The selected value here is ISO 125 and ISO Auto setting to on.

When ISO setting is on, the camera selects the ISO as it sees fit (remember, you still control the Aperture and Shutter speed). If Auto ISO is on, the selected ISO sensitivity is ignored by the camera, but as soon as you set Auto ISO to off, then the camera uses the value selected here.

You can re-program the record button on the top of the camera (the one with the red dot, sitting right behind the shutter release button) to act as the ISO button. Press the menu button on the rear of the camera, top left, select the custom settings menu (aka the pencil menu), select f for controls and scroll down to F9. Here you can set the record button to act as an ISO selector:

Many find this configuration useful, as the entire exposure triangle can no be controlled with the 3 buttons/dials sitting right next to each other on the top right of the camera, with no need to move the eye away from the viewfinder.

Ok, that concludes the walk through of the controls and dials on the Nikon D750. Please don’t hesitate to drop a line in the comment section below if you have any questions or the like.

Video link

How to use (Nikkor) Vintage lenses with a Fuji camera

Adapter

In order to use your vintage glass on the Fuji X-T20, the first thing you need is an adapter that enables you to mount the vintage glass on the Fuji body. I always go for a “dumb” adapter, meaning that there is no communication between the lens and the camera body which of course means the camera has no idea what focal length is mounted or what aperture is used, but I can live with that. What is probably worse is that you also loose the auto focus, but if you shoot mainly stills, portrait, landscape and street, then I think you will find the manual focus to be ok, some even start to like it more than auto focus, as they feel more involved in the process of taking a picture.

In my case, I have Nikkor (Nikon) vintage glass made for full frame cameras, and as the Fuji is a cropped APS-C camera, that means I will have to multiply the length of the lens with 1.5 due to the crop factor. However, you can get a so called speed booster to reverse this effect, and in addition it gives you a stop more light, i.e. makes your lens faster. I went for the Zhongyi Lens Turbo II:

But there are many other good options to choose from. Here you can see what the Nikon 135mm f/2.8 looks like with the speed boost adapter mounted:

Zhongyi Lens Turbo II with the Nikon 135mm

And here is the camera with the 135mm lens mounted:

Zhongyi Lens Turbo II with the Nikon 135mm on the Fuji XT20

As you can see it is in this case a long lens for such a small camera body and it also makes the camera quite “front heavy”. Some don’t like this – I don’t mind, but as the X-T20 is quite a light camera, mounting fast FX glass will often give a dramatic weight increase to the total system. I have the Fujinon 27mm lens to the right, just to compare.

Shooting “blind”

As the camera has no communication with the lens, you need to tell the camera it is OK to release the shutter with no lens mounted. It will look that way to the camera! Go find the tool menu and in that menu look for “button/dial settings” and select that menu:

"button/dial settings" menu — “button/dial settings” menu

In that menu, find the item “shoot without lens” and make sure it is set to “on”:

Now your shutter should work with a vintage lens mounted!

Focus aid

The next thing is to select how you want the Fuji to help you focus. I prefer the focus peak option, where the camera highlights the areas in the picture with strong contrast, which is often also where you will have the focal plane. In the “AF/MF” menu (the second from the top), select the “MF assist item” (MF is Manual Focus):

Manual focus assist in the shape of peaking highlights.

In the sub menu that appears, the manual focus assist settings can be chosen. I go for the focus peak and select the color to help me find the area of focus:

Now we should be ready to shoot!

Final hurdle

When shooting in this setup, there is however no focus peak assistance! It is possible to shoot and focus, but you get no help with the manual focus! How come?

The solution to the problem is on the front left of the camera. Here you select drive mode by turning a little dial, i.e. if the camera is in (S)ingle frame mode, (C)ontinuous or (M)anual mode. Hence the letters S, C and M:

You need to turn this dial to “M” in order for the focus peak to start working. Then the high contrast areas area highlighted in the viewfinder and LCD screen. Enjoy! (Remember to flick the switch back to C or M when you mount a Fujinon lens – otherwise you will continue with manual focus…!)

