Fotodiox introduces extra large WonderPana Free Arc system for Canon EF 11-24mm wide zoom

US accessory manufacturer Fotodiox has announced an XL version of its WonderPana Free Arc filter system for wide angle lenses that it says is designed specifically to allow users of the Canon EF 11-24mm F4L USM lens to use filters over the front element. The Canon super-wide zoom has no filter thread of its own and the front element is heavily convex, so fitting filters in the traditional way is impossible. The WonderPana Free Arc system positions a filter holder over the front of the lens that takes 186mm screw-in filters and/or 80mm rectangular filter sheets. The holder is enormous so that large filters can be used to avoid vignetting when the lens is used at its widest setting.

The Free Arc clamps the hood of the lens between its collar and the screw-on filter-holding cone, and provides a 186mm thread for the company’s screw-in filters. A set of brackets can also be attached to the cone that allow two square filters to be fitted as well. The system makes it possible to fit one round filter and one square filter at the same time, and the whole filter stage is rotatable so graduated filters can be positioned to suit the subject.

The Fotodiox WonderPana Free Arc XL costs $ 225.95 and the 183mm filters start at $ 99.95. For more information visit the Free Arc page on the Fotodiox website.

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Wide? Ultra-wide? WonderPana has you covered.

Ultra wide-angle lenses are typically impossible to filter due to their bulbous front lens element, lack of filter threads and potential for severe vignetting. The ALL NEWWonderPana FreeArc XL, however, is the latest in our line of aluminum filter collars that let you to attach our massive 186mm filter options, like ND 4-1000 and circular polarizers, to wide and ultra wide-angle lenses.

Perfect for landscape and architectural photographers and filmmakers, we designed the WonderPana FreeArc XL to suit Canon’s new breed of 11-24mm lens. Durable and lightweight enough for hand-held shooting, it can be ready at a moment’s notice to answer any image challenge that requires filters. You can even keep it installed on your lens as a critical layer of lens protection. Just check out our video below to learn more:

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Beginner’s Guide to Tonal Adjustment Sliders in Camera Raw

I like to learn by doing—so when I opened my first RAW photo, naturally, I simply played around with the various sliders until I found a level I was happy with. But while experimenting is a vital part of learning both photography and post-processing, grasping a full understanding of the process allowed me to both troubleshoot specific issues and cut back on editing time.

photo by Hillary K. Grigonis

Tonal sliders apply adjustments to the image as a whole, but each one controls a different tone. By adjusting each tone, you can turn a digital file into one that’s much closer to the picture you have in your mind. Tonal adjustment sliders are fairly universal too—once you learn the sliders in Camera RAW, you can comfortably use the Lightroom controls and vice versa. Here’s what beginners need to know about tonal adjustment sliders.

A Note About the Histogram

Whether you use Camera RAW or Lightroom, you’ll see a histogram in the upper right corner of your screen. Just like the histogram on your camera, it’s simply a depiction of all the pixels in the image on a chart. Ideally, the peaks on that chart should never be cut off on the right or left sides. But if the peaks are cut off, that’s often something that can be remedied by using the tonal adjustment sliders.

If the high points in your histogram are too close to one side, move the sliders in the opposite direction to correct it. Watch both the image and the histogram as you make adjustments to help decide how far to move the slider.

photo by Bert Heymans

Exposure

The exposure slider works in the same way as your camera’s exposure compensation control. Adjusting this slider changes the image’s overall exposure, lightening and darkening the image across all the tones. Unlike the more specific controls, the exposure slider adjusts lights, darks and midtones all at once. Making even small adjustments with the exposure slider can have a big impact on your photo. This slider is best used for fixing small exposure errors. While it’s one of the first sliders to use, you can leave it alone if you nailed the exposure in-camera.

Highlights

The highlight slider adjusts only the lighter parts of the image, without affecting the other tones. The very lightest portions of the image aren’t affected (the whites slider takes care of that), but this slider affects most of the lighter tones. Pulling the slider to the left will help bring back details lost in lighter areas of the image—like inside the clouds, for example. Moving the slider to the right will emphasize the bright areas—like if you want to intentionally blow out the background on a backlit portrait without affecting the subject.

Tip: To turn on the highlight warning or “blinkies” in Camera RAW or Lightroom, click the arrow in the upper right corner of your histogram.

Shadows

The shadows slider is the exact opposite of the highlights—it adjusts the darker portions of the image, though again not the very darkest. Adjusting to the left will darken the shadows, which helps enhance an image’s contrast. On the other hand, if the shadows are concealing some details, moving to the right will help recover some of them. This slider can be a big help in processing an image that’s backlit.

Whites

What the white slider adjusts is pretty obvious—it’s the brightest tones that the highlight slider doesn’t adjust. But what kind of scenarios call for using this option? Brightening (dragging to the right) the whites will add contrast to an image—this is one slider that black and white photographers shouldn’t ignore. And while most of the time the highlight slider will recover clipping, drawing the slider to the left is sometimes needed to correct an extreme clip.

Blacks

Again, there’s no guessing here—the blacks slider will lighten or darken the image’s darkest tones that aren’t affected by the shadows adjustments. Just like the white slider, the blacks is a good one to use for a black and white image, helping ensure that the image has a true black. On a color image, moving the black to the left will saturate the color a bit more.

Contrast

Of course, we can’t leave out the midtones. Using the contrast slider actually adjusts all tones, but affects the midtones the most. Instead of moving the peaks on the histogram (i.e. lightening or darkening), the contrast slider will widen the peaks. This option is best used when adjusting the other sliders didn’t offer enough of a contrast boost.

photo by Hillary K. Grigonis

What Order Should I Use the Tonal Sliders In?

For the most part, Adobe lists the sliders about in the order that you should use them. It’s okay to go back and make small adjustments in the earlier sliders if you see the photo is a little off. The thing to keep in mind is that contrast should always be saved for last. If you lighten the lights and darken the darks, you’ll get quite a bit of contrast without even touching the contrast slider.

The tonal sliders in Camera RAW and Lightroom are great for making big adjustments in a minimal amount of time. Individual sliders help you make specific adjustments to just the light colors or just the darks. Keep an eye on the histogram as well as the image and you can make some pretty dramatic changes to your shots.

About the Author:
Hillary K. Grigonis is a lifestyle photographer and writer. She combines those two passions by writing photography tips for CreativeLive.

