Why an 85mm Lens Still Belongs on a Full-Frame Camera

cameras, canon, Lenses, nikon, opinons, thoughts, photography, pictures, street, Travel, viltrox

The 85mm Lens: Standing Back, Getting Closer :

Old Photographer Series.

There are lenses that show you the world, and there are lenses that ask you to choose something from it.

The 85mm belongs to the second group.

Put one on a full-frame Nikon or Canon and the street immediately becomes a little quieter. The frame tightens, unnecessary clutter falls away and people begin to take precedence over their surroundings. It is not a lens for collecting everything in front of you. It is a lens for deciding what matters.

That is probably why I have always liked it.

A photographer capturing an image of a woman sitting on a stool beside a fruit stand in a bustling street market during golden hour.

The 85mm is usually described as a portrait lens. That is true, but it is only part of the story. On a full-frame camera, it offers a particularly useful balance between intimacy and distance. It lets me photograph somebody closely without having to put the camera inches from their face.

A 35mm lens asks me to step into the scene. A 50mm puts me somewhere near its edge. The 85mm lets me stand back, watch and wait.

That extra distance can make all the difference.

People behave differently when a photographer is almost on top of them. They become conscious of the camera. Faces change, bodies stiffen and natural expressions are replaced by the smile people believe they are supposed to produce for a photograph.

An 85mm gives the subject breathing room. It does not make the photographer invisible, nor should it, but it makes the encounter less physically intrusive. I remain close enough to acknowledge the person, yet far enough away to allow the moment to unfold.

Oddly, standing farther away can sometimes produce a photograph that feels much closer.

An 85mm also renders faces naturally. Used from a sensible distance, it avoids the exaggeration that comes from moving too close with a wider lens. Noses remain noses rather than becoming architectural features. Ears do not retreat around the back of the head. The proportions of the face appear comfortable and believable.

That is why generations of portrait photographers have trusted this focal length. It does not manufacture beauty, but it gives a face a fair chance.

For street portraiture, its narrow angle of view is just as important. Phnom Penh is a wonderfully untidy city. There are signs, wires, motorbikes, market stalls, plastic chairs, delivery carts and people moving through every available gap. A wider lens collects all of it, whether I want it or not.

The 85mm helps me impose some order.

A woman smiling while preparing fresh vegetables at a local market, surrounded by various goods and shoppers in the background.

It allows me to find one face in the confusion, one pair of hands at work or one fleeting expression in a crowded street. By showing less, it often says more.

That does not mean the background must disappear completely. The obsession with blurred backgrounds has become one of modern photography’s more tiresome habits. Open an 85mm lens to f/1.8 or f/1.4 and almost anything behind the subject can be turned into expensive-looking mush.

It can be beautiful, but beauty is not always the same thing as meaning.

The background may tell us where the person works, how they live or what sort of world surrounds them. A market trader without the market can become merely a pleasant face. Sometimes I want that separation; sometimes I want the vegetables, battered shopfront and passing motorbike to remain recognisable.

I do not automatically use an 85mm wide open. At f/2.8 or f/4, it still separates the subject while retaining enough of the surroundings to give the photograph context. At f/5.6, the street may become an active part of the story.

The aperture should serve the photograph. The photograph should not exist merely to demonstrate the aperture.

The lens changes the way I look as well.

With a 35mm, I tend to see complete scenes. With an 85mm, I notice fragments: a glance across a market, a tired hand resting on a counter, the texture of an old face or the moment somebody stops pretending to ignore me.

A man in a blue shirt and mask sitting on a chair, holding a hose that sprays water into a bucket and a red basket filled with plastic bottles, in front of a makeshift shop with various items and a red wall in the background.

It encourages patience and selection. I cannot simply point it towards a busy street and hope that everything will somehow arrange itself. I have to identify the picture before I make it.

That is a valuable discipline, particularly after many years of photography. Experience can sharpen the eye, but it can also make us lazy. We begin to rely upon familiar habits. The 85mm demands a decision. It asks a simple question every time I raise the camera:

What exactly are you looking at?

On a Nikon D700, D810 or D850, an 85mm feels wonderfully purposeful. The older D700 produces files with a character I still enjoy, while the resolution of the D810 and D850 records almost frightening amounts of detail. Canon full-frame cameras—from the original 5D and 5D Mark II to the newer mirrorless bodies—give the lens the same natural field of view and portrait-friendly perspective.

A father helps his daughter with a toy on a scooter while a woman looks on, all in a bustling market filled with fresh fruits.

The badge on the camera matters far less than the relationship between focal length, photographer and subject.

Nikon’s 85mm f/1.8G is a sensiblely—[Correction: deservedly]—popular because it is sharp, reasonably light and does not require selling a kidney. Canon’s EF 85mm f/1.8 USM has performed the same honest service for generations of Canon photographers. The newer mirrorless versions may focus faster and test better, while the expensive f/1.4 and f/1.2 lenses offer more light and smoother backgrounds.

They are all capable of excellent work.

I have reached an age when carrying a heavy lens all afternoon is no longer evidence of professional commitment. It is simply a good way of acquiring a sore shoulder. The lighter f/1.8 lenses make sense. They are quick, discreet and good enough to expose every weakness in my own technique.

And the 85mm will expose those weaknesses.

It magnifies camera movement more readily than a 35mm or 50mm. On a high-resolution body, the old rule of using a shutter speed close to the focal length is often insufficient. I prefer at least 1/250 second for people, and frequently 1/320 or faster if they are moving.

I would rather increase the ISO than return home with a perfectly clean but slightly blurred photograph.

Image stabilisation can help with my movement, but it cannot stop the person in front of me from blinking, turning or lifting a hand. For street work, shutter speed remains one of the best forms of insurance.

At close distances and wide apertures, depth of field becomes thin. Focus must be deliberate. I concentrate on the nearest eye when the face is the centre of the picture, and I use continuous autofocus if the subject is moving. There is nothing romantic about missing focus. A soft photograph may possess atmosphere, but an accidentally soft eye is usually just an accidentally soft eye.

The lens has its limitations. It can be too tight inside buildings and frustrating in narrow streets. A full-length portrait may require so much backing up that I find myself against a wall, in somebody’s shop or dangerously close to moving traffic.

It is not the lens I would choose when the whole environment carries the story. Sometimes a 28mm or 35mm is the honest choice because the surroundings matter as much as the person.

A DSLR camera placed on a wooden table next to a small cup of coffee and glasses, with a street view including vehicles and pedestrians in the background.

Nor does using an 85mm absolve the photographer of responsibility. Distance is not permission. Photographing from several metres away does not turn a human being into public property. The same judgement, respect and decency apply regardless of focal length.

For me, the 85mm occupies a useful middle ground. It is not a wide-angle lens pushed aggressively into somebody’s personal space, and it is not a huge telephoto used from the safety of the opposite side of the road.

It keeps me involved without making me overpowering.

After decades of buying, selling and carrying cameras, I no longer believe that equipment creates a photographer’s voice. But certain lenses encourage certain ways of seeing. The 85mm makes me slow down, simplify the frame and pay attention to individuals.

Bright arcade game featuring a large spinning wheel labeled 'Boardwalk Big Spin' in a lively gaming environment.

It reminds me that street photography does not always have to be wide, frantic and packed with visual cleverness. Sometimes it can be one person, standing in decent light, giving away something of themselves for a fraction of a second.

The photographer’s job is to notice it.

That is why I use an 85mm on a full-frame Nikon or Canon. Not because it creates fashionable bokeh. Not because somebody on the internet has measured its sharpness. Not because portrait photographers say that I should.

I use it because it gives people space.

It allows me to stand back without becoming detached—and, every now and then, to make a photograph that feels remarkably close.

The Canon 5D Mark II: When a Camera Was Built to Make Pictures

cameras, canon, Lenses, opinons, thoughts, photography, street, Travel

Old Photographer Series

I have always had a soft spot for cameras that know what they are. The Canon 5D Mark II is one of them.

It is not a pocket computer pretending to be a camera. It does not recognise every living creature on the planet, track an eye through a crowd or offer fourteen different ways of photographing a sleeping dog. It is a solid, straightforward full-frame DSLR, built at a time when the photographer was still expected to provide most of the intelligence.

A person holding a Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera in front of a café with outdoor seating.

Canon introduced the 5D Mark II in 2008. Its 21.1-megapixel full-frame sensor was considered something rather special then, and I would argue that it remains perfectly adequate now. Twenty-one megapixels will produce a fine large print, allow a reasonable crop and record more detail than most photographs genuinely need.

If I cannot make a worthwhile picture with 21 megapixels, another 30 or 40 million of the little buggers are unlikely to rescue me.

That is something we occasionally forget. Cameras have improved enormously, but photography has not changed nearly as much. We still need light, timing, composition and a reason to press the shutter. The subject must still matter. The photographer must still notice what everybody else walks past.

The 5D Mark II provides everything necessary to do that.

Its autofocus system is modest by present standards. There are nine visible autofocus points, and most photographers quickly discover that the centre point is the one to trust. That was never a serious problem for me. I learned photography when cameras could not detect eyes, faces or animals. We focused on the part of the picture that mattered, recomposed when necessary and got on with the job.