Further aid

When you shoot, in addition to the focus peak, you have the focus magnification that helps you zoom in on details in the frame to see if they are sharp. Press the rear command dial (yes, it feels strange – you are used to turning it! But press as in push!):

and the camera will show you a magnified area of the picture:

If you then turn the rear command dial, you will see that the camera flicks between two levels of magnification. In the first example you can see the entire cow, but if you turn the rear command dial the zoom gets extended:

Now you can only see parts of the cows head! Notice how the graphics (the two boxes – one white and one green (blue?)) show you the zoom level. When you turn the command dial again, the camera jumps back to first level of zoom. So turn the rear command dial to select between the two zoom levels. Press (push) the rear command dial go leave zoom again. And press it once more to get back in, etc.

You will notice that with a long lens and the extended zoom peek switched on as shown above, the picture gets very nervous if the camera is hand held! This is a good reminder to shot with a fast shutter speed to avoid camera shake and hence blurry pictures.

Finally

The Fuji X-T30 offers 3 different manual focus aids:

Standard (basically no aid!)
Digital split image
Focus peak highlight

In the examples in the previous sections, I have only used the focus peak highlight, as I find it to be the best aid for manual focus. However, some like no aid and some like digital split image (where you have to align two pictures so that the vertical lines in the intersection are exactly on top of each other).

If you want to switch fast between the 3 modes mentioned above, you can push the rear command dial for a few seconds (not a brief push – you need to push the button in for a few seconds) to change to the next mode (the button is hiding behind my thumb top right):

When you have kept the button in for a few seconds, the mode the camera is about to switch to will be shown in a bar in the lower part of the screen. If the camera is in standard mode, it will switch to split, if in split then it will shift to focus peak, if in focus peak back to standard and so on. So it is like a wheel turning: standard -> split -> focus peak -> back to standard. Remember to keep the button pushed in until you see the bar on the screen.

Nikon AF-D 50mm 1.4 is so much fun!!

The Nikon 50mm 1.4D comes with mechanical auto focus, and hence only works for those Nikon cameras that have a built in AF motor. So if you have a D5x00 or a D3x00 series Nikon, beware that AF will not work. The entry level cameras simply assume that the lens has built in motors. It is a mechanical construction with no motor and no stabilization. The construction is an oldie, but still a goldie:

The aperture ring enables you to manually switch from f/1.4 to f/16, and the lens is an FX lens, meaning it will work both on full frame cameras and on cropped sensors. However, on a cropped sensor, you may want to go for a 35mm lens to get the equivalent of a 50 mm.

Why the Nikon AF-D 50mm 1.4?

Price. Unless you are flea market shark (very lucky or a very good negotiator) you will find that a lens as fast as f/1.4 is very expensive, as it requires a lot of glass. This lens will only set you back 230 USD, which compared to other lenses is a true bargain. I think it is because the lens construction is very old and has been produced in so many copies that the R&D that went into making this lens has been recovered many times since the first version of this lens saw the light of day back around 1950. You can get it used a lot cheaper, and if you go for a Pentax 50mm f/1.4, then you can get it down to 50-80 USD if you follow e-Bay closely for a while!

Low light shooting. This lens is fast and will let in a lot of light. Lots of light enables you to shoot where there is very little ambient light, without adding flash or the like. For each f-stop you go down, the amount of light the lens lets in doubles, i.e. it is not a linear relationship but a more “explosive” one. So a 1.4 lets in double the amount of a 2.0 which is also considered at fairly fast lens.

Background separation. When the lens is wide open and you shoot at f/1.4, the depth of field (DoF) is very narrow, meaning that you will have excellent background separation, even to the extend where parts of your subject may be out of focus! I find that if I take a picture of my cat at f/1.4, then if the eyes are in focus, the nose may not be! The DoF is that shallow! At 45 cm distance (minimum focus distance for this lens), the DoF is 1-2 centimeters!

Shooting wide open on a summer’s day

You may find that your pictures are overexposed if you shoot at f/1.4 on a summer’s day.