Go to full article: Beginner’s Guide to Tonal Adjustment Sliders in Camera Raw

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KeepSnap vs PhotoShelter

With only a week left until our PL + KeepSnap Lens giveaway ends, we wanted to write an article about differences between KeepSnap and PhotoShelter. Since a number of our readers asked about KeepSnap and what makes it different from the already established PhotoShelter, we thought it would be a good opportunity to look into the features of both sites in a bit more detail.



The Idea

At first, it may seem that the only difference between KeepSnap and Photoshelter is a business card featuring the link and QR-code to your gallery that you give to your clients. However, the primary difference is about the product’s idea.

The above screenshot shows the idea behind PhotoShelter. You are asked to choose what you are going to use the website for upon signing up. It can be used for building your photography portfolio on your personal website, sharing images with your clients, backing up your photos, and selling your images. As you can see, all these options are about selling and transferring photos to your regular clients, using the website as a photo storage, or building a portfolio. The latter is possible only in case you have good photos to show off to the world.

However, no option tells you about finding new clients and earning on-the-go. And that’s where the most essential difference between KeepSnap and PhotoShelter hides. Just like it says on the image, PhotoShelter provides websites and an array of tools for professional photographers who already have clients to streamline the client proofing and photo delivery workflows.

In other words, PhotoShelter is your own photo stock where you can upload the pictures you take (whether they are portrait, wedding, event, landscape, or street photographs) and sell them to your established clients, or create a website with random photos and sell them to random people you’ve never met in your life.

But what do you do when you only have a camera + a few lenses, along with a desire to make photographs and sell them? What if you are not a fully time pro and you do not have an established client base to sell to? That’s where KeepSnap can help. KeepSnap is a people-to-people tool, which can be used both by beginner and professional photographers, helping them to find clients wherever they are. Anyone who has a digital camera with at least 8 MP of resolution can earn on their photography, even if they have no clients or haven’t yet compiled a portfolio good enough to publish on a website.

Moreover, you don’t sell any photos on KeepSnap like it happens on photo stocks or Photoshelter. People like socializing, meeting up, chatting, and spending a good time together. So you can go to places where they hang out, photograph them and offer the chance to purchase your photographs. According to KeepSnap, customers are more prone to buy photos after meeting a photographer in person, seeing the preview on the camera’s LCD and receiving a business card.

PhotoShelter is a great product that features smart design and strong functionality, facilitating the photographer and customer workflows and providing proofing galleries for established photographers, who would like to earn more than they already are.

One of the most important aims of KeepSnap is to make services of good photographers accessible, so that they can be ready to work anywhere and at any moment, in every town and country around the world. Photographers will be able to find clients everywhere they go and sell their photos for $ 0.99 to $ 19.99 a piece using KeepSnap’s interface.

Let’s now move on to reviewing and comparing the different technical peculiarities of the two products.

Galleries

The photo gallery workflow on KeepSnap and PhotoShelter is pretty similar. You can create public and privates galleries, protected with a PIN, to deliver photos to clients and sell them. However, the process of uploading and delivery of photos on PhotoShelter looks more complicated and the advanced client proofing services are available only in Standard or Pro pricing plans. KeepSnap has no monthly fees, providing photo storage and client proofing services for free, but a fixed commission from 20% to 30% for every sold photo.

Customers of photographers who work with PhotoShelter will need to undergo a quick registration procedure to get access to private galleries, whilst KeepSnap is registration-free for clients. Both products feature gallery customization capabilities, which are more advanced on PhotoShelter. You can choose one of nine customization themes irrespective of your pricing plan (KeepSnap only lets you change the cover photo of your gallery). Another important feature difference between KeepSnap and PhotoShelter, is that you cannot upload photos older than two weeks on the former, and all photos that haven’t been purchased in your public gallery are automatically deleted in 14 days. KeepSnap’s idea is to encourage a quick turn-around. KeepSnap believes that if a customer does not purchase a photo from a public gallery within 14 days after it is uploaded, it probably will not be purchased at a later point of time anyway. However, if the photographer knows that a customer desires one or more pictures, he/she can upload images to a private gallery, which will keep images for up to three months (all purchased photos by the customer will be available to download indefinitely in the future).

File Limits

Apart from the above-mentioned time limits, there are no file storage limits on KeepSnap and you can upload literally terabytes of photos in JPEG or other formats and sell them. Basic and Standard pricing plans at Photoshelter are capped at 4 GB and 100 GB of cloud storage, while the Pro plan lets you upload unlimited number of photos.

Pricing

PhotoShelter offers photographers a free 14-day trial period and three pricing plans. They are: Basic, Standard, and Pro that cost $ 8, $ 25, and $ 45 a month.

KeepSnap, on the other hand, has no monthly or annual fees, which is especially helpful to beginner and enthusiast photographers, or those who don’t use KeepSnap on a regular basis. Instead of fixed monthly fees, KeepSnap keeps a commission of 20% to 30% for every sold photo, depending on how much the photographer sells. Basically, the more you sell, the more you earn. The process is carried out using gamification and badges.

When it comes to the price of photos that photographers sell, PhotoShelter uses a system that lets you specify a price for different photo sizes.

With KeepSnap, the photographer can set a universal price for all photos in their public gallery and a separate price for all photos in every private gallery they create. The client will be able to choose the photo size after buying it and download the photo in the most appropriate quality for them.

Printing and Delivery of Photos

PhotoShelter offers photo printing and delivery services, while KeepSnap does not. I have asked KeepSnap about lack of this important feature and I was told that the company is planning to add this feature at the end of 2016 or early 2017.

Sales Analytics

Both PhotoShelter and KeepSnap provide detailed in-service sales analytics, but on KeepSnap you can integrate your page with Google Analytics for free, for better control over your sales.

Mobile App

Currently PhotoShelter mobile app is available only for iOS users, but it looks like an Android app will be released soon, too. KeepSnap has two different apps for both iOS and Android. The first one is an application that lets photographers manage their public/private galleries, review sales statistics and receive notifications. The second one lets customers browse through the photographers’ directory and contact them.

The functionality of PhotoShelter and KeepSnap apps is similar, but users of KeepSnap mobile app can create private galleries on-the-go and assign them reference photos of their clients. This way the photographer won’t be confused about photos of which people they need to upload to different private galleries.