There is nothing wrong with modern autofocus. It is astonishingly clever and genuinely useful. But clever equipment can encourage lazy cameramanship. When a camera promises to find the subject, focus on the correct eye and follow it around the frame, it becomes tempting to stop thinking.

The 5D Mark II makes no such promises. It asks you to participate.

You lift it to your eye and look through a proper optical viewfinder. You see the world as it is, not as an electronic screen thinks you would like it to appear. The camera does not brighten the shadows, simulate the exposure or show the finished photograph before it has been made. You read the light, choose your settings and take responsibility for the result.

Then the mirror rises and the shutter fires with a satisfying mechanical clack.

A photograph has been made. You can hear it and feel it.

A photographer captures a street scene at sunset, featuring people walking and traffic in a busy marketplace.

I like that. Perhaps it is because I am an old photographer, but I enjoy a camera that behaves like a machine. I want buttons I can find without looking, a decent grip and controls that make sense. I do not want to negotiate with pages of menus before taking a picture of somebody standing in good light.

The Canon’s large rear control wheel remains one of the best pieces of camera design ever produced. It falls naturally beneath the thumb, and after a little use, the camera begins to disappear in the hands. That is the point at which a piece of equipment becomes useful. You stop thinking about operating it and begin concentrating on what is happening in front of you.

The files from the 5D Mark II still have a lovely quality. They contain plenty of detail, attractive colour and particularly pleasing skin tones. Faces look warm and human rather than clinically perfect. With a decent lens and sympathetic light, it can produce portraits with depth, subtlety and character.

It does require reasonably accurate exposure. The sensor does not possess the extraordinary dynamic range of more recent cameras. If you badly underexpose a file and then try to drag three or four stops of detail out of the shadows, you may encounter noise or banding. Highlights also need watching.

I consider that a useful lesson rather than a fatal weakness.

Photography was never meant to be an endless exercise in rescuing careless exposures. The 5D Mark II encourages me to look at the light, check the histogram and get the picture close to correct when I take it. The RAW file gives me room to work, but it should not become an ambulance sent to collect every photographic mistake.

Put a 35mm or 50mm prime on the camera and it becomes a straightforward walkabout companion. There is no crop-factor arithmetic and no enormous collection of lenses to carry. A 35mm allows me to work close and include some environment. A 50mm gives a natural view of the street without making everything feel either stretched or compressed.

Fit an 85mm and the 5D Mark II becomes a very capable street-portrait camera. That combination gives me enough working distance to observe without immediately crowding the subject. I can concentrate on the eyes, expression and background. The autofocus may not put on a technological performance, but the central point is dependable. Place it carefully, confirm focus and take the picture.

One accurate focus point is worth more than a hundred dancing in the wrong place.

The 5D Mark II is not a lightweight camera, but neither is it the great lump that a Canon 1D-series body can be. It feels substantial without becoming a punishment. Add a small prime lens and it is perfectly manageable for a day on the street—although, at my age, I reserve the right to complain about the weight after several hours.

A Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera is positioned on a wooden desk, surrounded by a notebook, a pair of glasses, and black and white photographs.

The camera is famous for something beyond still photography. Its ability to record Full HD video with a full-frame sensor helped to change filmmaking. Independent filmmakers could suddenly create shallow depth of field and a cinematic look without hiring hugely expensive equipment. It appeared in television productions, documentaries and music videos, and its influence reached far beyond ordinary photography.

That is an important part of its history, but it is not the reason I would carry one.

I would carry it because it makes photographs.

Not photographs processed by computational trickery before I have even seen them. Not perfectly sanitised files scrubbed of every trace of noise, texture and imperfection. Photographs made with a shutter, a mirror, a good lens and a photographer who was paying attention.

Buying a 5D Mark II today requires some care. These are old cameras, and many were worked hard by wedding photographers, studio photographers and filmmakers. A few scratches would not worry me, but I would check the shutter, sensor, card slot, control wheels, buttons and autofocus. I would rather buy a clean, honest example from somebody who used it carefully than save a little money on a camera that has spent fifteen years being hammered.

Its CompactFlash cards feel old-fashioned. The rear screen is dated, live view is slow and video operation is primitive compared with modern machines. There is no in-body stabilisation, no electronic viewfinder and no miraculous autofocus system waiting to save the day.

Good.

Sometimes removing convenience restores concentration.

I would never claim that the Canon 5D Mark II is technically better than a modern mirrorless camera. It is not. New cameras offer cleaner high-ISO images, faster shooting, greater dynamic range and autofocus systems that appear to perform small acts of witchcraft.

But technical superiority does not automatically produce better photographs. Cameras can recognise an eye, but they cannot recognise sadness, dignity, humour or loneliness. They cannot understand why one gesture matters and another does not. They cannot know when an ordinary street scene has briefly become something worth remembering.

That responsibility remains with the person holding the camera.

This is why old cameras still matter to me. They have character, personality and soul. They are not simply tools; after enough years and enough miles, they become companions. We learn their strengths, forgive their weaknesses and stop asking them to be anything other than what they are.

The Canon 5D Mark II comes from a time when a camera was built to make pictures and the photographer was trusted to provide the ideas. It does enough without attempting to do everything. It gives me a full-frame sensor, pleasing files, a clear optical viewfinder and direct control over the exposure.

The rest is up to me.

Charge the battery, insert a card, attach a good lens and take it into the street. Forget its age. Forget the latest specifications. Look through the viewfinder and pay attention to the world.

If I return home with nothing worthwhile, I cannot blame its nine autofocus points or its 21 megapixels.

If I return with one photograph that genuinely matters, the Canon 5D Mark II will have done everything a camera was ever built to do.

Pixel Peeping: When the Photograph Gets Lost in the Pixels

printing, printers, Travel, pictures, photography, opinons, thoughts, street

Old Photographer Series

There was a time when we looked at photographs rather than inspected them.

We made a print, held it in our hands and stood back far enough to see the whole picture. We looked at the light, the composition, the expression and the moment. If the photograph moved us, informed us or held our attention, it had done its job.

Today, we can enlarge an image until a human eye fills the computer screen. We examine individual eyelashes, count skin pores and search the darkest shadows for traces of noise. We inspect the corners for softness and worry about details that nobody would ever notice in a print.

An older man with glasses thoughtfully gazes at a large computer monitor displaying a pixelated image of an eye, while sitting at a wooden desk cluttered with photography equipment and prints.

This is pixel peeping, and most photographers have done it.

I certainly have.

There are sensible reasons for looking closely at an image. If I want to know whether I nailed the focus, whether camera shake has crept in or whether a particular lens is behaving properly, viewing the file at 100% can be useful. It can expose poor technique rather quickly.

Modern high-resolution cameras can be unforgiving. Cameras such as the Nikon D810 and D850 record an extraordinary amount of detail, but they also reveal every small mistake. A shutter speed that would once have appeared perfectly adequate may leave the image looking slightly soft when enlarged on a large monitor. Poor handling, careless focusing and excessive noise reduction become much easier to see.

A close-up of a printed black and white photograph of a man with a beard and hat, accompanied by a magnifying glass placed over the eye in the image, resting on a wooden surface.

Pixel peeping can therefore teach us something.

If an entire set of photographs is soft, there is probably a reason. Perhaps the shutter speed was too low. Perhaps the autofocus point landed on the ear instead of the eye. Maybe the lens needs adjustment, or perhaps I was simply tired and failed to hold the camera steadily.

That is not obsessive inspection. It is diagnosis.

Close-up of a person's eye on a computer screen during photo editing, with a photographer at work, surrounded by a camera, notes, and coffee.

The problem begins when we stop using magnification as a tool and start using it as the final judge of a photograph.

Photography is not a laboratory test. A photograph does not become important because every hair is sharply resolved. Nor does it automatically fail because the shadows contain a little noise or because the far corner is not clinically sharp.

Some of the most memorable photographs ever made are technically imperfect. They contain grain, blur, missed focus and blocked shadows. Yet nobody cares because the photographs have life. They show something worth seeing.

The history of photography was not made at 200% magnification.

It was made in streets, homes, factories, demonstrations and war zones. It was made by photographers responding to the world in front of them. Many worked with slow film, manual focus and lenses that would probably receive rather ordinary scores in today’s technical reviews.

Their photographs survive because they possess meaning, not because the bricks in the background are sharp from edge to edge.

Street photography makes this especially clear. A gesture can disappear in a fraction of a second. A face changes, two people briefly connect, or a shaft of light falls across somebody passing through the frame. There is rarely time for technical perfection.

If I capture the expression but miss absolute focus by a whisker, I may still have a worthwhile photograph. If I wait until every setting is perfect, the moment will probably be gone.

I would rather have a slightly imperfect photograph of something than a perfectly sharp photograph of nothing.

Sharpness matters, of course. I am not suggesting that we should become careless. Good technique gives us a better chance of bringing home the picture we intended to make. The eyes in a portrait should usually be sharp, and camera shake is rarely attractive unless it contributes something to the image.

But “sharp enough” is not the same as technically flawless.

A person sitting at a desk, gazing at a computer screen displaying two black-and-white photos of a man wearing a hat, with an old camera and notebook to the side.

A photograph is normally seen as a complete object. It might appear on a website, in a book, on a wall or as a print held in the hand. Nobody studies a normal-sized photograph with their nose pressed against it, searching the corners for optical weakness.

Viewing a 36- or 45-megapixel image at 100% on a monitor is rather like examining an enormous print from a few inches away. It is not a natural viewing distance. Small faults appear enormous simply because we have enlarged them beyond any reasonable use.

This can become damaging. Photographers begin rejecting perfectly good images because of tiny technical imperfections. They start blaming their cameras and lenses. Before long, they are searching for sharper glass, more megapixels and better autofocus when there was nothing seriously wrong with the equipment they already owned.

The manufacturers must love pixel peeping. It keeps us dissatisfied.

There will always be a newer camera promising more resolution, less noise and smarter focusing. There will always be a lens that measures slightly sharper in the corners. We can spend a small fortune pursuing technical perfection and still fail to make an interesting photograph.

No camera can supply curiosity. No lens can recognise a meaningful moment. No amount of resolution can rescue an empty picture.

An elderly woman laughing and playing with a young child in a bustling market, captured in black and white. The scene has various baskets of fresh produce in the foreground and other market-goers in the background.

After many years of making photographs, I have learned to look at the complete image first. Before enlarging anything, I ask the important questions.

Does the photograph hold my attention? Is the composition working? Is there emotion, atmosphere or information? Does it show something beyond the simple fact that my camera and lens function correctly?

Only then do I look more closely.

If critical focus is slightly off, I decide whether it genuinely harms the photograph. Sometimes it does, and the image has to go. At other times, the moment is strong enough to carry a little imperfection. That is a judgement, not something software can decide for me.

Printing remains one of the best cures for pixel peeping. A print brings the photograph back into the physical world. It gives the image boundaries, scale and a proper viewing distance. Details that seemed troublesome on the monitor often disappear, while weaknesses in composition become much more obvious.

An elderly person holding a black and white photograph of a young child running on a rainy street, surrounded by pigeons and historical buildings in the background.

A technically perfect file does not always make a satisfying print. A slightly rough file sometimes makes a wonderful one.

That is because photographs are meant to be experienced, not dissected.

Pixel peeping has its place. Use it to check focus, examine technique, test equipment or prepare a photograph for a large print. Let it help you understand what went wrong and how to improve next time.

Then zoom back out.

Look at the people. Look at the light. Look at the moment you were trying to preserve.

Pixel peeping can tell us whether a lens is sharp. It can tell us whether the autofocus landed in the correct place and whether we selected a sensible shutter speed. What it cannot tell us is whether the photograph has a soul.

After all these years, that remains the part that matters most.

Nikon D300S and Nikkor 50mm f1.4D: Still There?

cameras, Lenses, Travel, pictures, photography, opinons, thoughts, street, nikon

The Nikon D300S is old. There is no point pretending otherwise. It appeared in 2009, when 12 megapixels were considered quite sufficient and cameras were still expected to be cameras rather than computers with lenses attached.

Today, it is dismissed as obsolete. Too few pixels, too much noise and none of the modern wizardry that identifies eyes, animals, vehicles and possibly the intentions of the photographer. Yet attach a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4, charge the battery and take it into the street, and the old Nikon quietly reminds you that it has not forgotten how to make a photograph.

On the D300S, the 50mm gives roughly the same field of view as a 75mm lens on a full-frame camera. That makes it less of a general-purpose standard lens and more of a short portrait lens. It is particularly well suited to faces, small gestures and those moments on the street that benefit from a little distance.

The f/1.4 aperture gives the camera something its ageing sensor appreciates: light. The D300S is at its best between ISO 200 and 800. ISO 1600 remains useful if the exposure is right, but this is not a camera that enjoys having badly underexposed shadows dragged back from the dead in Lightroom.

You have to expose properly.

That was once considered a normal part of photography.

The 50mm is not perfectly sharp at f/1.4. It can be slightly soft, with lower contrast and a little colour fringing around bright edges. That does not always matter. Used for a portrait, the gentler rendering can be rather attractive. Stop it down to f/2 or f/2.8 and it becomes a different lens—sharper, stronger and still capable of separating the subject from the background.

Both the older 50mm f/1.4D and the newer f/1.4G work properly on the D300S. The camera has its own autofocus motor, so the screw-driven D lens is perfectly at home. Autofocus may not possess modern eye-detection intelligence, but the D300S has Nikon’s excellent 51-point system. Put the focus point over the eye and it will usually do exactly what it is told.

The body still feels magnificent. Solid, purposeful and designed for a photographer’s hands. Important controls have proper buttons and dials. The viewfinder is clear, the shutter response is immediate and the camera will keep working without trying to offer advice.

The files are only 12.3 megapixels, but “only” is doing rather a lot of unnecessary work in that sentence. Twelve megapixels are enough for strong prints, websites, publications and most of the ways photographs are actually viewed. A poor photograph does not improve because it contains 45 million pixels, and a good one does not become irrelevant because it contains twelve.

Naturally, there are limitations. Highlights require care. The shadows cannot be opened endlessly. High ISO files show their age, and the video function is best forgotten. There is no stabilisation, no electronic viewfinder and no autofocus system clever enough to find the subject while you think about something else.

You must hold the camera steadily. You must choose the focus point. You must watch the shutter speed, understand the light and press the button at the right moment.

In other words, you must take the photograph yourself.

Perhaps that is why I still enjoy cameras such as the D300S. They do not attempt to flatter us. They reward good technique and expose lazy habits. When the picture is sharp, properly exposed and alive with something worth seeing, you know that you had a hand in making it.

The D300S and 50mm f/1.4 combination is particularly good for street portraits. The lens gives enough distance to observe without crowding people, while the wide aperture separates a face from the usual confusion of the street. It is a simple combination: one camera, one lens and one way of looking.

Is it old? Certainly.

Is it technologically outdated? Of course.

Is it obsolete? Not while it still makes the pictures you want to make.

The Nikon D300S does not know that the camera industry has left it behind. Fit the 50mm, walk into decent light and it simply gets on with the job. Quietly, reliably and without fanfare.

Sometimes an old camera is not waiting to be replaced.

It is waiting to be used.

The Travelling Photographer’s Essentials: Old Photographer Series.

cameras, fujifilm, Lenses, Lowepro, nikon, opinons, thoughts, photography, pictures, street, Travel

There was a time when I travelled with enough photographic equipment to open a small camera shop. Two camera bodies, several lenses, flashguns, filters, chargers, spare batteries, cleaning equipment and a tripod heavy enough to support a railway bridge.

Age—and several decades of sore shoulders—has taught me differently. The travelling photographer does not need to carry everything. He needs to carry the right things and, more importantly, understand how to use them.

My first essential is a dependable camera. It does not have to be the latest model, possess the most megapixels or arrive with artificial intelligence hiding behind every button. It must simply be a camera I know and trust.

For me, that might be an old Nikon D700, a D3S or the magnificent D850 when I want every last piece of detail. The important thing is familiarity. When something happens in front of me, I do not want to search through menus or wonder which button controls the focus mode. The camera should feel like an old friend—slightly battered perhaps, but always ready.

Then there is the lens.

One good lens is often enough. A 35mm or 50mm prime makes a wonderfully simple travelling companion. A practical zoom such as a 24–70mm or 24–120mm gives greater flexibility without requiring a bag full of glass. If I know that people will be my principal subject, an 85mm may earn its place.

The temptation is to pack a lens for every possibility. Resist it. Too many choices slow the photographer down. You begin changing lenses instead of making pictures.

A spare battery is essential. Two are better if the day will be long. Batteries have a wicked sense of humour and usually expire just as the light becomes beautiful or something interesting begins to happen.

Memory cards should be reliable, sensibly sized and carried somewhere safe. I would rather use several moderate-capacity cards than trust an entire journey to one enormous card. Cards can fail, disappear or be accidentally formatted. Spreading the work across more than one is a small form of insurance.

Every evening, whenever possible, I copy the day’s photographs onto a laptop or portable drive. Ideally, I keep two copies in separate places. A camera can be replaced. The photographs from a journey cannot.

A comfortable camera strap matters more than most people realise. The strap supplied with the camera may be adequate for an afternoon, but after eight hours in the heat it can begin to feel like a cheese wire. A good shoulder or wrist strap keeps the camera secure without advertising its value to everybody in the street.

The camera bag should be small, strong and ordinary-looking. I do not need something that resembles military luggage and announces that expensive equipment is inside. It must protect the camera, provide quick access and leave enough room for the unglamorous necessities: water, tissues, a notebook and perhaps something to eat.

Good footwear may be the most important photographic equipment I own. Travelling photography is done with the feet. Interesting pictures are rarely made while sitting in an air-conditioned hotel room complaining about the midday light.

Comfortable, broken-in shoes allow me to keep walking, turn down another street and stay out for another hour. That extra hour is often when the best photograph appears.

Clothing should suit the place rather than the photographer’s imagined appearance. Lightweight, loose clothing works in the Cambodian heat. A hat offers protection from the sun, while a light waterproof layer can save both photographer and camera when the sky suddenly opens.

Water is not optional. Neither is sun protection. An exhausted, dehydrated photographer stops seeing properly and begins making foolish decisions. Travel photography requires enough energy to remain observant, patient and respectful.

