New lens

 I have just received delivery of a new lens. Designed for travelling light as its a 24mm-200mm zoom. 

Tried to see how good the Vibration Reduction was. 

Managed to get good results hand holding 200mm at 1/10 second. I was sitting down but still very impressive. 

below is the full shot and a blowup of the wall 

Still able to count the individual bricks on the wall.

iPhone 8

Well its a month since the last post and lots of things have gone on but not much photographically.

Big thing is I have a new phone. So took some pictures on the phone and with the Nikon and here are the results.

All images resized to 1500 pixel across.

Nikon D700

iPhone

Iphone straight out of phone, Nikon Processed in Bridge.

Nikon D700

iPhone

Nikon D700

iPhone straight from camera.

iPhone tweaked on phone

Really very impressed. Quality is far better than a pro digital from the turn of the century. and the phone only cost £200 more than my first 160mb CF card!!!!

Camera Testing High ISO test.

After doing the resolution test, the next bit of testing I wanted to see is how the cameras responds to cranking up the ISO.

The base ISO of the Sony is 100 ISO with the Nikon having a base of 200 ISO. All yesterdays test were shot at the base ISO.

I don't use high ISO much but when I do I really need them. So here are the results.

The image is shot ion my office/studio

Starting at the top setting of 25600 ISO

Sony A6000

Nikon D700

Then down to 12800 ISO

Sony A6000

Nikon D700

And finally a 6400 ISO

Sony A6000

Nikon D700

I was very happy with the results. The Sony is a great step up from the Nikon. At 6400 ISO the Nikon is reaching its limits, but the Sony is looking good. 

At 12800 the Nikon shows strong banding and the Sony had reached the limit of usability. 

At 25600 both have gone over the top. No use commercially fro either but the Sony would still produce something if needed.

Camera testing

I don't change my cameras very often, but at the moment I am looking at all the camera gear that I have and looking at getting something lighter, as what I have was great when I was working commercially but now is far heavier than I want to carry around.

I have been considering all the options available and on paper the Sony A6300 is looking very promising.

Luckily I have a friend who has just bought an A6000 which is the previous incarnation of the Sony camera and looking at the reviews has a very similar output.

So yesterday I had the change to borrow the camera and run some test shots. the weather was bad so no chance to get out and walk about with the camera.

So it was my usual test image from the backdoor decking looking down the garden.

I then shot the same shot on three cameras. 

Nikon D700 with 24mm f2.8 prime lens

Nikon D40x with 18-50mm kit lens

Sony A6000 with 16-50mm kit lens

The Nikon D700 and Sony images were both with the same angle of view with the D40x slightly less wide. Also the Sony is a 24 megapixel image but the nikons are both around 13 megapixels but all images were resized to the Sony resolution.

Blowing up the centre section of the image was interesting.

Sony A6000

NikonD700

NikonD40x

All image processed through Adobe camera raw. All with similar amounts settings.

My view is that the Sony has the best quality images significantly better than the D700. Also very surprised by the quality of the lens. Most reviewers don't rate the kit lens but to my eye it more that good enough for commercial images. The corners are not as good as the Nikon prime but not far behind and better that expected.

As I only shoot for Alamy picture library now, I only look to what I call the 'Alamy paradigm'. 

The bottom line being if it fulfils the Alamy quality standards the it is good enough for me.

So the Sony will be more camera than I will need.