The problem is that the lens lets in so much light, that even at a ISO 100 and maximum shutter speed, to much light hits the sensor. My Nikon D750 has a maximum shutter speed at 1/4000th of a second, and shooting a white or yellow flower in bright sunlight leads to over exposed pictures. The solution (other than stopping down) is a Neutral Density filter. I find that a ND3 filter (takes out 3 stops of light) solves the problem in most cases.

Sample pictures

Below some sample picture that I hope can give inspiration. I really enjoy shooting with the 1.4 lens, and if you are a photography nerd but have never tried to use a super fast lens, I can only recommend you try it! It is really great fun! If the price tag seems steep, try to see if you can lend or borrow one – but be prepared to be hooked! PS: Links to related reading at the bottom of the below images.

A thermometer – notice the blurred background.

The below is a wine bottle cork with some graphics on top. It stands on my kitchen table. But because the DoF is so shallow, the structure of the wood is only visible very close to the subject – the rest is blurred:

A small souvenir from Rome... — A small souvenir from Rome…

Video link

How to use Nikkor DX lenses on FX bodies

Starting my “career” as a photographer on a Nikon D5600, I quickly built a portfolio of good and less-good glass. One of my favorite lenses was the Sigma 18-35 mm 1.8 DC, and must admit that this lens was one of the reasons why I hesitated to go full frame – it is that good!!

However, someone kind told me that not all is lost. The Nikon F-mount is still the Nikon F-mount and the lens will fit and you will get all the EXIF information still. So what happens if you use the DX lens on an FX camera body?

Limited coverage

As you probably have figured out, the DX lens for the cropped sensor is designed to cover a smaller area than the FX sensor, so when you shoot with the DX lens, you will get vignetting meaning that especially the corners of the picture are darker or pitch black. The lens throws a light intended to cover the DX area comfortably, but when challenged with the FX sensors larger area, the circle cannot cover, and especially the corners are cut off.

However, how much depends on the zoom. The wider you go, the bigger the problem becomes. The first example here is at 35mm, i.e. the most zoom that the Sigma 18-35 mm 1.8 DC can give and as you can see there is some vignetting in the corners:

If you widen the perspective to 22mm (this is not even the widest it will go), you will see that the problems have gotten worse and now more of the corners are cut off:

However, if you study the pictures carefully, you will see that the 22mm has a wider reach than the 35mm despite the vignetting. In the water, top left, there are two buoys and you can see that there is more of the horizon to the left of them in the bottom picture. So although you have to crop the picture in post processing to get something useful, you still get a fairly wide picture using the Sigma 18-35 mm 1.8 DC on a FX body.

So, don’t sell all your DX glass if you decide to go for full frame – you may find that the DX glass is useful on a FX body. But it varies a lot from lens to lens, so the best is if you can test your lenses with the camera body you plan to buy, so you know exactly how useful your DX glass is on the FX frame.

Nikkor AF-S 18-140mm 3.5-5.6 ED DX VR

One of Nikons classic kit lenses is the Nikkor AF-S 18-140mm, and as you can see the vignetting is bad both when zoomed out (18mm) as this shot of a window frame shows:

And it only gets a notch better when zoomed in close – here at 140mm of the same window frame:

If you compare this to the Nikkor AF-S 35mm 1.8G DX, you can see that the vignetting here is much less, actually – I think – hard to see unless you know it is a DX lens on a FX frame:

I think you have to compare it to the 50mm FX equivalent (Nikkor AF 50mm 1.4D) to notice the difference:

So the Nikkor AF-S 35mm 1.8G DX in my mind is highly usable on a FX frame whereas the Nikkor AF-S 35mm 1.8G DX is much less. Finally, lets take a look at another classic kit lens.

Nikkor AF-S 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 G II ED DX

This lens is probably one of the most common kit lenses, and at 18 mm it – not surprisingly – shows the same vignetting as the 18-140mm:

However, at 55 mm there is hardly any vignetting:

So I think this illustrates that you need to test the specific lens you want to put on a FX camera as it is hard to make a conclusion or a guide that applies to all lenses.

