Thoughts on Hiking and Gear

D750, Nikkor 105mm f2.5 AI-S

Yesterday marked the third major hiking outing of the year, and the first one after I acquired a proper usable backpack and finally ditched the sling packs.

Yesterday was a 9.5KM hike (out of a total of 15.5KM walked in total yesterday, for just under 20k steps). That was a bit of a change vs previous multiple shorter hikes, where I'd gone 4-5km at 2-3 different sites. 

The key enablers and limiters here were water and the pack itself. With the backpack I can carry up to 4 bottles of water along with my gear. I was carrying 2 bottles yesterday and as it was an out & back, I turned back when the first bottle was empty. That was a good choice as I turned out to be at my limit for steady hiking when I got back to the car.

As to the pack, it was significantly better for carrying gear into the bush. There was one issue, strap slide, which means I need to get a chest strap to prevent the shoulder straps from sliding out. That proved to be somewhat irritating later on the hike as the straps rubbed on my underarms as a result. 

One other takeaway is that I carried way too much gear. I had the D750, Platypod Ultra with head, Manfrotto 293M4 with head, Laowa 15mm f4 Macro, Nikkor 20mm f2.8 AF, Nikkor-H 28mm f3.5, Nikkor 35mm f2 AI, Yongnuo 50mm f1.8, Nikkor 105mm f2.5 AI-S, Nikkor 70-300 f4-5.6 ED AF-D, a set of extension tubes, the basic accessories (adjustable ND, polarizer, remote, lens cloth, etc), 2 water bottles and a couple Cliff bars.

That's simply too much gear for what I was doing. I didn't even use the 35, 105 or extension tubes and mostly shot with the 70-300D and 20 (in that order). The reality is that I could have ditched the 105, tubes and 2 of the 28, 35 and 50 could have been left at home, really I could have gotten away with just having the 35. Probably also could have left the tripod and carried only the Platypod, but that's so situational that I really do need both.

Buying Cheap Lenses

D750, Nikkor 20mm f2.8 AF

Here's a little guide to buying lenses on the cheap.

First off, quit caring about cosmetic condition. Pretty lenses cost more. They don't work better (with 1-2 specific exceptions). Beat up lenses work as well and might even look cooler (brassing looks cool, worn plastic or paint on a non-brass lens not so much)

Second, don't buy zooms. If you want cheap and not junk, you want to be shooting primes. Cheap zooms are usually a bad deal, although there are a few exceptions. If you want to find those exceptions, be prepared to spend a lot of time researching them, and don't be surprised when the 'cheap but awesome' lenses turn out to be anything but. I've owned a good copy of the legendary Minolta 70-210mm f4 'Beercan'. It was a nice lens on film and 12MP APS-C. Stuck it on 24MP APS-C and it was a dog, just didn't have enough resolution. I've been bit a few other times by this. If you want cheap zooms, buy new designs, there's some surprisingly good lenses out there as current kit lenses, especially for f8 performance.

The flip side is sometimes you get lucky, I've gotten some great shots with my $50 Nikkor 70-300 f4-5.6 AF-D, which hasn't been considered a good lens since the transition to digital. My 24-85mm f3.5-4.5G AF-S non-VR was good enough that 10 years later I still regret selling it.

What do you want to care about?

The first thing is to pick a system if you are a mirrorless shooter (or looking to use manual focus lenses on Canon EF). If you shoot Nikon or Pentax, congratulations, aside from mount conversions you are stuck with native or semi-native (M42 on K) lenses. Buying 1-2 adapters is cheap, more adapters add up.

The next rule is simple. Everybody makes pretty good 50mm and 135mm lenses. While 28mm's are everywhere, that rule doesn't cross over to them. Most manual focus 28mm lenses are trash. You need to be using a popular system for something other than those 3 lenses to be findable for non-silly money. That means, Nikon F, Pentax K, Canon FD, Minolta MD, Olympus OM and M42 mounts. Beware Contax/Yashica mount. It sucks you in because ML lenses are cheap & decent. Then you find out that all the really good stuff is Carl Zeiss and expensive. Great...but expensive and that is not the name of this game.

Suggestions: For mirrorless shooters Canon FD and Minolta MD are the way to go, these are the least adaptable lens lines to DSLR mounts and both have a selection of excellent glass available. For Canon EF shooters it's Olympus OM because they share adapters the easiest, but they can be pricier than FD or MD due to the wider adaptability. Nikon and Pentax should stick to their native mounts (and m42 for Pentax).

