Part 2 - Off-Topic - advice, experiences, and examples for images being processed in DxO Photolab

DxO PhotoLab
1092

Yes Mike, you would have expected that. That is why information you post here is often as flawed as Ken Rockwell’s review of the Zf shutter button threaded socket. One of the biggest issues I have always had with your posts are your assumptions based only on opinion rather than on fact, and your total lack of interest in making a personal effort to get independent confirmation of the facts.

The Zf is probably not the right camera for your current requirements, but the one feature you saw fit to use as an example is completely based on a flawed and inaccurate review of that body by someone you had previously been warned about using as your main or sole resource. Do you not see the irony of that?

Mark

1093

He is not making any wrong statement. He is saying, that is looks like a cable release socket and he states that this is not the case. I find that is a valid point to raise, as all previous Nikon cameras with a threaded socket indeed had that functionality!
I can understand if people don’t like his style, but his reviews are often pointing out information that is completely missing in many other reviews. For example the compatibilities with old AI lenses. He points out that you have better compatibility with an DSLR and AI lenses than with the Zf, despite the fact that the Zf has a special AF guidance mode for manual focusing. I think those are all valid points that one would expect in a review for a retro camera. For those of you who say, who needs a cable release, who uses AI lenses, I would say, the Zf is not the camera for you, better look at a modern styled camera like the Z8.

I am glad to have this information available. And I really don’t understand the motivation of people like you @mwsilvers to talk him down.

1094

I quite often read Ken Rockwell’s reviews as one of the many resources I use to develop a consensus of a product and have learned from long experience to independently confirm the accuracy of some of what he posts, especially his negative comments, Maybe you should too.

In this review Ken Rockwell said the shutter button socket does not work, is only for show, and is a fake. That were his words, not mine, and they were incorrect. He mistakenly assumed it was a cable release socket, but Nikon has never advertised it as one. He made no effort to tell us what the true purpose of that socket is for, leading his readers, like Mike, to believe it is presence is just for looks, Mike believed him and used it as a prime example of the Zf being developed more as a fashion camera body rather than as a practical body.

Regardless of the accuracy of the rest of the review, this points out the serious flaws the very opinionated Ken Rockwell often introduces in his reviews.

Mark

1095

I am reading it differently. He is stating that it looks like a cable release and that this is not the case. How can one claim that this statement is incorrect? Especially since every camera before with a socket from Nikon was working with cable releases! I think that is a valid point to make.

I see it exactly like you, I take his information and build my own opinion from it. But I don’t understand why you want him to not point out this missing functionality. Maybe this functionality is not useful for you, if that’s the case, then why do you care?

1096

You can interpret it any way you wish, but Ken Rockwell made an incorrect assumption about the socket’s purpose, indicated it served no purpose other than for show, and never identified its true reason for it being there. Those flaws helped convince Mike that the ZF was designed as a fashion camera. Sorry you can’t see that.

Mark

1097

Well you won’t deny that the Zf is a fashion camera :smiley:. Nothing wrong with that, quite the opposite. Well I leave it at that, let’s agree to disagree.

1 Like
1098

I dislike the term fashion camera because it implies the look and controls have no other purpose but to serve fashion, which in the case of the Zf is untrue. While I plan to purchase a Zf, I currently own a Nikon Z fc which in many respects is almost identical to the Nikon Zf . It has been the most enjoyable camera I have every owned., and I’ve owned quite a few.

My wife has a Nikon Z50 which has a traditional DSLR look of most of the Nikon Z mirrorless line, but Internally it is almost identical to my Z fc. From a use perspective I much prefer the controls and overall shooting experience I get from my Z fc. The fact that it tries to emulate a classic look from the 1980’s is an attractive bonus, but what is really important to me is how it works and how easily I am able to get the results I want. By the way, in case you were wondering, the f in the Zf and Zfc names stands for fusion, not fashion.

Mark

1099

@maderafunk how about speaking for yourself instead trying to put words into other people’s mouth? For some it’s a fashion camera as retro is the new hot sh…t, for others it’s just the thing they always envied Fuji owners for as they see it the only way to use a camera.

Ren Kockwell’s repetitive blurb about what the thread is not is simply pointless and he’s agitating just for click bait reasons. Or – also possible – he was rather upset that this camera at this price point has no (electrical or mechanical) cable release socket, so it’s either self-timer or the rather crappy Nikon remote app. Yes, it’s rather lame from Nikon to offer no cable release, but honestly, this is not the only lame feature Nikon has to offer.

1100

Mark, I do the things you mention, but I don’t write about them.

Anyway, when you get some free time, check out the history of the “f” cameras. You’ll find that the head of Nikon DSLR design, Mr Tetsuro Goto, came up with what HE felt was the essence of Nikon DSLR cameras, and got rid of the excess stuff he found no use for, including flash and video. The Nikon Df was intended to be similar to the previous Nikon film and digital cameras, providing the mechanical controls. (He couldn’t fully do this, as new Nikon lenses don’t have a way to set the aperture, but he came pretty close.)

I bought the Df as a “collector’s item” before B&H was sold out, paying $1,500 for it in 2020. The current selling price is beyond my version of reality, over $3,000 (see link below).
new Nikon Df ad

Anyway, if you read the old articles on the Df, you’ll find out which Nikon cameras it was based on, or just watch the following video, where Mr. Goto explains this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXk7fC9jJ88

Here’s a quick photo of my own Df camera:

IMG_8526
IMG_85261920×2560 390 KB

The shutter release is right where Nikon expects it to be, and is used to either work with a standard cable release like every other camera, or a fitting that screwed over the shutter release button. It works just as it has for decades, with or without a cable release. And electronic cable releases are also available.

From preview they think the Zf started as a Nikon Z6 II, “designed to mimic the look of the company’s FM2 SLR from the early 1980s, meaning it effectively becomes a full-frame counterpart to the company’s Z fc APS-C camera”. (This from DPreview.)

Zf - I expected Nikon to again provide a working cable release socket on this newer version of an “f” camera, as they did on my Df. I guess they weren’t able to do this.

I agree this topic has nothing whatever to do with PhotoLab, and anyone here or elsewhere is free to buy whatever camera they wish. As for me, as an owner/user of Nikon’s Df, I expected the Zf to be similar, but based around a ML camera, instead of a DSLR. As I see things, the Df was designed to be more like Nikon’s older cameras, but the Zf was styled.

And to be honest, I ought to have followed Joanna’s previous advice to me, to make my last trip to India with my D780, not my Df. With a few weeks, I missed my “real” camera, with two memory cards and a working flash (no longer on my D780 either). My current thoughts are that the Df only has 16 megapixels, compared to 24 on my D780, and 50 on Joanna’s D850. I’m seriously thinking of buying a used D850.

Anyway, the above is simply my thoughts on this, and before anyone asks, I have no desire to buy a new ML camera.

Lots of people are likely to buy the Zf, and love it. I know you will too. I would much rather get a D850, mostly like what I have now, but with more megapixels.

1 Like
1101

Fuji seems to think there are some “issues” in the Zf:
Where Nikon Went Wrong with the Zf | FUJI X WEEKLY

I still think it is beautiful, and I came close to ordering one, thinking Nikon finally made a Z camera for me.

Of course, Fuji is a competitor of Nikon and others.

1 Like
1102

I just looked at the Fuji link you posted. There were basically two issues they raised. One of them, of course, were the built in film simulations that Fuji is so proud of. And that is a great feature for those users who are primarily jpeg shooters, but it is not really very useful for raw shooters.

The other issue had nothing to do with the camera itself but with the lack of an aperture ring on current Nikon branded lenses. Fuji lenses have them, probably because so many of their cameras historically have been retro designs. Of course, manual focus lenses have aperture rings and some third party lens manufactures even include them on their auto focus lenses.

I use Voigtlander MF prime lenses and a variety of Chinese based MF and autofocus prime lenses, and they all have aperture rings. As I have mentioned before, the additional advantage of my Voigtlander MF lenses, specifically designed for the Nikon Z mount, is that they have electronic contacts which allows them to completely communicate with Nikon Z camera bodies just like an AF lens would.

Of course, the Fuji cameras also use crop sensors while the Zf is a full frame camera.

Mark

1103

Agree, some more cropping makes my picture above absolutely better.

It is really fantastic with the modern AF-tracking. If just the shutter speed is fast enough it hardly misses a single frame when it comes to the sharpness.

This picture isn´t even taken with an especially fast lens (Sony 70-200mm F4 is an old lens today and it doesn´t even have the modern and faster focusing engines that newer lenses have). That is a bit from ideal since this Sport Center wasn´t all that well lit up either. If you look at the EXIF below it is taken at max zoom length 200mm which is not either ideal for the sharpness since this lens like most zooms are a little weaker in the both ends - but I had no choice because the action was pretty far away. In this case about 40 meter as you can see in the EXIF below.

