I originally purchased ON1 Photo Raw  to get the ability to easily substitute interesting skies for boring skies in landscapes. Besides just using the sky images included in the ON1 installation , the editor lets you easily add your own skies.   Another great way to make photos much more interesting is to include the Moon in them. If you have ever worked on planning shots to include the Moon, you appreciate how difficult it can be to achieve. Being in the right place at the right time is rare, and those clouds can still move in to ruin your best laid plans. Is it real?     If you use a really big lens for moon/landscape shots, you’re well aware of how it’s typically impossible to get the foreground and the moon both in focus. If the moon is low in the horizon, then atmospheric effects ruin the sharpness.   Your substitute ‘sky’ can just as easily include the Moon. In this case, you could shoot photos of the Moon with a longer focal length and also take the shots when it’s high in the sky to get better details. It’s also a good idea to take both landscape and portrait-orientation shots for more options while editing later.   The ON1  editor is pretty good at masking complicated images, which allows you to even have tree branches partially blocking the Moon.   Have you ever taken landscape shots with wide-angle lenses, but you wanted to have the Moon appear larger in those shots? With substitute Moon/sky shots, now you can finally combine wide-angle landscapes with a large moon in them!   I should mention an old article I wrote that gives you the details on how to add your own custom skies to the ON1  editor. If you don’t know how to do this operation, then this article  should help. A Moonset shot that never really happened     Notice in the shot above that the Moon is partly hidden by tree branches. The ON1  editor is capable of pretty sophisticated masking. Inside the ON1  editor   The screen image above shows how I adjusted the sliders to control how a Moon shot was combined with a landscape. The landscape here was shot at 32mm, while the moon was shot using a long telephoto.   Once I find the desired Moon ‘sky’ and add it where I want it, I can then go over to the ON1   Develop tab to edit the shot further. A typical Moon shot to add to the ON1  editor   I have many Moon images added to my ON1  editor in its sky-swapping feature. I took my Moon shots while the Moon was high in the sky, so that I got rid of most atmospheric sharpness-killing effects.   There are several controls in the ON1  editor Sky  feature that let you have some control over where the Moon gets placed. This way, you don’t have to add too many shots into your ‘custom sky’ library. These controls include Position (left-right flip), Shift Horizon (vertical shifting), Level  (small horizontal/vertical movements), and Magnify (size change). The Moon adds a little spice to this harbor shot How the Moon’s reflection got added   For a more enhanced realism, the ON1  editor even lets you add a reflection if you want. I tend to prefer this particular shot without a reflection, but with this feature you get to explore adding a reflection or not. Don’t go there     Please avoid getting too outrageous with big moons, just because you can.  I suppose you could be working on some sci-fi assignment…     Summary   I know many photographers cringe at the thought of altering their shots in any way. If that’s your personality, then this technique is certainly not for you.   The ON1  editor has lots of fun and creative features in it, and using its sky-swapping capability to add the Moon can really make some blah shots a bit more interesting.

If you’re interested in seeing how sharp your camera lens is, but you don’t have a test chart to use, read on.  The free program MTFMapper has a feature called “Open with manual edge selection”. Using this program option, you’re given the freedom to select anything in a photograph and potentially use it to measure your lens resolution. The excellent MTFMapper program is authored by Frans van den Bergh, and can be downloaded from this site. MTFMapper has been used by NASA to measure lenses that are now in use on the planet Mars. There are rules (as always) for what you can use as subjects for testing lens resolution. For instance, you need a dark, straight, slanted edge against a light featureless background. The straight edges are preferably black, but if you have a strong backlight to get a silhouette effect, then the object with the edges doesn’t have to be any particular color. The MTFMapper program doesn’t like either vertical or horizontal edges, nor does it like edges at 45 degrees, due to the way the program’s mathematics work. To abide by this rule, all you need to do is slightly rotate your camera or your subject before photographing it. You’ll get different resolution measurements of the same target, depending upon which angle the target edge is at. Almost all lenses resolve differently in the sagittal (spokes away from the lens center) and meridional (perpendicular to sagittal) directions. Rotate the target or camera to enable getting the kind of measurement (sagittal/meridional) you want. To get the best results from this program, you’ll want to shoot your photographs in raw format (definitely NOT in jpeg format). I have some raw-format camera files that MTFMmapper can’t understand, because it uses the library called LibRaw to decode the raw files. My Nikon Z8 and Z9 ‘high efficiency’ compressed raw files can’t be used as-is by MTFMapper, but all I have to do is convert them into the DNG format. The MTFMapper program (using the Libraw library) understands DNG, and you can use the free Adobe DNG Converter program to convert nearly any raw format into DNG. Resolution measurement of a 500mm lens with 1.4X teleconverter As shown above, the MTFMapper program was able to measure the resolution at the edge of a clamp I attached to a fence. It got a resolution measurement of MTF50 50.3 lp/mm, which is the same as 2404  l/ph (lines per picture height). I used my Nikkor 500mm PF with a 1.4X teleconverter on my Nikon Z8 to take this 700mm f/8 shot from 58 feet (17.7m) away. I wasn’t able to set up my resolution test chart this far away, so I improvised with a clamp to get to the desired distance. I rotated the lens/camera combination so that the clamp wasn’t pointing quite vertical. I made sure that the background was much lighter than the dark clamp, and the background is smooth and out of focus. This clamp is large enough to make it easy to place the camera focus point on it, even at long distances. If the camera I’m using has it, I like to use the feature called “Pinpoint focus” to get the most accurate focus. Even the slightest focus error will cause a drastic drop in the resolution measurement. Pinpoint focus also helps ensure that the camera isn’t focusing on the wrong thing when I’m far from the target. The whole field of view for my test setup MTFMapper program option to pick edge(s) As shown above, I used the File | