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Aurora Lights Up the Northern Hemisphere

Aurora Borealis lit up the skies in the northern hemisphere last night in a stunning colour burst of pinks, purples and greens. The night started off as a simple excursion and I only expected to be out for an hour or so. That quickly changed and went on all the way until 3am, a little over six hours passed in the blink of an eye. Here are some pictures I made in rural Perthshire, Scotland (I will add more to this article later). If you are here to look at the pictures, just ignore the photography detail aimed at improving amateurs’ shooting techniques and enjoy:

The headline shot is one of the last shots of the evening, before I left at about 3am, of the classic location, at the Frandy tree in Glendevon. In this exposure, I used a Sigma 14mm f/1.8 prime and when doing the long exposure foreground (at f/5.6), the red glow of my headtorch caught the area under the tree. Although I took another without this, I left this in because it just works visually here.

During the night there was a thin veil of high cloud, causing the stars to glow in many exposures, ideal for this type of shooting:

I feel it is important not to be afraid of shallower depth of field in daytime and nightime landscapes. Everything doesn’t need to be in the focal plane. The above picture is shot at f/4 for the foreground (focused on the boat), and f/1.8 on the sky. You can notice the very front of the picture is outwith this plane of focus. It leads us into the picture. I don’t want the viewer gazing into the dark foreground corners. Consider this when shooting your own pictures. Focus stacking is over-rated when you know your own end goal with regards to a picture. Notice the lack of noise, even on a compressed web resolution image? This is what taking care and being precise at the scene looks like. You gotta work to make it as best as it possibly can be. Quality over Quantity.

The following shot is made with a Sigma 14mm 1.8 lens. I also have a tracked panorama of this scene which will show even more detail. I’ll post that after I get a chance to look at it. This picture here shows constellations Auriga with Jupiter below it (left side), and centrally, Perseus. The far right is Cassiopeia. All shrowded in faint auroral glows of greens, pinks and purples:

Aurora and Auriga, Perseus and Cassiopeia. Sky shot at f/1.8, foreground at f/5.6 for higher image fidelity. (Sky was not tracked in this example).

Then came the strongest aurora of the night:

The thing about shooting aurora is that is it nearly always different. Provided we can find the right scene, it it ever changing and the patterns create a uniqueness to each picture. Below is probably my favourite from the night, just because it is so unique:

This image was a complex one to blend the foreground to the sky to create; trees can be a real stumbling block because selecting fine branches is extremely difficult. I used a luminosity selection using Jimmy McIntyre’s ‘Lumi32’ (highly recommended) in order to get a finely detailed mask, then I used brushes at low opacity to ensure every fine branch matched to create this seemless result. I also recommend Jimmy’s Raya Pro suite.

Even as the aurora slowly faded from a period of high activity, it is still easy to make a beautiful picture. A definitive image is much more than sky colours! We could shoot aurora over bins and washing lines, we could shoot it from laybys and other ugly places, however that is not going to produce a memorable picture. Who would want to hang something like that on their wall? My best advice summarised is as follows: Find a suitable location, or better locations. Use fast primes of decent quality, and ideally a full frame 35mm camera. When proecessing, do not forget it is dark at night. I know, seems obvious right? However it seems like it is not to the folks on instagram or facebook these days who seem obsessed with making night look like day with their unnatural shadow pulling. Keep it dark, and balance this by not burning out black areas unless doing so intentionally. Watch the highlights. Where possible, do a long exposure of the foreground right after. This means we can blend it and get rid of noise. It’s also why it is ideal (when you get more advnaced) to shoot with two cameras at the scene, then you are less likely to miss anything as the aurora waxes and wanes. To begin however, you don’t need much of any of this. You just need to get out there with a camera and tripod to get started. As the night went on and the temperature, which had plummeted well below zero causing ice to form on all of the equipment; I switched on my lens heaters as they began to form ice crystals. The aurora finally died away and the hours of being in the punishing cold began to affect me, I finally called it a night.

If you want to learn how to do this, see my tutorial here. If you want to know the gear I use to produce these pictures, see here.

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The Mirror Man (Still), Loch Earn - Scotland

Still by Rob Mulholland. This is a huge mosaic using a Tamron 35mm f/1.4 and a Nikon Z8 camera and Star Tracker

Introduction

Recently a stunning sculpture by Artist Rob Mulholland has returned to Perthshire’s Loch Earn after an absence of eight years. It remained in the loch from 2014 until 2017 when it was removed. ‘Still’ as it is formally known, is a 2.7 metre sculpture, covering it’s surface are hundreds of tiny mirrors. It is designed to reflect man’s relationship with the natural world. The return of the artwork is thanks to a fundraising campaign led by local community groups ‘Take a Pride’ and ‘St Fillans in Bloom’. We hope it remains here for many years to come. When I noticed Still had returned to the loch, I set out to photograph this unique sculpture under starlight.

Still with the glowing Orion constellation behind

How I Photographed ‘Still’

In order to make a memorable and cohesive picture, it takes time and effort, both in terms of capturing the best data, using the best techniques and also in processing to bring that data out faithfully. Firstly, I mosaiced the sky using a Tamron 35/1.4 prime lens. (Basically I made a huge panorama style jigsaw puzzle of the sky to gather as much detail and light as possible). I took a singular row with the camera in vertical orientation, then did another of the sky higher up, and ran across the sky. I used a Star Adventurer star tracker in order to be able to do 30 second exposures at f/1.4, ISO 800. This makes for a very clean image, with exceptional light gathering. You can see the dusty dark lanes in the milky way, and good star colour in part due to this. I then switched the star tracker off and pano’d the foreground in the same way. I took double exposures for the bright lights centre left, and horizon right. Without doing so, these areas would be blown out white, and would become very distracting in the final image, leading the eye away from the sculpture centrally.

Loch Earn from above as Orion and Taurus set in the distance

On the first night, I hiked up to this viewpoint over Loch Earn with Martin from Light, Land and Sky. This gave us a fantastic vantage point to watch the constellations set in the west. I used a 20mm to mosaic the sky here, however I am annoyed that I didn’t use a 35 or 50 in order to give more detail. Next year, we will do differently, however for now it is a nice reminder of the night under the stars, especially since it was bearable-cold, and Loch Earn was completely still for two nights. (Did you see what I did there…)

On arriving for a second night to photograph Still, aurora appeared as I attemped to photograph the sculpture. Unfortunately it was much stronger whilst getting my gear out and preparing to shoot, however you can see the glow of pink in this image. This image is an ultra wide panoramic, shot quickly using a Sigma 14mm f/1.8 lens to collect the light as fast as possible. This panoramic is built from six vertical images to give what you see here.

Finally, here is another picture I made of Still at Loch Earn showing the major winter constellations; Gemini, Orion, Taurus, Auriga and Perseus:

Still - The Mirror Man, Loch Earn — Still @ Loch Earn by Rob Mulholland

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Steve

The Best Lenses for Astrophotography

Perseid Meteor Shower: Aperture matters! Sigma 14nn f/1.8 and Nikon D850

Introduction

Astrophotography is one of the most demanding applications we can put optical equipment through; it is in fact a torture test for any lens that has to balance aberrations across a large sensor such as APS-C or full frame, considering that a large part of the focused image will contain pin point light sources (stars). In this article I am going to detail some of the best lenses for these purposes, looking at lenses that are built to handle a wide spectrum of shooting cases. This means they will all have large apertures, to be able to deal with low light levels. In astrophotography, maximising the signal achieved from the night sky is one of the most pressing concerns when shooting, so we will be looking at lenses that function on and off of a star tracker to produce stellar results. A shooter needs to consider how they work and their goals when choosing suitable lenses / equipment. For example, if we are shooting aurora, aperture matters much more as star trackers don’t help much to gather additional signal. If we are shooting the milky way, we can use a slower lens (or a fast lens stopped down) on a star tracker. If we are shooting combinations of different items, well, this is where it starts to get tricky…

14mm and the Super Ultra Wides

Fast aperture ultra wide lenses are the lens of choice for most when they consider capturing the night sky with their camera. Ultra wides are sometimes looked down on from experienced astrophotographers, who tend to do a lot of mosaics with longer focal lengths; however I still really enjoy using them for their field of view, aperture and sheer simplicity etc. Lenses like these are excellent for strong, sky-filling aurora storms, expansive milky way views, or collective constellation shots. They are good for times when you want an expansive field of view, however do not wish to resort to a longer lens to build a pano. There could be many reasons for this, weather, time, scene geometry and more.

Sigma 14mm f/1.4 DG DN (mirrorless)

A recent design which was designed for astrophotography from the ground up. Sigma states this new optic was born from their engineers’ passion for capturing the widest, brightest, highest-resolution, and most captivating starry sky images possible. This lens is one of the best rectilinear ultra wide angle - fast aperture lenses available. It has excellent centre sharpness at f/1.4, corners are somewhat softer. It is completely useable at f/1.4, but the stars improve best at around f/2.5-2.8, with only small deformation to star shapes on the periphery and corners of the full frame image. Wide open it pretty well controlled coma and sagittal / tangential astigmatism. This lens has a massive vignette wide open (-2.5 EV corners), so you are only getting the f/1.4 advantage centrally really. It is usefully-so, quite resistant to flare compared to the Sigma 14/1.8 lens I own. It includes useful features such as a built in lens collar, and a hood which prevents lens warmers slipping into the field of view when shooting; this in combination with a manual focus lock switch, means focus stays where it was set. This lens has a rear filter slot which can be useful. It comes in at 1,170g in weight. It has an aperture ring which I love (Nikon I am looking at you) and it is fully weather sealed. As with all lenses in this class, it’s large and heavy and currently only available for Sony E and Leica L mounts.

Sigma 15mm f/1.4 DG DN Fisheye (mirrorless)

Another superb modern optical design is this. This lens is actually arguably better than any rectilinear lens when it comes to star shapes into the distant corners. It easily beats the Sigma 14/1.4 and 14/1.8 rectilinear lenses, because a fisheye lens by design does not have to bend light as much as a rectilinear lens. The result is that the corners are just better all round. It has excellent centre and corner sharpness even wide open and is useable from f/1.4 with no real problems. Wide open it has well controlled coma and sagittal / tangential astigmatism, and stars stay as tight little round circles. It includes the usual useful Sigma features, focus lock and a hood that prevents migration of any lens warmers into the field of view. This is a lens that up until recently I probably would have instantly discounted with it being a fisheye design. However, from what I have seen with this lens, it is too good to ignore. You can always get creative with those distorted foregrounds too, so give it consideration. It includes useful features such as a built in lens collar, and a hood which prevents lens warmers slipping into the field of view when shooting; this in combination with a manual focus lock switch, means focus stays where it was set. This lens has a rear filter slot which can be useful. It comes in at 1,360g in weight. It has an aperture ring which I love (Nikon I am looking at you) and it is fully weather sealed. As with all lenses in this class, it’s large and heavy and currently only available for Sony E and Leica L mounts.

Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM (dslr or mirrorless)

I have owned this lens since 2019 and it has been used to create many astrophotography pictures the length and breadth of Scotland. This lens has very good centre sharpness wide open, but soft corners, similar to the 14/1.4 lens described above. Wide open it has noticeable coma and sagittal / tangential astigmatism, giving little wings to the stars. I use this lens wide open, and on pixel peeping we can see these aberrations clearly. Stopped down they improve quickly however, and get close to the newer sigma 14mm 1.4 design at 2.8 (this is a consideration when using a star tracker of course, we can stop down to improve star sharps and vignette’s etc). This lens is no slouch, even in comparison to the newer 1.4 design. (For example, mid-frames actually favour the 14mm f/1.8 Art slightly). Like most fast ultra wide lenses, this lens has some noticeable field curvature to it’s design. This means that we have to be careful focusing centrally. If we choose a focal point 2/3 out from the centre frame, we can get a better sharpness balance and control some of the corner aberrations (and sharpness), much better. This lens like the others, is large and heavy, and still fairly expensive despite being older. This lens comes in at 1,120g in weight. It has an aperture ring which I love (Nikon I am looking at you) and it is fully weather sealed. As with all lenses in this class, it’s large and heavy and currently only available for Sony E and Leica L mounts. It has one advantage over the others, in that it can be used on DSLR and Mirrorless cameras, if that matters to you, which for me does. It is available for Nikon F or Canon EF mounts, and can be adapted to any mirrorless system with the usual adapters. I use it on DSLR and on Nikon Z mount via the FTZII adapter.

Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM (mirrorless)

And here we come to a real surprise. Optically speaking, for astrophotography, I have to hand it to the Sony 14/1.8 mirrorless lens for E mount cameras, it is very good optically and much smaller than the others. I have seen some places state it is the best 14mm in terms of overall performance. It’s a great lens, however it is a little more nuanced than this. It does have clean, and fairly most pinpoint stars into the corner frames, yet of course it’s not a 1.4 like the Sigma mirrorless option, but it is much lighter (460g!). It tests slightly less sharp in the mid frames and corners than the other options, however it proves that testing for the intended subject and not relying solely on MTF charts and resolution figures is the most sensible approach when evaluating a lens. What is most astounding is this lens is about half the size and weight of the other options mentioned here at just 460g. It also includes an aperture ring which is very nice to have, usual full weather sealing and as mentioned it is tiny relative to the other options. This is a huge boon for this level of performance. If shooting Sony, it is probably a no-brainer, I would potentially choose this over any of the Sigma designs. Then again, I am a bit of an aperture nut so, maybe that f/1.4 would entice me, for Aurora. It can be adapted to other mounts, eg Z, however I caution you on doing so. Often we cannot achieve the right back focus due to different sensor stack thickness. The end result is the corners seem to play much better on the native mount when it comes to mirrorless lenses. For use on Sony E mount.

Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8S (mirrorless)

Ah, the famous ultra-wide zoom. This is probably the best one out there due to it’s relatively small size and weight compared to lenses in it’s class. At just 650g, it is well built, works extremely well on the Z mirrorless system, and it is optically the best fast ultra-wide angle zoom that I know. It even closely matches with the best sigma prime at f/2.8, no mean feat! This said though, it is a f/2.8 lens. This is the minimum I want out of an astro lens, and luckily, we get this here (forget about f/4 glass). Optically this lens is superb, even on starlight. It is best with regards to star performance at 14mm, however most of the range is good. It is weakest at 24mm, however even at it’s weakest it is still strong when it comes to astro. If you can handle the slightly slower aperture than the primes, this lens is arguably a lot more flexible. There is also of course the option to use it on a star tracker to negate the aperture difference for certain shooting. However, when shooting Aurora or meteor showers etc, we actually want the large apertures of f/1.4-f/1.8 to draw in that light. So choose wisely, based on what do you. I’ve got this lens and the 14/1.8 for that reason. It makes a big difference! I have been doing this for some time now, so have amassed different equipment for each application. See here for more. This lens is made for Nikon’s Z mount and it really is as good as I am stating here.

Orion over the Duncansby Sea Stacks, 14-24/2.8S with a Nikon Z8

20mm

20mm is a classic astro focal length, it is perfect for singular fields of view that include a good amount of foreground (remember we have access to vertical shooting), and it also works well on a tracker. Their field of view, whilst expansive, ‘chops off’ some of that really distorted look we can find at 14mm.

Sony 20mm f/1.8 FE (mirrorless)

This is a great choice if shooting Sony. It is pretty much a class leading lens for a 20mm design, and it’s only real competitor would be the Sigma 20mm f/1.4. However, this lens simply sharper across the full frame at any shooting distance than the Sigma, but it has a little more coma and corner aberrations relevant to astrophotography. These are not severely worse than the sigma, but worth noting. These two are very close in terms of performance otherwise. The main difference is the slower aperture of the Sony, however for that we get a smaller and lighter lens. It’s a case of make your choice as to what matters for you. (The sigma does have that cool lens heater retainer that I like)…It includes useful features such as an aperture ring, and full weather sealing. This lens is tiny, and it comes in at just 375g in weight. Sony have really nailed a balance between optical performance and weight, even despite the fact they have the most restrictive (narrowest throat) mount out there. It has an aperture ring which I love (Nikon I am looking at you) and it is fully weather sealed. Designed for use on Sony E mount.

Sigma 20mm f/1.4 DG DN (mirrorless)

Here is a class leading lens for astrophotography. This lens wins out over the Sony f/1.8 mirrorless version because it has better star performance in it’s corners over it (think coma, astigmatism, CA etc). This has a nice little ‘lens heater retainer’ at the end of the barrel to prevent it slipping into the field of view. Great ergonomics are found here. It includes useful features such as a built in lens heater retainer; a hood which prevents lens warmers slipping into the field of view when shooting; this in combination with a manual focus lock switch, means focus stays where it was set. This lens has a rear filter slot which can be useful. It comes in at 635g in weight. It has an aperture ring which I love (Nikon I am looking at you) and it is fully weather sealed. As with all lenses in this class, it’s large and heavy and currently only available for Sony E and Leica L mounts. It is larger and heavier than the Sony, however if I owned a Sony body, this would still be a strong contender as my lens of choice due to the expansive feature set and optical performance.

Nikon 20mm 1.8S (mirrorless)

Contender for one of the ugliest and most basic lenses I have ever seen on it’s exterior, the Nikon 20 1.8S lies somewhere in the good category for astro shooting as noticed by most reviewers such as Lenstip who do excellent diode tests to show coma and astigmatic problems in lenses. It fails to correct astigmatism and coma as well as the Sigma or the Sony. I find this odd because I expected more from Nikon’s Z mount; I mean they shoved that mount advantage right in my face day one, so why are the other two designs that work on the smallest E mount, arguably better for astro? (Remember that we can often improve corner aberrations by focusing well off centre and checking the corner stars). It also has strange ergonomics; it has a focus ring that would make a toddler blush at it’s size, making it easy to knock focus unintentionally in the dark. I can’t see any real reason for this, but it’s a bit strange looking and as you can probably tell, ergonomically I am not a fan of this lens. It is also very long, which was a design to combat focus breathing for video. If you don’t care about video, you’d prefer the Sony over this. It has no focus lock, and has only one lens switches on the barrel to switch focus from manual to auto. A small plus to the fact it has a distal barrel design which should stop lens heater migration. I think Nikon farmed this design out, and where just happy it was better than the 20mm 1.8S. It has a reasonably low weight of 505g and belongs on Z mount for shooting.

Loch Tummel, Scotland. 20mm Mosaic Image

24mm

24mm is an astro focal length that can begin to isolate a deep sky object or constellation, whilst still leaving some foreground in shot. It can also be used to construct mosaics, producing ultimately more detailed views of the cosmos than using a lens such as a 14mm prime.

Sony 24mm f1.4 GM (mirrorless)

Here we have a clear class leader if you shoot on Sony E mount. This lens has basically no coma or astigmatism wide open. Very impressive, considering the lens is an f/1.4. This enables it to be used for aurora to collect the best light, and stop motion. It is of course excellent on the milky way, constellations, and any other starlight scene we can throw at it. It does have some CA wide open, with the effect disappearing around f/2. (This is an aberration which is very easy to clean in post processing anyway). It includes useful features such full weather sealing and comes in at a paltry 450g in weight, making it great for carrying. It has an aperture ring which I love (Nikon I am looking at you) and it is fully weather sealed. As with all Sony lenses for astro, keep them in E mount land.

Sigma 24mm f/1.4 DG DN (mirrorless)

The Sigma 24mm doesn’t beat the Sony here in terms of outright astro shooting, however for me, it is a clear winner over the Nikon option listed below, since it has both an f/1.4 aperture, and a better control of corner aberrations than it. It has other advantages too. This lens keeps it’s switches and focus lock like the others and shouldn’t allow lens heaters to migrate into the frame when using the hood. It has great ergonomics in fact, also sporting an aperture ring like the other Sigma lenses in this new range, along with full weather sealing. It comes in at a very reasonable 520g in weight. It can be used on Sony E or Leica L mounts with no issues.

Nikon 24mm 1.8S (mirrorless)

At present, this is the best Nikon 24mm for astro on Z mount. It has much less astigmatism (aberration causing winged stars) and coma than the old f mount 24/1.4G and 1.8G lenses, however curiously it is still not perfect, and not as good as the Sony. Again, Z mount advantage? What is going on here Nikon? I do wish it had an f/1.4 aperture however. I do not own this lens, and still use the 24mm 1.4G as I tend to use that lens between dslr and mirrorless cameras. One thing I dislike slightly about some of Nikon’s prime lenses is this simplistic approach in their ergonomics. Like the 20mm 1.8S, there are hardly any switches on the barrel; no focus lock like Sigma, a little area at the end of the lens to prevent migration of a lens heater maybe, but still…Why are the focus rings on Nikon’s wide prime lenses seemingly designed for toddler’s fingers? They are massively oversized, making it easier to knock focus by mistake at night. This is a definite downside to Nikon options I am finding, in particular for astro as it can really affect things. This along with the lack of a lock switch, means you really need to be careful of accidentally ‘adjusting’ focus when you don’t wish to at night.

Meteor Spears Auriga. 24mm f/1.4G shot at f/5. Separate 24mm shot for ground with star tracker off. 24mm is a very useful astro focal length

35mm

35mm is not often considered an astro focal length, particularly to beginners. This is because many beginners are stuck on the ‘you need to go wide’ thing for astrophotography. 35mm lenses are great for light collection (they collect vastly more light than a 14mm 1.4 lens - remember that aperture is a ratio of focal length, see the rest of the blog for more detail on this). 35mm lenses are also superb for constructing detailed sky mosaics on a star tracker.

Tamron 35mm f/1.4 Di USD (dslr or mirrorless)

Hands down, this one is the best 35mm optic for 35mm format across all brands. See here and here for on this lens. I do not say this lightly, however there are a number of factors that bolster this statement. One is aperture. Even at f/1.4, this lens can be used with considerable confidence, and is pretty close to perfect right out to periphery of the frame and corners. Stars stay tight and rounded with very minimal problems. This is a optical feat in itself at such a fast aperture of f/1.4. This lens is extremely well built and feels great in the hands (fighting a ‘that’s what she said’ here; I took the moral high-ground). Total weight comes in at 805g and it has a sole MF / AF switch on the barrel of the lens along with the dslr standard window to see focal distance. The hood is excellent and locks into place, the lens has full and extensive weather sealing also. This lens can be found for Nikon or Canon dslr mounts, thus it can be used easily with adapters on their respective mirrorless systems. It does get a little long (dammit, twice in one paragraph!), however it really is no problem if you are out there for optical excellent, I highly recommend it. I use it directly on F mount or on the Z system via the FTZII.

Voigtlander 35mm f/2 APO-Lanthar II (mirrorless)

Another class leading 35mm prime lens, the Voigtlander has the large advantage that it is smaller and lighter than the Tamron. However, it does lack weather sealing, which is a big minus point considering dew formation and inclement weather conditions we sometimes face in the field. This lens is well corrected (it is an APO design), however the 50 is a tad more controlled in the corners when it comes to the biggies like astigmatism and coma that affect our domain. The other problem is that it is ‘only’ an f/2, and Tamron has shown that we can beat this performance at f/1.4. This is still an excellent lens, well build, light at only 420g and comes with a beautiful manual focus ring to get that focus just right. It has been officially licenced and is available on Nikon Z mount directly, and it is also available on E mount.

Planetary Parade over Rural Scotland March 2025. A huge mosaic shot with a Tamron 35/1.4 lens and Nikon Z8 Camera

Milky Way over Dunnet Head, Scotland. Sigma 35mm 1.4 Art on a Nikon Z8. Notice the lack of astigmatism in the corners? I used post processing to fix this optical defect that renders stars into ‘seagul’ shapes. This is still a functional lens, however has been replaced by the Tamron 35.

50mm

50mm lenses are even less thought of as astro lenses compared with 35mm primes. I will admit it is my least used lens for astro-landscape style shooting. However, this is simply down to the numbers. I simply shoot many more views with wider lenses. There is one exception. Every year I use a 50mm lens in order to create a milky way core mosaic as it rises in late March - early April around 4am.

Voigtlander 50mm f/2 APO-Lanthar II (mirrorless)

A class leading 50mm prime lens, the Voigtlander has the large advantage that it is smaller, lighter, better built and optically trumps the competition. However, it does lack weather sealing, which is a big minus point considering dew formation and inclement weather conditions we sometimes face in the field. This lens is extremely well corrected and can be used wide open. The star shapes are great into the far periphery and corners on full frame. This lens does have a huge vignette wide open, and it does mean that the collected signal in the corners is significanty poorer than it could be. I assume this is due to the fact the lens was designed to fit not only the Z mount (which it of course does easily), but also the significantly narrower E mount diameter. The other ‘problem’ is that it is ‘only’ an f/2, and Tamron has shown that we can beat this performance at f/1.4 if we have the design intention to do so. This is still an excellent lens, well build, light at only 370g and comes with a beautiful manual focus ring to get that focus just right. It has been officially licenced and is available on Nikon Z mount directly as well as Sony E.

The Milky Way Rises over Dunnottar Castle - Stonehaven, Scotland. Made possible with a 50mm lens on a star tracker.

The Milky Way Core over a secluded Beach. A huge 50mm mosaic bringing out fantastic sky details with no distortion.

Then after we have considered all this, we can use many of these lenses in a deep sky style of shooting. Here are some pictures I have made over the last few years with a star adventurer and dslr / mirrorless lenses:

Mars and Pleiades Conjunction. The first deep sky astro image I ever took. Nikon D850, 70-200/2.8E. 20 Minutes total exposure

Cygnus. 50mm f/1.4G at f/4. About 2 hours total exposure

Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS over Loch Earn

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I will leave this article open and come back to add additional lenses over time.

Last Updated 10th March 2025.

The 2025 Planetary Parade Seven Planet Alignment from Scotland

Planetary Parade 2025 from Scotland - Seven Planets — The Planetary Alignment on the 25th February from my backyard in Perth, Scotland

Viewing and imaging the Planets

What a sight we have in Scotland’s dark night skies right now, with multiple planets on display, some of them being imagable. (This should also be viewable from most places in the world). What the media doesn't explain is that some are not exactly going to be naked eye visible. Technically speaking we can ‘see’ seven planets right now - Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Venus, Neptune, Mercury, and Saturn, will all be briefly visible in the early evening south facing sky. In this image, we can see the faint milky way arcing across the centre of the image up to the top right. This is as you can imagine, an extremely densely packed area of stars. The dark grey patches on the right of the image are caused by interstellar dust blocking our view of the stars behind it. This is why here the image appears to be void of stars and takes on a patchy appearance.

In the night sky the planets follow a curve in the sky that matches the sun, called the ecliptic. (Think of this like the plane of our solar system). Above the milky way areas at the top left, we can see the planet Mars in the constellation of Gemini with the supermassive stars Castor and Pollox to it’s left, then Jupiter on the right above the "V" shaped constellation of Taurus (You can see the arc of the ecliptic I mentioned earlier by simply joining the dots here). As you can see, the recognisable Orion is nicely nestled between the houses too at the very bottom. Uranus is just below pleiades (the blue star cluster on the right) however it is too tiny and faint to see unless viewed on a magnified version of this image, or with a telescope / binoculars in very dark skies or with someone in ultra dark skies, who has good conditions with perfect eyesight. Even then, it will appear as a small dot in our vision. If we could pan right from this image (which would be looking west, out of shot), we could see Venus on the lower horizon and Saturn not far away.

Our eyes can interpret only 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum. Because of this, the reality is, we see next to nothing of our beautiful cosmos, however we can begin to see a glimpse if we try to adapt our eyes for the night. In this game, it is best to leave misconceptions about our own eyes being truth-seers at the door and open our minds to what could be out there, and what is out there when we observe the night sky.

Dark Adaption

It takes the average human eyes about 45 minutes to become dark adapted at night, however studies show that improvements in night vision can occur for up to two hours! Any artificial light immediately damages any adaption our eyes have made and we have the start the clock again. So get off your phone! We don’t see much at all at first when looking up at the night sky. However, our eyes are capable of seeing fainter starlight, planets or aurora if we allow them time to adapt to the darkness. The purkinje effect describes the situation in human vision: as light levels decrease, the perception of warm colour drops, especially the red end of the spectrum. It is very important to observe the night sky with dark adapted eyes for this reason. To properly have our eyes adjusted for light levels this low, one must observe for at least 30 minutes and avoid all forms of artificial light during that time. This is a much longer time than most people give it. This is why many struggle to see colour in the night sky. Contrary to popular opinion, stars are not just little white dots floating out in space. Here is a picture showing the variation in star colours and planets shot recently showing the alignment from a rural setting:

The Planet Parade over Scotland, 1st March 2025. This image is a huge mosaic spanning a field of view over 200 degrees. It was made with a Tamron 35mm f/1.4 Di USD lens. Top left: Mars, centre: Jupiter, and lower right horizon: Venus. (Pinch-zoom on mobile to see details). To buy as a print see here.

About the Image and How to Find the Planets

I am lucky to stay in a place where light pollution is less than in most residential places, relatively speaking. The camera and lens used to take this are extremely powerful equipment. The headline picture in this article is made up of about 10 separate images and took me hours to painstakingly join them all together to produce this final result. To form this image, I used a Star Adventurer Star Tracker and a Nikon Z8 camera. The lens I used was a state of the art Tamron 35mm f/1.4 Di USD, wide open at f/1.4. Each exposure was 30 seconds, set at ISO 64. I then took a series of images to form a panoramic of the ground with the star tracker off to get this final picture you see here. Weather permitting I hope to see and image this again from a rural perspective tomorrow night (Thursday the 27th February 2025), and if not, it looks like I might get a chance somewhere rural on the Saturday of this week. You will of course still be able to see most of these planets like this for the next week or so. The best two to see in my opinion are shown here, which is why I concentrated on this part of the sky, rather than making a ultra massive, wide panoramic image and everything then becoming lost within the wideness of the vista. Mars on the left side is particularly interesting. If you let your eyes adjust and become properly dark adapted, you will easily see it’s glowing orange colour. I find it fascinating to let my vision slowly adjust, so much that I can discern planet or star colour. That’s pretty amazing I think.(Remember, darker skies will greatly help here). This process is obviously helped by being in darker skies, away from streetlights and the further from any towns or cities, the better. As mentioned, my advice is to go somewhere as dark as possible to increase your chances, and to always allow your eyes to become properly dark adapted. This alignment is best seen early evening just after sun set, in the south facing sky, extending west through east. (Consider that this image is looking practically directly south). This alignment of the seven planets will not be seen simultaneously so well until 2040. If you can visit an observatory under clear skies, or can go somewhere rural with your naked eyes, or a telescope / binoculars, you are in for a treat. Good luck if you are out hunting.

NB: On mobile, pinch zoom on the image to see closer details. On desktop, click the image for a larger view. If you check my instagram you will be able to see a video demonstrating this all here. To buy this image as a highly detailed print, see it in my store, here.

If you enjoyed this article, consider following me on Instagram or Facebook.

Steve

2025 Seven Planet Alignment as Viewed from Scotland's Dark Skies — Tracked Sky Image earlier in evening with Nikon 14-24/2.8S lens at 14mm. Mars is on the left next to the blue/white stars Castor and Pollox in Gemini, to the right the white blob is Jupiter, found in the ‘V’ shaped Taurus Constellation

Sigma 14mm 1.8 Art lens with Nikon D810. A 114 degree field of view of the spectacle

The Best 35mm Lens Ever Made for Astrophotography: Tamron 35mm f/1.4 Di USD

Star Adventurer Mount and Nikon Z8 with Tamron 35mm f/1.4 Di USD

Introduction

Sometimes a lens comes a long that is a game changer optically. As much as I strongly dislike that phrase, there is simply no other way to describe the level of perfection this lens achieves, in particular with starlight, however it also excels across other genres too. This lens came about in 2019, when Tamron instructed it’s team of optical engineers to design the best 35mm lens they could. And they achieved just that. Some might say, ‘oddly’ for the usual DSLR mounts. Why not mirrorless? I don’t know, or care, because for me it’s actually an advantage; I shoot across mounts. I use lenses on DSLRs and on mirrorless, so I simply use the Nikon FTZII adapter to use it on my Z8 body. It is important to note that Tamron have been around a long time and have vast experience to draw on; they were founded in 1950. Many lenses for the big camera companies have been Tamron designs. (One that comes to mind is the Nikon 14mm 2.8D lens which was outsourced by Nikon to Tamron for it’s design).

Why A 35mm Lens For Astrophotography?

I hear this from so many people. I think the confusion comes from the thinking that wider is better. Well that really depends…35mm lenses have huge advantages when making panoramas (or better termed, mosaics) of the night sky. Due to general low distortion that these lenses have, coupled with their fast apertures, makes them sensible lenses to collect the strongest signal from each area of the night sky in order to build a proficient picture. They are also excellent for isolating a deepsky object or constellation, or even aurora that is low on the horizon. Read here for more information. While a 35mm prime lens will include less angular view of the night sky than a wider lens, it has the huge advantage that it collects vastly more light due to it’s large clear aperture size compared to wider focal lengths and apertures:

Planetary Alignment on the 26th February 2025 showing Mars (top left) and Jupiter (lower right). This image is a mosaic of 5 individual sky pictures using the Tamron 35mm f/1.4 Di USD lens on a star tracker.

Fast Aperture Lenses

To capture faint starlight, we want the fastest lenses we have. In terms of light collection, some of the most efficient lenses at gathering light are between 24-50mm and with an f/1.4 aperture. This is due to clear aperture size (the amount of light a lens collects is based on it’s aperture and focal length. We have to remember that aperture is a ratio, thus it is affected by the focal length of the lens. A 14mm 2.8 lens does not gather anywhere near the same amount of light as a 50mm 2.8 lens does). To work out a clear aperture size for a lens, we take the focal length and divide it by it’s aperture. Thus:

For a 24mm f/1.4 lens we get:

24 / 1.4 = 17mm diameter of clear aperture

For a 35mm f/1.4 lens we get:

35 / 1.4 = 25mm diameter of clear aperture

Now let’s look at something that everyone jumps onto when shooting the night sky, or aurora. Ultra Wide Angle lenses. Now they can have some advantages, however, with regards to light collection, let’s look at the numbers:

For a 14mm 2.8 lens we get:

14 / 2.8 = 5mm diameter of clear aperture

Since clear aperture is a direct correlation of the light collection abilities of a lens, we can deduce that ultra wide angle lenses are not necessarily the best as everyone thinks they are, and 35mm 1.4 lenses are actually one of the best we can get, with 25mm diameter of clear aperture up for grabs. In contrast, ultra wide angle lenses collect ridiculously poor amounts of light compared to longer focal lengths, even when they have fast apertures (remember, it’s a ratio). However, I hear you say, ‘they let me shoot for longer because the Earth is rotating,’ etc. Yes of course. They can partly compensate for apparent star motion. However, test out how much brighter faint aurora comes out with a 24/1.4 or 35/1.4 lens and you will see what I mean here. Ignore star motion for a moment and take a 35/1.4 shot for 10 seconds, then take a shot with a 14/2.8 for 10 seconds. Notice how much darker than 14mm lens is? For further reading on this subject, please see here.

Lens Characteristics

The Nikon version of this lens comes in at 805g. It comes with a lens hood that is lockable and well made compared to the Sigma 35/1.4 version I shot with for years. One reason I sought another 35mm was I had two separate Sigma 35mm f/1.4 lenses go bad on me, and my equipment is babied. Two went decentered and even despite sending to Sigma, they never seemed to get it right again. So I bought another, as I generally liked the lens, and low and behold about a year later it occurred again. Something was definitely up here; I was done with that lens by then. It should be noted, I treat this a strange unexplainable occurrence. I shoot with the 14mm f/1.8 Art and have never had issue. I can only assume there is something poor about the lens element glue within the lens; something is moving over time to cause these problems I encountered. The Tamron has a 72mm filter thread and is just over 100mm in length. and 80mm in diameter. In short, combined with it’s weight it’s neither huge nor small. I would go as far to say that for what it does optically, it is fairly compact. It is much smaller and lighter than the Sigma 40mm f/1.4 Art (1260g!). It has a special fluorine coating on the front element to repel dust and moisture and make it easily cleanable. It comes with a manual - autofocus switch on the body of the lens. Autofocus on my D810 (and Z8) is very good. There is much less variability that plagued the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 I came from; consistency is back and it is very welcomed. Autofocus is also quick (for a 35/1.4) and not too noisy. It has nine aperture blades with a circular diaphragm which actually produces nice sunstars with 18 points around light sources. It stops down to f/16, and has a minimum focal distance of 30mm. It feels solid in the hands and well built, even better than the seemingly already good Sigma 35mm f/1.4 that I came from. However, compared to the Sigma, optically it is in a different class:

The Planetary Parade 2025, shot with the class leading Tamron 35/1.4 on a Nikon Z8 camera.

Optical Excellence

Tamron released the 35/1.4 in 2019 as the 40th Anniversary of their ‘SP’ (Superior Performance) range of lenses, and stated it was the best Tamron lens ever made. It’s easy to see why once you get your hands on it. This lens also represents to me the best balance of painterly, artsy, rendering while meeting demands for critical applications such as astrophotography where we need things like astigmatism, chromatic aberration, coma, and other aberrations under tight control. Let’s look at how good the Tamron is by examining the MTF chart for the lens:

MTF (Modulation Transfer Function) curves describe to what extent the tested lens can faithfully reproduce contrast of the subject in images it captures. The closer the 10 lp/mm (line pairs per millimeter) curve (the thick line for low frequency) in an MTF chart to "1" of the vertical axis (the higher up), the higher the contrast reproduction performance of the tested lens will be. The closer the 30 lp/mm curve (the thin line for high frequency) to "1" (the higher up), the higher the resolving power and thus the subjective sharpness of the lens will be. The closer both the solid and dotted lines are to each other indicate a better control of astigmatism.

Lens performance differs depending upon directions. Solid lines show performance in the sagittal (radial) direction while dotted lines indicate performance in the meridional (circumferential) direction. When sharp lenses capable of delivering uniform optical performance over the entire image field are tested, MTF charts show curves plotted in good balance.

Performance characteristics of photographic lenses cannot be expressed with only MTF charts. There are other factors that are expressed in different methods, such as taste of softness and degrees of compensation of various aberrations. But you can use MTF charts as a general scale to measure lens performance.

Controlling the Aberrations

The major aberrations that degrade images in astrophotography are well known to us. Astigmatism causes point light sources at the edge of the frame to appear to stretch in a line, and it is something that nearly all fast wides have. Some are almost unusable wide open for this reason. Coma (or Comatic Aberration) causes point sources of light at the periphery of the image frame to elongate into comet like shapes. Chromatic aberration causes colour shifts around points of light at the focal plane, causing white light to split into it’s respective colors of the rainbow. Most fast lenses will have this to some degree, and it will often be more prevalent in the corners of the frame. Spherical Aberration will cause point sources of light to show soft, symmetric halos. SA will usually be noticeable throughout the entire image, and not just the corners as some other aberrations. Distortion will bend straight lines and cause imperfections more noticeable on man made structures. Vignetting will cause the edges and corners to appear darker than the central portion of the image. Field Curvature tends to be more often seen in older optical designs but can still exist, to some degree in modern designs. This shows up as softer areas of the frame, sometimes about one third out from the central portion. Flare is something that is going to affect daylight shooting more than astrophotography, however I am pleased to note this is under very good control also.

The Tamron 35mm f/1.4 controls all of these aberrations exceptionally well in a vast balancing act. This image below shot on a starfield accurately depicts how good it really is - if you are on mobile, pinch zoom into the far corners of this and prepare to be amazed:

Star Quality - Tamron 35/1.4 wide open, singular 6s exposure at ISO 400

Notice how, there is no real enlargement of the stars at the far corners or periphery, even on very close examination. This shot was a singular test shot from my backyard recently. I have not done any corrections; this shows the natural, easily-correctible lens vignette, and tiny touch of chromatic aberration which is easily removed in post processing. Notice further that the stars are sharp, there is no spherical aberration noted and no coma either. Star colour is picked up well with this lens when proper exposures are used to record them (more noticeable on non-moon evenings). This was a f/1.4, six second exposure at ISO 400. The truly beautiful thing about this lens is that it can be used wide open at f/1.4. Stopping down mainly reduces the vignetting in the corners, and ever so slightly improves the corner stars even more than their already exceptional performance wide open. Focus is critical with a fast 35mm prime lens such as this. Especially one that is so highly tuned right into the corners. This means, a hair back or forward on the focal ring can dramatically fine tune star shapes. You do not want to mis-focus with this lens.

Orion under Moonlight in my Parents Backyard - ISO 64, f/1.4, 6s

Closing Thoughts

I can already see it is going to be a huge improvement over my previous lens of choice for this focal length. As I shoot more with this lens, I will come back and further add to this article in due course, hopefully updating it with some more pictorial examples. (Updated 7th March 2025 with images).

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Steve

Landscape Photography and Shallow Depth of Field - F/8 and Be There?

Shallow Depth of Field in Landscape Photography

Introduction

The established convention when shooting landscape photography has always been to shoot significantly stopped down, that is, using small apertures. The reason for this is to increase depth of field: the amount of area in clear, acceptable focus within the picture itself. Whilst I do use F/8 a great deal, I use and consider other apertures often, for different reasons and have also for some years been going completely against convention and shooting wide open with prime lenses in landscape situations. This is not about just trying to be different or go against convention, and more about using an aperture and design for the shot that creates the strongest overall picture with all things considered. I note that there is a new craze in landscape photography to have complete front to back sharpness in a picture, which to me looks very unnatural and a little plasticy - faked, because it just is not how our eyes work.

What Does Shooting At Small Apertures Do? (F/8 - F-22)

Shooting at small apertures achieves several things:

Increases the depth of field within an image.
Allows longer shutter speeds in lowered light, or in bright light in combination with the use of a Neutral Density filter.
Usually allows the photographer to achieve a good across frame sharpness, as most lenses are extremely good by the time they are stopped down, even ones which are softer wide open.
If stopped down excessively, it can incur diffraction which causes image softness. (I’d still shoot here for the right reasons, just be aware of this). On full frame, diffraction effects come into play more around F/11, for crop cameras, at about F/8.
Normally allows diffraction spikes, or sunstars to appear around points of light with good landscape lenses.
Decreases lens vignetting.
Decreases risk of lens aberrations showing up.
In many lenses, causes increased risk of flaring between lens elements. This can sometimes be used creatively.

What Does Shooting at Large Apertures Do? (F/1 - F/5.6)

Shooting at large apertures achieves several things:

Decreases the depth of field within an image.
In general, allows faster shutter speeds across the board.
Allows a photographer to select an area of greater interest, ie the subject and further direct the eye within the shot.
Prevents diffraction effects within the depth of field / focal plane areas.
Increases lens vignetting
Increases risk of lens aberrations showing up
Reduces the risk of flaring.

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, I have for some time been questioning this standard F/8 approach to landscape photography and if honest, have become a little bored with the same by the numbers shots and apertures. My ethos for the most part (there are exceptions) is that I do not focus stack. Focus stacking often produces really unnatural ‘digital’ looking pictures because everything from the closest corner to the sky miles in the distance is in focus; there is no depth. Even where shots require a smaller aperture, say F/8 with a 24mm lens, this will not give front to back sharpness with an object near to the camera. In these situations, I often let the close corners, and the very close foreground be slightly out. I don’t want people looking right down there, I want the eye to come up to the subject and flow through the image. Sometimes the problem is we include too many subjects in our photographs and make the scene overall too complex when we should be distilling things down for the viewer. In photography, we direct the eye through a shot to our subject in many ways, including; brightness, sharpness, contrast, composition. We can also use that depth of field to be a further visual clue. Most of us have been subjected to the cliché daisy and mountain landscape shots that are paraded over the internet. Just google it and see what I mean. Notice how unusual it feels to have daisies, or wild flowers so close to the camera all perfectly in focus (and unnaturally brightened too), however also have the distant mountain seemingly be in exactly the same plane of focus? It’s just not how our eyes work. We sense this and it feels fake. (Most of the time the processing of these shots doesn’t help either, because the photographer uses very restrictive masking selections and overbrightens scene elements). For more reading on this concept, see the article I wrote on ‘Realism in Landscape Photography’ here.

When Is Focus Stacking A Good Idea?