Questions and comments

Questions and comments are more than welcome – please post below. Hope you found this blog useful. Thank you for reading! Please share if you find this post useful.

Nikon D5600: Still a good entry level camera?

Yes, the Nikon D5600 is not a modern camera. It came out in November 2016 and here in 2023 it is about 7 years old! That is a long time in this day and age, looking at the expedient development of mirrorless cameras with backlit sensors and image stabilisation and what not.

However, if you are willing to live with a camera that will not make the heads turn when you flash it in the local café, you may find that you get a camera that takes some excellent pictures and does so offering a wonderfully easy to use sets of dials and buttons. And for a price that does not break the bank.

But let’s have a look at some strongholds and some shortcomings, based upon my personal experience after owning and using this solid camera for more than a year.

Strong features

Price

Maybe the biggest advantage of the D5600 is the price: 530 EUR new with kit lens (Europe, April 2019) and 389 EUR for a camera body only version. That is less than what a battery grip costs for some mirror-less cameras! And if you further can live with a model that is a little older (the D5300) but with many of the same features as the D5600, then I have found it used on e-bay for 230 EUR and you have entered the world of photography on a budget.

A very good sensor still

It is still a very good sensor that sits in this camera, also compared to standards of today. It has 24 megapixels which is still very common for cropped sensor cameras (e.g. most of the Fujifilm x-series cameras). Despite an anti aliasing filter that it has become fashion to remove because some say it affects picture sharpness, it still produces some very great pictures with Nikon’s well known picture quality and color rendition. And you can shoot both RAW and JPG, and the JPGs are fine as well.

Ergonomics and user friendliness is top

Maybe what I enjoy the most with the D5600 is that the camera body is very light and the grip is deep. Some say the grip is not tall enough and that their pinky lacks a place to rest, but I have a very big hands and I have never had that as an issue. The camera is so light that holding it for hours has never been an issue for me. The user interface it the “good old” Nikon one, and although the D5600 lacks a front dial, the D5600 interface is very similar to other Nikon models, so if you speak Nikon, the D5600 is very easy to use. And if you don’t, you will quickly get familiar with the controls.

The LCD screen is a bonus

Maybe the LCD screen by today’s standards does not have the best resolution, but the screen is pivoting, touch sensitive, and it reacts – even compared to a modern smartphone – fairly quick.

Further, it can turn “inwards” when not used, i.e. protected from scratches and guaranteed not to bother you when using the viewfinder. This is a good thing when you shoot at night or throw the camera into an ordinary bag with other stuff – you don’t have to worry about that side of the camera!

Crop factor = “longer” lenses

The fact that the D5600 sensor is a cropped sensor (APS-C) means that the length of all lenses you attach to the D5600 are multiplied by 1.5. My 70-300mm Tamron lens suddenly becomes a 450mm at the far end which enables me take loads of pictures of birds sitting at the bird-feeder in the far end of my garden. So although some photographers claim that only full frame sensors will do, it is worth noticing that a cropped sensor also has some capabilities that full frame does not offer.

The full frame versus cropped sensor debate is one of the oldest in the photo community, and I do not want to add to the discussion, but for an entry level camera like the D5600 with 24 megapixels, I think you will find that you have plenty of resolution and picture quality for both social media and an occasional print.

Nikon glass and Nikon f-mount

The Nikon F-mount has been around since Donald duck was an egg, and there is literally thousands of lenses available for the Nikon D5600 and its f-mount. Shop around on e-bay and the local flea market, and you will be able to find some cheap vintage glass for your D5600, provided you are not afraid of manual focus. And the good thing is that if you later decide to upgrade to a higher level camera, then much of your glass can be reused. You can also find some new glass at a fair price – Nikons kit lens is a good start, and a 35mm prime lens can be achieved brand new for a reasonable price.