A small cleaning cloth and blower are useful, especially in dusty streets or humid conditions. There is no need to carry a laboratory. Most cleaning can wait until the evening. Changing lenses in wind, dust or heavy rain should be avoided whenever possible.

I also carry a notebook. A mobile phone can record names and details, but a notebook never runs out of power and does not distract me with messages. If I photograph somebody and speak with them, I can write down their name, the location and a few details about the encounter. Those notes may later give the photograph its proper meaning.

The phone remains valuable. It provides maps, weather information, translation, emergency communication and a perfectly capable backup camera. I may be an old photographer, but I am not foolish enough to ignore a useful tool simply because it does not have a Nikon badge.

Documents, money and emergency information need careful thought. I keep copies of my passport, insurance details and important telephone numbers separately from the originals. A little local currency should be kept somewhere accessible, with the remainder divided between safer locations.

Respect is another essential, although it weighs nothing.

Learn something about the country. Understand local customs. Notice when a camera is welcome and when it is not. A photograph is never worth humiliating somebody, entering a sacred place improperly or creating trouble for a person who has allowed you into their life.

Finally, carry curiosity.

Equipment may help us record what we find, but curiosity is what leads us towards it. Walk slowly. Look behind you, look up. Leave the obvious tourist route. Sit somewhere and allow life to continue without chasing it. Talk to people without immediately raising the camera.

The travelling photographer’s essentials are not really about preparing for every possible picture. They are about remaining light enough—physically and mentally—to recognise the picture that is actually there.

After all these years, my packing list has become shorter. One trusted camera. One useful lens. Batteries, cards, water, good shoes and somewhere safe to store the photographs.

Everything else is negotiable.

The eyes are not.

Getting Sharp Photos with the Nikon D3S

Lenses, nikon, opinons, thoughts, photography, pictures, street, Travel

Old Photographer Series

The Nikon D3S has never needed much help making a good photograph. It was designed for working photographers—people standing beside football pitches, waiting outside courtrooms, covering dimly lit concerts and photographing events where failure was not considered part of the job.

Even so, a professional camera cannot rescue careless technique.

The D3S may be built like a small armoured vehicle, but sharp pictures still begin with the person holding it. After all these years, I have learned that softness is rarely the camera’s fault. More often, it comes from asking too much of the shutter speed, mishandling the autofocus or simply failing to hold the bloody thing properly.

Fortunately, the D3S is one of the easiest cameras to hold properly. Its substantial body sits naturally in the hands, particularly with larger lenses. There is enough weight to steady the camera without making it feel lifeless. With the left hand supporting the lens from underneath and the right hand controlling the camera, the whole arrangement becomes remarkably stable.

Do not hold the lens from the side as though you are gripping a beer bottle. Support its weight underneath. Bring your elbows closer to your body, relax your shoulders and press the shutter smoothly rather than stabbing at it. If there is a wall, post or doorway nearby, use it. Pride has never produced a sharper photograph.

The old advice about using a shutter speed equal to the focal length remains useful, but it should not be treated as a guarantee. With a 50mm lens, 1/50 second might be possible. With an 85mm, 1/100 second sounds reasonable. In practice, however, people move, photographers sway and moments happen quickly.

For street photography with the D3S, I would rather use 1/250 or 1/320 second as my starting point. If people are walking briskly, I will move to 1/500. For lively children, performers or unpredictable action, 1/800 or 1/1000 second is far safer.

There is little honour in using a low ISO if the resulting photograph is blurred.

That is where the D3S still earns its keep. Its 12-megapixel sensor may appear modest beside the enormous files produced by modern cameras, but its high-ISO performance remains excellent. ISO 1600 presents no serious problem. Neither does ISO 3200 when the exposure is right. I would happily use ISO 6400 if it gave me the shutter speed needed to secure the picture.

A sharp photograph with a little noise is still a photograph. A perfectly clean but badly blurred file is usually just something to delete.

Autofocus technique matters just as much. The D3S uses Nikon’s 51-point Multi-CAM 3500FX system, and although it predates the subject-recognition systems found in the newest cameras, it remains fast, dependable and remarkably capable.

For stationary subjects, AF-S with a single focus point works well. Place that point over the most important part of the picture—usually the nearest eye—and make the exposure. Do not let the camera decide that a shirt collar, ear or background sign is more interesting than the face.

For moving people, AF-C is the better choice. I generally prefer Dynamic-area AF, using either nine or 21 points depending on how erratic the subject is. The selected point tells the camera where to begin, while the surrounding points help maintain focus if the subject shifts slightly.

The important thing is to keep the active point on the subject and continue following the movement. The D3S cannot focus through carelessness. If the focus point drifts onto the background, that is often where the camera will focus.

Back-button focusing can also make the camera easier to control. Separating autofocus from the shutter release allows me to focus with my thumb and take the picture with my forefinger. It takes a little time to become accustomed to it, but once learned, it removes much of the indecision from shooting.

For a portrait, I can focus on the eye, release the button and make several frames without the camera attempting to refocus each time. When something starts moving, I hold the button down and the camera tracks continuously. It is a simple arrangement that works particularly well with a professional Nikon body.

Lens choice also plays its part. Every lens has its limits, and even an excellent prime may not deliver its best performance wide open. A fast 85mm f/1.8 can produce beautiful pictures at f/1.8, but the depth of field at close distance is extremely narrow. Focus on the eyelashes and the iris may already be soft. Focus on the near eye and the far eye may fall outside the sharp area.

That is not faulty equipment. It is optics.

Unless I specifically want the shallowest possible depth of field, I often stop down to f/2.8, f/3.2 or f/4. The lens becomes more forgiving, depth of field increases and there is a better chance that the important parts of the face will remain sharp.

With a zoom lens, f/5.6 or f/8 can be an excellent working aperture in decent light. The D3S was built for photographers who needed usable pictures, not for people determined to prove that they owned an f/1.4 lens.

Exposure must also be correct. Underexposing badly and then dragging the shadows upwards in editing increases noise and weakens fine detail. The D3S handles poor light very well, but it still benefits from receiving enough light in the first place. I watch the highlights, expose generously without clipping anything important and avoid relying on software to repair a lazy exposure.

Burst shooting can help, but it should be used with some restraint. The D3S can shoot at professional sports-camera speeds, yet firing a dozen frames does not guarantee that any of them will be good. For a moving subject, a short burst of two or three frames is often enough. One may catch the exact point where the person’s movement settles and everything becomes sharp.

The camera should be checked occasionally as well. If one lens consistently front-focuses or back-focuses, the D3S provides autofocus fine-tuning. That feature is useful, but it should not become the first suspect every time a picture looks soft.

Before adjusting anything, put the camera on a firm support, use good light, choose a clear target and test it carefully. Many supposed autofocus problems disappear when tested properly. The original fault was often camera movement, subject movement or unrealistic expectations at maximum aperture.

There is another advantage to the D3S that is sometimes overlooked: its relatively modest resolution. Twelve megapixels are sufficient for strong prints, editorial work and normal online use, but they are not quite as merciless as today’s 45- or 60-megapixel sensors. Minor imperfections are less obvious, files are easier to handle and the pictures retain a natural quality.

That does not mean the D3S produces soft images. With good technique and a decent lens, its files are crisp, detailed and wonderfully solid. They simply do not shout about sharpness in the brittle, overprocessed manner we sometimes see today.

My basic D3S arrangement for photographing people is straightforward: AF-C, Dynamic nine-point autofocus, a minimum shutter speed of around 1/250 second, Auto ISO allowed to rise as necessary and an aperture chosen for the depth of field I actually need. If the subject is moving quickly, I increase the shutter speed. If the light is poor, I raise the ISO. If the face needs more depth, I stop the lens down.

Nothing clever. Nothing fashionable. Just settings that help bring the photograph home.

Sharpness matters, but it is not the purpose of photography. A perfectly sharp photograph of nothing remains a photograph of nothing. Expression, timing, light and human presence will always matter more.

But when the moment does arrive—when the face changes, the eyes meet yours and the picture suddenly presents itself—you owe it to that moment to be ready.

The Nikon D3S will do its part.

The old photographer must still do his.

Mastering Camera Technique for Sharp Photos

cameras, Lenses, Travel, pictures, photography, opinons, thoughts, street, nikon

Old Photographer Series.

There is an uncomfortable truth about sharp photographs that photographers don’t always want to hear.

Sometimes it isn’t the lens.

It isn’t the autofocus.

It isn’t Nikon.

It’s us.

More specifically, it’s the person holding the bloody camera.

I’ve found this particularly noticeable with two cameras I know well: the Nikon D810 and Nikon D850. The D810 gives you 36.3 megapixels and the D850 raises that to 45.7 megapixels, both without an optical low-pass filter. These are cameras designed to record an enormous amount of fine detail.

That’s wonderful.

It also means they are very good at recording your mistakes.

When I first started examining files from these high-resolution Nikons, there was an obvious temptation when something wasn’t quite sharp.

Was the autofocus slightly out? Was the lens soft? Did the AF need fine-tuning? Perhaps I needed a better lens. Perhaps the shutter was causing vibration.

All of those things are possible.

But increasingly I’ve found that the main culprit is considerably simpler.

Camera shake.

And the more resolution you have, the easier it becomes to see.

High resolution demands something from the photographer

This is one of the peculiarities of modern digital photography. The fundamentals haven’t changed. We still have aperture, shutter speed and sensitivity. We still have to focus the lens.

And if we’re hand-holding the camera, we still have to hold it steady while the exposure is being made.

What has changed is our ability to examine the result.

Take a 45.7-megapixel D850 file and display it at 100% on a large monitor and you’re examining the photograph at a scale we rarely contemplated in the film days. Suddenly tiny movements become visible. A photograph can look perfectly respectable on the back of the camera and then appear slightly disappointing when opened on the computer.

Not horribly blurred. That’s easy to diagnose.

I’m talking about that irritating sort of softness where you think: That should be sharper.

That’s when I start looking at shutter speed and technique before blaming the equipment.

Forget blindly following the old reciprocal rule

For generations we’ve been told about the old hand-holding rule.

With a 50mm lens, use roughly 1/50 or 1/60 second.

With an 85mm, use around 1/80 or 1/100.

With a 200mm, use 1/200.

It was useful advice. It still provides a reasonable reference point. But I don’t regard it as a guarantee with the D810 or D850. Certainly not with the D850.

If I’m walking around with my D850 and Nikkor 85mm f/1.8G, I’d much rather have something around 1/200 or 1/250 second as my normal minimum for photographing people. And if I can get 1/320 or 1/500 without paying too much of a price elsewhere, I’m perfectly happy to take it.

Why gamble?

ISO performance is good enough that I’d rather increase ISO than sacrifice the photograph because I was determined to keep the camera at ISO 64 or 100. A sharp photograph at ISO 800 beats a blurred photograph at ISO 100 every time. We sometimes become so frightened of noise that we forget blur is usually far more destructive.

Noise can be reduced.

A photograph ruined by movement generally stays ruined.

There are two things moving

This becomes particularly important when photographing people.

There’s the camera. And there’s the person.

You can hold the D850 perfectly still at 1/60 second and still end up with a soft photograph because the person moved.

A head turns. A hand moves. Somebody takes a step. An expression changes.

That’s why I like a little shutter-speed insurance.

Street photography isn’t landscape photography. People don’t stand still simply because we’ve decided to photograph them. With the 85mm, especially, I want enough shutter speed to control my movement and theirs.

How you hold the camera matters

This sounds ridiculously basic. Good. Basic things matter.

The left hand belongs underneath the lens, supporting the weight. Not hanging off the side of it. The right hand grips the camera firmly but doesn’t strangle it. Elbows come towards the body rather than sticking out like wings. The camera comes gently against the face.

And your stance matters.

Feet reasonably apart. Balanced. Not leaning forward on one leg while twisting yourself into some impossible position and expecting 45 megapixels of perfection.

We’re photographers, not bloody contortionists.

If there’s a wall nearby, I’ll use it. Lamp post? Use it. Railing? Use it. Tree?

Perfect.

Anything solid that removes a little movement from the equation is useful. There’s no prize for making life unnecessarily difficult.

Then there’s the shutter finger

This one makes me smile. I’ve watched photographers spend ages carefully composing a photograph, steadying the camera, holding their breath… …and then stab the shutter button as though they’re trying to start a lawnmower.

The shutter should be squeezed. Smooth pressure. Nothing dramatic. That tiny downward jab with the index finger can move the camera just when everything else is perfectly positioned.

At fast shutter speeds it may make no difference. At marginal shutter speeds it certainly can.

The same applies to breathing. I’m not talking about turning photography into sniper training, but there’s a reason good shooting technique has traditionally involved breathing.

Get comfortable.

Compose.

Breathe normally. Let the breath out. Settle. Squeeze.

Click.

After enough years, it becomes automatic.

The D810 and D850 themselves can produce vibration

There is another complication worth mentioning because not every slightly soft photograph is caused by the photographer.

DSLRs contain moving mechanical parts. There’s a mirror and a shutter.

Nikon itself provided both the D810 and D850 with electronic front-curtain shutter options specifically to reduce blur caused by shutter movement. Nikon also recommends techniques such as mirror-up and exposure delay when maximum stability is required.

That’s significant. Even on a tripod, tiny internal vibrations can matter when you’re chasing maximum resolution.

For ordinary handheld street photography I’m not going to wander around using mirror-up and waiting two seconds for every exposure. The person I’m photographing would probably have gone home by then.

But it’s useful to understand what’s happening.

For landscapes, architecture, copying work or anything static where absolute sharpness matters, these features are worth using.

For hand-held people photography, my solution is generally simpler:

Give me more shutter speed.

Don’t be frightened of ISO

This is probably where my thinking has changed most over the years.

I used to protect low ISO. Many of us did. With film, choosing the film speed was a decision you made before taking the photograph. Put ISO 100 film in the camera and, barring some creative processing, you had ISO 100 until you finished the roll.

Digital changed that completely. Yet sometimes we still behave as though changing ISO is somehow admitting defeat. It isn’t.

ISO is a tool.

If I’m walking around and the light changes constantly, Auto ISO can be enormously useful. I’ll choose the aperture I want. I’ll establish a shutter speed below which I don’t want the camera falling. And I’ll let ISO move around within sensible limits.

With the D850 and 85mm f/1.8G, I’d rather see the ISO climb than watch the shutter speed quietly fall from 1/250 to 1/125 to 1/60 while I’m concentrating on what’s happening in front of me.

The D850 is capable of a standard sensitivity range from ISO 64 to 25,600. We have plenty of room to work with. Use it.

Sharpness isn’t everything

Now, having spent all this time talking about sharpness, I’ll contradict myself.

A photograph doesn’t have to be perfectly sharp to be a good photograph.

Some of the greatest photographs ever made wouldn’t survive five minutes in an online camera forum. There’d be somebody enlarging an eye to 400% and announcing that the photographer had missed critical focus.

Who cares?

If the photograph works, it works.

Emotion matters.

Timing matters.

Composition matters.

Light matters.

Gesture matters.

What the photograph says matters.

Technical perfection with nothing to say is still a boring photograph.

But there’s a difference between deliberately accepting movement because the photograph matters and accidentally ruining a photograph through sloppy technique.

That’s the distinction I’m interested in.

If the photograph is soft because somebody moved at exactly the right moment and that movement gives the picture life—wonderful.

If it’s soft because I couldn’t be bothered to hold the camera properly?

That’s on me.

Stop blaming the lens

Modern photographers have become slightly obsessed with lens sharpness. We read MTF charts. We watch people photograph brick walls. We worry about corner sharpness at f/1.8.

Then we go outside, shoot an 85mm lens at 1/60 second while standing badly, jab the shutter button and wonder why the £500 lens isn’t tack sharp. The lens never stood a chance.

Before deciding a lens is soft, I’d check some very ordinary things. Was the shutter speed high enough? Was the focus actually where I intended it to be? Was the subject moving? Was I moving? Was I balanced properly? Did I squeeze the shutter? Was depth of field sufficient?

Only after eliminating those would I start accusing the equipment.

The D850 teaches discipline

Perhaps this is one of the things I like about the D850. It rewards good technique. But it doesn’t hide bad technique.

The resolution is unforgiving enough to remind me that all the technological progress in the world hasn’t abolished the basic responsibilities of the photographer.

I still have to look. I still have to compose. I still have to focus.

And I still have to hold the bloody camera still.

After more than forty years of making photographs, I find something rather reassuring about that. We spend thousands on cameras capable of extraordinary resolution. We buy beautifully sharp lenses. We have autofocus systems that can follow moving subjects around the frame. We have RAW processors capable of extracting extraordinary detail.

And yet one of the most effective improvements we can make costs absolutely nothing.

Stand properly. Support the lens. Tuck the elbows in. Watch the shutter speed. Control your breathing. Squeeze rather than stab. And if the light isn’t sufficient, raise the bloody ISO.

That’s it.

No firmware update required. No new lens. No new camera. Just better technique.

The Nikon D810 and D850 are extraordinary photographic machines. But neither can repeal the laws of physics.

Forty-five megapixels don’t make the photographer steadier.

They simply make it easier to see when he wasn’t.

And perhaps that’s one of the best things a camera can do.

Make us improve.

Old Photographer Series

Nikon D850 and 85mm: A Perfect Street Photography Duo

cameras, Lenses, photography, opinons, thoughts, street, nikon

Old Photographer Series

There are camera and lens combinations that make perfect sense on paper. And then there are combinations that make sense when you actually go outside and use them.

For me, the Nikon D850 with the Nikkor 85mm f/1.8G belongs firmly in the second category.

On paper, it’s an impressive combination. The D850 gives me 45.7 megapixels, excellent dynamic range, a serious autofocus system and one of the best optical viewfinders Nikon ever put into a DSLR. The 85mm f/1.8G gives me a relatively small and light short telephoto with a fast aperture and excellent image quality.

That’s all very nice. But specifications aren’t why I like it.

I like it because of the way it makes me photograph people.

I’ve always enjoyed the 85mm focal length. There is something about the distance it puts between me and the person I’m photographing. I’m not standing six feet away with a 35mm lens pointing a camera directly into somebody’s face. I’m farther back. I can watch.

And watching has always been one of the most important parts of photography for me. You begin to notice things. The way somebody stands. A hand resting against a wall. Two people talking. A face suddenly illuminated as somebody turns towards the light. A cigarette being raised. A glance across the road.

