March 2018's News
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Canon: 1DX II 5DS/R 5D Mk IV 6D II 7D II 80D 77D SL2 T6 Lenses
Sony: A9 A7R III A7 III A7RII A7SII A7II A7 A6500 A6300 A6000 RX10 IV RX100V Lenses
Nikon: D5 D850 D810 D750 D610 D500 D7500 D5600 D3400 Lenses
All Reviews: Apple Audio Fuji LEICA Zeiss Hasselblad Contax Olympus Pentax
Recommended Cameras Best Cameras Gifts How to Take Better Pictures random
Links: Adorama Amazon B&H Crutchfield eBay Tutorial Videos Infrared Facebook Twitter
Adorama's Daily Deals Amazon's Deals-of-the-Day B&H Deal of the Day Crutchfield's Sales
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31 March 2018, Saturday
Nikon 24-120mm VR FX.
UPDATED: Nikon 24-120mm VR FX Review.
I brought the review up-to-date as the market keeps changing.
24 March 2018, Saturday
Nikon 8-15mm f/3.5-4.5E.
NEW: Nikon 8-15mm Review.
Nikon's greatest fisheye ever, by a large margin. I'm glad I sold my 8mm f/2.8 before the market caves!
NEW: Nikon D850 Filmmaker's Kit, also at Adorama.
Includes:
Extra EN-EL15a Battery
ME-1 Stereo Microphone
ME-W1 Wireless Microphone Set
Atomos Ninja Flame 7" Recording Monitor
21 March 2018, Wednesday
Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E.
NEW: Nikon 70-300mm AFP E FX Review.
Surprise; this inexpensive lens has extraordinary sharpness as good as the 70-200/2.8 FL and 70-200/4 VR. YES!!!
19 March 2018, Monday
Adapted Lenses on Sony
Some of you have asked about reviews using off-brand (LEICA, Canon, Nikon, etc.) lenses on Sony.
As I've documented for years, adapted lenses generally don’t work very well. See:
LEICA's best 21mm lens shot on Sony versus Canon's cheapest 20mm lens shot on Canon
Canon 16-35 IS L shot on Canon versus shot on Sony, and there's more if you Search for it.
Even if you use a fantastic lens from another brand, it usually doesn't work anywhere near as well when used on another brand of digital camera because sensors are completely unlike film. Film doesn't care about the angle from which light hits it, while digital camera sensors are extremely picky about this due to the alignment of the microlenses which optimize light sensitivity.
Using whatever you already owned was popular 5 years ago when Sony came out with their first full-frame A7 because Sony made only one or two ho-hum lenses back in 2013.
It's not 2013 any more. Today Sony makes a full line of lenses which offer superior performance on Sony cameras. It is uncool to shoot old lenses adapted to different brands of modern cameras, unless you think rotary phones, 512MB CF cards, videocassettes and dial-up Internet are cool. There are always those who love to tinker, and there are those like me who have to produce superior images every day to survive.
Back in 2013 Sony had only one or two lenses, so there was some sense behind using your old lenses on adapters, even if those combinations rarely gave top-drawer results. The sad thing is how unpicky you people can be; people go off about "sharpness," but when it comes to the results of many of these FrankenCombos, people are happy with just about anything.
Today while we have great adapters like the Metabones, these are for people caught up in the past. Sony's G and GM lenses offer superior optics, and even more important offer far superior autofocus and everything else when shot on Sony cameras.
"The poor man always pays twice," meaning that people will cheap-out and think that they can just use a Metabones and their Canon lenses on their new Sony, but over time will eventually get what they want, which are the real Sony lenses — thus they've paid for the adapter and also eventually for the lenses. If they manned-up the first time and just get the Sony lenses they wanted in the first place, they only would have paid once.
Paying twice is the same thing with Nikon's phony claim of DX lens compatibility on FX cameras. Sure, DX lenses work on FX cameras, but they waste most of the sensor and you'll wind up buying all new FX lenses eventually. Then you'll realize that there was no economy with Nikon FX cameras over Canon since you had to buy all new lenses for either one, and you just as easily could have upgraded to Canon for full-frame back then. (Canon's APS-C lenses won't mount on their full-frame cameras, while Nikon's and Sony's do.)
So if you're going Sony, and the brand new A7 III is the best camera per dollar they've ever made, be sure to get the right lenses for it. Honestly, the 24-105 G is all I need for 90% of what I shoot, and the very few people know how to use ultrawides and have any need for anything wider. If you want longer, the 70-300G or 100-400mm are awesome, but honestly if you need the range, the 24-240mm is also a great lens for making real pictures. These lenses have only been out a year or so; so time to get with the times and leave the adapters to hipsters who spend too much time fiddling to notice that their pictures stink.