In general, skip 3rd party lenses if you're looking for good but cheap older lenses. With a few exceptions old 3rd party glass isn't all that good, and the exceptions are largely well known and not cheap. Sigma and Tamron's 24 & 28mm primes are the main exceptions here, they're actually pretty decent and not very popular so they can be had cheap. I like Tamron's 28mm f2.5 better than the Sigma 28mm f2.8 Super Mini Wide, but I like the Sigma 24mm f2.8 better than the Tamron 24mm f2.5 (and yes, at some point I've owned all 4 of these lenses)

When picking a lens, check for 5 things.

1. Focus ring works well. Don't get it if it's grinding or sticky as the lens needs disassembly
2. Filter ring is in good condition. Don't buy a lens with a bad filter ring (dinged, chewed up), you will regret it.
3. No rear element damage. Mild front element damage usually just adds a touch of flare, rear element damage directly affects IQ. Note minor scratches and coating discoloration on the front element can lead to superb deals.
4. Functional aperture. if you shoot Mirrorless (or adapted to EF), then a slow aperture isn't an issue, but a sticky one always is because it will fail inevitably in the field at the worst aperture it could (usually stopped all the way down).

5. Fungus. Never buy a lens with fungus, don't take one even if offered for free. Fungus can infect the other lenses in your bag.

Some Thoughts on System Selection in 2020

D750, Laowa 15mm f4 Macro


I've long been a proponent of the idea that Full Frame was largely cost-ineffective for the photographer with any sort of mild budgetary constraint. However I'm rapidly changing my mind on this for a few reasons.

1. Crop DSLR's are basically abandoned by their manufacturers. Seriously, when was the last serious lens introduction for APS-C DSLR's from Nikon, Canon or Pentax?

2. Chinese lens manufacturers are making dirt cheap lenses for FF DSLR & mirrorless mounts that range from adequate to excellent. They're doing very little for APS-C DSLR's. The cost advantage for APS-C was always mostly in the lenses, that's rapidly fading.

3. Only Fuji, Olympus and Panasonic take crop mirrorless seriously. Of those 3 only Panasonic even sells FF and the L mount is the least cost-effective FF mount out there (even M is cheaper to shoot for the budget-conscious and frankly GFX can be cheaper to shoot than L mount). Canon's system is a dead-end and consumer focused, Sony throws some spaghetti periodically on lenses (like the excellent 16-55 and 70-350 last years) but couldn't be bothered to make a serious body. 

So, if you're shooting on a budget, where should you look to get started.

1. Nikon 24MP bodies, or Canon 6D/6DII's. They're cheap on the used market, especially the D600 and original 6D. They're very good for most uses. They won't make cheap glass look bad unlike the higher-MP bodies (especially D8x0's). 

Don't be afraid to use manual focus lenses. There's now a wide selection of inexpensive and decent new manual focus lenses, ranging from high-end Zeiss to mid-range Irix and Venus/Laowa, to inexpensive Samyang/Rokinon and even dirt cheap stuff like Neewer and 7Artisans. Plus Samyang/Rokinon and Yongnuo are doing cheap AF glass too. The limitation here is that you're pretty much stuck with primes if you want cheap & decent. Nobody does good zooms in the same pricerange.

2. Fuji or m43. Great and not too expensive 1st party glass, lots of cheap 3rd party stuff. Nice bodies. You may find the RAW file quality limiting on m43 (I always seem to find it good, right until I need the advantages of RAW over JPEG, then I hit a wall) and may run into some RAW conversion challenges with Fuji. Lots of good used gear as well, and Fuji's 24MP bodies in particular are both reasonably priced on the used market and very good. Buy plenty of spare batteries though.

3. Sony A7 II/A7R II. Cheap on the used market, good IQ, even can be had new for surprisingly low money. Lots of cheap & decent glass. Adapts well and smart adapters for EF and Nikon F mounts exist (even can be cheap in the case of EF). 

Lots of cheap lenses are the real win here, and you can readily mix & match systems to adapt. I do recommend picking one or two systems max for adaptation though, otherwise you end up with a dozen random adapters on various lenses.  All the same players as F and EF mounts, plus a couple extra randoms. 