These things happen quickly, but they don’t always need to be photographed from three feet away.

Sometimes standing back allows the photograph to happen.

The 85mm gives me that space.

And the D850 gives me the confidence that when I press the shutter, there will be plenty in the file.

The 85mm changes the way you see

Put a 35mm lens on a camera and the street becomes part of the photograph.

Put an 85mm on it and you start selecting pieces from the street. That’s an important difference.

With a wider lens I’m thinking about foreground, background, architecture, people and how everything fits together.

With the 85mm I’m looking for something else.

I’m looking for the picture inside the scene.

A person framed against a doorway. A face separated from a chaotic background. A splash of colour. Someone caught for a second in good light. A small gesture that would disappear inside a wider composition.

The 85mm simplifies things.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve always liked it.

After enough years taking photographs, I’ve become less interested in putting everything into the frame. Quite often I’m trying to remove things.

The 85mm does some of that work before I even press the shutter.

Then put 45.7 megapixels behind it

This is where the D850 becomes interesting. The 85mm f/1.8G is easily good enough to produce beautifully detailed files on the D850. And those files are enormous.

I don’t photograph with the intention of cropping everything afterwards. I still want to make the composition in the viewfinder. That’s part of taking the photograph.

But I’m not precious about cropping either.

If taking a little off the edge improves the picture, I’ll do it. If changing the proportions makes the photograph stronger, I’ll do that too.

The photograph matters more than some imaginary rule about preserving every millimetre of the original frame. And 45.7 megapixels gives me tremendous freedom.

I can photograph somebody slightly more loosely, leaving a little room for movement, and decide afterwards exactly where the edges belong. That’s particularly useful with people because people have the irritating habit of moving.

The D850 gives me room to work.

Sharpness isn’t everything

People talk endlessly about sharp lenses. This one certainly is. The Nikkor 85mm f/1.8G is capable of producing an enormous amount of detail on the D850, particularly once stopped down slightly.

But I don’t walk around photographing resolution charts.

For me, the more interesting characteristic is what happens to the background. At wider apertures the 85mm separates a person beautifully from everything behind them.

You don’t necessarily need to shoot at f/1.8. In fact, I often prefer a little more depth of field. At f/2.2, f/2.8 or f/4, there is still plenty of separation while giving me a little insurance if the person moves. That’s important.

At close distances, f/1.8 can give very little depth of field. Get the focus slightly wrong and you can have wonderfully sharp eyelashes and soft eyes. That’s not quite the triumph we were hoping for.

Sometimes photographers become obsessed with shooting a fast lens permanently wide open because they’ve paid for f/1.8. You don’t have to.

The aperture ring isn’t welded in position. Use what the photograph needs.

The D850 isn’t subtle

Let’s get this out of the way. Nobody is going to mistake a Nikon D850 for a discreet little street camera. It’s a substantial lump. People notice it.

But the 85mm f/1.8G helps.

Instead of putting a huge 70–200mm f/2.8 on the front and walking around looking like I’ve been assigned to photograph the Olympics, the 85mm keeps the whole arrangement relatively sensible. The lens weighs roughly 350 grams. For an 85mm full-frame lens capable of f/1.8, that’s refreshingly reasonable. The balance on the D850 is excellent. The body gives me something substantial to hold while the lens doesn’t drag the whole thing forward.

It’s still not light. After several kilometres my feet and shoulders will happily provide a second opinion. But it is a combination I can actually walk with. And that’s important because street photography involves an awful lot more walking than photographing.

Distance without detachment

There’s a criticism sometimes made about longer lenses in street photography. People say they make the photographer detached.

I don’t agree.

Distance and detachment aren’t the same thing.

You can stand two metres from somebody and make a photograph containing absolutely no connection whatsoever. Or you can stand fifteen metres away and notice a tiny human moment that says something. The connection comes from the photographer. Not the focal length.

What the 85mm gives me is breathing room. I can observe before I photograph. That’s important to the way I work.

I’m interested in people, but I’m not interested in turning every encounter into a confrontation between photographer and subject. Sometimes I’ll talk. Sometimes I’ll ask. Sometimes somebody knows perfectly well I’m photographing them. And sometimes I’m simply observing ordinary life unfolding in a public place. The 85mm allows all of those approaches.

Autofocus that simply works

Modern mirrorless cameras have extraordinary autofocus. Eye detection is wonderful technology. But I don’t find myself struggling with the D850.

Its 153-point autofocus system remains extremely capable.

Put an AF point where I want it. Focus. Take the photograph. That’s basically it.

The 85mm f/1.8G focuses quickly enough for the kind of work I’m doing. I’m not photographing Formula One cars coming towards me at 200 mph. I’m photographing people.

Walking. Talking. Working. Waiting. Living.

The combination handles that perfectly well.

And because I’ve used Nikon DSLRs for years, I don’t spend much time thinking about the controls. That might be the greatest advantage of all.

A familiar camera becomes almost invisible to the photographer.

My fingers know where things are. My eye stays in the viewfinder. I’m watching what’s happening rather than searching through menus.

The viewfinder matters

This is another reason I enjoy the D850. That big optical viewfinder with an 85mm attached is a lovely way to look at people. There’s no electronic screen between me and what’s happening. Just glass, mirror, light and the subject.

Perhaps I’m showing my age. That’s fine. I’m an old photographer. I’m allowed.

I don’t dislike electronic viewfinders. They’re extremely useful and modern ones are superb. But an optical viewfinder still feels different.

It’s immediate. The world doesn’t suddenly become brighter because I’ve changed exposure compensation. The photograph hasn’t happened yet. I have to judge it. I rather enjoy that.

It’s not a perfect combination

Nothing is.

The D850 is heavy. The shutter isn’t quiet. There is no in-body stabilisation. Forty-five-megapixel RAW files consume storage at an impressive rate.

And 85mm isn’t a universal focal length. Sometimes there’s simply nowhere to stand. You’re backed against a wall wishing you’d brought a 35mm. Sometimes something happens close to you and the 85mm is just too tight. You miss photographs. That’s the price of using a prime lens.

But there’s another side to that.

Restrictions make you work.

If I’ve got an 85mm attached, I start looking for 85mm photographs. Instead of constantly zooming in and out, I move. Or I wait.

Or I accept that a particular photograph isn’t mine. That’s not necessarily a bad discipline.

One camera. One lens.

There’s something wonderfully uncomplicated about leaving home with one camera and one lens. No bag full of alternatives. No standing on a street corner wondering whether I should change from the 35mm to the 50mm or perhaps try the 70–200mm.

Just the D850. The 85mm. A spare battery that I’ll probably never need. And my feet.

Then the photography begins.

The longer I take photographs, the less interested I become in having every possible option available.

Too much equipment can become its own distraction. You start thinking about cameras instead of pictures. I love cameras. I’ve owned plenty of them and enjoyed most of them.

But eventually the camera has to shut up and let me work.

The D850 and 85mm f/1.8G do that.

They give me extraordinary image quality without requiring much thought. I know what 85mm looks like. I know roughly where I need to stand. I know how the D850 behaves. So I can concentrate on the difficult part.

Finding something worth photographing.

And no camera manufacturer has found an autofocus mode for that yet.

Standing back, looking closer

That’s really what this combination means to me. The 85mm lets me stand back. But it makes me look closer. Instead of photographing everything, I start noticing individuals.

Faces. Expressions. Hands. Small interactions. Little fragments of ordinary life that exist for a second and disappear.

The D850 records those moments with almost ridiculous amounts of detail.

But the detail isn’t the photograph. Neither is the bokeh. Neither is the sharpness. Neither is 45.7 megapixels. Those things are merely ingredients.

The photograph is still about the person.

After more than four decades of making pictures, that is increasingly what matters to me. Not whether my camera is the latest. Not whether another photographer thinks 85mm is the correct focal length for street photography. Not whether my equipment scores brilliantly in somebody’s laboratory test.

Just whether the combination works for me. And this one does. The Nikon D850 and Nikkor 85mm f/1.8G aren’t small. They aren’t fashionable. They aren’t particularly discreet. And neither is remotely new.

Good.

I’ll leave fashionable to somebody else.

Give me the D850. Give me the 85mm. Give me a street full of people and a few hours to walk. I’ll find the pictures.

That’s what the camera is for.

Old Photographer Series

I Put a $35 Lens on a $380 Nikon D850 — And Took It to the Streets

cameras, Lenses, Travel, pictures, photography, opinons, thoughts, street, nikon

Old Photographer Series

A few days ago I asked myself a fairly simple question.

What happens when you put a $35 lens from another photographic age onto a 45.7-megapixel Nikon D850?

Now I know. You go out and make photographs. And the photographs turn out to be considerably more interesting than the question.

The lens is my old Nikon AF Nikkor 70–210mm f/4–5.6. I didn’t buy it specially for this experiment. I’ve owned it for some time and paid the princely sum of $35 for it. I’ve used it successfully on my Nikon D700, so I already knew it wasn’t rubbish.

But the D700 has a 12-megapixel sensor. The D850 has 45.7 megapixels.

According to one particular school of internet photography, putting an inexpensive old autofocus zoom in front of that sensor is bordering on criminal negligence.

Apparently the D850 demands the finest glass.

Perhaps somebody forgot to tell my lens.

