Reviews, Good and Poor

mhedges

From my point of view Rockwell's site is a good resource for specs without being inundated with ads. And has good info on various discontinued Nikon products.
That's about all I take from it at this point.

He is more of a "consumer reports" type site, meaning targeting folks who want to make a informed choice but aren't necessarily enthusiasts, and that's fine. The one thing I think he has wrong is his position on RAW vs. JPG shooting. He is correct that beginner photographers shouldn't be messing with RAW files in post but that doesn't mean they shouldn't take them to possibly use later. Polin's take makes much more sense to me - shoot RAW + JPG for 6 months to a year, then after that time if you feel the RAW files are of no use then go ahead and shoot JPG only.

As far as "how often do you shoot wide open" - for me, if I'm using my 70-200 2.8 then I am almost always shooting it wide open. Otherwise I'd use the much easier to carry 70-300 AF-P lens.

WestEndFoto

With my 70-200 2.8, I am almost always shooting wide open. With a prime shooting people, I am typically “wide open to 2.8”. But if I am shooting a land scape I shoot at the “sharpest across the frame aperture” unless I need to stop it down for more DOF.

mhedges

Agree. Usually I shoot landscape type stuff at F8 unless there's a good reason not to. But I rarely use my 2.8 zoom or prime for landscape type stuff.

[Deleted User]

I frankly think WestEndFoto's impudence and disparagement of buyers should be censured and he should be expelled from this site for at least 30 days, comments said as jokes or not.

I see nothing inherently deceptive in Rockwell's statements and suggestions, he is not masquarading as a snake oil salesman, and prospective buyers who comprise his audience are not fools or suckers. They may be less than informed, but I don't think that should be held against them.

WestEndFoto

Explain Flip. I believe I am saying the opposite of what you think I am saying.

tc88

flip said:

I frankly think WestEndFoto's impudence and disparagement of buyers should be censured and he should be expelled from this site for at least 30 days, comments said as jokes or not.

Please. First, he didn't say what you described. Second, even if someone said disparagement about buyers, who's the judge to say there is no merit in those arguments? Please don't act as an extremist so that you want to ban any voice that don't agree with yours.

flip said:

I see nothing inherently deceptive in Rockwell's statements and suggestions, he is not masquarading as a snake oil salesman, and prospective buyers who comprise his audience are not fools or suckers.

That's your personal opinion and you are free to express it and people support your right to express it. But please don't treat it as absolutely correct just because you think it's correct. Also please support others' right to express counter opinions.

[Deleted User]

I will let WestEndFoto decide whether my comments about censure were a joke or not and need clarification. Let's let his conscience decide whether he meant to disparage buyers or not with insipid comments and if so perhaps he should self censure.

I doubt any camera maker is purposely marketing to those who don't have the capacity to understand the basics of cameras.

This not being a forum for political commentary per se, perhaps we can dispense with unsolicited perspectives, don't you think?

Pistnbroke

Strange I've never taken a RAW file and have no intention of doing so. If you know how to work the Picture control settings I dont feel there is any point. Of course if you are a RAW shooter you are not interested in Picture control so you never get the best from your JPEGs.
On this one I am with Rockwell.

PB_PM

No amount of picture controls for JPEG files give you the extra dynamic range that RAW files have. There is nothing to argue, it’s simply a fact.

tc88

My earliest pictures were taken with JPG only. Some of those have blown highlights even though they were exposed correctly or even under exposed for the purpose. I wish I knew better at the time. No, I didn't read KR, so it's not his fault and purely my mistake. But JPG just doesn't have the DR since it's only 8 bits.

Searcy

One of the most impressive things about the Z6 is its dynamic range and shadow control in post when shooting in RAW. In the crazy light that I often shoot in It's been a very nice improvement.

tc88

Well, it's said for Nikon, you expose to the left to make sure no blown high lights and recover the shadow if necessary. While for Canon, you expose to the right to make sure no under exposed shadow and recover the high light if necessary. I think it may have something to do with raw file algorithms. Nikon's raw puts more emphasis on the shadow while Canon's raw puts more emphasis on the high light.

WestEndFoto

That is an interesting theory that I never considered before TC88.

PB_PM

I was never impressed with Canon in shadow or highlight recovery, but the last one I tried was 8 years ago, so I'm sure it has improved. I only tried it because they had some lenses I was interested in (price and focal length combo) that Nikon did not at the time.

PB_PM

On the subject of a good or bad review - since that is the title, and moving away from just Ken Rockwell - what do you all think marks the biggest difference between a good and bad camera or lens review?

Is it the type of testing the reviewer does? Open disclosure of the testing methods? How balanced and honest the person is about the good and bad aspects? Real world image samples, rather than test charts, or a combination of both? Words or direct evidence? If the author talks about the feel of images, the way the lens renders an image, does that have an impact? If they do does that change how you view of the review? How about a reviewer that focuses on the way using the lens/camera makes the image making process feel vs just specs and numbers?

Personally speaking, I find a balance between all of those things to be important and any author that just focuses on one or the other end of the spectrum less interesting to read/watch.

WestEndFoto

I suppose if I was doing the testing I would start with Imatest and validate the MTF charts, but at a variety of apertures. Photography Life does this well but I don’t think they have learned to deal with field curvature.

Then I would use real world shooting to validate the MTFs and Imatest. For example, I like to shoot models on the side often. My real world results suggest that the MTF charts for Nikon are pretty much bang on. If the Imatest was done to account for field curvature, I think they would be bang on.

And then you have to do this, at a minimum, at the closest focussing distance, infinity and somewhere in between.

With real world testing, I would be looking at coma, flare, chromatic aberration etc. I loved my 85 1.4G but the purple fringing wide open bothers me. I now use either the 58 1.4G or 105 1.4 E which eliminate this issue.

Bokeh should also be addressed along with the transition from focus to out of focus areas and this is fairly objective if you know what to look for.

More subjective factors like rendering, character etc. should also be discussed. I like these attributes as they relate to my 15 3.5 Ais, 50 1.2 Ais, 58 1.4G and 135 2.0DC. I am always interested in this.

I would say that Thom does this very well. It takes him a while to get a review out because he is so comprehensive. Photography Life has significant value to because of their comprehensive Imatest results, subject to field curvature, and Len comparisons.

NSXTypeR

WestEndFoto said:

mhedges said:

Ah got it. Yes I agree. But that's his MO. For him basically every lens is "sharp enough". He does not value performance. Remember, this is the guy who said the EOS RP was the "best mirrorless camera on the planet".

Yes, but it is one thing to say it is sharp enough. Totally a different thing to say what he said. You can say the Camry is "fast", but you can't say it is as fast as a Ferrari.

Depends on which Ferrari.

A Camry is surprisingly fast now, and might be able to outrun a few Ferraris from the late 1980s.

The Ferrari Mondial is particularly slow...

Any review you should be careful of. Even DPReview got bought out (sponsored?) by Amazon, so they're not an independent reviewer anymore.

mhedges

My go-to reviewers are Thom and Photography Life. Fro can be a decent source of info at times.

Nikon Ricci's videos are very informative, but you always have to consider that he works for Nikon. Still, I get a lot out of them personally.

WestEndFoto

The Photography Life YouTube review on the 20mm 1.8S is pretty good. It covers most of the points I made above.

But they are still letting field curvature skew their results. Notice in the review where they took the desert test shots. They only compared the centre and the corners. There are few photography applications that truly demand great corner performance. More important is mid-frame (say 9mm on the Nikon MTF chart) and the edge (say 17mm on the Nikon MTF chart). If you read the Imatest result that Photography Life did, you will think that the lens has weaker mid-frame performance than it really has. Look to the Nikon MTF chart for a better measure.

I speculate that Photography Life did not discuss mid-frame performance because it would have contradicted their Imatest result.

To get the proper mid-frame result properly accounting for field curvature, they need to focus in the mid-frame and take an Imatest reading. Maybe it is a lot of work and they don’t want to do it.

PB_PM

You cannot just toss out field curvature, it is a real life issue. Not for everyone, but I'd rather they show the results of it than not.Field curvature is actually more of an issue for auto focus than sharpness though.

spraynpray

Also a big issue for starscapes possibly explaining some of the abberations apparent towards the edges.

WestEndFoto

Spraynpray, you should listen to the Photography Life review on the 20 1.8S. Coma performance is good but there is a trick to eliminate it.

spraynpray

Thanks Westie, I'll look for it. I did buy the 20 but sold it because it wasn't too good at the edges.

I don't know what the trick will be, but if it is offsetting the focus a little, it probably won't work for me because I don't shoot for facebook or small prints, I shoot to view huge so I need best possible focus. Not even a tiny chance of any hyperfocal technique working for starscapes.

WestEndFoto

My mistake, it is in the written review. Read it and tell us what you think. Better yet, rent it, try out the technique and tell us what you think.

spraynpray

WestEndFoto said:

My mistake, it is in the written review. Read it and tell us what you think. Better yet, rent it, try out the technique and tell us what you think.

I just read it Westie, I didn't see anything like you described?

https://photographylife.com/reviews/nikon-20mm-f1-8g-ed