4. Canon EOS RP. It's cheap new, basically a mirrorless 6DII, and is very adaptable. Downside is there's basically two affordable 1st party AF lenses (the 24-105 STM and 35 IS macro) but unlike Z mount the DSLR adapter is cheap and there's actually 3rd party support starting to show up. This is a great solution for adapting if you want a better UI than the Sony mII bodies deliver. Downside is that the sensor is barely competitive with APS-C for Dynamic range, although it had FF high ISO performance. Skip the R though, the upcoming R5 and R6 will make it irrelevant and the R6 should be basically the same price.


To avoid:

1. Nikon Z. FX is expensive with zero 3rd party support, DX might as well not exist (1 body, 2 kit zooms). Nikon somehow made adapting even non-CPU F mount lenses a worse experience than their DSLR's despite adding IBIS. FX is a good system, just not for the budget-conscious, DX might as well not exist.

2. Canon EF-M. While this is the best-selling mirrorless mount in terms of units sold, it's purely a consumer mount with no growth potential. It does have 3rd party support, but not as good as Sony or Fuji. 

3. Pentax K, Sony/Minolta A mounts. Both are undead and have almost no actual support. A pity since the K-1 in particular would be a brilliant do-everything body for the budget-minded shooter if you had a better lens selection (That said, if you can get K mount lenses that work for you, the K-1 is a solid choice).

4. L mount. Expensive. Nice. Expensive. REALLY nice glass. With a side dose of Huge and Expensive. 

5. Nikon F DX, Canon EF-S. Unless you are a long-lens shooter on a real budget, there's no point to these mounts anymore. A good body isn't really much cheaper than a FF body, and lens selection is poor at best now. For wildlife/sports shooters on a budget only (and they shouldn't look at anything other than a D500, 90D or D7500 in that order)

Pondering Fuji Colour

Fuji X-T1, Micro-Nikkor 55mm f3.5 AI

In my previous post, I made a comment about being unhappy with Fuji colour for landscape/nature work.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about that.

The reality is I was actually having two issues.

1. Fuji's expose quite differently from most other cameras. That means that relying on the meter gives me overexposed images with limited ability to recover highlights (the flip side is there is FF-level data in the shadows, as all that missing headroom is sitting down there).

2. Fuji's blues are lighter and warmer than Nikon or Olympus blues.

The first is easy to address, underexpose by 0.7 to 1.3 EV and lift the shadows in post. That will darken down the blues in the sky to start.

The second is harder to address. It's linked to how the Fuji's render colour. They simply have less resolution in the blues and reds and Fuji's very distinct colour signature tends to a warm shift and a mild green shift, both of which compromise the blues.

I'm still working on a solution for #2. The reality is these colour rendering items are predictable, so may be solvable with presets (unlike the Sony colour challenges, which I just never liked it in any regard, with Fuji it's just the blue skies that I have some challenges with). 

Note in looking through my Fuji archives here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mawz/tags/fujifilm/

I can see some great skies. I don't see that deep indigo I get from some of my Nikon shots, but I do have some lovely blues. I'd love to get that indigo look, but can probably live without it. 

So in summary - I need to work on how I expose with the Fuji's, and need to see if I can come up with a  preset that gets me closer to those Nikon and Olympus blues I love, but I can already get good skies from the Fuji's if I don't accidentally overexpose them.

Some Random Thoughts

D750, Laowa 15mm f4 Macro


So with the lockdown easing up, I've had a chance to get out and do some photography over the last week. Hiking and Landscape Photography is just about the ideal Social Distancing activity, you don't want to be around people in the first place.

As such, I've taken a fair bit of images in the last week. I did one run up to the west end of Algonquin Park (the image above is from the side of Highway 60 in Algonquin Park), then did a loop northwest of Huntsville and down into Rosseaux and south from there. All but a couple images were shot with the D750. Maybe 5km total hiking, and a bunch of from the car shots. Came back with around 350 images, of which 30 or so were worth further looks.

Then I did a Kawartha's run yesterday. Gannon's Narrows Conservation Area, Mississauga River Takeout trail in the Kawartha Highlands PP, Petroglyphs PP (one of the day loops, as the Petroglyphs site is closed), and finally Warsaw Caves (just the lookout hike, as the Caves themselves are closed). 16+km of hiking total and about 700 images split 50/50 between the D750 and the Fuji's.

A couple takeaways:

1. 16km this early in the season is pushing it hard for me. I was in rough shape when I got home. One heck of a workout though. 

2. I need a better pack setup. sling packs are not suitable for more than a short hike and my only camera pack sucks horribly (there's a good reason it's been left in the closet for over a decade). Also I was short on water on the last hike. Going to see if my old Deuter hydration pack can be made workable for photography usage.

3. I'm very glad I finally bought a Platypod. Could have used it many times on both days. Too bad it showed up today (Amazon? Why an 8:22AM delivery on Sunday though?)

4. I like carrying the Fuji's better. I like processing the Nikon files better. This kinda makes me want to try a Z50 even if it doesn't have a native small, fast prime. Frankly, I just like the Nikon colours (Oly colours are similar). The Fuji files are good, and hold up better than the Oly files, but lets be honest, I have to do too much work to get them where I want them in terms of colour for landscape/nature work. I'll keep the bodies, but that's for street/city shooting mostly where they work VERY well for me and where primes are a better option anyways. 

5. I need to optimize my kit for hiking. As much as I enjoy primes, I missed shots because I didn't have zooms on the camera. 2 zooms and 2 primes seems likely right. (Laowa 15, a normal, UWA zoom, telezoom).

6. Even though I really could use an 18-35 for the Nikon, the Laowa 15/4 is a delight on both the D750 and the X-T1. Really wide, and that close focus ability is insane. Got some really interesting shots thanks to the combo of really short MFD + UWA (seriously, MFD is basically the surface of the protective filter, and yes I actually have a UV filter on it because of this, WAY too easy to scratch the front element otherwise). 

7. I need to use my tripod more. Especially if I'm giving up lens speed via using zooms.

8. In the meantime, I need to pick a 3-4 prime set from the bag and stick to that for the D750. 15 & 105 are a given, 28 & 55 maybe? or 28 and 50. Makes me wish I had a 135/2.8, as that would give just a touch more flexibility than the 105 does. Alternatively just carrying the 15, 35 and 70-300 is a possibility although the 70-300 is just a mediocre lens, even if it can be acceptable. 

Finding the Love For Classic Chrome

 
Fujifilm X-T1, Neewer 25/1.8

Over the years I've heard a lot of love for Fuji's Film Simulations and particularly the Classic Chrome simulation. I never really played with them much as I shoot RAW almost exclusively and frankly tend to just leave the camera in the normal or Vivid/Landscape/Velvia modes.

Since I've re-acquired the X-T1, I've been shooting both RAW+JPEG so I have JPEG's to feed to Instagram, and using the Classic Chrome emulation to get a real feel for it. So far I'm rather liking the more muted tones it delivers.

As it turns out, my X-T1 has an issue, the control dials are very skippy. This isn't an issue for most shooting, but since I use those dials to set aperture on the XC35, it does make that lens occasionally frustrating to use. So back in early March I dropped by Downtown Camera and Stan hooked me up with a second Fuji body for next to nothing and now I have an X-E2 to go with the X-T1. For now I'm shooting the XC35 on the X-E2, and anything manual focus on the X-T1. I also grabbed a Neewer 25/1.8 manual focus X mount lens, which is working really nicely on the X-T1. And yes, using Classic Chrome a lot on the X-E2 as well.

Lockdown and the Spring Blahs

 
D750, Nikkor 70-300D

So the Lockdown hasn't had much of an effect on my photography, largely because March & April are always a dead zone for me. I usually shoot almost nothing in March and only some flowers in April, and I've done the latter while stretching my legs in the neighbourhood (as the image above attests).

The main effect has been on my posting, I've been very bad at posting my daily Flickr updates because of the Lockdown, I've simply not been thinking about photography and that affects how I post, both here and on Flickr.

We're now in May, and I'm starting to get the itch to get out and on the road. Obviously that's an issue right now and so I'm not actually doing anything, but I expect I'll be able to do some car-based shooting by mid/late May and get on trails in early June.

On the gear front, Henry's former Outlet location has brought back the discount bins, much to my joy. I've picked up a few things from it for extremely cheap, including the 70-300D used above and a Yongnuo 50/1.8 in F mount, which is actually pretty good aside from slow AF. Also got a Cameron BH-30 Ballhead for $25, which is what it's actually worth (Henry's normally charges well over $100 for it, but it's the exact same head you'll find on Amazon for $30-ish from many Chinese brands). My D750 L bracket also arrived after a month or so, so I'm now fully converted to Arca-Swiss type setups now (my SO still needs a head for her tripod to be converted)