There are of course times when focus stacking is the way to go. Notice this shot from Perthshire of Black Linn Falls in Autumn. This was shot with a 14-24/2.8S Z mount lens at 14mm. If you believe what is said online, you would think that this scene, shot at this wide of a focal length, could simply be shot at f/8 or f/11 to achieve the result you are seeing, but you would be incorrect. This is a two shot focus stack, one on the very foreground rock at f/11, and one of the distance at f/8. This allows me for this scene, to achieve a good depth of field up at the bottom front rock area which has interest here. Why did I feel this necessary? Well, it’s part of the shot, and thus it tells part of the story, in addition it is also quite bright in the scene itself. Of course I still want the viewer’s eye to flow from the bottom upwards, which I think it does here. Conversely, it doesn’t make a huge amount of sense if we concern ourselves with the near foregrounds in shots like this:

Isle of Skye Scotland, Nikon D850 and 20mm 1.8G at F/8

The very nearest grass roots, and the dark corners are not somewhere that we need the eye moving to. Thus it is realistically counterintuitive to focus stack, especially if you consider wind and moving long grass. It would not have added a single thing to the final picture. Let’s have a look at another shot which shows more exaggerated falloff in the front of the frame with regards to obvious loss of depth of field:

Depth of Field used to Drive the Eye down through the image, with a twist

This was a long exposure shot taken in summer 2020 by my then nine year old son (with a little help composing) on his D200 with a 20mm 1.8G nikkor lens. Like me, he was quickly fascinated by the effect a long exposure could provide in an image and took to it very well. I love the layers in this image, we have the obvious falloff in the corners and around the rock, but because the pool is a reflection and the tree lines at ‘infinity’ it is in sharp focus, with an unsettling hint of blur at it’s edges. We know where we are supposed to look, and the aperture reinforces this. We could have focus stacked. It would have required a good few extra frames in this example, because we where right on the ground here and ultra close to the foreground elements. However, would it really have added anything, or just taken away from the mood here? This is an interesting case. because although this isn’t really shot at a large aperture (he used F/9, and consider the D200 is an APS-C sensor camera), it still creates a very shallow depth of field effect because he was so close to the rocks, and the aperture will not be able to bring this area into sharp focus (consider the minimum focus distance of the lens too). Finally, let’s look at the headline picture in this article:

So, why am I using such a wide aperture here in this picture? Why am I not at f/11 for this scene, considering I am at a 35mm focal length and focus stacking? Well the real question I ask is, what would it have actually added? The foreground is dark, and it is better serving as a context and visual frame. This is a good demonstration of shallow depth of field used effectively within the constraints of the landscape photography genre. This particular shot was made with a 35mm f/1.4 prime lens, which was shot at f/1.8. There are several things to note here. The use of the prime is important, because we are going to be able to control the foreground blur more. In addition to this, because of the larger aperture, it will have more pleasing out of focus elements than it would be on a f/2.8 zoom lens, in terms of quantity and quality of that blur. (Note, I have upgraded to the optically superb Tamron 35mm f/1.4 now).

Further to these two points, the vignette which exists naturally at these wide apertures also further directs the eye, and places the foreground in further shadow. One thing I find landscape photographer’s do not consider much is that large vignette’s can be so effective when shooting landscapes. Using a class leading DSLR or Mirrorless body and a fast prime which vignettes decently at large apertures, allows me to control dynamic range even more effectively; it’s actually a boon, not a curse. This pushes the brightness of bright skies and white clouds down a good bit, further balancing the exposure and allows me to often capture the full range of light in a singular shot without the need for exposure blending, tripods or graduated neutral density filters. This leads me to another advantage. Sometimes I am so tired of tripods, in these conditions I grab one or two primes and head out to craft pictures. Yes, this shot was made completely hand held.

Final Thoughts

The next time you think that F/8 and be there is the only way, which is the accepted phrase for ‘use small apertures, Jim’ consider that their are other, arguably more effective ways to build a picture on a case by case basis. I often bring a 35mm prime with me in addition to a 24-70/2.8S on most trips as it allows best access to this technique. Even despite the fact that I have used a prime lens here, as I have shown in this article, even F/8 apertures will produce out of focus foreground elements when used close to subjects, giving an effective visual clue in an image to direct the eyes. I don’t want to sound like some of these youtubers with their “You Don’t Need A Tripod’ videos, because that is a nonsense also, however it is without a doubt a definite and effective technique to use in the field.

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Steve

Shooting For 3D Pop; Why I Use The Lenses I Do

Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L Mk I — Longing to be Held Again - Canon 5D with EF 35mm f/1.4 Version I shot at f/1.4 (Courtesy of fprime photography)

Introduction

I think if we look at most shooters who own a modern camera body or two, many are absolutely aiming to work with the most optically perfect lenses that they can to use on the system. (For astrophotography and most of my landscape work, this is also my priority for the most part). This however is not always required, there are other considerations such as size, weight, and what is optically appropriate for the task in hand. There are other genres where I honestly think: we are shooting people here. Why are we going for that ultra digital, super-sharp look on a face? No one wants that; people don’t want that. They don’t want to see themselves in that extreme cold, hard light of day. We might even take that thinking further; what if we consider that some lens designs may not actually align with our shooting goals. Perhaps the lens designer has made a lens to be ultra sharp, with a really flat and even plane of focus, the ability to have a sharp drop off in the focal plane to bokeh, having low distortion and no chromatic aberrations, no coma, no field curvature or astigmatism, and displays that ultra sharp look from the widest aperture and all the other things that we now consider good in an optical design. Essentially they might have taken out absolutely everything that when added up, we used to refer to as ‘character’ or ‘pleasing rendering’. Further to this, many of these things when present in an image with a myriad of other depth cues, can in my opinion aid a photograph appearing more three dimensional than perhaps a lens that was made to perform amazingly well in another area. This could resultingly trip the effect which seems to have been coined in the photography world: ‘3D Pop’. So it might be said, that stripping some of these things out of a lens and making it closer to perfect, that we might lose something in terms of how well it can convey depth in a 2D scene.

I have mentioned before on this blog that I have an affinity for older lenses on the Nikon system since using a D700 camera way back as far as 2010. Despite many on the internet who decry old lenses are outdated and therefore no use to anyone anymore, it is clear that they don’t understand how this can contribute to a picture in the look they impart onto the taken frames. Everyone is going to have their wants and needs, and we will always find people whose needs align with our own. I shoot a mixture of highly ‘optically corrected’ glass, as well as a whole bunch of lenses which are anything up to about 35 years old. My approach to portraiture; (includes weddings), in the photography of ‘stuff’ or ‘ things’ is that I prefer to use older glass over the latest prime lenses, there of course some exceptions. Call it flaws, optical imperfections, sometimes even choppy bokeh. Call it a ‘film rendering’; Call it whatever you want to call it. I happen to like it, and it all differs across lenses. If I’d have shot some of the pictures I take with old primes with my 24-70/2.8S they might likely be a little sharper (but really only properly noticeable on 100% crops), however they would have been lacking in ‘character’ which can be really impactful. These qualities, unlike ultimate image sharpness, are actually noticeable from tiny thumbnails. I have noticed that many older lenses, which are imperfect optically, can in some instances, encourage a really good 3D effect than some more modern optically ‘perfect’ ‘flat’ glass. There are also some modern designs which might be more akin to my thinking from Zeiss and Nikon in particular. This article was written by myself and another photographer friend who prefers to remain nameless, however has a great interest in shooting with lenses and using techniques that help attain a 3D effect, otherwise known in the photography community as ‘3D Pop’.

Examine this extremely good example of 3D pop here from Stm Geist:

Stunning Example of 3D Pop — A Stunning example of 3-Dimensionality in a 2D image (Courtesy of Stm Geist)

Consider the subject distance to the camera here, the light on the subject, the leading lines with inclusion of the ‘floor’ and a distant background to aid depth cues, the relative size of dog vs girl in the background. Notice the ultra slow and smooth focus plane transition? The subtle, ever increasing bokeh. Notice also, the spacing around the subjects to allow a sense of depth to occur, the fact that the girl is placed between the out of focus trees behind her (a very nice touch). These are just some of the elements conveying depth in this striking scene.

The Illusion of Depth in a Photograph

All conventional photographs are of course 2D representations of 3D scenes. However, our brains can create the illusion of depth based on cues from the image. Consider the Ames Room, one of the very life-sized demonstrations of perspective which produces an optical illusion of differing size and depth. Because the room is made in a distorted way, the viewer looks through a peephole into the room and sees one person of similar size, appear much smaller than the other. This is because the distorted shape of the room physically allows one of the participants to be further from the peephole (and often lower):

The Ames Room optical illusion by user Mosso on flickr (used under CC licence)

3D Pop

3D Pop itself has been established in the world of classical art for a long time. For several centuries now artists have added subtle visual cues to their two-dimensional paintings to impart the impression of physical depth. These traditional painter's "depth cues" have included occlusion, shading gradients, perspective, and converging lines among others. Look at the headline picture in this article at the top, which in my mind, trips a very strong impression of depth by using concordance of many factors in order to do so. Here's the working principle for 3D Pop...the illusion occurs when a sufficient number of concordant depth cues in a 2D depiction trigger an illusion of three dimensions for the viewer. If the recorded depth cues are too few, too weak, or have too little concordance between themselves, then no illusion is created. So generally you want to leverage as many depth cues as you can when shooting.

We can start by reviewing the depth cues that artists have used for centuries in paintings that have been applied to modern artworks:

Don’t Fall in - Extreme 3D Street art Courtesy of Edgar Mueller

Strong 3d Effect that the eyes cannot ‘Fix’ - Extreme 3D Street art Courtesy of Edgar Mueller

Edward Mueller is a street artist that I rediscovered when writing this article. He kindly gave permission to use these fantastic pieces of art here. I wanted to include these two pictures at the start of my article as they show how powerful a strong 3D effect can actually be. So strong in fact, that the second picture looks utterly faked. Our eyes cannot reconcile that the girl is ‘floating’ on top of the canyon of ice. How come she has not fallen to her death? The brain searches for the ground, but cannot find it. She appears to be floating. We have been successfully tricked, the illusion is real.

Have a look at the following image, shot on medium format with a lens known to be able to easily produce good depth rendition. I feel it renders the scene with out of focus blur transitions that mimic my own vision in real life. Notice it is not a ‘bokeh shot’, and the background the scene is recognisable despite in slight blur. Add the traditional depth cues of converging lines (from the pathway and train) to the concordant lens-driven blur transitions and voila...strong 3D Pop is conveyed to the viewer:

Railway Man - Pentax 67 with Super Takumar 105mm F2.4 @ f/3.5 (Artist Unknown)

In photography additional depth cues are made available as imaging a subject through a lens allows the photographic artist to record unique, lens-driven depth indicators. These include control over depth of field and its resultant out of focus (OOF) blur, the actual bokeh quality of that blur, the quality of the OOF transitions, and the rendering of lens micro contrast to confer subject shape and dimensionality. There has now been the suggestion of a thing called ‘flat glass’ in both cinema and still photography. Some of these lenses could be described as scientific, ultra sharp across the entire frame, having superb control of all or most noticeable lens aberrations, little distortion or field curvature, and having smooth bokeh. Watch this fantastic 3D pop demonstration video by the hilarious Casey from Camera Conspiracies here.

It is important to realize that the illusion of 3D Pop isn't an on/off quality. It exists to varying degrees in virtually all photographs dependent on how many concordant depth cues are working together in the image to render the perception of depth. The more concordant depth cues there are, the stronger the 3D Pop. And the stronger the pop, the greater the percentage of the viewing audience the 3D illusion will be triggered in.

Some lens depth cues are recorded automatically in photography and, as such, virtually every photograph has some low-level of 3D Pop. It is important to note that 3D pop can occur in lenses older and newer. I tend to see it more in older designs as undercorrection of aberrations tends to increase the 3D effect to me. There are many factors which are lens and non lens driven that can do this.

3D Pop are two (or three), almost dirty words now in the optical community. Before a certain Photographer came along and got us all discussing this online, it was a term coined way back, commonly used in the Leica / Zeiss community to explain the three dimensional look a lens could help impart onto a scene, when the other elements such as light, composition, depth of field, leading lines, contrast, vignette, etc all came together. For Zeiss pop, from what I read it was probably more about lens contrast / micro contrast when they referred to ‘pop’. It started off being discussed in terms of lens element counts in more recent times. This was mostly debunked, however there is some evidence that more glass is impactful on the blue end of the spectrum of light; however optical designers clearly know this and for the most part have balanced it by improving coatings so that they could negate the cost of adding more lens elements into more complex optical designs. So we are almost back where we started. But are we? Are their actual reasons some lenses seem to aid a strong 3D effect over ‘flat glass’ designed in such a way to achieve a better optical perfection? Why else am I shooting with an ancient 35mm lens, when I own the latest optically perfect version? Well, sometimes it’s definitely size and weight. However, it’s more than that. I’m often choosing these lenses for their look. This is not going to be a side by side scientific A-B test. Having owned most of my lenses for a long time, I simply know all of their strengths and weaknesses. I have always stated it is important to use what you feel works for you personally. Ignore others and listen to your inner voice. I’ve never been bothered by lens aberrations for this style of shooting. I know it bothers a huge swathe of the brainwashed sharpness and noise obsessed photography community though. We can’t have mistakes in our lenses. That just cannot be!

So did we get anywhere with this 3D pop thing, after most sensible shooters conceded that this effect wasn’t really anything to do with the number of lens elements in a lens? (We know this for a fact, because there are some high element count lenses that still seem to aid a 3D effect). We of course have to concede that this effect is very scene dependant too, (no lens or light will really make a flat front facing brick wall appear 3D) as mentioned, and there are a lot of factors that help trip the illusion so that a two dimensional picture appears as 3D to the viewer. Along with others who I have known and shoot with, there are just certain lenses that tend to favour the tripping of this affect over others, and consistently so.

3D Pop is the illusion of depth in human perception. Some people can see it, others not. It can be a ‘once you see it’ type thing.

How do we get the 3D pop effect?