At another event I even tried my new Tamron 150-500mm F5.6-6. That seems even worse but wasn´t because this lens is far superior to the old Sony in many respects. First it is sharper at the ends than the Sony, has far better stabilisation and much faster focusing engines. That extra reach also sometimes gets me closer to the action which means less cropping.

As you can see the picture is taken on ISO 10 000 and without DXO Deep Prime XD this picture has quite a lot of noise - but DPXD is truly fantastic and manages these problems excellent. Aperture is not set to max F4, because that affects sharpness so I rather use 5.6 which together with F8 is the lens sweet area. Distance to the motif is ca 40 meter.

image

1104

Well, I came very close to buying one. I’m going to stop reading about them, and wait until you post how they worked out for you - assuming you do so here in this forum

Yes about Fuji’s film simulations - I played around with them in India, and found them fascinating. That they created ‘jpg’ images was no issue for me - they represent film simulations, so “raw” was irrelevant. I still love my Fuji X100f, and whatever Nikon I bring with me on my next trip (D780 or D850) I will also be bringing my Fuji.

Speaking of Voigtlander MF lenses, I have some for my Leica cameras. Wonderful lenses, now feeling ignored sitting in my camera drawer. They were every bit as good as I hoped they would be. I get those lenses from CameraQuest, and they are addicting. The equivalent Leica lens is ten times as expensive, and I suspect my Voigtlander lenses may be the best lenses I own, for any camera.

Best of luck with your upcoming Zf, and please do either post a review of it here, or just let me know by email. Or maybe post in a Nikon ML forum, and send me a link.

Thanks!!

1105

One of the things I learned from @Joanna is to include whatever enhances/improves an image, and exclude everything else. Doing this with my own images hurts, but I had no such pain cropping away at your image. Cutting your image down to the basics makes the image stronger, with fewer “distractions”.

I never bothered to check how sharp it was or wasn’t; what I cared about was the composition, and I think you “nailed it”.

Joanna would explain this better than I can, but to me, that is the most important part of any photograph, much more so than the technical details.

In my words “you did good!!”

(I hope you sent the lady a copy…)

1106

I have 3 Voigtlander lenses designed for the Z mount. All were purchased from Stephen Gandy at CameraQuest. My 23mm f/1.2 Nokton and 35mm f/1.2 Nokton are designed for APS-C sensors. My 40mm f/1.2 Nokton is designed for full frame sensors. The crop sensors lenses are small and weigh at around 8 ounces each. The full frame lens is somewhat bigger and weighs in at a bit over 11 ounces. Considering they all have an f/1.2 maximum aperture they are very small compared to AF lens with similar apertures.

Mark

1107

If you have any interest, check out Steve’s reference list for older cameras. Every time I find it, I get an urge to do some shooting with some of those classic cameras. Wonderful memories:

https://cameraquest.com/classics.htm

1108

@mikemyers
The reason that crop was looking as it did might have depended on who it was made for, i think. This picture was one of about 50 keeper pictures taken at a gymnastics competition and they were taken for a gymnastics coach for a post analysing of certain actions during that competition. It has not been optimized to emphasize a certain expression I wanted to stress. In this case I just picked it because it is a good example of a distinctive quick moment, not so easy to catch without a little help from the camera’s serial burst shooting.

I just repeat a little that we don´t necessarily have to put a totally manual photography against all sorts of new tech in our cameras all the time. Every challenge we meet as photographers will trigger some sort of respons he or she will choose to do to meet the demands the situation defines for us. What we actually decide to do will not just depend on skill, gear but also the motif itself and the situation it defined … and the time window we have determines a lot of what actually is possible to do.

As I wrote above or at least what I ment is that Joann’s friend Helen that had minutes to adapt to her motif of a changing sky might have acted very differently if the time window had been say 5 seconds. Sometimes the time is just not there and ju have to act really fast … otherwise the moment will be gone forever and I personally think that the timing is what makes photography really interesting and that is also why I have really embraced all the new tech that helps us improve our timing.

They give me more keepers and images of a higher technical quality than I never was able to get during all these analog days of mine between when I first started to take pictures 1963 and when I bought my first DSLR 2005. That is 42 years. My digital period 2005 to 2024 is 19 years and that is not even half of my analog days. From these digital years I would like to subtract my terrible useless DSLR-years full with focusing problems and Anti-shake problems between at least 2005 to 2011 when I finally got a camera that had an AF-system that worked for me in my first mirrorless NEX 7. It´s just over 10 years.

But to be really honest: It is first when I bought my A7 III that I could begin to take pictures the way I like - with the timing support I liked. A7 III was my first camera that both supported Auto ISO Min. Shutter Speed and a smarter AF-tracking than I have had before. With the successor A7 IV it is almost perfection both with humans, animals and birds. That camera was released in Sweden several months before it was released in USA of unknown reason. We got it in October 2021 and in USA they released it in February 2022. So, it is not even two and a half year since it all fell in place and I´m not just talking about cameras but also about DXO’s fantastic noise reduction DeepPrime and DeepPrime XD that makes it possible to take our pictures even at ISO 10 000 without any bigger problems together with these cameras.

Compare these 2,5 years with my more than 40 years in the analog evil days of too poor image quality to ever get satisfied with really and cumbersome practical craft I never really found worth it. During these digital days I also have had quite a few problems printing with the printheads I had. I bought my first A3 printer 2006 and it is just during these last 2,5 years I feel I’m at home with all my gear and my results including printing. Finally, I have a printer in my Epson SC-P900 A2-printer that just works without the slightest severe printhead issues. It is absolutely fantastic but it took 59 years to get here (1963 to 2022) and have costed a fortune.

Just think about this:

In my analog days I had just two cameras. One Zeiss Icon Contina and one Pentax ME system camera with just two lenses: one 40mm/2,8 Pentax SMC and one 100mm/2,8 Pentax SMC. Pentax ME was released in 1976 and i bought mine the same year. It was my main camera on a lot of trips abroad from that day to 2015. That is 39 years. The only thing not working today is the “frame counter”.

Since 2005 I have had KonicaMinolta D7D, Sony A350, A550, A570, A55, NEX 7, A7r, A7 II, A7 III and A7 IV and have had a lot of problems with the earlier ones. That makes 10 digital system cameras in 19 years which is one every second year. On top of that quite a few lenses.

What to say about this? Well, I would have loved to enter this now mature market today and not 2005 when everything was so immature. What a fantastic time we finally are living in as photographers today but it has taken a long long time getting here!

1109

A few things you wrote are very different from my experiences…

I think it’s very sad that you feel this way. My early cameras had no flash, no automation, and only manual focus. Reminds me of my Leica M10. Later, for DSLR, I had the D40, D50, D70 for a very long time before I bought my D3. I never complained about auto-focus, or auto-exposure, or auto anything else - the cameras had limitations, but it was for me to work around them. None of the photos in my gallery are from “fancy” cameras - but I certainly did appreciate my D3, M10, D750, and now D780 and I’m debating with myself if I should place an order for a D850 tomorrow when KEH calls me back.

The photographers we refer to as “the masters” had none of this automation. My first “real” camera was a 1936 Ziess Contax II, and I was in heaven!

I certainly won’t argue with you, but I think it’s very sad that you were seemingly so miserable. I certainly didn’t fight (too much) with @Joanna when she had me turn off almost all the automation, and force myself to use Manual mode. With my Nikons, I use auto-focus. With my Leicas, I use manual focus. …but that’s me.

I hope with the new technology, you will find gear that you are satisfied with, and enjoy using, which I think will make photography more of a pleasure for you.

1110

Picture photography ten years from now, 2034. What might cameras be like then? What comes next after mirrorless? What will PhotoLab 20 be like?

1111

I had a similar, but very different experience, perhaps because I stuck with Nikon the whole time - SP, F2, F4, D40, D50, D70, D90 D2x, and D3. I enjoyed them all, and enjoyed the improvements over time. After the D3 I bought the lighter D750, then D780. For me it was a very pleasant journey, and I loved the improved features for every one of them, and still love my almost 20-year old D3. There is a small chance I will add a D850 to my list, only because 50 megapixels sound mostly great to me. Not sure yet.

As to “immature”, all these Nikons are immature as soon as the next model comes out For each of my Nikons, at the time I bought them, they were quite the opposite of immature. Heck, I thought my D3 was the best camera Nikon would ever make. But to me, I always thought of them as “tools”. In that sense, they are just as good today as when I bought them. I still have my SP, F2, F4, D2x, and D3. For me, for film, the F4 was the best ever. Of course, none of this matters, as it’s now 2024, and I’m just as satisfied with my older cameras as much as the newer models… but the old ones mostly sit in a drawer, un-used. The biggest changes - improved resolution, and ISO capability. (Cameras that don’t age - my Leica cameras.)

Back to you, I hope your “future history” is much more satisfying. I predict that five and ten years from now, both of us will be using/wanting something better. :slight_smile: