Camera and Lens Sharpness

Do you Google lens and camera reviews before buying them?  Do you look at some sample photos from the camera and lens you are interested in buying?  There are many things to consider.  How will you use the camera and lens (portraits, family, travel, sports, etc.)?  Will you want the camera to have a fixed lens or interchangeable one?  Do you want a zoom or fixed focal length lens?  What's the smallest or largest f stop that you would want? How much do you want to spend (there can be a huge difference in price between "professional" and "consumer lenses, perhaps thousands of dollars)?  There are some of the questions you may have.

Showing the results with one lens and camera may help give some insight into some of the above questions.  I'll be using the Nikon 28-300 f3.5-5.6 VR (Vibration Reduction to reduce or eliminate camera shake) lens, which is rated as a consumer lens - as opposed to a "professional" lens.  It is meant for full frame Nikon cameras, such as the Nikon D600/610, which has a larger sensor than cropped frame sensor cameras.  A full frame sensor generally means that you'll be able to shoot in lower light levels (higher ISO's) for better results and less noise.

So, how good or bad is this lens?  It is a bit subjective.  According to one reviewer, "Contrast is quite poor wide open, but gets better at f/5.6 and beyond. During field tests, I shot over 1000 images at various apertures and shutter speeds and overall, the lens is not bad, but certainly nowhere close to the sharpness and contrast of pro-level lenses like Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G or Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II."  If you shoot in RAW and use editing software, contrast should be no problem.  How about sharpness?  This is why I said it depends on how you will use it.  As I am always available to pose for myself, ha ha, I shot the following using this lens.  The photo on the left is the full image from the camera, the one on the right is from that photo, cropped.  It was shot at f10 at 48mm, 1/3 second with the camera on a tripod with window light.  If there is any unsharpness, it's probably because of the slow shutter speed, although I think I stayed pretty motionless.  As always, if you click on a photo, you can see them all in a larger size.

The next 3 photos are full-size followed by two crops from that photo to show the sharpness.  These were shot at f5.6, 82mm, 1/60 second with flash on camera, just as a test.  Are these sharp enough?  Does it matter that with a zoom lens the corners will be a little less sharp?  Not at all - in fact, you would probably want the edges to be less sharp to focus on the subject more.

And now that you're tired of looking at me, here is a scene from the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook.

It was shot at f10, 100mm, 1/1600 second.  

One last photo at Ballona Creek of a Sea Lion, shot at f10, 300mm, 1/1250 second.  

And a crop of the above photo to show that it is sharp.

All things considered, I'm very happy with the sharpness of this lens and the quality of the photos.  In the lens reviews, they talk about distortion (can easily be fixed with post processing software), lack of sharpness (perhaps at some f stops), it's not a "professional" lens, it loses quality over 200mm (which is why I included the sea lion), etc.  The photos posted here show what this lens can do depending on what settings are used.  

I had been looking at two lenses.  After reading the reviews, I took a chance with this one.  I had a 24-85 Nikon lens that I wasn't happy with, so sold it on Amazon.  Normally I wouldn't buy a used lens from a private listing, but through Amazon or Ebay I've had good luck in the past.  When I saw the lens advertised for a lot less than all the other listings, ordered it immediately.  When I received it, it looked new, plus had a filter covering the lens.  It is a bit of a gamble to order this way, but it can save a lot of money.  It does exactly what I wanted it to do - better images than the 24-85 lens, and much better than my Panasonic FZ200, which I also sold on Amazon.

Does it have limitations?  Of course.  I wouldn't be able to get the below results (background out of focus by that much), which I had shot between f1.4 - 2.8.  For those, I shot with a prime lens, probably the Nikon 50mm f1.4 on my old Nikon FTn.

Hope you found something useful here.

Is It a Professional, Prosumer, or Consumer Camera?

Does it matter?  First, what is meant by those terms?  Generally, a professional camera would be used by photographers who are considered professional photographers - ones who earn their living by doing photography.  Those who use a prosumer camera would be for those who are more advanced than a beginner, but not yet a professional - they can be used in fully automatic to fully manual.  And a consumer camera (aka point and shoot) would be used by those who take photos just for fun and want the camera to do all the thinking as far as focus and exposure (fully automatic).

For now, we're just talking about cameras and not lenses.  There are a lot of gray areas and overlap between all three.  Cameras that several years ago were considered the top of the line professional cameras are now considered "prosumer."  But they still take the same quality photos they always did.  So does it matter?  A lot depends on what kind of photography you do as a professional as well as what kind of environments you might be shooting in (in harsh environments you would want a weather sealed camera).  Most important is whether your camera will give you the photos you want, and if you have clients,  will it give your clients the results they want.

Years ago I bought my first professional camera, the one that many other professional photographers were using - a Nikon FTn film camera, with built in light meter.  Everything was manual - no auto focus, no auto exposure.  People loved the results.  Today, using a prosumer camera, the results are better and more accurate.  Why is it called a prosumer camera?  Is it a marketing gimmick?  Cameras labeled as professional are a lot more expensive.  For fun, I did a comparison on Google for my camera and the one they label as a professional camera (Nikon D800) - mine scored 99 out of 100, the Nikon D800 scored 100.  The biggest differences were in megapixels (36 vs 24) and battery life (1200 exposures vs 900 exposures per charge).

Some sample photos from the Nikon D800 (I did not take the Nikon D800 photos) - the top photo was full size, the one underneath it is a crop of that photo.  As can be seen, because of the extra megapixels, it can be cropped a bit larger.

The next two photos were self portraits (aka selfies) shot with a Nikon D600.  First the full-size photo, and then the cropped one.

There are a few differences between the two sets of photos (besides the subjects, ha ha!) - the top one was shot with a 24-105 f4 Nikon lens and an umbrella flash off camera, and the bottom one with a 28-300 f3.5-5.6 lens with the on camera flash.  As far as the results with each one, I would think she would have been happy with her portrait, and same for me, although had I used different lighting the results would have been better (either outdoor natural light, professional indoor flash, or perhaps window light - always experiment).

The following photo was shot on Aug 6, 2017 at the Festival of Chariots at Venice Beach, California with the "prosumer" Nikon.  The one on top is the photo out of the camera, reduced in size for this article.  The cropped section is at about 100% of the original size.

The camera setting for this photo was 135mm, f10, ISO 1600, 1/800 second, hand held.  Would this have been better with what is considered a "professional" camera?

This article is only comparing camera bodies.  Lenses can be even more important, depending on the which camera they are on.  For portraits, prime lenses will usually give better results, although whether someone will notice the difference is something else to think about.  After all, all photos above were taken with zoom lenses, and not top of the line ones.

Making Art from Your Photography

Editing software can be used for more than just fixing photos.  What you can do to the photo is almost infinite.  The following image was shot the other day at Venice Beach.  It was shot in camera RAW mode, meaning the camera made no adjustments to anything - this is how it came out of the camera.  If you shoot JPG format, the camera will make some adjustments and it will look a bit different, and a lot of information will be discarded by the camera.  If you're camera settings were wrong, then you may not be able to get the best possible image.

Aside from RAW vs JPG, below are just of the few variations from the above photo.  You can do a lot less or a lot more, depending on what you like.  I used Lightroom and Photoshop.  There are many others.

Hope you enjoyed this and start experimenting with some your photos.  Have a great weekend!

RAW & Well Done

You may ask yourself, "How can something be RAW and well done?"  In this case, we're talking about photography (although I guess we could be talking about food, too, especially smoothies, but that's a topic for another day).

Specifically, I'm talking about all those images posted to social media that would have looked great if they had been exposed properly (you know....well done!).  And even if not exposed properly, but were shot in your camera's RAW mode, they might be recoverable with editing software.  Of course, much better if exposed properly to start with.

How can you do that if you're shooting in the midday sun?  One way is to move to the shade of a building or tree or any other object that will block the sun.  If that is not possible, you can use a fill flash to fill in the harsh shadows, if you have it available and you are close enough for it to work.  If none of the above is an option, get a close-up light reading of the subjects, and shoot in manual mode with those settings.  What will also help if you don't have a manual mode is getting much closer to your subjects to eliminate as much background as possible.  If you are aiming your camera directly at the subject, then changing your metering mode to spot or center weighted will give you more accurate results.

Why are you getting all those dark faces to begin with?  Your camera's metering mode is set to average so everything in the photos is being averaged for the light.  For example, in the photos below, the first one was shot with the camera aimed at the clouds, and the people are too dark.

If I had aimed at the people the clouds would be too light.

In the bottom two photos, I briefly played around with the editing software (Lightroom) to balance the two.  The photo was originally shot in RAW mode.  

The same kinds of things happen with focus - if you're not aiming at the subject, the subject will be out of focus.  Unless you first focused on the subject and kept the shutter release button pressed halfway down.  Or you used a wide angle lens with a small f-stop (then almost everything will be in focus).

For the above photo, I exposed for the players and didn't worry about the sky, so it was pretty blown out.  I had the sun behind them to avoid harsh shadows on their faces and also so they wouldn't be squinting more than they are.  Even though the sky still affected the exposure a little, I shot in RAW and fixed that with editing software.

The moral of this post is that if you understand why your photos are coming out too dark or light or out of focus, you can make adjustments and get some nice photos.

NOTE:  There are a lot of things I didn't cover here, but hopefully enough to you can get better results.

Affordable Healthcare

Medical costs in 2016 hit $3.35 trillion (that's TRILLION) in the U.S., or over $10,000 for every single man, woman, and child.  Is it any wonder why, no matter whether it's Obamacare or Trumpcare or someone else's care, it's pretty much doomed and likely to not work?  Is it any wonder why insurance rates are sky high?  Just like medicine, "healthcare" hides the problem rather than fixing the cause.

The cost of drugs just for cancer - The average cancer drug price for approximately 1 year of therapy or a total treatment duration was less than $10,000 before 2000, and had increased to $30,000 to $50,000 by 2005. In 2012, 12 of the 13 new drugs approved for cancer indications were priced above $100,000 per year of therapy.  Today, it may be as high as $120,000+ for some of those drugs.  Keep in mind, this is only for the drugs, not the treatment or surgery (do you really believe they'll find a cure for cancer and lose all that income?).  And, of course, I'm sure most of you have heard about the Epi-Pen price increase.

A statistical analysis reveals that prescription drugs, which kill over 110,000/year in the U.S., are 16,400% more deadly than terrorists. Iatrogenic deaths — deaths caused by doctors, hospitals, and drugs — had already reached 783,000 per year over a decade ago (see link in next paragraph: “Death by Medicine” PDF), which is the equivalent of multiple jumbo jet airliners dropping out of the sky every single day, filled with hundreds of passengers each.

Not only are the drugs ineffective much of the time (not to mention habit forming and may end up killing you), but the drug companies do their best to block alternative treatments that cost next to nothing and many times actually work better, and have no side effects.  With many drugs, people have to take another drug to counteract the side effects of the first drug.  What are the results of all the medical interventions?  You can see them at this link:  Death by Medicine Statistics.  I saw people in the news tonight who are scared of dying if they lose their insurance.  After looking at these statistics, I wonder if they may have a better chance of dying because of their insurance.

What can be done to lower costs?  Pass laws regulating drug prices and medical services, outlaw drug company advertising in the media, and outlaw drug company lobbying in Congress.  Since none of these things will ever actually happen, what can YOU do?  The only thing you can, and that I did - change to a healthy lifestyle.  What can that do?  Take you out of the so-called health care system (which is really the sick care system) because you'll most likely be healthy and have no need for it...barring injuries and pre-existing conditions.

What it did for me:  I went from getting sick 4-5 times per year with every cold and flu going around, had bronchitis, had an ulcer in my 20s, was diagnosed with IBS at 30, got headaches, had dandruff,  severe allergies and hay fever, etc., all by the time I was 30.  Then I started learning about nutrition, changed my diet, eliminated sugar, chemicals in my food, trans-fats, etc.  A friend recommended the book, Health Secrets of the Hunza, and told me to follow that diet.  I did and started getting sick less often, down to about once a year, and all the other problems started fading out and going away.  Next, I started taking vitamins and herbs, along with doing internal body cleanses with herbs.  Results?  It took a while, but now I almost never get sick (been over 7 years since I was last sick) and have few other problems.  Oh - and I never get vaccinated (too many toxins in them).  Even though I have the VA healthcare system I seldom use it, except for injuries, perhaps every 5 years or so.

Unfortunately, I can't eliminate environmental toxins (pesticides, car fumes, glyphosate, other toxins) but do my best to avoid them when I am able to and eat a diet that helps detoxify my system.  I eat almost all organic foods, whole foods that actually grow in the ground, take vitamins and herbs, and get exercise and good sleep.  And do my best to avoid stress.  I have no need for prescription or OTC drugs.  You can do this, too.  With the way things are going, do you really have a choice?

"Affordable Health Care" is, in my opinion, a joke at best, a nightmare at worst.  It's not healthcare and it definitely isn't affordable.  My brother stepped on a nail - the cost:  $1,400 with the medical system.  Until people start taking responsibility for their own health, or the government regulates health costs (yeah, right), I doubt there will be any legislation that actually works or helps.

Well, that's my take on "Health Care" and my advice.

Portrait Photography, Beautification, and Post Production Editing

With the advent of digital photography and editing software, it is now easier to enhance your photos than it was back in the days of film.  Back then, if you had some temporary blemishes, it would take a lot of work for the photographer to fix those.  It might have been better to postpone the session.  Now, with photo editing software, it's relatively easy, although still takes some time.  However, a lot more can be done to make an average photo look like something from a fashion magazine, while still looking like yourself - well, yourself with a professional make-up job, proper lighting, and posing.

If you've fantasized about looking like a top model, now you can.  How much of that look you may want, if at all, is up to you.  Everyone is different, but whatever you want from your photo session, it's nice to know you can have it.  Keep in mind that makeup and lighting are used to highlight your best features or hide your worst ones.  It's not done to make you look like someone else, although it can.

As with everything in life, editing can be overdone to the point where you no longer look like you.  You could end up looking like a mannequin if the editing is not done right.  Just very slight changes to the original can improve photos, but too much can have the opposite effect.  See if you agree in the photos below and which you might prefer.

Original - saw these two lovely young women walking along at Venice Beach, asked them if I could take some photos, they said yes, and here they are.

Enhanced - very slightly

Original

 Enhanced

Original 

Enhanced

Original 

Enhanced Slightly

 Enhanced a little stronger

Original

Enhanced with PortraitPro and fixed in Photoshop

Crop of the enhanced photo - lighting was window lighting just before sunset

And this one is the same one as the one above it, but was purposefully overdone to show what too much can look like.

Original. 

Enhanced.

What can be done in post processing?  Almost anything.  Makeup can be added, skin can be smoothed, lighting can be changed, eyes can be opened more, blemishes removed, etc.  The variations are close to infinite.  However, to get the best results for a professional portrait session, you need a professional photographer who understands lighting, posing, and who knows what you should wear.  You also need your makeup done right for the photo session and be well rested.  But for everyday photos, it's still good to know about proper lighting and how to edit to get the best results.  After all, you still want to look your best, no?

There are those who prefer not to wear makeup for a photo shoot, to not have any post processing done to their images, to look more natural.  However, the posing and lighting are still going to be manipulated to some degree, so why do that and then not follow through to look your best?  I believe how you look and how you present yourself in your portraits can make a world of difference.  It can make you feel more positive about yourself and empowered when you realize how beautiful you are.  A beautiful, well done portrait of someone can totally change how they feel about themselves.  There are two kinds of photography for people - the one where you look like a million bucks, and then the everyday family snapshots.  Both are important.  I wish this technology had been around 30 years ago.  Why?  Here are two images from the same negative of my mother - one is straight out of the camera (that's all that was available back then to me), and one is of the same image using today's editing technology.  I have no doubt my Mom would have loved the updated copy.  These were taken around 1970.

Straight out of camera (Nikon FTn with color film) - minimal makeup

Same photo edited for lighting and makeup

Note:  I took this post down briefly to add this last section to show why I believe photos should definitely help you look your best.  Hopefully, if that is what you want, that is what you would get from a photo session.

Freedom...Loss of Freedom and Censorship

Definition of freedom from Merriam-Webster:
1:  the quality or state of being free: such as
   a :  the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action
   b :  liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another:  independence

Censorship, according to Wikipedia (which looks like a perfect definition) is the suppression of free speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions.

Vaccines, Censorship, and your loss of Freedom - If any of you have followed my past posts, listened to the news or have done your own independent research, you would be aware that your freedom is slowly being taken away.  You would know that there is censorship regarding vaccines.  In fact, over the past few weeks, vaccine posts have been disappearing (censored) on FB.  If you are not free to determine what can or cannot be injected into your body or that of your children, you are no longer free.  When those injections can cause permanent and serious injury or death, it then is a human rights violation and a crime against humanity.

You need to really think about that last sentence - how else can you categorize it?  You've been a law abiding citizen, you broke no laws, you complied with vaccine laws, and those laws killed you or your child(ren), or caused permanent injury for which you are then responsible.  Even if it didn't immediately do the above, no one knows the long-term health consequences.  Dementia, Cancer, Autoimmune Diseases such as Arthritis and Diabetes, severe Allergies, etc.  By the time it happens, you may not be able connect the dots, even if vaccines were the cause.  Even when it happens within hours, often they claim it wasn't the vaccine.

My father was in the army in WWII and would not have survived (and I wouldn't be here) if he hadn't been in the hospital when his unit shipped out - none of them were heard from again.  They fought and died for our Freedom.  I'm a Vietnam Veteran having served four years in the U.S. Air Force for our Freedom.  We have military troops now who are fighting to defend our Freedom - the Freedom we are in the process of losing (or have already lost in California and a few other states).

We've had Women's Rights marches, million man and woman marches, protests against this and that.  But who is marching for our (Medical) Freedom?  If you want to keep it or regain it, you must write your elected representatives in Congress and the president.  You need to get everyone you know to do the same, whether you are for, against, or somewhere in the middle about vaccines because this is not about vaccines - it is about Freedom and about the U.S. (and other countries) breaking the Nuremberg Code - you know, the one the U.S. signed.  The Nuremberg Code basically said never again to forced medical experimentation on people.  But here they are, doing exactly that - they don't inform you of the risks, they force it on your children, and so far only adults in certain occupations.

What are the results of all these vaccinations (granted, there are other things causing problems, no doubt, but the U.S. gives more vaccines than any other country)?  The U.S. has one of the sickest populations and highest infant mortality rates of all developed nations and spends the most.  Here's a life expectancy chart from the CIA.  And infant mortality from the CIA (you have to go down to #169 for the U.S).  For Maternal Mortality Rate from the CIA, we're at # 136.  Check this article and chart from Bloomberg - U.S. ranks 50th out of 55.

Some people have accused me of not knowing how to do research or say I'm not a doctor.  You don't need to be a doctor to find the facts, you just have to go to the right sources, such as VAERS, CDC, CIA, Cochran Collaboration, immunologists, virologists, university sites, and doctors sites.  And you need to use some common sense and logic.  Like if you are vaccinated and vaccines are effective, why do you care what I do - you're safe.  And if you are not safe, then vaccines are not effective, so why get them, especially with their known side effects up to and including death?  When I go to an individual's blog or to various organizations sites, I check out the references which lead to many of the above.  I also go to the drug company sites for side effects and the ingredients list.  I check out studies that have been done.  I check out government data and statistics.  And when there are hundreds or thousands of anecdotal reports, then I give those credence, too.  Those who attack others for not doing the research either haven't done their research from independent sources (if at all), are paid trolls, rely on the censored media, work for the vaccine makers, profit from vaccines, or who knows what other reasons they may have.  You can determine who these people are by the words and phrases they use:  "the science is settled," "pseudoscience," "quack," "you're not a doctor or scientist," "conspiracy theorist," or they may resort to other name calling.