Photographer’s Directory

PhotoShelter lets you publish your portfolio in the photographers’ directory irrespective of the pricing plan, whilst access to KeepSnap Directory costs $ 99 a year.

The photographers’ directory at PhotoShelter is quite simplistic and doesn’t feature any photos – only the basic info about the photographer, their rates, and their website. The search is performed by name, location and photography style.

In comparison, the KeepSnap Directory lets photographers upload an unlimited number of photos, publish the most essential information about their services, and link their website and social network accounts.

Search of photographers on the KeepSnap Directory is performed mainly by location, although you can look for photographers using their name too, since the idea is to provide accessible photography services to clients all around the world.

Conclusion

Both products are very similar when it comes to features that they offer photographers and their clients. But the biggest difference between them is the purpose / idea of the site and its services.

PhotoShelter is more like an elaborated photo stock site with many excellent applications. It’s a place with a wide variety of photography tools that professional photographers can use to deliver and sell photographs to their clients, whether they shoot landscapes, weddings, fashion or portraits. KeepSnap, on the other hand, is a service that helps photographers with cameras find clients and start earning independently, irrelevant of their photography skill level.

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Which Sony E-mount lens should you buy?

There are some starring attractions in Sony’s line-up of E-mount full-frame lenses. We pick out six of the best.

Sony Vario-Tessar T* FE 16-35mm f/4 ZA OSS (SEL1535Z), £1,080/$ 1,350
Sony Vario-Tessar T* FE 24-70mm f/4 ZA OSS (SEL2470Z), £805/$ 1,200
Distagon T* FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA (SEL35F14Z), £1,350/$ 1,600
Sony Sonnar T* FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA (SEL55F18Z), £620/$ 1,000
Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS (SEL70200G), £1,005/$ 1,500
Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS (SEL90M28G), £900/$ 1,100

Building on the success of its NEX series of compact system cameras, Sony went large in 2013 (at least in terms of image sensor) with its A7 and A7R full-frame bodies. The cameras themselves proved an instant hit, with impressive build quality and handling characteristics, while also delivering excellent image quality.

However, despite the availability of an adaptor for fitting existing A-mount lenses, the A7 and A7R were criticised at the time of launch for their relatively small range of companion full-frame E-mount lenses.

Naturally, this was a limiting factor for the system as a whole. Sony vowed that new lenses would shortly be coming to the market and, true to its word, the company has launched several lenses as well as updated camera bodies over the last couple of years.

We’ve now reached the point where there are enough full-frame E-mount lenses to enable Sony’s compact system cameras to compete directly with the best enthusiast and pro-grade DSLR outfits on the market.

Many of the top-notch lenses in the line-up carry Zeiss badges, being designed in partnership with the legendary German optics company. Zeiss classifications include Vario-Tessar, Distagon and Sonnar, as well as the company’s acclaimed T* coatings for maintaining contrast while supressing ghosting and flare.

Other lenses are pure Sony, without any Zeiss endorsement, but maintain similarly high standards of build quality and performance.

We’ve picked out six top contenders for your Sony gadget bag, including wide, standard and telephoto zooms, plus wide and macro primes. Let’s take a closer look.

Sony Vario-Tessar T* FE 16-35mm f/4 ZA OSS (SEL1535Z)

£1,080/$ 1,350
Ultra-wide angle lenses were always going to be a struggle for the Sony E-mount system, with its relatively short distance between lens mount and image sensor.

Like most high-end Sony full-frame E-mount zoom lenses, this one has a constant-aperture design with the widest available aperture being f/4 rather.

That’s a stop slower than the f/2.8 commonly sported by other makes of up-market zoom lenses. A plus side, at least in the case of most Sony zooms, is that the physical dimensions and weight can be kept down, enabling a better match with Sony’s compact A7 series bodies.

Even so, this Zeiss-badged ultra-wide zoom rather dwarfs compatible camera bodies, measuring 78x99mm and weighing 518g. The physical length extends further still as you zoom out to the widest-angle focal lengths.

One thing that helps to counteract the slight lack of natural balance when using this relatively heavy lens on a lightweight body is OSS (Optical SteadyShot) image stabilization.

Overall build quality is typically excellent for a Sony/Zeiss lens, with a tough metal skin and the usual resistance to dust and moisture.

Performance
The optical path includes a large AA (Advanced Aspherical) element at the front, four further aspherical elements and three ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements.

Despite this, there can be some noticeable colour fringing towards the corners of images, and pronounced barrel distortion with heavy vignetting at the short end of the zoom range. On the plus side, automatic in-camera corrections are available for all three of these aberrations, bringing a real boost to image quality.

Autofocus is fairly quick and virtually silent, while the manual focus and zoom rings offer smooth-action precision.

Centre-sharpness is very good throughout the zoom and aperture ranges, although corner-sharpness drops off a fair bit between focal lengths of 28mm and 35mm, even when narrowing the aperture. The Zeiss T* coatings do their typically effective job of minimising ghosting and flare.

Overall, it’s not the greatest ultra-wide zoom lens in the world, but performs well enough to add the vital element of wide perspective to the E-mount system.

Features: 4/5
Build/Handling: 4.5/5
Performance: 4/5
Value: 4/5
Overall: 4/5

Sony Vario-Tessar T* FE 24-70mm f/4 ZA OSS (SEL2470Z)

£805/$ 1,200
Smaller and lighter than the Sony 16-35mm zoom on test, this one measures 73x95mm, weighs 426g and has a 67mm rather than 72mm filter thread. It feels better balanced on an A7 series body, which is ideal considering that it’s designed as the ‘go to’ full-frame E-mount zoom lens for everyday photography.

As with most Zeiss-badged optics in the E-mount line-up, the physical design looks very streamlined, although some might say basic.

For example, there are no on-board switches for auto/manual focusing or for switching OSS (Optical SteayShot) stabilization on and off, and there’s no focus distance scale.

Instead, these and other functions like aperture adjustment have to be carried out via camera menus and controls. Even so, the metal lens barrels feel beautifully engineered and the build is dust/moisture resistant.

There’s no shortage of quality or complexity when it comes to glass, with an optical path that includes no fewer than five aspherical elements and an ED (Extra-low Dispersion) element. As you’d expect, Zeiss’s T* coating is also applied to reduce ghosting and flare.