So in other words, for about $1,000 you can get the lens you really want, the 24-105 G, and not waste your time spoiling pictures and wasting time futzing with adapted old lenses from your grandma's Chinon. It's not just that technical picture quality suffers, so does autofocus and a lack of data communication and God knows what else. Stick with Sony's lenses and everything works, so you can focus your attention on the picture and not on the gear. That makes better pictures.
If you enjoy playing with all this don't ever let me spoil your fun, but for people coming to me for reviews and suggestions based on what I've learned out shooting, now that Sony makes the lenses we need, leave the adapters to your kids. Of course if you need a 600mm f/4 we're still waiting for it from Sony, but for everything else I need for 95% of what I shoot, Sony makes it today, but they didn't make much a year ago.
18 March 2018, Sunday
Nikon 28mm f/1.4E.
NEW: Nikon 28mm f/1.4 E FX Review.
17 March 2018, Saint Patrick's Day
USA version D850 has a USA warranty card on top of two printed manuals.
DON'T GET RIPPED OFF: Nikon D850 Unboxing.
This isn't amateur hour on YouTube; this is serious when I realized that I already have my second D850 (I got my first in September) and realize that people who waited to order theirs still can't get them and might be tempted to find them in shady places or even a local dealer, which are bad ideas since you never know what you'll get.
My Nikon D850 Unboxing and Nikon D850 USA Version sections lay bare what the shady and local dealers don't want you to know, which is exactly what you're supposed to get when you get the real thing from one of my personally approved online dealers, all of whom ship from secure automated warehouses where other customers and salespeople don't get to touch your camera before you do. Nikon does nothing to seal its boxes, so may the luck of the Irish be with you if you try to find one elsewhere.
I love that instead of taking a half hour to reset all my preferences and custom studio white balances and my name, address and phone numbers in my copyright information, all I had to do was download my settings file from my first D850 onto a card, and in two seconds my second D850 is already setup like my first. Bravo, Nikon! Neither Sony nor Canon can do this, which is a huge plus for anyone responsible for a fleet of cameras.
It takes a lot to make my approved dealer list; I've been buying from Adorama, B&H and Crutchfield since they all opened up in the 1970s; yes, I have over 40 years of being a customer with most of these guys so that's why I can recommend them so strongly. They're in it for us, not for themselves, which is why they keep growing while shady and local dealers wither away.
Nikon 10-20mm VR DX.
NEW: Nikon 10-20mm Review.
Even works on full-frame! Insane!
15 March 2018, Thursday
San Diego Tonight: Free Portait Photography Master Class!
If you're in San Diego, head on over Thursday night to hear Siobhan Gazur present a master class on portrait photography.
MORE UPDATED AGAIN: Sony A7 III Comparisons.
I spent much of yesterday adding more details about the minor differences among the A9, A7R III and A7 III, and realized some new things, like the fact that the A7 III has the best battery life of any Sony full-frame, ever, and that other than these three new top full-frame Sonys, you can ignore all the older models.
The A9, A7R III and A7 III have a new battery with twice the energy, and everything else uses the old tiny battery that only runs for a couple of hundred shots. All three have great battery life, and far superior technology and ergonomics than any of the other, older full-frame models, the newest of which are now three years old!
14 March 2018, Wednesday
Nikon D7500 and 50mm f/1.4 G.
NEW: Nikon D7500 Review.
I know it came out almost a year ago, but it's just a refresh of the D7200 and I've been too busy working with all the magical and genuinely new things Sony's been coming out with this past year.
What's laughable is how horribly hideous are the results from the D7500 at its highest ISO settings. Nikon put in some really stupid settings like ISO 1,638,400 (H+5) to impress the stupider people, but if you're ever actually seen the dreck that comes out of the D7500 (or D500) at that setting, you'll lose your lunch with laughter as well.
On a more serious note, the D7500 looks not that much different from the D850 at the same high ISOs, while the Sony A7 III looks much better at six-digit ISOs than anything from Nikon. I'm astounded at how ISO 204,800 on the A7 III is noisy, but colorful and quite useful where needed, while Nikon puts in settings to help sell cameras to stupider people that look horrible if anyone actually tried them. Nikons start losing colors and shifting colors at their top stupid ISOs, while Sony keeps the same colors and tones at its extreme settings. Just look at the samples at the reviews; it's obvious.
My review bares all. The D7500 is a great camera, but no, it can't shoot at ISO one million.
New Hard Drive: LaCie 8TB.
I just got a new external drive which I use with my Mac Pro to store all my images and other data. I outgrew the 5TB drive I got around 2014. This new LaCie d2 USB & Thunderbolt 2 drives comes from 3TB to 10TB; the 8TB version I got uses an enterprise-class drive with 5-year warranty.
This new drive is awesome because it's quieter. The old drive drove me nuts in my silent studio with my silent Mac Pro when it sounded so sad trying to spin up to access data. This new drive excels because I can't hear it, either. My drive and Mac Pro sit under my desk.
It's trivially easy to pop in a new drive. I use Super Duper to make an exact copy of the old drive. Then I eject the new drive and turn off my Mac. I attach the new drive to another Mac and rename it to the same name as my old data drive. I disconnect the old drive from my Mac Pro and save it as an archive. I connect the new drive, turn on my Mac Pro, and voilà, my Mac thinks everything is right where it always was, except that I now have a lot more free space for new work.
13 March 2018, Tuesday
Sigma for Sony E.
Fearless Photographer book
If you haven't already, check out my friend Dave Wyman's book Fearless Photographer: Nature. It's a great book by an actual photographer who's been shooting every day for almost 70 years — and still has no problem riding his bike 100 miles in a day. Dave has learned a lot with all this shooting and with many decades of leading photo tours, and writes well and shows much more practical information in a format we can use compared to a common photo book.
It's loaded with photos and useful information — it's not the usual throw-away book just loaded with computer screen shots. It applies from beginner to advanced, and applies to digital and film.
More Recommended Books.
11 March 2018, Sunday
Sony A7 III and 85mm f/1.8.
MORE UPDATED: Sony A7 III hands-on review!
NEW: Sony A7 III User's Guide!
I worked on this all day Friday and Saturday, too. I think it's finished for now. I rewrote most of the text at the top and bottom and added more images all over.
The more I work with the A7 III the more I realize that this camera is a landmark that turns the tables. While Nikon and Canon know we're invested in their DSLR systems and try to force us into paying more for upper-models since they pull features and performance off their $2,000-range cameras, the Sony A7 III is the same as Sony's top models from last year, the A9 and A7R III, just for half the price if you don't need crazy resolution above 24MP or more than 10FPS. The A7 III has the better AF system from the A9, not the A7R III's partial-frame AF system, and can shoot from ISO 50 to ISO 204,800 in silent mode, which the A9 can't do.
This is the first time mirrorless has been able to compete - and win - against DSLRs, at the same price.
Good gosh, have you seen what the A7 III does at ISO 204,800? It looks way better than the A7S II and way, way better than the Nikon D5, and the D5 costs three-and-a-half times as much. The A7 III has full-frame AF lacking in the D5, has almost the same frame rate, but the A7 III has better high ISO performance and more resolution than the D5. You can see all this in my reviews; click the links to get to images from the various cameras to compare as I have. The D5 can be set to higher ISOs for marketing purposes, but looks like garbage at its highest ISOs; the A7 III is much better, and does this all in total silence.
09 March 2018, Friday
The Nikon D3 with 50mm f/1.4 AF-D
Updated: Nikon D3.
I updated my index page about the Grand Master of all FX cameras, the world's first Nikon full-frame DSLR. I still use mine, it's a 9 FPS monster of a pro camera.
07 March 2018, Wednesday
A Third Hosting Company
Seeing how awful was the company I tried at the beginning of the week, if you're seeing this then you're seeing this page from yet a third different website hosting company, the latest in my genius plans to get my site to load as fast as it's supposed to for all of you.
How's it look? It may take a few days for the DNS records to update and everything to get on track.
05 March 2018, Monday
New Hosting Company — Arrg!
It worked great over the weekend, and now on Monday, my busiest traffic day, stalled.
For 18 years I was on a shared plan, and it worked great till they discovered that I was using 600 GB/day (18TB/month) of bandwidth.
Over the weekend I moved to a different company with a VPS and two 2.2GHz cores and 4GB of RAM. Looks like I'm using most of the RAM right now.
Who out there has any idea why I'm so slow? Do I really need more RAM and/or a dedicated server for this static HTML 1990s-technology website with no user inputs, no SSIs, no phps and nothing but serving 200,000 static pages and 600 GB of data per day (more on peak periods when new cameras come out)?
I'm not an IT guy, so I'd love to hear from those of you who are.
Thanks!
Ken
03 March 2018, Saturday
New Hosting Company!
If you're seeing this, then you're seeing my site from a new hosting company which hopefully will mean that you'll never see the "Try Again Later" warning again. I'm hoping everything will be even more lightning-fast than before, as well as no more missing images or pages.
My traffic outgrew the old hosting company I've been using since 1999.
It only took 26.5 hours to upload all 18GB of this website from home — from my 2009 MacBook Pro running Mac OS 10.6! I just happened to be running everything from my laptop while I was in Vegas, so it's all good. I don't know who says Apple laptops are expensive; I've been using this one for over 8 years and it runs flawlessly; no need to buy another as I had to do with junk-brand plastic laptops every 2 years. My plastic 12" MacBook G4 from 2004 also runs perfectly, but it's a little slow with its 800 MHz processor, even if it does have an Altivec accelerator.
If you're not seeing this entry and only seeing the entry below from February 27th, then you're still seeing my site from the old hosting company. You also should see the A7 Mk III with an 85mm f/1.8 lens below, instead of the lensless photo that was there before. This may take a few days to update — but if you're seeing this message, you're seeing it from the new server. Whoo hoo!
Many thanks to those of you who made suggestions!
What Was New in:
February 2018: Sony A7 III, Yosemite Photos, Nikon 50mm f/1.8 Pancake-NIKKOR review, beyerdynamic DT1350 review, beyerdynamic DT240 review, Canon SL2 review.
Janaury 2018: Nikon 180-400mm, Canon 6D Mk II review, Canon 18-135mm USM review, Fuji X-A5, Sony 18-135mm.
December 2017: Canon 35mm f/2.8 Macro review, Sony A7R III review, Sony A7R III user's guide, Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 G OSS review, Sony FE 100mm STF G OSS review.
November 2017: Sony 50/2.8 Macro Review, Sony 90/2.8 Macro Review, LEICA CL, Sony 70-300mm G Review, Panasonic G9, iPhone X Review, How to Make Time Exposures with iPhone, 1X Photo Contest, Tamron 100-400mm.
October 2017: Nikon D850 review, Nikon D850 user's guide, Sony A7R III, Sony 24-105mm G, Sony 85/1.8 review, Canon G1X Mk III.
June, July, August and September 2017: Canon 6D Mk II, Canon SL-2, Canon 85/1.4L, Canon TS-E 50/2.8, 90/2.8 & 135/4, Nikon D850, Nikon 70-300 VR DX AF-P, Nikon 28/1.4E, Metabones Mk V Canon EF -> Sony E-mount adapter.
May 2017: Nikon 10-20mm DX VR, Nikon 8-15mm FX Fisheye, Canon 77D Review, Canon Rebel T7i Review, Canon 18-55mm IS STM Review, Springtime in Yosemite, Irix 15mm f/2.4 Review, Sony 16-35/2.8 GM, Sony 12-24/4 G, Fuji X100F Review, Laowa 12mm Review, Olympus TG-5.
March & April 2017: Nikon D7500, Nikon 19mm PC-E review, Nikon D3400 review, Sony A7 Mk II review, Nikon D5600 review.
February 2017: Canon 77D, Canon Rebel T7i, Canon EOS M6, Sony 24-70/2.8 GM, Sony 85mm f/1.4 GM , Sony 70-200mm f/4 G OSS, Sony FE 100mm f/2.8 STF GM OSS, Sony FE 85mm f/1.8.
January 2017: LEICA M10, Fujifilm GFX 50S, Fujifilm X100F, Nikon D5600.
November & December 2016: Fuji X-A10.
September & October 2016: Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 FL, Nikon 19mm PC-E, Sony A6500, Sony RX100 Mk V, Sony Alpha 99 II, Canon EOS M5, Canon EF 70-300 IS II USM, Sony 50mm f/2.8 Macro.
July & August 2016: Canon 5D Mk IV, 16-35 IS II, 24-105 IS II, Nikon D3400, Nikon 105mm f/1.4, Fuji XT-2.
Help me help you
I support my growing family through this website, as crazy as it might seem.
If you find this as helpful as a book you might have had to buy or a workshop you may have had to take, feel free to help me continue helping everyone.
If you've gotten your gear through one of my links or helped otherwise, you're family. It's great people like you who allow me to keep adding to this site full-time. Thanks!
If you haven't helped yet, please do, and consider helping me with a gift of $5.00.
The biggest help is when you use any of these links when you get anything, regardless of the country in which you live. It costs you nothing, and is this site's, and thus my family's, biggest source of support. eBay is always a gamble, but all the other places always have the best prices and service, which is why I've used them since before this website existed. I recommend them all personally.
Thanks for reading!
Ken