Lens Characteristics and Focal Length

Lenses which contribute to tripping the effect are going to be somewhere between 24-200mm on 35mm format. The reason for this range is that, super long telephotos lenses normally are not the best lenses to convey depth to a subject, and can sometimes leave a subject looking flat against a bokeh background. If we use a longer focal length lens, we must be careful to not be too close, otherwise we will just be getting bokeh if we fill the frame with most subjects. This will look less like a 3D image, and more like a green screened, stuck on subject: we don’t want that. Extreme ultra wide lenses can have the problem that they are ‘too wide’ and cannot impart enough subject isolation. Most agree prime lenses are best to get this affect. Many agree that certain lenses tend to trip the effect more than others, combined with the other factors below. Older lenses tend to have (but not always) more intrinsic distortion, which I have also found helps to trip the illusion of three dimensionality. Another large aspect of the lens’ traits is the focal plane transition. The FPT essentially wants to be extremely smooth and gradual, so that we emphasize the depth in the image, in order to help produce the best 3D pop effect in the picture. As you can understand, this is a characteristic of the lens itself, and may be a significant contributing factor of why some lenses do better than others with regards to depth perception, along with lens distortion. Another element of lens characteristics is the correction of optical aberrations in the lens itself. Things like distortion, field curvature, vignetting, coma, astigmatism, chromatic aberration, can all aid a 3D effect also, as well as how much contrast and microcontrast the lens imparts onto the scene itself. I have also found, that smooth ‘modern style’ gaussian blur bokeh can kill or subdue the 3D nature of the final picture at times. The below is a good example of this, the bokeh isn’t smooth, there is an almost mildly unsettling feel to it, which I like. Note that the focus falls off extremely smoothly and gradually into the background:

Car Pop - Nikon D700 with Kerlee 35mm f/1.2 (Courtesy of fprime photography)

Shallow Depth of Field

Zeiss at one time stated for many lenses they think have ‘pop’ that they have: "Brilliant optical design and a sharp transition to out of focus areas, creating a perfect distinction between the main subject and it’s environment." It's exactly the opposite we want here, (perhaps Zeiss didn’t use the right descriptor in ‘sharp’) and some of their lenses do this, as do many others outwith the Zeiss optical brand. It is noted: too sudden or sharp a transition between the focal plane and planes in front and behind said plane, produce a ‘cartoon,’ cardboard cutout 2D effect. Certainly many shooters regularly confuse 3D pop with shallow depth of field. There is some relation, but not in the way they consider it to be. Many think simply using a wide f/1.4 aperture and focusing on a subject that fills a considerable portion of the frame with bokeh behind it will suffice; but it won’t on it’s own produce a fantastic sense of depth in a photograph. What a good lens must be able to do is create a long, smooth transition from the focal plane to the background, maintaining a large microcontrast in the focus plane with a deep dropoff throughout the frame to the background. This effect can be visible even when shooting at fairly stopped down apertures. To reiterate, the effect does not and should not soley rely on depth of field, and certainly not ultra shallow depth of field; therefore, 3D pop is not necessarily related to very large apertures, or extremely shallow depth of field at all. That said, without a doubt some depth of field separation aids the effect, however more so when it is a formed in a subtle manner as stated here. As soon as we introduce a little shallowness to the depth of field, we begin to gain a separation of our subject from the background. I must state though that there is something about being able to still recognise the out of focus areas being an important depth cue.This is why to add to the previous point, prime lenses tend to be better than zooms to introduce this effect into your pictures, from the simple fact that prime lenses tend to have access to wider apertures, and can create shallower depth of field at distance to our subjeet than most zoom lenses can. To maximise the effect though, we do not want the subject to be too far from the camera that they are tiny in the frame; we also do not want them to be too close either. So it becomes a balancing act and is about considering individual scene geometry to get the best depth. As mentioned, in most cases, we also want the background to still be recognisable in order to convey a depth to the scene and aid three dimensionality. Completely bokeh-ing (technical term) the background can in most situations, have an adverse affect on depth, since this is not how our eyes view the world, and as mentioned, the subject will look like they have been green screened into the frame in front of the background. I am sure though, that there needs to be a gradual transition, be it by focus; contrast, brightness falloff or ideally all three, because all the good images that have a 3d effect have this in common. (See the fantastic pop in the Akita shot near the start of this article). This is the one criteria that differentiates 3D from just being pop from general scene contrast. So therefore, we should consider using other apertures than just the widest that the lens is capable of, infact I emplore you to do so. Lenses which are good in conveying depth should still be able to trip the illusion (sometimes they do it better), when stopped down for the reasons discussed here.

Give your subject space around them in the scene to aid the sense of depth. If you are right up and frame filling with the subject, including zero context around them, expect little resulting convayance of depth to occur. This of course, is scene dependant so judgement on our part is always required:

Framing Up - Nikon D810 with 35mm f/2D @ f/3.5. Even stopped down we have conveyable depth and pop in this image.

So now we admit that this 3D effect is not just about shallow depth of field as is commonly thought. As you will see, flat subjects, or subjects shot with extreme telephoto lenses, will normally display a relatively flat perspective in a 2D photograph. This stands to reason why most portrait lenses are 85mm and above - it is flattering to the face. It makes the features resemble how our brains form them, flatteringly so, because it physically flattens the face features as we are not close enough to introduce perspective distortion. It's not just that we can isolate a subject with a gradual fall off in depth of field. It's that the resultant bokeh can help your eyes place each item's depth in the image. Also note how the bokeh is in most good 3D shots are not creamy smooth and in fact exhibit double edges in some places. As I said: crunchy/choppy vs. creamy bokeh, really helps the subject pop out, alongside other depth cues:

Horse in School - Nikon D850 with Nikkor 35mm f/2D prime lens with pretty good 3D pop effect

Many shooters would decry the bokeh in this shot awful. I on the other hand like it. There is almost something unsettling about it here, that gives this picture an excellent atmosphere (see the first shot in this article which demonstrates this even more). I want to be very clear here: I state this as the owner of lenses with classically smooth and perfect gaussian blur style bokeh that has no edging, no choppiness, and can deal with any background. I also state this, owning many lenses that do the complete opposite. If you don’t see the pop in the first shot of this article, well heck: no one can help you. Before you go out and buy the big bucks sharp glass with the smoothest bokeh you’ve ever seen, remember you might be giving up a good bit of pop too. That shot was taken with the Canon 35mm f/1.4L Version I. It’s generally noted that version II corrected most of what we see in that first shot, and thus, has reduced it’s 3D ability in a general sense.

Light and Subject

It should go without saying that these are big ticket items. Without some directional light striking our subject, it’s going to be pretty difficult to achieve any sense of 3d on a flat plane. Subjects which have a depth into the frame, will also be able to experience the effect more than a thin object that inherently doesn’t have a great ‘length to breadth’ depth to display.

Voigtlander Aspherical VM 40mm f1.2 (Courtesy of Vlad Andrus, Romainia)

Lens Aberrations

I believe lens aberrations can have an effect on the depth within a picture. Particular big ticket items being lens distortion, and field curvature. Under the right circumstances, these two can play together to really bring a subject out from the 2D plane. The aberrations that form around the focus plane at faster apertures and at high contrast transitions, called spherochromatism, also do so. Of course I am speaking about the dreaded longitudinal chromatic aberrations, those green and purple colours that can lurk within our images.

The Camera

Medium format and other large format sensors are ‘said’ to produce this look easier than their smaller brethren. I mostly recommend full frame cameras over smaller crop sensors, as they aid the depth of field effects possible. See here.

Nikon 35mm f/1.4 AIS @ 1.4 (Courtesy of Tri Hong)

Image Processing

There is no doubt that the edit process can create / enhance the 3D effect. Effects such that add contrast (both colour and light/dark), especially between the subject and background, dodging and burning, adding vignette (or emphasising the lenses’ natural vignette) will bolster the impression of depth in a photograph. This includes using the ‘Brenizer Method’ to create a panorama from singular images - the bokeh panorama, which can be particularly effective:

Skateboard Boy - A Bokeh Panorama using an 85mm f/1.4D lens

Visual Cues Which Build Depth in a Picture

Linear Perspective - A method of depicting three-dimensional depth on a flat or two-dimensional surface. Linear perspective has two main precepts: 1. Forms that are meant to be perceived as far away from the viewer are made smaller than those meant to be seen as close. Parallel lines receding into the distance converge at a point on the horizon line known as the vanishing point.
Atmospheric Perspective - A device for suggesting three-dimensional depth on a two-dimensional surface. Forms meant to be perceived as distant from the viewer are blurred, indistinct, misty and often bluer.
Shadows emphasise dimensionality within any image.
Converging Lines - Parallel lines receding into the distance converge at a point on the horizon line known as the vanishing point.
Foreshortening – A method of portraying forms on a two-dimensional surface so that they appear to project or recede from the picture plane.
Pictorial Space - The illusory space in a painting or other work of two-dimensional art that seems to recede backward into depth from the picture plane, giving the illusion of distance.
Overlap Effects - Spatial relationships are achieved by placing one object in front of another. The object closest to the viewer blocks out the view of any part of any other object located behind it (or, where the two objects overlap, the one in back is obscured).
Relative Size - Objects appear smaller as their distance from the viewer increases.
Relative Position - We view nature from our own eye level. Objects in the foreground appear lower and distant objects appear higher relative to the imaginary line created by our level of sight.
Chiaroscuro - rendering of forms through a balanced contrast between light and dark areas. Effective in creating an illusion of depth and space around the principal figures in a composition.
Sfumato - From the Italian work for “smoke,” a technique of painting in thin glazes to achieve a hazy, cloudy atmosphere, often to represent objects or landscape meant to be perceived as distant from the picture plane.
Trompe-l’oeil - A French term meaning "deception of the eye." A painting or other work of two-dimensional art rendered in such a photographically realistic manner as to ‘trick’ the viewer into thinking it is three-dimensional reality.

3D pop — Native Indian hand-woven basket in 3D, Nikon D700 with Kerlee 35mm f/1.2 (Courtesy of fprime photography)

But We Can’t Have Mistakes In Our Lenses?

Somewhere along the line, with computer aided optical design, engineers became able to run through many iterations of a lens design based on the parameters they wanted. It is no doubt that modern lens design is faster, more efficient, and offers more options in this vein. As larger megapixel counts and sensor densities came along, the general photography community has been in out-cry about any optical defects they can find. ‘There is a bit of green or purple near those areas of high contrasts!’ (I’m crying). ‘Wait, does that bokeh have slight outlining, good heaven’s, that simply will not do!’ ‘This lens isn’t even sharp when I pixel peep at 400%!’

I’d think to think optical engineers did what they did in isolation from the general chit chat on photography forums. They wanted to exploit all that sharpness, all that correction right into the corners, to be able to use lenses wide open, or just one stop down and get those corners really useable. Occam’s Razor suggests this is how it went, and with modern design they are certainly able to fix the lenses of old. Lenses like this have absolutely come about because of the push for high megapixel sensors alongside the abilities of modern lens design which did not exist 30 years ago, which in a way is market driven because the photography community has not had much advancement in 10 years to actually sell it’s products. Mirrorless and more megapixels is about our lot, most of the time, because I like many, do not see huge innovations, not really. This in part will be due to the revenue and investment available in these photographic items. This said, in making these lenses available, we absolutely gained tools suitable for certain applications, such as astrophotography and landscape photography. (Consider for example, just how good the Tamron 35mm f/1.4 is for astrophotography work. It is utterly class leading and without comparison. On starfields, it has no aberrations other than some light chromatic aberration. Stars stay as little points right into the absolute corners of the image - this is huge boon for an astrophotographer, and is an obvious lens to acquire for this genre if one is serious about their craft). I therefore, cannot at all mourn that many modern lenses are very corrected and very sharp etc because I directly benefit from them; this is not what this article is about. But do we really want this for all aspects of our photography, especially for genres such as portraiture? Because I see this look creeping into these lenses now, even if many manufacturers tell us they have been designed with an artistic vision also. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a bride ask for more megapixels on her face. No bride has ever asked for more resolution to see the layers of makeup that have been applied, or any facial wrinkles that she did not manage to hide beneath it. No, most of the time we are wanting the opposite, at least in my opinion. The ‘glowly’ look beats this ultra sharp, ultra digital look to me every time. It just so happens that lenses designed for film interact with digital sensors in such a way we get some quite interesting properties from them. Aside from all this optical engineering perfection we have seen, in my opinion, we both gained and lost something at the same time. But even then, some lenses are oddities and seem to do both well - the Tamron for one, another great example seems to be the 135 f/1.8 Plena for Nikon, which does astrophotography supremely well, and has the right qualities for portraiture.

For me, it is really boring to shoot with lenses that have no character when I am shooting portraits / things / stuff. Some people just want clinical, sterile: an exact reproduction of what was there. However, in fixing all these flaws, improving the distortion, taking out all the aberrations, the scene has changed, and for some genres, not for the better, infact it can just waste even more time at the post processing stage trying to blur all this detail away, and we cannot replicate the little flaws in our old lenses in post easily either. How lucky we are to still be able to use all this old glass for the pictures we wish to create. In a lot of ways, we have never lived in a time with more choice.

Some Tips

Try not to use these photography depth cues in isolation. Instead stack them on top of the compositional depth cues like converging lines, etc. There's a good reason why shooting a model on train tracks has become a cliché...the converging lines add depth.

Generally I recommend shooting 3D Pop with the largest sensor format and fastest lenses that you have available to you. This is mainly to have more DOF control at good subject distances. Personally I rely on fast primes in the 24-200mm range. The lens should have a slow focal plane drop off at the transition, which modest focal lengths and faster lenses do better for the most part.

You also want to consider lenses that have a rougher bokeh quality to them as rough bokeh mimics what our eyes see naturally. It takes us away from the brain recognising optical effects to something that feels a bit more real. Contrary to conventional wisdom, smooth bokeh actually looks fake to our brains which erodes the 3D Pop illusion.

Lastly, shoot 3D subjects where the eye can follow the blur transition from the sharp foreground to the slightly OOF back. The best 3D lenses and sensors still can't turn a brick wall into 3D Pop. Experiment with your scene geometry to fine tune the depth of field. Different focal lengths require the camera to be nearer or further away from the subject in order to achieve the right amount of depth of field. Also, include the ground in the shot. It serves as the contextual floor of your 3D photo. Ideally leave a good distance to the background behind your subject too:

Twisted in Knots - Canon 5D with EF 35mm f/1.4 Version I shot at f/3.2 (Courtesy of fprime photography)

Which Lenses have 3D Pop?

Here is a list of some lenses that are known to help produce the effect -

Nikon 24mm 1.4G, Nikon 24mm f/2.8D, Nikon 35mm f/2D, Nikon 35mm f/1.4 AIS, Nikon 50mm f/1.4D, Nikon 50mm f/1.8D, Nikon 50mm f/1.2 AIS, 58mm f/1.2 Noct AIS, Nikon 60mm f/2.8D Micro, Nikon 85mm f/1.4D, Nikon 85mm f/1.8D, Nikon 135mm f/2D, Nikon 105 f/2D, Nikon 180 f/2.8D, Voigtlander 40mm f/1.2 Nokton, Voigtlander 35mm f/2 APO Lanthar, Voigtlander 50mm f/2 APO Lanthar, Voigtlander Nokton 58mm f/1.4 SL-II N, Kerlee 35mm f/1.2, Canon 24mm f/1.4, Canon 85mm f/1.2 EF, Zeiss 35mm f/2.8, Zeiss 55mm f/1.8, Zeiss 40mm f/2 Batis, Zeiss 100mm f/2 planar

Tip: Lenses that help trip a 3D effect in the viewer should be able to do so stopped down. Many think that certain lenses loose their pop as soon as they are moved from maximum aperture. This should not be the case in the ideal lens. You can see my gear list for lenses I regularly use, and not just for conveying depth and the like, for other genres of photography too. There are apparently some modern lenses in the Nikon Z system which aid a 3D pop effect - the new Nikon 35mm f/1.4S and 50mm f/1.4S. If anyone us using these and can shoot some demonstrative scenes, please get in touch because I will be interested to see more. Kudos to Nikon for giving people options in this vein. Zeiss are certainly still able to achieve this in some modern designs as are other manufacturers like Voigtlander.

“Obviously there are degrees of separation, some of which may, for whatever reason, be close to extreme. But there is also the perplexing question of why some people appear to disagree on how much separation a given image has / or how 3D it is. That's very odd to me.”

Don’t see it sometimes, or any of the time? That's the observer dependency part of this phenomena. The more concordant depth cues that there are, the more powerful the 3D Pop effect becomes and the more people will agree that the illusion is tripped in them. If a photo has just a few depth cues, expect that it will still trigger the illusion in a few people but not many.

Some might say, ‘Who cares? Why do we need that in our pictures? I just want the picture to be sharp in in focus.’ Well, that’s a personal choice. You have your point. There is character vs perfection, and everything in between. I say perfection; no optical perfection has been reached really (what even is that), but compared to old lenses, relatively speaking it has. Don’t see it, don’t care? Fine, enjoy your life taking pictures however you want to, nobody is going to stop you, let alone me. However, once you see it, you will forever grade it in all the images that you take. I will admit I am no expert in this style of photography, (it doesn’t apply for me, in certain genres however I am enjoying experimenting) however I see 3D pop qualities immediately when it is strong in an image and the illusion easily trips for me. Once you start seeing like this, you will want your subjects to be like this where possible. Just remember that only part of it will be your choice of lens. It will also be your skill in how you use that lens too, adding in as many of the concordant depth effects that you can. You may not agree; and that’s fine. As I always say, life is short and you should simply shoot with what makes you happy. I use a mixture of ultra modern and vintage lenses with an enormous sense of satisfaction regularly.

(Continued Below:)

Cafe - Voigtlander NOKTON 50mm F1.2 Aspherical (Courtesy of Werner Wurst)

Serene - Nikon D700 with Voigtlander Nokton 58mm f/1.4 SL-II N @ f/2.2 (Courtesy of fprime photography)

Doggie Paddle - Nikon D810 with 35mm f/2D nikkor

One Way Out - Nikon D700 with Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 AI-S @ f/2 (Courtesy of fprime photography)

Reasons I Use Certain Lenses For Specific Projects

Travelling Small and Light

Sometimes I just want to travel ultra light and not take large and obtrusive lenses along for the ride. This means I am sometimes selecting a lens that is smaller, just for that reason alone. It’s often more than this though; I like the old school look for some of my shooting, that’s just the way I am. I also notice when something improves and other qualities degrade, a subjective matter of course. This leads me to physically use a multitude of different lenses, and to own several lenses which are the same focal length.

Sunstars

As a sunstar connoisseur, I have to drop this one in here. I don’t know which photography community you belong to; perhaps you shoot with multiple camera systems and enjoy the challenge of switching gear. I simply have to state that Nikon in particular have modern lenses which are fairly terrible for this. Just a generalised weak performance over the entire board for the most part, which require too much stopping down to achieve because so many lenses have been designed for bokeh priority now, thus they have lost their straight blades which best created this effect. There are some lenses which approach having a tolerable sunstar, the problem being is it exists at f/22 so I have to blend it into the final shot. Take the Nikon 14-24/2.8S, which can produce a nice enough sunstar, but only when shot at f/22. Now let’s look at some oldies that are better across the range, and produce the effect much quicker, and in a more pleasing way:

The 50mm f/1.8D (and 1.4D) produce sublime 14 point sunstars from about f/5.6 onwards. These lenses are bitingly sharp corner to corner from this aperture as well, making them very useable for scenes such as these. I very rarely shoot above f/8 with them.

The 35mm f/2D produces excellent sunstars like the old film Nikon 50mm lenses do as shown above. Unlike the 50 design which is simple and easy to craft optically, as we move into wider focal length lenses you are not going to get as much sharpness into the deep corners as you can with a modern lens, even stopped down sometimes. So bear this in mind; the smaller sized wide focal lengthed AF-D prime lenses in particular are a bit of a compromise for size and weight vs ultimate corner optical quality. Realistically though, stopped down they are more than sharp enough. For me, overall look trumps something such as this, for most applications bar astro; if I need to travel light and have access to these traits I’ll simply grab the lens. This looks great as a large print for a company based in Greenock, Scotland who wanted a dusk scene of Greenock - Gourock at night on the west coast of Scotland.

The Film Look

Oh yes, we can achieve this easily. If shooting Nikon, grab a 24/35/50/85 combo of all primes (I highly recommend the 85mm f/1.4D or the smaller 1.8D) and you have it, out of the box. I love this, I use this and never tire of it. The way a lens renders a scene is huge to many. It’s why sometimes we don’t want an optically perfect specimen. We want the one with some glow, some warts, some imperfections that draw on the image. The colour tones that old lenses produce can also be very interesting.

Flare and Halation

Lens flare can show up in many ways in an image. Mostly it has been controlled via modern optical design, sometimes astoundingly so! However there are times when I want flare, and the flare of old lenses has a unique characteristic. I know my lenses well in this regard, having shot them in all lights over the years. I just grab what I need and go. Halation occurs when bright points of light bleed outwardly causing a glow effect. I love this subtle, yet beautiful effect found in many old prime lenses.

Spherical Aberration and Dialed Back Lens Sharpness Wide Open

Wide open, many older designs have quite crazy glow when shot at or close to their maximum aperture. Try the 50mm f/1.4D and you’ll see what I mean. I have long since loved this particular lens, I have access to a dual personality with it too. Lens sharpness varies across the prime lenses I own, so it becomes a case of ‘what am I shooting today’ and ‘what focal length and style of lens rendering will I want for that’. All the lenses I own are sharp enough for portraits. When I talk about dialed back sharpness, I am speaking about lenses which aren’t ultra sharp compared to modern lenses from maximum aperture, and do not have enough lens elements to come close to achieving this.

Lenses that are more ‘Artistic’ than ‘Scientific’

Obviously your mileage is going to vary here. It really depends on what you are shooting at the end of the day. I really wish I could simplify my kit and not have so many lenses for specific things. In an odd way I wish I could be happy with the clinical rendering of my ultra sharp lenses that I do own for everything. Let me restate my main talking point here…I believe some lenses, with certain characteristics help trip the 3D illusion in the viewer easier than plain, sharp, clinical glass. I do not attribute this to lens element counts, voodoo, magic; however I do attribute the 3D nature of an image to the optical properties of the lens, the subject, the light, the scene geometry…you get the idea by now, maybe…however I do feel that many lenses around today have been designed to achieve good scores in lens tests and on charts.

I am thankful I have access to be able to use a great mixture of lenses, for whatever look I am going for. You should employ the same thought to what you shoot. Use what you enjoy using, and what works for you for the results you want to achieve. I never advise people to merely copy me. A shooter should discover their passion and develop their own voice and style over many years, employing the right tools to seek that vision.

If you have a photograph that you think is a strong example of 3D pop please get in touch and if good, I’ll consider adding it to this article.

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Aurora Lights Up New Year Skies Over Scotland

Introduction

New year was brought in with quite the introduction; as extremely strong aurora held out until early evening until darkness came. I managed to get to a few locations to work some compositions as I missed the strongest part of the show which happened around 5:30PM GMT. To see more, visit my facebook or instagram. If you want to learn how I do this, visit my aurora shooting guide here, or leave a comment if you have any questions.

Aurora over Road — Aurora Road - Nikon D810, Sigma 14/1.8 Art.

This was a bit of an impromtu outing; we were about to have dinner but decided to postpone as an aurora alert was picked up by the Glendale App. Missing the first major part of the display, we arrived at around 5:50pm and my son took this first picture with a little help from myself. (He already is good with the settings; I helped just line up the road properly in the foreground with the heavy 14mm Sigma prime - we had to act fast as the aurora was slowy fading and had to watch for cars of course). Never turn your nose up at a quick roat shot, if done correctly it can be quite impactful, and it at least means you secure at least one useable picture from the night! Just remember to work the composition. NB: On a PC, click any photograph to see them large. On mobile, simply pinch zoom into them for a more magnified view.

The Big Dipper and the Boats - Nikon D810 and Sigma 14mm f/1.8 Art

Compositions were really difficult here. The reservoir was very high this evening, and the shoreline access restricted. There was a lot of clutter and boats sunken, and sitting stuck together. This at least allowed for them to remain stationary. I pulled out as much clutter as I could in these shots, acutely aware of the fading aurora light.

The Plough over Glendevon - Nikon Z8 with 24-70/2.8S

Aurora with constellations Draco and the Plough or Big Dipper — Sunken Boat and Aurora - Nikon D810 and Sigma 14mm f/1.8 Art

I quite liked the simplicity of this picture, and just the glow from the sky reflecting off the water. I framed up with the plough (or big dipper) and the Draco constellation (or the Dragon - the head of which you can see upper left shining brightly).

The Frandy Tree - Nikon Z8 with 14-24/2.8

Lastly a quick jaunt to a tree I have photographed far too much, however just could not resist because there was no wind and still some aurora in the sky. I doubt I will top my previous efforts, as the lights were so strong. Still however, a worthwhile picture. Looking South, we could see a SAR (A Sub Aurora Red arc) across the sky, as shown in the above image. Conditions were perfect to photograph the tree. We want, aurora, no moon, and no wind (yeah and obviously clear skies). It is very important that there is no wind for tree shots such as this, otherwise the edge branches blur out. The next shot is looking north, the direction that aurora is usually photographed from:

Frandy Tree and the Milky Way - Nikon Z8 with 14-24/2.8S

Closing Thoughts

Remember that aperture is vital to achieving great aurora images, especially when it is faint. You want nothing slower than f/2.8, and ideally faster, especially for shorter focal length lenses. If you miss the strongest parts of the show like I did, do not be disheartened; even weak aurora in the sky with a more thought-out composition, always beats a poorly composed snapshot showing rays in the sky with a black foreground. Keep your pictures looking like night time, and always think quality over quantity.

Keep watching the skies!

Steve

Nikon Users Demand FTZ Adapter Which Autofocuses Screw-Drive Lenses

Introduction

The First Version FTZ with tripod foot that got in the way of the Z9 body when shooting

Nikon has so far made two variations of their FTZ adapter in order to be able to use ‘F’ mount lenses on their ‘Z’ mount mirrorless system. The first version had an ugly tripod foot which embarrassingly got in the way with the Z9 body when they eventually released the camera; it was not very well thought out. The second, improved this design, shaving off the foot completely and giving the adapter a closer to round appearance. (Note, it is not perfectly round, there is a lump on it’s side to house the aperture motor for AF-S lenses. This is annoying because collars etc cannot be added to mount heavy lenses, and they could have simply made a rotatable, removable foot. It seems like these things were rushed products, with the B team working on them). The aperture motor works with AF-S, AF-I, AF-D, and AF lenses, as well as manual focus lenses with an ID chip like Nikon AI-P, Voigtlander SL, and the Zeiss ZF.2, Milvus, and Otus lines. It even works with AI-S lenses if someone adds a "dandelion" chip to the lens. Despite these two previous adapters, many Nikon diehards are still waiting on an FTZIII which would autofocus all lenses Nikon has made since the 1980s which have screw-driven autofocus. Most of these are AF-D lenses (the terminology was such that these autofocused (AF), and provided distance information (D) to the camera so that automatic flash exposure could be properly calculated). These types of lenses came on the scene in early 1980, and generally speaking most are better built than the AF-S G lenses in my opinion. (Remember, there are AF-S D lenses from the later end of their production). Screw driven autofocus lenses are lenses which do not have a focus motor within the body of the lens, and rely on the motor residing in the DSLR camera to physically connect into the lens and move the focusing block within it. AF-S, AF-I, and AF-P lenses all have focus motors intrinsic to the lens.

I assume Nikon considered the potential reduced revenue from sales of Z mount lenses and decided not to develop a proper, all bells and whistles adapter for the market. I think this has been a rather foolish and short sighted strategy from a company that, around the time of the D850, made presentation after presentation about their heritage and how they believed new technologies could combine with old to provide great cameras, and technological solutions. I believe they lost a lot of people who were then free to explore Sony or Canon mirrorless systems, as they’d have to buy a lot of new lenses that they where using on the DSLR bodies anyway if they wanted their full functionality. People are still talking about this years later, and the fact they have not done this so far has only hurt their reputation. Nikon have truly failed to understand the sort of added value something as simple as this could give their brand. It’s not always about making huge volumes of money on each product (although I do think if this was done correctly they could easily make a profit off it. Just simply sell it as the new adapter that does everything and bin the other two - consolidate them.). For me, it’s about creating an unmatched brand value and system that is unrivaled in it’s backwards compatibility. Nikon should not underestimate brand cohesiveness and the message that sends to the loyal fanbase who have been using their camera’s and lenses for decades.

The Rumours Have Started

A new rumour has surfaced via China that Nikon has a working FTZ adapter tested previously, yet never released. Apparently Nikon are gearing up to release this adapter in 2025. This has been further reported by the reputable NikonRumors website, with them stating the obvious about the facts of the matter so far. The chatter on this problem has never stopped from day one. On release of the Z mount system of cameras and lenses there was a large resounding ‘Boooo’ from many Nikon die hards who were not interested in buying new lenses when they already had collection they were happy using already. This noise has remained, and the initial disquiet was similar to the single card slot thing that made Nikon bring out version II of their Z6/Z7 cameras. They have done the same thing with these adapters; and to me it seems they are slow at learning these things, or the bean counters should be tied up in a dark room and left to mull over their bad decisions for a few weeks with only bread and water.

There is also a second rumour, via a contact that I have through another. They are apparently, usually quite reliable. The scoop is that there is an adapter which is fully tested and ready to go. We don’t know much more than this, and the reality is that Nikon like any large company could decide to pull this at any minute. If this is all true, I really, really hope they don’t do this, and I think it is unlikely that they would do so if they had come this far with the project already. So, this could be quite an exciting year for Nikon in 2025. The added value they would bring to their F and Z mount systems stretching back decades would be simply immeasurable.

Nikon have a history of deep legacy support and a long, rich heritage…and they never stop telling us about it whenever they get the chance. It boggles my mind that they don’t just flesh one out (I’ll bet, as mentioned that they have a prototype of this already) and add huge value to their system and get some excellent far reaching publicity on the internet while at it. (While you are at it Nikon - you need to address the firmware inconsistency across your lineup of Z mount cameras. Most don’t even have 5:4 crop mode in them, and some are missing functions other cheaper cameras have - edit: this needs to be another article I think).

Some Thoughts

This is certainly not a difficult engineering problem for any competent engineer, less the team of designers at Nikon. I think this has been more about the bean-counters than anything else. There is no doubt in my mind that the type of adapter sought is absolutely viable. There are some areas of consideration:

The proposed adapter has been postulated to draw more power - however I don’t see any reason why. Realistically, the onboard autofocus motors in the Z lenses (or AF-S lenses via the FTZII) draw a power from the battery. It would matter little where that power was used; either in a lens based motor, or an adapter based motor. The current FTZII is already communicating power from the camera battery via it and into the lens. Nothing really changes here.
The adapter would need to be engineered to understand the protocols coming out of the AF-D lenses and be able to accurately do their autofocus ‘stuff’.
Retaining weather sealing would be nice as per the current designs, this could simply be considered and brought over to the new adapter.
Ignore what posters on prominent photography forums say about this for the most part. They are obsessed with ‘new is better’. They are blinded by it. Forums are full of gear heads that couldn’t shoot a competent picture if they tried. It’s the ‘all the gear no idea’ thing going on with most of these fora, for the most part at least. I’ve noticed that our profession is littered with people that think a new camera or lens will solve a problem; or make them better. The marketing is all geared to play to this internal self doubt they have. You aren’t a man if you don’t shoot the latest 45MP camera! There even seems to be this misplaced animosity toward people still wanting to use some old glass, or use older lenses for specialist shooting purposes as I do. Such is the strangeness of these types of places which are full of negativity and over moderation, such that rational thought cannot properly win-out. Why does it bother these people so much if they would not actually use the proposed adapter if produced? Looking at the evidence I am seeing; it seems to get them easily bent out of shape. Amusing? Yes. Sad? Yes.
I think Nikon should have brought out the adapter expected of them from day one. Nikon’s initial adapter and even it’s second, are by far the worse out of the three big players. They simply have been outclassed here and they should be embarrassed about this. I am acutely aware that Nikon have stopped physically producing most of the lenses that this adapter would / could be used for, however that never stopped Sony from doing something very similar, and absolutely does not displace the added brand value it would bring along to the Nikon ecosystem. They also aren’t making any new AF-S, G, P, or I lenses either, yet it still works for those.
Consider that if the adapter made zero profits for Nikon, it really could be thought of a ‘Halo’ product. Ford lost money on the Mustang for three decades. However, they knew by having it in movies, in showrooms etc that it would sell other products. It was cool to buy and own a Ford car. There are many examples of this in industry. Nikon need to think about this on a deeper level, especially when they are so used to harping on about brand heritage and backwards compatibility! I still argue they have done this back to front, however they have now fleshed out most of the Z mount. Now, finally is the time to do right and stand by your own company ethos.
What is even more ridiculous on Nikon’s part on this whole manual focus farce on mirrorless with the AF-D lenses, is that the Zf body Nikon released a good while ago now came out with a very useful function known as ‘manual focus eye detection’. This allowed a shooter using manual focus glass (or AF-D glass which has been crippled on the FTZII by Nikon) to detect the eye, thus on a button push we get a magnified view and can focus the lens easily. This is a huge boon, and makes manual focus much more efficient. Has Nikon bothered to put this into their flagship bodies all this time since the Zf release? No, they haven’t…

Sony LA-EA5

And guess what. Sony have already done this more than four years ago. Sony used to have DSLRs before they became market leaders in the mirrorless world. Their DSLR, ‘A’ mount, lenses, can be mounted to their ‘E’ mount mirrorless cameras with this adapter. It has support for A mount lenses similar to Nikon’s, which do not have the autofocus motor onboard the lens. They even let advanced functions like eye autofocus be used on certain cameras, and support up to 11 FPS! It’s also noted that Sony’s version works screw driven lenses about as fast as their DSLRs do. The facts are simple: Nikon are just way behind Sony in this metric, they have been simply out classed. Despite having both aperture and focus motors, Sony’s is the same price as Nikon's adapter with just an aperture motor. It's also perfectly cylindrical, instead of having a bump for the aperture motor like Nikon. It is a vastly superior design on many counts. This is Sony’s third adapter. The LA-EA3 didn’t support screw drive autofocus. The LA-EA4 did, but had pretty poor autofocus. Another adapter from Nikon now, would be their third…

Nikon Greatly Overexaggerate

Have a look at this, from here: https://backcountrygallery.com/exclusive-nikkor-90th-anniversary-interview/

"- Is there a technical limitation that prevents a focus motor in an FTZ adapter, and if not, would you consider adding that to a future version to drive older F-mount autofocus lenses?
(Ishigami)

In order to provide such support, we would need to design an FTZ with a built-in motor, which would, for the sole purpose of AF-D compatibility, require a considerable increase in the size and mass of the adapter. To be completely honest, this is not our highest priority.

We are devoting our development resources on expanding the Z mount system and maximizing its benefits. This is not to say that system compatibility is not important—of course, I know that there is demand from the market, I would appreciate it if you could understand our reasoning."

This is just complete codswallop. Let’s examine this a little closer. There is simply no reason that the adapter would require to be "considerably" larger. Sony's adapter already weighs less than Nikon's does - The LE-LA5 weighs 88g vs the FTZ-II at 135g, so Sony figured out how to make an adapter with a focus motor that is lighter and is smaller than an FTZ-II without a focus motor. The Sony is also a polished and refined design: it's nicely round with no protrusion for the aperture motor like the FTZ has, and it's lighter. Nikon have absolutely been outclassed here in this respect with these FTZ's, there are no two ways about it...

Regarding their statement that it is not their priority; that is their prerogative. Despite this, the demand for one still exists, and by not meeting it, just makes them look bad.

Items that could be in a FTZIII

Autofocus support for all G and D type screw-drive lenses (again, this is mainly AF-D lenses)
Full AI lens support. Nikon AI lenses are manual focus and decades old, however Nikon went real lazy here. They only meter in two modes, and they don’t even record the shooting aperture on the FTZI or II in the EXIF. That’s not really difficult to do Nikon, come on…
Removeable tripod foot. I stated the foot either on the FTZI which was later removed in the II. It might be nice to have the option, as per the Sony LA-EA5 adapter
Rotating Tripod Collar. Really useful for vertical shots when using an adapter

Some Favourite Classic Lenses

Top of the list is the 85mm f/1.4D which I’ve previously written about here. Then there is the 135mm f/2D. Then let’s consider this other fairly large list, there are many more than this though:

20/2.8D
24/2.8D
28/2.8D
28-70/2.8D
28-105/3.5-4.5D
35/2D
35-105/D
50/1.4D
50/1.8D
60/2.8D macro
70-180/D macro
85/1.8D
85/1.4D
105/f2.5 AI
105/2.5 AIS
105/2D
135/2D
180/2.8D
200/4 macro
300/4D

It’s not a short list, and this doesn’t even nearly list all of them that could be brought into full compatibility with Z mount. Why you ask? Is a picture needed? Ok, let’s go modern classic:

FTZIII Adapter with support for AF-D autofocus — Portrait of a Baby Boy. Nikon D700, 85/1.4D. Imagine how cool it would be to use a classic like this on a Z camera with full autofocus, and maybe even eye AF like Sony has done. NB: tell me why this needs to be sharper?

Nikon AF-D Have Many Advantages for my Shooting Style

Some of my favourite old lenses are the AF-D primes. I have my reasons. I love the compactness, the look they produce, and I have some specialist applications for some of them. Take the 35/2D and 50/1.8D. These are spectacularly good lenses for shooting urban night scenes. They produce remarkably unique and defined diffraction spikes (sunstars). The newer 20mm 1.8G for F mount is also very good in this regard. Sunstars in particular seem to be something that Nikon has forgotten about, or at least not prioritised them in most of it’s native Z lenses. There is still a case for the old gear for this alone. A good sunstar can make or break a scene if done right. I have other uses too. Some of the older lenses like the 20/2.8D and the 24/2.8D (both film designed lenses) produce noticeable halation over points of light. Essentially, this one exists from the film days. As light passed through the light sensitive layers of film, it reflected back sometimes and flared over light sources. It produces a glow by doing so, and it’s something I sometimes use in my shooting for creative effect (it’s a difficult one to do in post processing).

Another consideration is if I want to go light, and use a lens that is dependable, and doesn’t have an autofocus motor in the lens to fail at a critical moment and leave me left with a manual focus paperweight during the shoot. Then there’s their are simple lenses such as the 50mm 1.8D, which I use a lot when I want to shoot a scene with perfectly straight lines, because it has the least distortion of any lens in the Nikon system that I know of - even the fancy pants Z mount system 50’s have more distortion in them. You’d be surprized how this can affect faces and it isn’t always correctable. (It lets me get up close to a subject and not cause distortion also). I also grab it for it’s crazy flaring - part of the look and feel the lens imparts on the image - I use it for that too. Then there is the fact it’s softness and spherical aberrations present when shot wide open help to tame skin that’s less than perfect without any post processing required for skin specifically. Another win. We’ve been chasing this sharp wide open lens thing for years and there are applications that it matters for to me, such as the astro component of my shooting. But portraits? No sir! Then there are the classics I have already mentioned, the 85mm f/1.4D and 135 f/2 DC lenses (the latter of which Nikon has no real substitute for in Z land). The former 85mm, is still living on my D810 today and I bring the D810 everywhere because of this (I also love it’s sensor). The 85/1.4D is already as sharp as I need it to be, and has better bokeh and focal plane transitions than the newer G did, which was also a lot slower to focus. Nikon still doesn’t have a long macro lens, again that mantle is still held by the 200/4D which would be a delight to use on the FTZIII with autofocus.

The biggest mistake I see so many making is their one mindedness that their way is the only way. They don’t consider what people shoot, or their goals or objectives. They can’t see past that ‘some new lens is sharper’ and that ‘why would you buy a new mirrorless body to shoot old lenses on’. It’s always gotta be this black and white thing and I personally tire of reading it from loud mouth forum users. Take one genre, the wedding market. I’ve shot that with AF-D primes for years and I do so broadly speaking due to the look they give me. I want to desharpen some lenses, not sharpen. This is where we go so astray for me in digital land. This sharpening thing is crazy when it comes to essentially portraiture in particular. No one wants to look sharp and digital. They want soft and dreamy, nearly every time. Especially the general public. Most work I see online now has that horrid digital feeling, when I want to lean toward something more analogue. If this is your audience, don’t worry about wasting over two grand on Plena lenses. The old stuff looks great as it is, and can be found for a song second hand. Photographers’ have absolutely been sold a bill of goods for the most part. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any top level Nikon F or canon EF lenses to shoot weddings with, or portraits, or many other genres. There are some genres that mirrorless aids with (astro, landscape) but for the most part, the reality in my mind is that mirrorless exists to give manufactures a reason to sell all the same stuff to us again. Think about the video media industry (which I used to actually work in, many years ago), it’s now completely defunct: we had VHS - DVD - Bluray. You just bought the same film you love, three times over, or more. Was it really worth it though? I already plan to write an article on the older screw drive lenses in Nikon’s back catalogue that I still use today - stay tuned.

Another little realised aspect of owning these types of screw driven lenses, is that they are actually more resilient than new lenses with motors. Think about it. There is no AF motor to burn out in these lenses. They are more resilient because of this. Think about when my 24/1.4G motor burns out and Nikon won’t repair it. I’ll have to buy a whole new lens, second hand probably! There are so many different lenses out there, thousands upon thousands and eventually DSLRs might one day stop functioning. It would be nice to see them survive onward. I also see Nikon stopping making the D850 and D780 soon. This means that the adapter is more viable again in a way, because Nikon will not be producing DSLRs anymore at some point in the future. They can go right ahead and bridge that gap by simply making a III FTZ that fixes all this and also sorts out compatibility issues with AIS lenses and more.

Final Thought

Let us hope that Nikon wake up and sort out some seriously low hanging fruit that can be tended to in their Z system in a general sense. There are many things that need addressing which are relatively simple to implement. Regarding the FTZIII, I am still holding out for this happening because I see no reason to change lenses I am perfectly happy shooting with for specific applications. I will say, I still love using them on my D810 body with no crippling of functions, however options across mounts are always useful to a shooter. Before you sit there and tell me the old ‘Nikon knows best’ thing I’ve read online a thousand times, remember that Nikon has also gotten a lot wrong over the years too. I personally think they should sit up and take notice of the calls for the FTZIII which does what it’s fanbase ask of it. Do you remember like me, Nikon stating in interviews that they ‘listen to their customers’. Now they have a chance to prove that true since the message is loud and clear, rather than paying the loyal fanbase mere lip-service. I think we could be on the cusp of the former occurring.

NB: This article was consulted with Photographer and Engineer Joseph S Wiśniewski from the USA for the technical side. I thank him for his valuable input and great experience in this area.

Update - Monster have now ‘released’ (it was just an announcement) an adapter, the ‘MonsterAdapter LA-FZ1’ they say is going to be capable of autofocusing all the old AF-D Nikkors. Read more here. There are currently limitations that it will not autofocus lenses with AF-S motors, or support VR however that will perhaps come in time with a firmware update. Kudos to Monster for trying to bridge the gap, shame on Nikon!

If you enjoyed this article, consider following me on Instagram or Facebook.

Steve

Settings and Techniques for Shooting in Available Light with Fast Prime Lenses

Street Gaming. D810 with 50mm f/1.4G fast aperture prime lens. Settings: 1/60, ISO 3200, f/1.4.

Introduction

I have an affinity with night and low light photography going back at least a decade and longer. In this article I want to discuss capturing portraits in low light - either candid or more posed type images and then we can briefly contrast that with how to approach posed setups with a view to professionally light a subject with speedlights or strobes. The rules are the same for both. If we have a flash we can create light anywhere. There are some basic techniques to get the best fidelity out of a flash and I will discuss that here. If we don’t have a flash, we can look for the best light in a scene and either position our subject in that area, or wait until they physically occupy that space. The forerunning picture in this article is of my son who, of one evening got out of the car still playing his Nintendo Switch console. It is shot entirely in available light. I started to unpack the car and as I turned round, he perched himself onto the wall as we see here. Never being one to miss a beautiful moment, I grabbed my D810 which I had in the car (I nearly always have a camera with me wherever a go). I had my 50mm f/1.4G attached. All I did was line up the background and subject, position myself at the correct height (very important) and the rest is history as they say. He is holding a package that his transformer toy came in, that from memory he opened in the car. I could have motioned him to move that or take it away from him; but then it wouldn’t have been a real moment. I would have interfered with something that looks great without my spin on it. It’s much the same way I shoot weddings. I see so many photographers directing the bride and groom, like they are on some Hollywood film set. Their day becomes about parading about doing the same old cliche shots, and ends up being a vision the photographer had of the day, rather than what actually naturally occured. In my mind, true reportage / candid photography should be respected and left as such, and it’s an ethos I hold dearly in my shooting technique.

135mm f/2DC Fast Primes outdoor shooting — Girl in Field - Nikon D800 with 135 f/2DC Prime Lens. Fast Primes produce a very unique look, whether it be low light or outdoor daylight shooting.

Shot Discipline

Shot Discipline is absolutely crucial to understand in order to master this craft and type of shooting. Shot discipline is about ensuring our settings make logical sense, and thus are gathering the most light, the best colour, the lowest noise and the highest quality overall rendering of our subject and scene in the process. Before you go any further, it is best you understand this on a deeper level. Read the full article on this here. Consider and remember that shooting in available light does not necessarily just mean low light, however. It just sets the boundary that no additional light is used. For available light shooting outdoors, it becomes a simple venture of mostly base ISO work and the shutter speed that will stop motion. This is quite easy to setup, and this shared article will help you attain these rules.

But ‘High ISO’ is so good now

It really grinds my gears when I read this on photography forums. Do not ever take advice from people telling you that aperture doesn’t matter anymore because ‘high iso’ is so good now. They are speaking about higher iso’s being cleaner and more usable than over a decade ago. That is true, however it doesn’t change the fact that shot discipline and the right lenses will give noticeably better results. It doesn’t change that photography is light, and aperture is one of the corner stones of getting good quantities of light to the sensor. Don’t hamper yourself in low light by shooting with f/4 lenses. Don’t stop down f/1.4 prime lenses to f/5.6 in low light to get depth of field at the penalty of huge amounts of noise unless you are using flash or strobes. Use composition, light, subject and timing to make your photograph stand out. For my thoughts on noise, read my article on that here.

Equipment

Ideally we want a full frame camera such as the Nikon D810 (highly recommended). And a fast aperture prime lens, a 50mm f/1,4 is a good start. We want a full frame camera, because they collect more light as they have big sensors, and this brings greater noise performance along with the rest of it. We want a short to medium focal length (28-85mm) with a fast aperture. We don’t want a really long focal length, at least not yet. Hand holdable shutter speeds are easier with short lenses, more on this concept later. Equipment I recommend for these tasks…

24mm f/1.4G / 24mm f/1.8G
50mm f/1.4G / 50mm f/1.4D / 50mm f/1.8D / 50mm f/1.8G
85mnm f/1.4D / 85mm f/1.8D / 85mm f/1.8G / 85mm f/1.4G

Any 35/1.4 is also a good choice.

Available Light

Shooting with available light is the first thing most people do when they obtain a fast aperture prime lens; and who could blame them? However, to get really good at this and for the pictures to make logical sense, we need to consider light a lot more than the average person does. Quantity, Quality, Direction. These three things are paramount. Sometimes we won’t be able to have all three, in fact, often we won’t. We might only have two, and a great subject. With the right timing, and a little bit of composition know-how we have ourselves a great picture. Read more about timing and composition in my previous article here.

Window Light shooting Photography — Wedding Girl. Nion D700 with 24mm f/2.8D prime lens

Light Quality and Quantity / Direction

A very important topic is the quality, amount and direction of our light on our subject. Hard light sources tend to produce more focused beams of light, and hard shadows with fall off. Hard light sources generally come from smaller light sources, at distance to the subject and are usually less diffused (hence the name). Soft light, is generally generated by light that is diffused through a diffuser such as a fabric, a cloth, curtain, blind, umbrella (in posed shooting), a softbox (again posed shooting) etc. Some of the softest light we can get is the natural softbox effect of the middle of the day overcast cloud. Light becomes extremely soft and even, because the light from the sun is passing through an interface (cloud) before it strikes the Earth’s surface. Another easy given is window light, even better if have a thin blind / diffuser that can be placed over it for more control. Pop a subject there on an overcast day and try some compositions. Try them front lit, and fill their face and eyes with soft, even light. Then try them side lit. Get some shadows on one side of their face. Don’t be too rigid whilst learning. You don’t need to know the names of the light styles you are shooting, like Rembrandt. You just have to do what looks good at this stage. I highly recommend studying old paintings. ‘The Blue Boy’ for one. Look at the 18th Century Gainsborough paintings. Check out the feeling created in Constable’s paintings. Look at the world he creates from a picture. Watch the Stanley Kubrick film ‘Barry Lyndon’ for more inspiration. Look at the famous Renaissance Portraits. For me, I have always been fascinated by iconic paintings. Choose your inspiration, because everyone has a place that made them grow from.

Available Window Light Shooting with Front light — Little Girl at Wedding. D800, 85mm f/1.4D Prime lens - Shot with window light on an overcast day

Quantity of light is something that available light shooters can do little with. We have to work with what we have at the scene. There are some ways however. Due to the inverse square law, light falls of extremely fast from a light source. So if you are shooting a subject by window light, or even candle light, move them closer to the light to gain more intensity. This also increases quality too, as the lightsource becomes effectively larger relative to the subject. When a light source get’s larger in this way, it always gets softer and we get better quality light on our subject as a result. Test this. Get your phone out and go into the bathroom with the torch on but the lights out. Put the torch on your face, ultra close to the side of your eye / cheek/ Notice how soft and beautiful the light appears? Now move it away, as far as possible from your face, at arms length. Notice how nasty the light just became? It’s because it got effectively a lot smaller relative to your face. The light went from a soft light source, to a hard light source. This is why, when we see people shoot professional scenes, they use huge softboxes and umbrellas, and they are super close to the subject’s face being photographed, often just off camera and out of shot.

Direction of light is something that we can also control near windows to a degree. For example, by very simply pulling curtains together a little, we can leave them open in areas that create soft yet directional light. Outdoors we can have some control of the direction of light by observing the angle of the sun relative to our subject. We can position them, and shoot at a time of day that produces better light. We can also, mix available light with some flash if feeling adventurous. Trial placing the sun behind a subject to start. The try from the side, then from the front. At this point, form opinions about what looks best, and what works for your shooting style. Indoors, in lowered available light, the obvious direction of light comes from the arteficial lights themselves. The lamps, ceiling lights, and other light sources that interact with our subject. We need to look at these and wait / position our subject near to them in an optimal way to achieve an interesting picture.

Rim Light Photography — Portrait of a Boy. Nikon D700, 85mm f/1.4D Prime lens - Using window light as a rim light to create light and shadow

Settings

So how do we approach settings in available light, in particular low? Well, this comes from learning about the camera’s inbuilt light meter. All camera light meters measure the reflected light from a scene into our lens at in instant in time. This allows the photographer, (or in auto mode, the camera) to make a correct exposure of the scene. However, how do we actually do that? What are the actual mechanics at play? Let’s look at an example first.

Photography in Low Light Conditions — Arcade Boy - Nikon D810 with 24mm f/1.4G lens

I watched my son for quite some time delicately placing his 10p coins into the slots in this arcade machine. I have the benefit that with Nikon cameras and their top screens, I can see what the meter is reading at all times. (tip: menu, and extend the meter off delay - this will allow you to decide exposure before you even bring the camera to your eye). With the D810 and my 24mm lens in lower light, I will often be in manual mode for pictures such as these. I will also be at the widest aperture to gather the most light. I will also be here to get the best separation as you can see here in the final shot. Next, I will be considering my shutter speed based on the movement at the scene and how sure I am of my abilities. I know that I can hand hold a 24mm lens down to 1/15 and get pixel level sharpness. However, there is no way that my son was that motionless. Therefore, I went up to 1/80 and waited until he was positioned correctly in the frame, and paused any erratic motion as to take the picture. The camera meter will have a central point on the display in camera of where it thinks is ideal exposure. This is where I look to the ISO to correctly expose the scene. We have so far, an aperture of f/1.4, and a shutter speed of 1/80. This defines how much light we collect. ISO is a digital signal boost which brightens the scene to that it looks correct to our eyes and makes a good picture. In this particular case, light was so plentiful that base ISO 64 let the meter see ideal exposure with f/1.4, 1/80. In lower light, you will have to boost ISO to achieve a properly exposed image. If you can, opening aperture or lowering the shutter are the two parameters that actually increase the light collection the sensor will see. Remember that ISO is a digital boost within the camera after the fact. However, we do need to use ISO to do this, so that we don’t invoke more noise, or colour casts from bringing up overly dark images at the scene in post processing. If you approach low light scenes like this and the camera lets you see ideal exposure with 1/80-1/100 shutter speed at base ISO, you just won a watch. If the meter tells you that you can have 1/50 shutter speed, but you need to be at ISO 1600, obviously you are in much lower light. You can either add light with flash, get closer, or open up the aperture of the lens wider. If you are at the maximum aperture, you can also drop the shutter, but then you have to contend with scene movement, and the steadiness of your own hands.

The Laughing Bride - Nikon D810, 85mm f/1.4D. Low light quantities, but decent quality and direction allow for a shot in available light.

We need to be careful of illogical settings when shooting in manual mode. Here are some for this scene:

ISO 1600, 1/8000, f/1.4.

These make absolutely zero sense. Why would I shoot at ISO 1600 when I have a shutter speed of 1/8000? Unless we are shooting greyhounds in a dark room moving at vast speed, we do not need such a high shutter speed. If the meter suggests this is a good exposure, then we can simply modify this to logical settings, thus ISO 64, 1/500, f/1.4. We just made our picture have much higher quality because we could use base ISO - where all the best quality exists. Now we can’t always do this. Let’s look at more illogical settings that I see all the time when people shoot in low light:

ISO 6400, 1/100, f/4

These settings make little sense to me. Why are we maxing out our ISO (where noise is going to be a problem, and colour is going to be poorer) when we are at f/4? If we are shooting with an f/2 or even better, and f/1.4 prime lens, we can drop this to something much more logical. We can be at ISO 800 if we have an f/1.4 lens! This would give the following: ISO 800, 1/100, f/1,4.

Remember, light collection is garnered via aperture and shutter speed. ISO is a digital gain applied after the fact, within the camera’s electronics and software. Photography is light. Let your sensor be bathed in it; do not starve it of light with less than optimal settings. However, also, do not get so caught up in settings that you miss a picture. Learn and understand exposure so intuitively that you do not even have to put much thought into it when shooting,..then you will be free to think about composition and timing.

Photographing in ultra Low Light with fast primes and a small lightsouce — Glow Stick Girl. Nikon D810, 50mm f/1.4G

Next let’s look at an image which is absolutely pushing the limits of available light shooting. ISO 12800, f/1.4 and 1/40 were my settings for this one. I knew that I could hand hold a 50mm lens to less than 1/40, however I had to think about the kid’s motion too, hence I settled on 1/40. Timed right, I’d get a sharp shot, as I have done here. ISO 12800 was easily decided on because the only light was the glow stick in the dark room. So I selected the maximum ISO of the D810. The aperture was another easy decision. We want that wide open in low light for something like this, so I had it set to f/1.4 from the get-go. To touch on what I said earlier; notice how soft the light is on her face here? It’s a tiny light source - the only thing lighting her is the light from this tiny glow stick. However, because it is close to her face, it becomes very soft.

In this sort of light, the meter is always going to tell me that I am badly underexposed. The light meter in my D810 is trying to effectively expose for 18% grey. Thus it sees this sort of scene as underexposed. In these conditions we simply must extract every photon of light that we can from the scene. That’s where full frame cameras like the Nikon D810 come in, with fast aperture prime lenses.

Technique

When we are shooting in lowered light, we want to try to wait until subjects have the least motion, and photograph them at that point. It becomes a watching and waiting game. I do this because, it allows me to use a much slower shutter speed, and get more light onto my camera sensor. There might be the odd time I mis-judge this and I have to delete a picture. So be it. Hand holding technique is another big ticket item in this game. We can practice how to properly hold our camera, how to lock our elbows and arms tight to our body to become like a human tripod. We can even on occasion, use walls to lean ourselves against, or in fact the actual camera itself pushed against a wall for lateral stability. This can allow you to drop your shutter speed even more. Be careful though, you have to content with subject motion. This effect is magnified by the focal length of the lens and your distance to your subject. I can use much slower shutter speeds with a 24mm lens at slight distance, vs an 85mm lens close up. Any motion will be magnified of both the subject and your wobbly hands. Think of it like looking out of your window on a point in the far distance with high magnification binoculars. It’s hard to hold them still and focus in the distance. The wobble is easily noticed by the eyes as we look though the lenses.

Passport Photo Shooting with Speedlights — A very simple Passport Photo of my son by yours truly

Creating Light

I said I would touch on this topic before I wrapped up this article. It’s the subject so many photographers’ fear. Flash Photography. The subject that makes so many state themselves as ‘available light’ photographers. Do not be afraid of flash. Even if you use available light more than flash photography as I do; understanding how to use flash will allow you to understand light on a much deeper level and it will always elevate your photography.

This is a very simple shot, and bear in mind that it was made as a passport photo, hence my options of lighting are very limited - as are the expressions they want in these things! I can’t create a nice dramatic shadow on the right side of his face as I would like to (I am surprized I got away with this in fact - I decided to push my luck a little and use shallow depth of field too, the guys are the passport office must have just glared over this for a couple of seconds). For this shot I used:

D810 on a tripod
85mm f/1.4D prime
Light stand with an off camera speedlight through a large white umbrella, camera right, very close to subject
Wireless trigger on camera

For nearly all flash photography we use manual mode on camera. We control the shutter speed, ISO and aperture. This means, for example when shooting a wedding in low light, that the background remains consistent, shot to shot. For this type of posed setup I am showing, I still use manual mode. f/2, ISO 64, 1/250 were my camera settings. These settings are easily explained - base ISO for overall quality, f/2 for some shallow depth of field, and 1/250 as that is the flash sync speed. This means that mostly all of the ambient light at the scene will be overruled by my flash going off, creating a nice even light. I set the flash to 1/4 power and in the very low light I was in, I autofocused on the eye using the AF-assist beam in the D810. I noticed it was a little hot on the skin, so I simply dropped back to 1/8 power on the speedlight. And that was it. In posed setups I always manual everything. At a wedding, I still favour mostly available light, however I am not afraid to bring out a flash when the light is diabolical everywhere I look. When in those situations, I switch the flash to TTL mode (through the lens) which means it calculates the power needed on demand. Most of the time it does a fairly good job of it too.

Closing Thoughts

I hope this gives a general overview of how I approach available light shooting. It is always about catching the essence of the subject and using light to make an interesting picture. Sometimes we have more control than we realise. It is about harnessing that ability when shooting in true available light to make the light and the scene work for ourselves. Just remember, you aren’t shooting true reportage photography unless you are observing. As soon as you direct a subject, you are influencing the perception. You can make allowances though. Say you want to grab a perfect birthday candle shot of a loved one blowing out candles in a restaurant. Ask for a seat with a good background separation. Get the subject to sit in a position that allows you direct access to shoot them, and allows a beautiful background fall off because you have given yourself space in the background behind your subject. This will give you a nice depth to work with. There are many examples of things you can do to stack your chances of getting a great picture, without coming across as overbearing to others around us. By thinking this way, you give yourself more opportunities to make better pictures.

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Steve

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Introduction

14mm and the Super Ultra Wides

Sigma 14mm f/1.4 DG DN (mirrorless)

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Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM (dslr or mirrorless)

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24mm

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35mm

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50mm

Voigtlander 50mm f/2 APO-Lanthar II (mirrorless)

Viewing and imaging the Planets

Dark Adaption

About the Image and How to Find the Planets

Introduction

Why A 35mm Lens For Astrophotography?

Fast Aperture Lenses

Lens Characteristics

Optical Excellence

Controlling the Aberrations

Closing Thoughts

Introduction

What Does Shooting At Small Apertures Do? (F/8 - F-22)

What Does Shooting at Large Apertures Do? (F/1 - F/5.6)

When Is Focus Stacking A Good Idea?

Final Thoughts

Introduction

The Illusion of Depth in a Photograph

3D Pop

How do we get the 3D pop effect?

Lens Characteristics and Focal Length

Shallow Depth of Field

Light and Subject

Lens Aberrations

The Camera

Image Processing

Visual Cues Which Build Depth in a Picture

But We Can’t Have Mistakes In Our Lenses?

Some Tips

Which Lenses have 3D Pop?

Reasons I Use Certain Lenses For Specific Projects

Travelling Small and Light

Sunstars

The Film Look

Flare and Halation

Spherical Aberration and Dialed Back Lens Sharpness Wide Open

Lenses that are more ‘Artistic’ than ‘Scientific’

Further Reading

Introduction

Closing Thoughts

Introduction

The Rumours Have Started

Some Thoughts

Sony LA-EA5

Nikon Greatly Overexaggerate

Items that could be in a FTZIII

Some Favourite Classic Lenses

Nikon AF-D Have Many Advantages for my Shooting Style

Final Thought

Introduction

Shot Discipline

But ‘High ISO’ is so good now

Equipment

Available Light

Light Quality and Quantity / Direction

Settings

Technique

Creating Light