Performance
The widest aperture of f/4 doesn’t enable a very tight depth of field, even when using short focus distances at the longer end of the zoom range. When stopped down a little, the seven-blade diaphragm remains fairly well rounded but can turn defocused lights into noticeable pentagonal shapes.

Sharpness is good and very consistent throughout the zoom and aperture ranges although, like with the Sony 16-35mm lens, corners become soft at longer zoom settings.

Colour fringing and vignetting are quite well controlled but distortion switches between fairly heavy amounts of barrel and pincushion as you extend through the zoom range. As usual though, this can be countered with automatic in-camera corrections.

Overall performance and handling are very good, making this lens the most attractive standard zoom for A7 series bodies.

Features: 4/5
Build/Handling: 4.5/5
Performance: 4/5
Value: 4/5
Overall: 4/5

Sony Distagon T* FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA (SEL35F14Z)

£1,350/$ 1,600
The first 35mm prime lens to be launched for full-frame E-mount bodies was the dinky little FE 35mm f/2.8, designed along Zeiss’s Sonnar principles. The newer f/1.4 Distagon lens is massive by comparison, measuring 79x112mm and weighing 630g.

On the plus side, it has the same 72mm filter thread as the 24-70mm lens on test. The upsized build is mainly due to this lens being two f/stops faster than the original 35mm prime, but it’s also much more complex and sophisticated.

Like other Zeiss-badged lenses in the group, this one has a solid feel based on high-precision engineered metal barrel parts. It adds a DDSSM (Direct Drive SSM) autofocus system that’s fast and practically silent, and a nine-blade aperture that ensures a very well-rounded aperture when stopping down a little.

Like Zeiss’s fully own-brand ‘Loxia’ lenses for E-mount bodies, this Sony features a manual aperture ring with one-third click stops plus an option for smooth, stepless adjustment, ideal for video shooting.

Unlike the Loxia lenses, the click/declick changeover can be activated via a simple switch on the lens barrel, rather than requiring the lens to be removed from the camera and adjusted with a small (and easily lost) key.

Performance
The biggest performance boost compared with the older 35mm f/2.8 lens is in sharpness, especially towards the edges and corners of the frame. Indeed, excellent sharpness is matched by great contrast, even when shooting at f/1.4.

On the other hand, uncorrected vignetting (darkened image corners) is very noticeable at apertures wider than f/2.8. Chromatic aberrations are only slight and barrel distortion is extremely low for a 35mm lens.

This is arguably the best Sony prime lens for full-frame E-mount cameras to date, along with the more specialist 90mm macro lens. It’s undeniably big, heavy and expensive, but quality and performance are simply superb.

Features: 4.5/5
Build/Handling: 5/5
Performance: 5/5
Value: 4.5/5
Overall: 4.5/5

Sony Sonnar T* FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA (SEL55F18Z)

£620/$ 1,000
Unlike Zeiss Distagon prime lenses, which tend to be relatively big and heavy, the classic Zeiss Sonnar style design is famous for its lightweight simplicity, while maintaining fairly wide available apertures.

As such, this 55mm lens is much smaller and lighter than the 35mm f/1.4 Distagon lens on test, at just 64x71mm and 281g, while still delivering a fairly fast aperture of f/1.8.

Another indication of downsizing is that the filter thread of this standard prime lens is just 49mm, instead of the 72mm of the wider f/1.4 prime.

The build is simpler than that of the 35mm Distagon lens, based on seven elements in five groups, rather than 12 elements in eight groups. There’s also the lack of a manual aperture ring, more in keeping with the usual ethos of E-mount lenses.

Even so, the design still incorporates three aspherical glass elements and the build is dust/moisture-resistant.

The aperture is controlled by nine diaphragm blades, which helps to maintain a well-rounded aperture when stopping down a little from f/1.8. Again, Zeiss T* coatings are applied for minimizing ghosting and flare.

Performance
So-called ‘nifty fifty’ lenses have become favourites for portraiture on APS-C format cameras, where the ‘effective’ focal length stretches to around 80mm.

For half-length or even full-length portraits, this lens still has a lot to offer, with a fairly tight depth of field and pleasantly soft bokeh (quality of defocussed areas). It also makes a smart standard prime for everyday shooting, with wide apertures enabling fast shutter speeds in low lighting conditions.

Centre-sharpness is generally very good indeed, although it does drop off a little at f/1.8. Corner-sharpness is less impressive, especially in the aperture range of f/1.8 to f/5.6, where it’s below average for a standard prime lens.

There’s very little colour fringing, while distortion is practically non-existent. There’s no OSS (Optical SteadyShot) stabilization but, in other respects, it’s an ideal everyday standard prime that’s well suited to a wide range of shooting scenarios.

Features: 3.5/5
Build/Handling: 4/5
Performance: 4/5
Value: 4/5
Overall: 4/5

Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS (SEL70200G)

£1,005/$ 1,500
Enthusiast and pro photographers often favour a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens for telephoto shooting but, typical of Sony E-mount primes, this lens has an f/4 aperture which helps to keep the size down and the weight off.

Even so, it’s slightly bigger and heavier than the competing Canon 70-200mm f/4 lens for SLR cameras. Reminiscent of many Canon pro-grade telephoto lenses, this Sony has an off-white rather than black finish, the main reason being to reduce any build-up of heat when shooting under the sun.

Whereas the no-nonsense design of many Sony E-mount lenses results in no on-board switches whatsoever, the 70-200mm looks a more complex and sophisticated beast.

Two rear-mounted OSS (Optical SteadyShot) stabilization switches include on/off and static/panning modes. A further two switches are on hand for auto/manual focus modes, and to limit autofocus range to between three metres and infinity.

Unusually for this class of 70-200mm f/4 lens, there’s also a set of three focus-hold buttons towards the front of the lens, plus a tripod mounting collar and foot, for easy swapping between landscape and portrait orientation shooting when using a tripod or monopod, along with better balance in portrait orientation mode.

Considering that the lens weighs 840g, the tripod collar is a welcome addition, and one that’s more usually only available as an expensive optional extra on Canon and Nikon 70-200mm f/4 lenses.

Advanced optics include two AA (Advanced Aspherical) elements, one regular aspherical element, two ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements and a Super ED element. To fend off ghosting and flare, and to retain optimum contrast, Sony’s Nano AR Coatings are applied.

Performance
Along with the instantly accessible settings enabled by the switchgear, autofocus is pretty rapid. This makes the lens well suited to shooting action sports and wildlife.

Sharpness and contrast are generally very good, although extreme edge and corner-sharpness drops off at 70mm when using an aperture of f/4, and at 200mm throughout the aperture range.

Resistance to ghosting and flare is impressive, on a par with Sony’s Zeiss-badged lenses that include T* coatings. Ultimately, this lens is a highly competent telephoto zoom with excellent handling.

Features: 4.5/5
Build/Handling: 5/5
Performance: 4.5/5
Value: 4/5
Overall: 4.5/5

Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS (SEL90M28G)

£900/$ 1,100
Yet another box on the ‘must have’ list of full-frame E-mount lenses is neatly ticked off by this macro optic that offers full 1.0x (1:1) reproduction at its shortest focus distance.

The 90mm focal length is something of a classic option, along with a minimum focus distance of 28cm. Measured from the focal plane (the surface of the image sensor near the back of the camera), this enables a comfortable working distance for extreme close-ups.

Metal-bodied build quality is a close match to the Zeiss-badged lenses in the group, complete with a dust/moisture resistant design. Quality glass includes an aspherical elements, ED (Extra-low Dispersion) element and a Super ED element.

Other attractions include a DDSSM (Direct Drive SuperSonic Motor) system for quick and ultra-quiet autofocus, OSS (Optical SteadyShot) stabilization and a nicely rounded nine-blade diaphragm.

Close-ups are the forte of any macro optic but, combining a 90mm focal length with a reasonably fast f/2.8 aperture also makes this a useful lens for portraiture and short telephoto shooting.

Unlike many E-mount lenses, hands-on extras include a three-position autofocus limiter switch to enable short, long or full focus travel, an on/off switch for the optical stabilizer, and even a focus hold button.

There’s also a scale for focus distance and magnification ratio, printed on the lens barrel, although it’s inactive during autofocus. There’s no full-time manual override in AF mode but, as the next best thing, there’s a simple push-pull mechanism in the focus ring for switching between focus modes.

SEE MORE: Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS review

Performance
Important for close-up shooting, sharpness and contrast remain very good at narrow apertures, enabling you to get more than a hair’s breadth of depth of field.

Sharpness is similarly impressive at f/2.8, when you want to minimise depth of field for portraiture or still life, or simply to get the fastest possible shutter speed for freezing motion.

Sony’s 90mm macro lens is an impressive performer with fine handling characteristics. The only fly in the ointment is that it’s relatively expensive compared with similar stabilized macro lenses from the likes of Canon and Nikon, not to mention Sigma and Tamron.

Features: 4.5/5
Build/Handling: 4.5/5
Performance: 4/5
Value: 3/5
Overall: 4/5

Verdict: a lens for all seasons

Historically, Sony has done well to bring new formats of camera body to the market, including SLT (Single Lens Translucent) and compact system cameras. However, it hasn’t always been particularly speedy in adding a supporting cast of lenses.

The company has raised its game with the A7 series of full-frame E-mount bodies, backing them up with an impressive range of top-quality lenses.

Whether badged as Zeiss lenses, or Sony’s own ‘G’ class lenses, the current selection should satisfy the most demanding of photographers in terms of handling, build quality, image quality and overall performance.

Let’s not forget that you can set your sights a little lower in terms of specifications and spend, in which case other options like the FE 24-240mm OSS superzoom and 28-70mm OSS standard zoom become available.

For sheer exotica, there’s also an FE PZ 28-135mm ‘Power Zoom’ lens available, designed for professional movie shooting.

There are still a few specialist holes in the line-up. For example, there’s no tilt & shift (perspective correction) lens, nor a super-telephoto prime or zoom, or even a more standard 70-300mm telephoto zoom.

Overall, though, the full-frame E-mount system really has come of age over the last couple of years, developing into a very viable alternative to shooting with a conventional DSLR.

READ MORE

Sony lenses explained: which lenses to use on which cameras
Sony launches new ‘G Master’ premium lens range
Sony cameras: the full and complete range explained

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10 Tips for DSLR Camera Newbies

If you’ve recently progressed to using a DSLR camera, these ten short tips will help you get off to a great start!

1. Keep Hold of Your Camera Manual

You will quickly learn that you can’t live without it. Make sure you keep it handy and take time to read it frequently, particularly in those first few months after buying your new DSLR camera.

2. Buy a UV Filter

For each lens you own, buy a UV filter—not just to improve the quality of your photos but to protect your expensive lenses.

Photo by Flickr user Amanda; f/3.5, 1/8 exposure.

3. Learn to Use Your Camera’s Settings

It’s especially important that you become proficient at changing your camera’s ISO, aperture, and shutter speed settings quickly. So, practice doing this until it becomes second nature.

4. Get Yourself a Sturdy Tripod and a Remote Release

You might just have spent a small fortune on buying the camera, but try to stretch your budget to include these two important accessories. They will help you take photos where long shutter speeds are needed (e.g., night shots).

Photo by Judy van der Velden.

5. Read Lots of Books and Magazines

They are a great source of inspiration and information, particularly those that show what camera settings were used for the photos shown.

6. Treat the Mirror Inside the Camera Body Very Carefully

It’s very important that you don’t breathe on or touch the mirror when you’ve removed the lens. If you find spots on your photos, get a camera cleaning kit and use it to remove dust or smears from the lens.

7. Avoid Changing Your Lens in Windy Conditions

Ensure you have put the most appropriate lens on your camera before you leave home. If you must change the lens outside, point the camera downward to prevent dust from getting on to the camera’s sensor.

Photo by Andy Atmtx; ISO 100, f/2, 1.6-second exposure.

8. Beware of Camera Shake

If you find that a lot of your photos are blurred, it’s usually because of camera shake. To reduce the possibility of camera shake and consequently blurred photos, you need to increase the shutter speed. Alternatively, hold the camera close to your body or rest it on a firm object nearby.

9. Think About Your Future Needs

This is particularly important when buying a camera bag. It’s quite common for photographers to have three or more lenses, so consider having a couple of bags: a bag that will hold all of the lenses and equipment that you’re likely to have in the future and another bag that will hold a single lens will cover most situations.

10. Experiment, Experiment, Experiment!

The quickest and best way to learn to figure out what you can do with your camera is to experiment. Try using different apertures when shooting landscapes or different shutter speeds when photographing moving objects, such as waterfalls.

I hope you found this short list of tips useful. Take them on board and you’ll soon be making the most of your new digital SLR camera.

About the Author:
John is an enthusiast (digitalslrbrandtalk dot com) when it comes to digital SLR cameras and is keen to help fellow enthusiasts.

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Change of scenery: How a photographer’s trip to Idaho inspired a big move

What could convince a California native to leave the state’s famously beautiful coasts and sunshine behind? For photographer and Resource Travel editor Michael Bonocore, a visit to Idaho’s pristine wilderness and towering mountains was enough. He recently spent some time traveling and photographing the state, from bustling Boise to the untouched powder of the Selkirk Mountains.

The photographic opportunities were so rich and the possibilities for outdoor adventure so abundant, Bonocore decided to make a full-time move to the Gem State. See some of his photos here and read the full account of his trip on Resource Travel.

Resource Travel: 11 Reasons Why I Moved to Idaho

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How to Get Superb Color in Your Photography

Color accuracy is one of the most important aspects of photography. A big part of this is getting accurate white balance. White balance relates to the overall color hue in your images. Even a minor modification of color tone can mean a huge impact on all your photos.

White balance is important in portraiture, because it means accurate skin tones. If it is not set to an accurate setting then skin tones may seem slightly blue, greenish, or pink. It does not matter whether or not skin tone is light or dark. If your white balance is inappropriate for your shoot, you will find dissatisfying results.

“Untitled” captured by Paweł Kostka

White Balance Presets

There are different white balance settings on your digital camera. These are called presets. Presets are designed to adjust your photos to a certain hue. For example, there is a preset called daylight. Daylight is designed to reproduce the color temperature at noon. The light at midday looks very different from the light in the late hours of daylight. If you would like a color temperature consistent with daylight hue then simply change the white balance preset to the daylight setting. If you like your images to look warm then you may select cloudy or shade in your white balance presets.

Color Temperature

Before I go on any further let me delve a little deeper. White balance is connected with color temperature. Color temperature is related to the certain type of hue in your photos. The light at various times of day will give you different hues. Some of these hues are appropriate for particular subjects and not others. That’s why, when you select differences in your white balance presets, your whole photograph looks distinctive to the one before.

“St. Michaels Mount, Cornwall” captured by Leo Pera

Color temperature does not mean Celsius or Fahrenheit. color temperature relates to the color of light. When the light seems to be fairly white you can say it is reminiscent of daylight color temperature. Camera manufacturers created a white balance preset to mimic this daylight temperature. Color temperature simply relates to the color of the light you are shooting in.

To simplify this, let’s just say you are photographing a scene at 2:30 in the afternoon. There is a strong breeze that’s pushing the clouds across the sky quite rapidly. As a result, the light changes every few minutes. One minute you are photographing in full sunlight. The next minute you are working in overcast light. The color temperature of these two lighting conditions is very different. So how can you get precise color in different light? The answer is to do a custom white balance.

Custom White Balance

Custom white balance is designed for the unique light you are photographing in. This means that even if you have varying light, you can still have very accurate color. Creating custom white balance is done using a color checker reference tool, such as a gray card. A gray card is simply a small card that communicates to the camera where middle gray is. Once the camera knows where middle gray is, it understands where all the other colors are. By photographing in this way, you are telling it to locate all the other colors around this spot. The way to set white balance is to shoot your gray card.

“White Balance” captured by Joe D. Photography

Once you photograph the gray card you can then adjust your white balance setting to custom. The camera will then ask you if you want to use that image as a color reference for all the photos from now on. Once you select yes, the magic begins. You will see authentic color in all your photos.

Changing your white balance may differ from camera to camera. It’s crucial to check your camera instruction manual to see how to do this. I know where the controls are on the Canon 5D but I am unfamiliar with where they are on a Nikon. I trust that the process is quite alike from manufacturer to manufacturer.

Shooting with a gray card is an essential part of your color management workflow. Color management is one of the unsung heroes of photography. It is vital with all the photographing that you do. You will be able to get correct color in your brighter areas, midtones, and shadows. No longer will your whites look off-white or your deep blacks look dark gray.

If you set white balance to suit the available light, you will find that white actually appears like a sharp and crisp white. Once you find that your color management has been done properly, achieving accurate, clear, and beautiful color will become as simple as pressing the shutter button.

About the Author:
Amy Renfrey writes for DigitalPhotographySuccess.com. She’s photographed many things from famous musicians (Drummers for Prince and Anastasia) to weddings and portraits of babies. Amy also teaches photography online to her students.

For Further Help With Color Processing:

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Google’s Nik Software is now FREE!

The title of the article deserves three exclamation marks, because this is one of the best news I have seen in photographic history! Google has just announced that it has made the best plugins for Photoshop and Lightroom, bundled into a single “Google’s Nik Collection” absolutely free (it was priced at $ 150 per license before). This is awesome, and no, it is not an April 1st Fool’s Day joke! As of today, March 24th 2016, you can download Google’s Nik Collection for free by visiting this page and clicking the “Download Now” button on the top of the page.

Here is the official announcement from Google, which was posted on Google+:

Today we’re making the Nik Collection available to everyone, for free.

Photo enthusiasts all over the world use the Nik Collection to get the best out of their images every day. As we continue to focus our long-term investments in building incredible photo editing tools for mobile, including Google Photos and Snapseed, we’ve decided to make the Nik Collection desktop suite available for free, so that now anyone can use it.

The Nik Collection is comprised of seven desktop plug-ins that provide a powerful range of photo editing capabilities — from filter applications that improve color correction, to retouching and creative effects, to image sharpening that brings out all the hidden details, to the ability to make adjustments to the color and tonality of images.

Starting March 24, 2016, the latest Nik Collection will be freely available to download: Analog Efex Pro, Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro, Viveza, HDR Efex Pro, Sharpener Pro and Dfine. If you purchased the Nik Collection in 2016, you will receive a full refund, which we’ll automatically issue back to you in the coming days.

We’re excited to bring the powerful photo editing tools once only used by professionals to even more people now.