It is not a mirror-less

Yes it is a strange headline. But after going mirror-less also, I have come to learn to appreciate some of the features of the D5600 that I miss with the mirror-less cameras:

Battery life is awesome! As the D5600 has an optical viewfinder (and not an electronic one that needs to be powered like a tv-screen), the power consumption of the D5600 is very low, both when it sleeps and when it is switched off. I have my D5600 lying in the windowsill for weeks for an occasional bird shot without charging. That is so nice!

Sensor cleaning. On a DSLR the mirror sits between the sensor and the lens mount and that gives some protection to the sensor that I have never thought of. On a mirror-less the sensor is exposed at every lens change and that leads to dust and dirt on the sensor much faster than a DSLR. In fact, after more than a year of use, I have only cleaned the D5600 sensor once.

Shortcomings

It is a DSLR after all

Yes, a DSLR is a bit old-school and does not give you all the benefits found with a mirror-less:

There is no viewfinder with all the “heads up display” benefits. So you cannot in the viewfinder have aids like focus peek or a level meter or in general see what your picture exposure will be like before the fact.

The DSLR is noisy and it has mechanical elements. So if silent shooting is important to you, you need to look for a mirror-less camera. Many DSLRs have silent shooting modes, but you will find that they are not silent at all!

Live view is SLOOOOOW! The reason being that the camera swings the mirror away when going in live view mode (where the LSD is your viewfinder) and for each picture it swings the mirror forth and back again. That takes ages!

No 4K video

If you do a lot of video and 4K is important to you, this camera is not for you. It only does 1080p and a DSLR in my opinion is best suited for stills. If you want a great video camera, I would turn to mirror-less instead, or maybe simply use your smartphone for starters (my iPhone X offers 4K!).

No in-camera AF motor

Many of the older Nikon lenses, although it says AF for auto focus on the tin, assumes that your camera body has a built in motor to control the auto focus on the lens. The lens itself does not have a motor. Unfortunately the D3x00 and D5x00 series Nikon do not have this motor and you have to look at the D750 or the D7x00 series or higher. Or live with manual focus. Or buy only lenses that have motors built in (AF-S), but that of course rules out the vintage lenses.

If you are not sure if your camera – or the one you plan to get – has a built in AF motor, look for a little metal “ear” that sticks out bottom left on the f-mount ring when you look at the camera front. In the picture above, the bottom camera is the D7500 that has an AF motor (you can see the pen pointing at the metal “ear”), whereas the top one is the D5600 and you can see the AF motor is missing. The pen at the upper camera points to where the AF motor “ear” should have been.

No image stabilization

For years and years photographers have taken great photos without image stabilization in neither the lens nor the camera body. Now both seem to be a big wish from many, all of a sudden. So be aware that the D5600 does not have in body image stabilization (IBIS) so you either need a tripod or to buy lenses with stabilization, if you want to avoid camera shake with shutter speeds slower than 1/80th.

One SD card

People looking for a camera to be used professionally often shy away from cameras with only one SD card. I doubt that this is a concern for you if you are considering the D5600. but if coming home with pictures secured 100% on digital media, then a dual slot camera is key. The D5600 “only” as one. I underline that statistics show that it is seldom that an SD card fail, but it does happen and probably when you want it the least (that important child birthday or passing a long time dreaded exam). So if data security is high on your agenda, then a dual card solution is worth a consideration and the Nikon D7100 and D7200 deliver in this department.

Snapbridge…?

The smartphone integration (Snapbridge) could be more user friendly and many reviewers love to hate Snapbridge. I think it is better than its reputation, and you can actually remotely control your camera from the smartphone via snapbridge. But compared to say Sonys solutions for integrating your camera and smartphone, Snapbridge is cumbersome and has stability issues.

Conclusion

So, to answer the question if this is the right camera for you here in 2019, depends on your decision criteria and personal preferences: If you are a video shooter, I would seriously consider alternatives to the D5600. If a silent camera is important, I would look toward mirror-less. But if you simply want to take the step from shooting with your smartphone to a level above that, say for friends, family and an occasional landscape photo, the D5600 should be on your short list, provided you want a solution that does not break the bank. It is a very capable camera still, although the future probably is mirror-less. But some still listen to old Long Play records. And others still shoot 35 mm film based photos. Leading edge technology the D5600 is not, but it is still capable of producing great pictures worthy of social media and an occasional print. But before you make your decision, a few alternatives are worth considering.

Alternatives

I am not an expert on Canon or other brands, but I am sure that Canon and Sony and Pentax and … etc … has alternatives that compete in the same price range. The camera vendors know that if they can get you to like their camera system when you enter the market, it is likely that you will stay with that brand so you can re-use your glass. So typically they price their entry level products aggressive, in the hope they get a life-long friend in you.

If a lower pixel count is not a problem for you, and compact and portable is important, maybe your smartphone will simply do. You can get click-on lenses that fits your smartphone, and I started my photo career shooting with an olloclip lens on my iPhone 7 (the alternative is Moments). The problem with that solution is that if you upgrade your smartphone, you are likely to be in need of buying new glass or mount as well, but it is still a small investment compared to a full camera. The pictures you take can compete with an entry level camera in my opinion, and for example the iPhone X shoots 4K video, so it is actually a capable video camera! If you want the higher resolution but portability and compact is important to you, you may want to look for compact cameras such as the Sony RX100 series.

The entry-entry level camera from Nikon is the D3x00 series, and I believe the D3400 is the current model. The D3400 is available at a lower price point, but be ready to loose the pivoting screen and the touch sensitive screen as well, along with exposure bracketing and time lapses. If these features are not important to you, the D3400 could be your camera – the sensor and hence picture quality is very much the same, but check the full list of specifications to get a full overview of what the D3400 misses compared to the D5600.

Within the D5x00 series you can also go backwards on go for one of the earlier models, say the D5300. You will get very much the same camera, but a few features are different or missing on the D5300 but it is fundamentally very much the same camera.

If you are willing to spend a bit more on a camera an you want to stay with Nikon, then the D7100 and the D7200 are where you should look. These cameras are – as far as I can tell – still used by many professionals, and I have read many posts praising the pictures that these cameras produce. And then you have a camera with which you can grow as a photographer – with the D5600 you may find that you quickly grow out of it if you are bid by the photography bug.

Finally, if you want to go mirrorless, the Z50 is a very attractive alternative to the entry level DSLRs from Nikon. It is a APS-C mirrorless camera with the new lens mount that Nikon developed for the Z-series. If you do not have a lot of vintage or F-mount glass you want to re-use, then the Z50 as an entry level alternative should definitely be on your short list.

Performance

Conclusion

Video link

Related reading

A long time ago…

Z-mount for mirrorless

F-mount History

Mechanical AF

Distance information

Lens motor built in or not

Back to the past…

Zoom versus primes

The hype

Build quality

Live view

Pixel count

Viewfinder coverage

Dynamic range

What to choose?

Shopping link

Best VALUE landscape lens for Nikon F-mount?

Make sure you need this lens (2/3)

Make sure you have an AF motor (3/3)

Specs and review

Wrap up

Related reading

Manual mode

Aperture

Shutter speed

ISO

Video link

Adapter

Shooting “blind”

Focus aid

Final hurdle

Further aid

Finally

Related reading

Why the Nikon AF-D 50mm 1.4?

Shooting wide open on a summer’s day

Sample pictures

Related reading

Video link

Limited coverage

Nikkor AF-S 18-140mm 3.5-5.6 ED DX VR

Nikkor AF-S 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 G II ED DX

Questions and comments

Strong features

Price

A very good sensor still

Ergonomics and user friendliness is top

The LCD screen is a bonus

Crop factor = “longer” lenses

Nikon glass and Nikon f-mount

It is not a mirror-less

Shortcomings

It is a DSLR after all

No 4K video

No in-camera AF motor

No image stabilization

One SD card

Snapbridge…?

Conclusion

Alternatives

Related reading

Video link