The D850 itself is another second-hand adventure. I recently picked it up for $380. It looks almost ridiculously good externally, although its shutter count is somewhere north of 300,000.

So we have a high-mileage professional DSLR that cost $380 and an old Nikon zoom that cost $35.

Total investment: $415.

I decided to take the combination onto the streets and see what happened.

No brick walls. No test charts. No tripod carefully positioned in the living room. No photographs of newspapers designed to reveal whether the extreme corner at 210mm is microscopically less sharp than the centre.

I photographed what I normally photograph.

People. Buildings. Details. Colour. The odd cat. Life.

Because after more than 45 years of making pictures, that’s the only lens test I’m really interested in.

The first surprise wasn’t really a surprise at all. The old Nikkor is sharp. Not “surprisingly sharp considering it cost $35.” Sharp.

The cat provided a rather good test. Fine fur, whiskers and those extraordinary green eyes all came through beautifully. The D850 certainly wasn’t sitting there waiting desperately for a more expensive lens.

The old wooden wheels were another useful example. Wood grain, spokes, rust, vegetation, corrugated metal and the chaotic collection of overhead wires gave the combination plenty of fine detail to resolve. It did.

Would a modern professional 70–200mm produce a technically better file if we put both photographs under a microscope?

Almost certainly.

Would it make this photograph better? That’s a completely different question.

That’s where photography equipment discussions so often go wrong.

We confuse technical superiority with photographic superiority. They aren’t the same thing.

A lens can measure better without making a more interesting photograph. Another lens can have imperfections and still render the world in a way that suits the photographer using it.

I don’t need my 70–210mm to beat a modern 70–200mm f/2.8 in a laboratory. I need it to make photographs I want to keep. On this outing, it did exactly that. The architectural pictures were particularly revealing.

The D850’s resolution combined with the longer focal lengths allowed me to pick pieces out of the city rather than simply describe everything in front of me.

A dome appears through foliage.

A tower rises above surrounding buildings.

Old wooden wheels become a pattern of circles and spokes against industrial metal.

And then there is the changing city itself.

The photograph looking across the greenery and low buildings towards the modern towers says something that has always interested me about photographing Phnom Penh.

Cities accumulate rather than simply replace themselves. The old and new sit beside each other. Sometimes comfortably. Sometimes not.

A telephoto zoom is particularly good at showing that because compression pulls those layers together.

The foreground, modest buildings and high-rise development become part of the same visual argument.

This isn’t something I need an f/2.8 professional zoom to discover.

The $35 lens sees it perfectly well.

But people are where I really wanted to test the combination. I’ve always enjoyed using longer lenses for street photography.

There is sometimes a rather tiresome idea that proper street photography must be made with a 28mm or 35mm lens while standing practically on top of the subject. I’ve never subscribed to that. Different lenses make us see differently. A wide lens encourages you to enter the scene. A longer lens allows you to observe it, isolate elements and simplify the background.

Neither approach is superior.

They’re different languages.

With the 70–210mm I can stand away from the immediate action and watch. The photograph of the man working from the back of the small vehicle demonstrates exactly why I enjoy this. The red jacket immediately separates him from the greens and blues around him. The longer lens compresses the background without completely removing the environment. We know we’re on a street. We know he’s working. But the frame isn’t drowning in irrelevant information.

That’s what a telephoto can do extremely well.

The photograph of the two workers gave me another answer. The lens renders people nicely. That’s important to me. There is detail in the faces, certainly. The D850 isn’t short of resolution. But the result doesn’t feel clinically sharp. There’s a difference between detail and cruelty.

Modern lenses can sometimes be astonishingly revealing. That’s magnificent for some subjects and less flattering for others. This old Nikkor gives me enough. Actually, considerably more than enough.

And there’s a natural quality to the rendering that I like. The two men aren’t lens-test subjects. They’re people. That’s where my attention stays.

The 70–210mm range also encourages something I particularly enjoy when walking around with a camera: finding photographs inside photographs.

At longer focal lengths you begin noticing small relationships in the distance. A tower framed between buildings. Palm leaves intruding into architecture. Scaffolding against a geometric structure. Overhead wires crossing an otherwise orderly composition.

The lens becomes a way of editing the world before pressing the shutter.

Instead of asking “What can I fit into the frame?” I’m asking:

“What can I remove?”

That’s one of the reasons telephoto lenses can be so effective for street and urban photography.

Even something as brutally functional as the underside of a flyover becomes interesting. Concrete pillars repeat into the distance. Lines converge. Light appears between enormous grey structures. There’s almost no conventional subject.

It’s geometry. Weight. Repetition. And perspective.

Again, the old lens handles it perfectly well.

No drama. No complaints. No desperate plea from the D850 for something more expensive.

Just a photograph.

There are limitations, naturally.

The 70–210mm has no vibration reduction.

At the long end, that matters on a 45.7-megapixel camera.

The D850 is unforgiving of sloppy technique. Slight camera movement that might disappear into a 12-megapixel D700 file can become rather obvious when you’ve got this much resolution.

So shutter speed matters. I’d rather increase the ISO than let the shutter speed fall too far. Noise can be dealt with. Motion blur usually can’t.

The autofocus is also from another generation. This is screw-drive autofocus, powered by the motor inside the D850 body. It makes noises. Things move. You can actually hear the bloody camera doing something and it actually uses more battery power, so an extra battery in the pocket is a wise move.

How wonderfully old-fashioned. But it focuses. And that’s really all I require.

There are other optical imperfections if you go looking for them. I’m sure I could find chromatic aberration. I’m sure the corners aren’t as good as the centre at every aperture and focal length. I’m sure there are situations where flare would expose the limitations of the older coatings.

Give me enough time and a large enough computer monitor and I’ll undoubtedly discover all sorts of reasons why I desperately need to spend another thousand dollars.

I’m not going to.

Look at the photograph of the stone figures. Texture. Separation. Fine detail. Tonal variation.

The photograph works.

Test concluded.

Colour was another pleasant surprise.

The lens doesn’t produce the dull, washed-out results that people sometimes associate with older zooms.

Reds are red. Greens are green. Blues are blue. The colourful street decoration positively jumps out of the frame.

Some of that is obviously the D850 sensor. Some comes from processing.

That’s how digital photography works. But the lens isn’t getting in the way.

And that’s perhaps the highest compliment I can give a piece of photographic equipment.

I stopped thinking about it.

This photograph probably says more about the experiment than any technical test could.

A man sits astride his scooter beside the road, absorbed in something he’s doing with his hands.

Behind him the traffic continues. Motorcycles approach. Cars pass. The city carries on.

The longer lens isolates that tiny pause within all the movement. That’s why I carry a camera.

Not to determine whether a lens resolves 45 megapixels. To notice things.

And once again we’re back to the thing I’ve learned repeatedly over the years. Equipment matters. But equipment matters because of what it allows you to see.

The repeating grey columns make another photograph that the longer lens handles beautifully. Lines narrow towards the centre, layers stack against one another and the frame becomes almost abstract.

I didn’t need a new lens to see it.

I needed to look.

There is an enormous difference.

The photograph of the craftsman is probably my favourite demonstration of what this old lens can actually do.

Here is precisely the sort of subject I photograph naturally. A man working. Tools scattered around him. A hammer in one hand. Metal in the other.

A red shirt separating him immediately from the cluttered workshop.

There is enough compression to organise the chaos without destroying the environment. And there is plenty of detail.

Look at the hands. The hammer. The rods. The texture of the wooden block. The dirt on the trousers. The objects scattered across the floor.

The lens has recorded all of it.

The tighter frame works even better for judging the rendering.

His face is clear. His expression is there. His hands tell us what he’s doing. Everything I need from the photograph is present.

So what exactly would spending another thousand dollars have added? Perhaps technically quite a lot.

Photographically? I’m not convinced it would have added anything.

And that’s the point.

This was never really an experiment about whether an old Nikon zoom could satisfy a 45.7-megapixel sensor.

It was an experiment about whether we sometimes ask completely the wrong question.

Instead of:

Is this lens sharp enough?

Perhaps we should ask:

Does it make photographs I care about?

Instead of:

Is this camera too old?

Ask:

Does it still do what I need?

Instead of:

Should I upgrade?

Try:

What would I actually photograph differently if I did?

Those questions can save you an extraordinary amount of money.

More importantly, they can get you back to photography.

My D850 cost $380.

My AF Nikkor 70–210mm f/4–5.6 cost $35.

Together:

$415.

For that I’ve got 45.7 megapixels, full-frame image quality, excellent autofocus from the camera body, a useful 70–210mm range and a combination capable of producing every photograph shown here.

That’s absurd value. But after this outing, the money is almost beside the point. The important discovery is that I enjoyed using the combination. The D850 felt good. The old lens felt familiar.

I stopped thinking about equipment and started looking at Phnom Penh.

People. Buildings. Shapes. Colours. Little moments.

Exactly what a camera is supposed to make me do.

So did my $35 Nikkor survive being attached to the mighty Nikon D850?

Wrong question.

Did I make photographs with it that I’m happy with?

Yes.