What’s also cool, is that Google will be refunding people their money, if they had made the purchase of the software in 2016! If you have never tried Nik Software, hurry up, visit the Nik Collection page and give it a try. My favorite tools that I use constantly are: Viveza, Color Efex Pro, Dfine, Sharpener Pro and Silver Efex Pro. Going forward, we are planning to release more tutorials on how to use these amazing tools on our website!

My only concern is, I hope this announcement does not mean that Google will completely abandon this project. With new operating system updates and patches getting released every month and with higher resolution screens becoming more common, I hope Google will continue patching up and updating the software in the future.

Thank you Google, this is the best gift you could have given to the photographic community. Please, don’t forget to keep the tools up-to-date. It has been a while since the plugins received updates!

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How to photograph the landscape at night

Armed with nothing more than a tripod and a powerful torch, we show you how to capture a dramatic landscape image at night.

When we’re on a landscape shoot, most of us tend to call it a day once the sun has dropped below the horizon, but there is a way to carry on shooting long into the night, and that’s to light up the landscape yourself.

The basic idea is to literally paint your subject with a torch during a long exposure so that it stands out against the darker background. Without this extra helping of light, it would either get lost against the background, or it would just be completely silhouetted.

The light also helps pick out texture and detail, especially if you stand off to one side and ‘paint’ from an angle.

For our light-painting project we headed down to the south coast of England to photograph Pulpit Rock. We took along a million-candle-power torch to light up the rock stack, and a 14-24mm f/2.8 lens to enable us to fit everything in.

We also took along plenty of spare batteries, so that we wouldn’t run out of juice mid-shoot.

As with cityscapes, the best time to paint with light is when there’s still some light in the sky – that way you can expose for the sky and then use your torch to reveal your subject, and balance the exposure.

You don’t need to visit Pulpit Rock, of course; you can paint with light on any scene. Rocks, grass, buildings, trees… there really isn’t any limit 
to the subjects you can illuminate. Read on to find out how it’s done…

Get set up to paint with light

Rock star
A landmark acts as a focal point, and helps to give your shot direction. Make sure your focal point is the brightest thing in the scene.

Steady does it
With exposure times of 30 seconds or more, a sturdy tripod is vital for capturing every texture and detail with pin-sharp clarity.

On the level
You may need to use a spirit level to ensure a level horizon. To avoid noise, keep your ISO low and extend your shutter speed.

Different strokes
Think of your torch – and its beam of light – as a giant brush that you can use to paint detail into the scene (see Step 05).

How to paint a landscape with light

01 Full beam ahead
The most important tool you’ll need for light painting (after your camera) is the torch itself. You’ll need one with a strong beam, able to reach the distant landscape. We used a 1,000,000-candle-power torch, and took extra batteries with us in case the ones in the torch ran out.

 

02 Make it quick
To speed things up, turn off long exposure noise reduction (found in the Shooting menu on most camera bodies). Long exposure noise reduction takes a second black frame with the shutter closed to record the noise generated by the image sensor, doubling the time each shot takes.

 

03 Lock the focus
Place your camera on your tripod. Autofocus is difficult in low light, and since the AF lamp built into your camera won’t be bright enough to reach the distant landscape, use your torch to light up your subject, autofocus a third of the way into the frame, and then switch to manual to lock it.

 

04 Slow things down
We set a narrow aperture of f/8 to ensure a decent depth of field, a low ISO (ISO100) to minimise noise and a very slow shutter speed (20 secs) to expose the photo correctly. Use the self-timer to trigger the shutter, to avoid camera shake, and begin painting your subject with the torch.

 

05 Paint with care
You may need a friend to make sure you paint evenly – it’s easy to leave the torch in one place and get hot spots. Standing back from your subject (up to 40 feet) and using long sweeping movements will help prevent this. Angling the torch to the side helps define the shape of the rocks.

 

06 Adjust and experiment
Check your shot. If light from your torch is flaring into the lens, put a lens hood on. Adjust your shutter speed if the exposure needs altering.  We painted our scene from the left for the duration of our 20-second exposure, but you may not need to paint for that long.

Quick Tip!
If your autofocus is struggling, switch to manual focus, engage Live View and zoom in on the part of the image you want to be in focus. Adjust your focus ring until the scene is sharp, then zoom back out again

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A New Photographer’s Guide to Composition

It’s easy to be swept away by the technical demands most DSLR cameras require. But as a new photographer, it’s critical that you develop your composition skills. Your ability to compose a powerful, visually captivating image is one of the most important keys to a great photograph.

So how do you begin?

First, let’s dive into what composition is and what composition isn’t. Many beginners get the wrong notion of the skill and as a result find improvement difficult, if not impossible.

Photo by Azrul Nahar Zailah @ Lazim; ISO 100, f/16, 3-second exposure.

What is Composition?

To start, composition is not a series of rules or testaments you must follow. The rule of thirds, leading lines, and simplicity are all guidelines with one sole purpose: to get you to see what you were previously blinded to.

Each “rule” makes us aware of a specific visual cue. The rule of thirds, for example, teaches us to see our frame in three separate sections, vertically and horizontally. Leading lines opens our eyes to all the visual lines around us.

Herein lies their fault.

If we rely solely on 4, 7, or 11 composition rules, we’re allowing our vision to be limited. Instead, use these composition rules for what they’re meant for—opening our eyes.

So how do you open your eyes up to as much visual beauty as possible? And how can you do it quickly, being new to the art of composition?

This post will serve to guide you along just that path. You’ll be given a few simple but effective ways for opening your eyes and, consequently, improving your compositions.

Photo by Neil Howard.

1. Become Aware of Visual Space

Each and every shot you take is comprised of visual space. You have your subject, background, foreground, and secondary elements.

It’s the arrangement of these that determines how viewers respond.

Most newbies compose photos the following way: they see a subject, point their camera at the subject, and snap their picture.

Consequently, these compositions tend to have the subject dead center with little attention to the background, foreground, or objects to the left or right. As a result, the image tends to look cluttered and hard to follow.

Your first step to improving your compositions is simple. Become aware of all the visual space within your frame.

Find the subject you want to capture and then make it a point to observe all elements within your frame.

What objects are to the left of your subject? How about the right? Above? Below?

What colors are present? Which grab the most attention? Which fall under the radar and are obscured?

Awareness begins the process of change. By becoming aware of all of these elements within the frame, you start to recognize visual space. This recognition allows you to better control it.

You cannot change what you do not know exists.

So start simple by exploring the visual world around you. When you see a great photograph or work of art, analyze it. What did the artist do with the space they were given?

The fact is that all photographers have the same approximate viewfinder. It’s only a select few, however, that can turn this empty space into something breathtaking.

Great composers understand that control over this visual space is the key. You too want to control this space. Control over visual space allows you to guide the viewer exactly how you’d like. You dictate what draws their eyes. You dictate what they look at first. And you dictate how they’ll emotionally respond.

When you understand how to control and guide your viewer, taking great compositions is really quite intuitive.

There are several techniques that allow you to do just that. Let’s explore one more of them.

2. Find and Accentuate Patterns

Without light, you have a 100 percent black frame. As you add light, lines and shapes begin to emerge. And with this, patterns.

Finding and responding to visual patterns is a natural habit of our minds.

Photo by Martin Gommel.

Objects of the same size, color, shape, or light intensity tend to get categorized as similar. This allows our mind to float right past these similar elements along to the next piece of visual novelty.

What happens when you look at a tree? There are thousands upon thousands of leaves but your mind filters this excess and renders a shape—the typical tree bush outline children draw in grade school.

When our minds look at a photograph, however, patterns become much more difficult to find.

Without the ability to see “depth” in an image, everything is compressed into one dimension. If the image is not composed so that this one dimensional shot is easy to grasp and utilizes patterns, many will skip right past it.

The way to avoid this is to compose without clutter.

Patterns are everywhere around you. Becoming more aware of these patterns makes composition so much easier.

Patterns create simplicity which makes viewers find your photograph more easy to digest. By luring viewers in with a pattern, you can then guide them from corner to corner, allowing them to explore the subtleties of your image.

3. Make Entry Easy

The most difficult task of a composition is getting your viewer “into” the frame. Once this is accomplished, everything else is secondary.

Fortunately, the use of lead-ins makes this process quite simple.

Lead-ins are simply visual cues that guide viewers into the content of your frame. They are constructed the same way that you would construct a lead-in in the physical, real world.

If you want to make your home look inviting, do you leave the door opened or closed? When saying hello to a friend, do you cross your arms into horizontal barriers or open your arms into a diagonal visual, producing imaginary lines toward your body?

Photo by Theophilos Papadopoulos; ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/400 exposure.

Lead-ins guide the viewer from the corners of the frame toward the inner areas. They tend to form imaginary lines that guide viewers.

A foreground figure looking towards the center of the frame is a typical example as is a silhouetted archway leading viewers to look within the outlines contents.

The use of lead-ins makes compositions easier to grasp as they give a quick, easy path for viewers to follow. Instead of observing the image and trying to determine what to look at, viewers intuitively follow the lead-in. This makes visual communication easier and more efficient.

Nevertheless, even the best lead-in will not save a photograph that’s too complex for viewers to grasp.

4. Keep the Image Simple No Matter How Complex Your Composition

It’s easy to take photos with dozens of varying elements within your frame. Capturing an image with several elements carefully structured into a cohesive, simplistic whole is much more difficult.

As Michael Freeman said, ““The ability to bring order from chaos has become one of the skills most admired in photography.”

So how do you compose images with simplicity?

To start, remember that your photograph is comprised of visual space. And not all of this visual space is equal. Some elements will carry more weight than others.

And most varying elements will clash with one another.

Several varying colors will compete for attention as will several objects of different shapes, sizes, and depth.

By eliminating multiplying varying elements and focusing on a few, you simplify your image.

Although photography is quite different from theater, your camera should work to act as somewhat of a “spotlight”. Use it to isolate a specific theme—a unique pattern—and minimize the details of everything else.

So how do you isolate, outside of using a shallow depth of field or perspective?

5. Seek Out and Control the Strongest Visual Cues

When many think of simplicity, the thought of shallow depth of field and perspective usually come to mind. Shooting from below or above work great to reduce background clutter and focus the viewer’s attention on your subject.

With that said, strong visual cues are much more influential over simplicity.

Extremely bright colors, light traps (areas of extreme brightness surrounded by darker areas), and strong shapes are all examples of strong visual cues that naturally draw our eyes.

Photo by André Schreck.

Strong visual cues, no matter if they’re in the background of a shallow depth of field image shot from above, will steal all the attention.

When you have multiple strong visual cues combined together within one frame, you tend to produce confusion and avoidance.

Avoid this by ensuring that the strongest visual cue is your primary subject.

If other secondary elements have strong visual cues, work to eliminate or minimize them through your composition. Stand on your toes, crouch down, or use a different focal length that will remove these visual cues.

This will simplify your image and produce that “spotlight” effect that guides viewers to exactly what you want.

6. Think in Terms of the Frame

Here’s a quick little composition check. When you go out and take photographs, what do you set as the four corners of your frame?

If you’re like most, you rely on your camera’s viewfinder to do this. While convenient, forcing yourself to see the world through your camera viewfinder robs you of control and creativity.

You are essentially following your camera’s “frame” guidelines and trying with all your might to fill this frame with what can be labeled a “beautiful” composition.

This is all wrong.

Instead, see the world around you and find exactly what you want to capture. Where do you want the four corners of the frame to be?

Once you’ve decided this, use your camera as what it is—a tool. Capture the image and visualize the exact aspect ratio. Although your camera may not create the aspect ratio you desire, a quick crop in any photo editor can fix this in seconds.

7. Leave Room for Interpretation

We’ve focused quite a bit on controlling the visual experience of your viewers. While this may seem to be a strange approach to photography, composition is nothing more than the design of a user’s visual experience. Great designs create great photographs.

With that said, a great composition is more than just an image filled with directions. The true art to composition is in ambiguity.

Yes, you want to compose to guide your viewer into your frame. Yes, you want to simplify your arrangement so as not to confuse and annoy. But you also want your viewer to be an active participant in your visual work.

An image that is easy to grasp is often just as boring as a complicated image that’s too difficult. Great compositions, while usually visually simple, contain an element of ambiguity. An element of intrigue. An element that, if you asked 1,000 people about, you’d get 1,000 unique interpretations.

It’s here where true beauty shines. For beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder.

About the Author
Alphonso Sanchez, founder of www.IrisMasters.com, shows others how to open their eyes to the breathtaking photo opportunities all around them.

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