jlw
Rangefinder camera pedant
Lately on RFF we've been having another outbreak of the recurring "Why do you guys only talk about gear?" lament. And I can see the lamenters' point to some extent... but I figure that if we talk about how we use gear, that's a bit different, because it might help someone else solve a photographic problem, right?
So, here's an account of my latest outing with my R-D 1 and M-adapted Canon 50mm f/0.95 lens...
As with a previous writeup I posted on a similar topic, the occasion was a modern-dance concert (Arcanum Contemporary Dance, in this case.)
One thing about photographing modern dance is that you almost never know what you're going to get lighting-wise -- but in this case I had two evenings' worth of chances to take pictures, and I had seen a technical rehearsal that seemed quite well-lit.
Since I expected the actual lighting to be similarly bright, and since I was going to have to stand mostly in the back of the theater, I decided the safest outfit to take on my first evening would be my Nikon D80 DSLR and a few lenses. I figured I'd be doing most of my shooting with my 70-200/2.8 VR Nikkor, with an 85/1.8 AF Nikkor as backup for dimly-lit scenes.
Oops. What I hadn't counted on was that between the tech rehearsal and the final, the lighting designer had decided to get all murky and atmospheric. The lighting on the stage was beautiful and expressive, what there was of it -- but that wasn't much. I had to crank the D80's sensitivity up to the "H1" setting -- equivalent of ISO 3200 -- to get even the 85/1.8 into three-digit shutter speeds, and the 70-200 was basically useless, vibration reduction or no; 1/50 sec. just doesn't get you very far photographing dance, even if your lens is electronically stabilized.
Examining my take late that night, I considered myself lucky to have gotten some reasonably exposed images -- but I realized a change of plan was in order.
So the second night, I left the 70-200mm grenade launcher at home. Instead, I took the D80 with just the 85/1.8 lens, and my R-D 1 with the Canon 50/0.95 and Voigtlander Nokton 35/1.2 lenses. I figured this combo would both improve my mobility, making it easier to get to different vantage points around the theater, and improve my chances of sucking in enough photons to get decent exposures.
My plan was to use the 50 at f/1.2 whenever possible; this cleans up its performance noticeably compared to using it at f/0.95, and it also meant both my R-D 1 lenses would be exactly 1 stop faster than the lens I had on the D80. Since the D80 would be set to ISO 3200 and the R-D 1 to ISO 1600, I should get the same shutter speed on both -- allowing me to use the D80 as a "spot meter" for my R-D 1 shots.
Well, I could tell you how happy I was that the second night's setup worked better... but you want to see pictures, don't you? Okay, here's a typical D80 shot from the first night; this wasn't one of my best pictures from the concert, but I chose it to illustrate some of the problems typical of this type of shooting:
It doesn't look too bad at this size, and I'd consider it usable. Now here's a shot from the second night of the same piece, with the same lighting, only with the 50/0.95 at f/1.2 on the R-D 1:
Not so different from the first one at this size, but let's compare the 1:1 crops -- D80 on the left, R-D 1 on the right:
***
No, I didn't get the files mixed up! The 85/1.8 AF Nikkor is an excellent lens for sharpness, and I did get better results with it on the pieces that weren't quite so dimly lit.
But remember, to get usable shutter speeds with its f/1.8 maximum aperture, I had had to crank the D80 up to EI 3200 -- and its results, especially in the dark areas, are so "rocky" that they negate some of the lens' performance. Meanwhile, stopping down the Canon 50/0.95 to f/1.2 has tamed some of its legendary haziness; its full-stop-faster maximum aperture let me get the same shutter speeds while taking advantage of the R-D 1's much smoother EI 1600 imaging.
One interesting real-world consequence of this had to do with cropping. Since the R-D 1 had only a 50mm lens while the D80 had an 85mm lens (both have the same size sensor) I had to crop the R-D 1 shots more tightly to get similar framing. And of course the D80 gives me 10 megapixels to play with, while the R-D 1 provides "only" 6 megapixels.
But scroll up and look at those 1:1 crops again -- wouldn't you say that the R-D 1 shot is more "enlargeable"? I certainly would -- and in fact in the photos I've worked with so far, the R-D 1 images seem to stand up better at the same final size, despite the D80's advantages in pixel count and image magnification! Good to know, but not what I had expected at all...
If you want some takeaway talking points, here are a few:
-- Ten megapixels aren't always better than six; when it comes to final results, six smooth megapixels can outperform ten rough ones.
-- In very dim light, using a faster lens will improve image quality more than using a slower one and cranking up the ISO.
-- Stopping down the Canon 50/0.95 even a tiny amount makes a big difference in how it images!
The floor is open for anyone who wants to debate, but be prepared to show examples!
So, here's an account of my latest outing with my R-D 1 and M-adapted Canon 50mm f/0.95 lens...
As with a previous writeup I posted on a similar topic, the occasion was a modern-dance concert (Arcanum Contemporary Dance, in this case.)
One thing about photographing modern dance is that you almost never know what you're going to get lighting-wise -- but in this case I had two evenings' worth of chances to take pictures, and I had seen a technical rehearsal that seemed quite well-lit.
Since I expected the actual lighting to be similarly bright, and since I was going to have to stand mostly in the back of the theater, I decided the safest outfit to take on my first evening would be my Nikon D80 DSLR and a few lenses. I figured I'd be doing most of my shooting with my 70-200/2.8 VR Nikkor, with an 85/1.8 AF Nikkor as backup for dimly-lit scenes.
Oops. What I hadn't counted on was that between the tech rehearsal and the final, the lighting designer had decided to get all murky and atmospheric. The lighting on the stage was beautiful and expressive, what there was of it -- but that wasn't much. I had to crank the D80's sensitivity up to the "H1" setting -- equivalent of ISO 3200 -- to get even the 85/1.8 into three-digit shutter speeds, and the 70-200 was basically useless, vibration reduction or no; 1/50 sec. just doesn't get you very far photographing dance, even if your lens is electronically stabilized.
Examining my take late that night, I considered myself lucky to have gotten some reasonably exposed images -- but I realized a change of plan was in order.
So the second night, I left the 70-200mm grenade launcher at home. Instead, I took the D80 with just the 85/1.8 lens, and my R-D 1 with the Canon 50/0.95 and Voigtlander Nokton 35/1.2 lenses. I figured this combo would both improve my mobility, making it easier to get to different vantage points around the theater, and improve my chances of sucking in enough photons to get decent exposures.
Technical aside: Also in the interests of mobility, I had considered taking along my screwmount Canon 50/1.2 lens instead of the chunky 50/0.95. The 50/1.2 is a very well-liked lens on RFF's Canon forum, and I like mine. But an ad-hoc comparo during the afternoon confirmed what I had found before: contrary to conventional gear-head wisdom, the 50/0.95 at f/1.2 is sharper than the 50/1.2 at f/1.2!
My plan was to use the 50 at f/1.2 whenever possible; this cleans up its performance noticeably compared to using it at f/0.95, and it also meant both my R-D 1 lenses would be exactly 1 stop faster than the lens I had on the D80. Since the D80 would be set to ISO 3200 and the R-D 1 to ISO 1600, I should get the same shutter speed on both -- allowing me to use the D80 as a "spot meter" for my R-D 1 shots.
Well, I could tell you how happy I was that the second night's setup worked better... but you want to see pictures, don't you? Okay, here's a typical D80 shot from the first night; this wasn't one of my best pictures from the concert, but I chose it to illustrate some of the problems typical of this type of shooting:
It doesn't look too bad at this size, and I'd consider it usable. Now here's a shot from the second night of the same piece, with the same lighting, only with the 50/0.95 at f/1.2 on the R-D 1:
Not so different from the first one at this size, but let's compare the 1:1 crops -- D80 on the left, R-D 1 on the right:
No, I didn't get the files mixed up! The 85/1.8 AF Nikkor is an excellent lens for sharpness, and I did get better results with it on the pieces that weren't quite so dimly lit.
But remember, to get usable shutter speeds with its f/1.8 maximum aperture, I had had to crank the D80 up to EI 3200 -- and its results, especially in the dark areas, are so "rocky" that they negate some of the lens' performance. Meanwhile, stopping down the Canon 50/0.95 to f/1.2 has tamed some of its legendary haziness; its full-stop-faster maximum aperture let me get the same shutter speeds while taking advantage of the R-D 1's much smoother EI 1600 imaging.
One interesting real-world consequence of this had to do with cropping. Since the R-D 1 had only a 50mm lens while the D80 had an 85mm lens (both have the same size sensor) I had to crop the R-D 1 shots more tightly to get similar framing. And of course the D80 gives me 10 megapixels to play with, while the R-D 1 provides "only" 6 megapixels.
But scroll up and look at those 1:1 crops again -- wouldn't you say that the R-D 1 shot is more "enlargeable"? I certainly would -- and in fact in the photos I've worked with so far, the R-D 1 images seem to stand up better at the same final size, despite the D80's advantages in pixel count and image magnification! Good to know, but not what I had expected at all...
For those who wonder, I used the R-D 1 with a 1.3x eyepiece magnifier, which makes focusing the 50/0.95 much more confident in dodgy conditions, and in most cases I wound up setting both cameras' shutter speeds manually based on a quick test shot whenever the light changed (this turned out to be both quicker and surer than my idea of using the D80 as a spotmeter for both cameras.)
If you want some takeaway talking points, here are a few:
-- Ten megapixels aren't always better than six; when it comes to final results, six smooth megapixels can outperform ten rough ones.
-- In very dim light, using a faster lens will improve image quality more than using a slower one and cranking up the ISO.
-- Stopping down the Canon 50/0.95 even a tiny amount makes a big difference in how it images!
The floor is open for anyone who wants to debate, but be prepared to show examples!
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