That’s the only test that matters. The D850 didn’t expose the old lens as obsolete. It exposed just how much life was still left in it. Thirty-five dollars.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Old Photographer Series

Why I Almost Never Buy Cameras New

cameras, canon, Lenses, nikon, opinons, thoughts, photography, pictures, street, Travel

Old Photographer Series

I have been taking photographs for more than 45 years, and in all that time I have bought precisely one camera brand-new.

A Canon EOS-1D Mark IV.

That’s it.

Every other camera has, in one way or another, already had a life before it reached me.

Some photographers might find that strange. Photography is an industry built around the excitement of the new. New cameras arrive accompanied by countdowns, rumours, previews, launch events and endless YouTube videos explaining why the perfectly capable camera we owned yesterday has apparently become hopelessly inadequate overnight.

I’ve never been particularly interested in playing that game.

Not because I don’t appreciate technology. I do.

Modern cameras are astonishing.

But I’ve learned something rather useful over the years:

Let somebody else chase the technology. I’ll chase the photographs.

Buying used started partly because it made financial sense.

Good photographic equipment has never been cheap, particularly professional equipment. But photographers are peculiar creatures. We will spend thousands on a camera and then, three or four years later, sell it for a fraction of what we paid because another camera has appeared with a few more megapixels and an autofocus system capable of recognising the left eyeball of a swallow at 200 metres.

That’s fine by me.

I’ll wait.

Depreciation is one of the used-camera buyer’s greatest friends.

A professional camera doesn’t suddenly stop being professional when its replacement appears. It simply becomes cheaper.

The photographer who bought it new absorbs the frightening part of the depreciation.

I arrive later.

The Nikon D700 is perhaps one of the best examples.

When it appeared, it was a serious professional tool. Its full-frame sensor was superb for the period, its autofocus was dependable, the body was built properly and photographers used it to make pictures that appeared in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibitions and probably on more wedding albums than anyone could count.

Today it’s old. Twelve megapixels. No sophisticated video. No eye-detection autofocus. No electronic viewfinder. No artificial intelligence trying to work out whether I’m photographing a human, a bird, a dog or somebody’s motorcycle.

And yet I still love using it.

More importantly, it still makes excellent photographs. That fact tends to get lost whenever we talk about camera technology. A new camera may be better than an old camera. That doesn’t automatically make the old camera worse.

My recently acquired Nikon D850 demonstrates the madness particularly well.

It cost me $380.

There’s a reason. The shutter count is over 300,000.

If you spend too much time reading camera forums, that number might have you reaching for smelling salts. But the camera is externally in A1 condition. It sounds right. It works.

So I bought it.

The D850 was once one of the most desirable DSLRs in the world. It has a 45.7-megapixel full-frame sensor, excellent dynamic range, formidable autofocus and enough image quality for almost anything I’m ever likely to ask of it.

None of that disappeared because the shutter counter passed 300,000. And none of it disappeared because Nikon subsequently concentrated on mirrorless cameras.

I paid $380 and started taking photographs. If the shutter dies eventually, I’ll deal with it then. That’s the advantage of buying equipment at this end of the depreciation curve.

I’m not frightened of it.

Then there’s the lens currently sitting on the front.

An AF Nikkor 70–210mm f/4–5.6.

Cost?

$35.

I’ve already used it on the D700 and know it can produce excellent results.

Now I’m going to see what happens when I put that $35 lens in front of the D850’s 45.7-megapixel sensor.

Total investment:

$415.

A Nikon D850 and an autofocus 70–210mm zoom. There’s something wonderfully ridiculous about that. But it also illustrates why I’ve spent so much of my photographic life buying used equipment. I don’t need equipment to be new. I need it to work.

There is another advantage that has become increasingly important to me.

Freedom.

Buying an expensive new camera can sometimes make you strangely protective of it. You notice every mark. You worry about scratches. You buy covers and protectors. Rain appears and suddenly you’re wondering whether you should put the camera back into the bag. You start treating the tool as though its purpose is to preserve its resale value.

I’ve never wanted to photograph that way. A used camera already has a history. Someone has already put the first scratch on it. Thank you very much. That’s one less job for me. Now I can get on with using the bloody thing.

I don’t abuse equipment.

There’s a difference between using something and deliberately mistreating it. I look after my cameras. But cameras accompany me into the real world. They get carried. They get dusty. They get sweaty. They get knocked occasionally. Paint wears. Rubber becomes shiny. Little marks appear around the edges. To me, those aren’t necessarily defects. They’re evidence.

They say:

This camera has been somewhere.

I rather like that.

Buying used also teaches you something about what really matters.

When you aren’t chasing the newest equipment, you stop thinking quite so much about specifications.

Instead, you start thinking about suitability.

Does the camera fit my hand? Do I trust the autofocus? Can I operate it without thinking? Do I like the files? Does the viewfinder allow me to concentrate on what’s happening in front of me? And perhaps the most important question:

Do I want to carry it?

A camera that makes you want to go outside is worth considerably more than a technically superior camera sitting in a cupboard.

I’ve owned and used enough equipment to understand that the relationship between photographer and camera is difficult to measure.

Some cameras simply feel right. The D700 is one. There are others. You pick them up and within minutes you’re no longer thinking about the camera. You’re looking.

That’s when equipment becomes useful.

The camera industry doesn’t particularly benefit from people thinking this way. It needs us to believe we’re perpetually one generation behind. More resolution. More speed. Better autofocus. Higher ISO. More dynamic range. More computational photography.

And again, none of these things is bad.

Progress is good.

But technological progress and photographic progress are not the same thing.

You can improve your camera without improving your photography.

That’s an uncomfortable thought in an industry that would much rather sell you another body than suggest you spend a year properly learning the one you’ve already got.

The Canon EOS-1D Mark IV remains the odd one out in my history.

The one I bought new.

And I’m glad I did.

It was a magnificent professional camera and buying it new gave me the experience of owning a serious tool from the beginning of its working life.

But apparently once was enough. Because I never developed the habit. Instead, I’ve spent decades wandering around the second-hand market looking for cameras that other photographers have decided they no longer need. And I’ve benefited enormously from their impatience.

Someone wants the latest model? Wonderful. Sell me the old one.

Someone needs another ten megapixels? Excellent. I’ll take the supposedly obsolete camera.

Someone has decided DSLRs are finished because mirrorless has taken over?

Even better.

Now we’re talking about prices I like.

There is, of course, some risk. Buying used means checking equipment properly.

Shutters wear. Autofocus systems can be damaged. Sensors can be scratched. Card slots fail. Batteries die. Old lenses can develop fungus or haze.

You need to know what you’re looking at.

But after enough years around cameras, you develop a feel for these things.

Pick it up. Look through it. Press the buttons. Turn the dials. Listen to the shutter. Take photographs. Examine the results. A camera will often tell you quite a lot if you’re prepared to pay attention.

And sometimes you take a gamble.

My $380 D850 is one. Over 300,000 shutter actuations? Fine. At that price, I’ll take the bet.

Perhaps my attitude has changed with age as well. When I was younger, equipment represented possibility. Maybe the next camera would make me better. Maybe the next lens would change everything.

After 45 years, I know better.

Cameras don’t find photographs. Photographers do.

The equipment matters, certainly. Anyone claiming otherwise is being silly. The right lens can change how you see a situation. A better sensor can allow you to work in conditions that would once have been impossible. Reliable autofocus can mean getting a picture rather than missing it.

But eventually equipment reaches a level where good enough really is good enough.

Photography doesn’t begin when you have the best camera. Photography begins when you stop thinking about the camera. That’s probably why old equipment appeals to me. There’s no expectation attached to it. Nobody is asking whether my ten-year-old DSLR justifies its purchase price. Nobody cares whether my $35 lens resolves 45.7 megapixels.

Good.

Neither do I.

I want to know whether it resolves the expression on somebody’s face.

Whether it catches the light falling across a street. Whether it isolates a gesture. Whether, when I look at the photograph later, I feel something. If it does those things, the equipment has succeeded.

So I’ll continue buying cameras the way I always have. Late. Used. Depreciated. Occasionally battered. Preferably cheap. I’ll let somebody else enjoy opening the box and peeling the protective plastic from the screen.

They can watch the reviews.

They can debate the specifications.

They can upgrade when the replacement arrives.

And a few years later, when that once revolutionary camera has somehow become yesterday’s technology, perhaps I’ll buy it from them. For considerably less.

Then I’ll put an equally unfashionable lens on the front and take it onto the street. Because after all these years, I’ve finally worked out which upgrade matters most.

It isn’t another camera. It’s another photograph.

Let somebody else chase the technology. I’ll chase the photographs.

Old Photographer Series

The 85mm Lens: Standing Back, Getting Closer :

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Old Photographer Series

Share this:

High resolution demands something from the photographer

Forget blindly following the old reciprocal rule

There are two things moving

How you hold the camera matters

Then there’s the shutter finger

The D810 and D850 themselves can produce vibration

Don’t be frightened of ISO

Sharpness isn’t everything

Stop blaming the lens

The D850 teaches discipline

Share this:

The 85mm changes the way you see

Then put 45.7 megapixels behind it

Sharpness isn’t everything

The D850 isn’t subtle

Distance without detachment

Autofocus that simply works

The viewfinder matters

It’s not a perfect combination

One camera. One lens.

Standing back, looking closer

Share this:

Old Photographer Series

Share this:

Old Photographer Series

Share this: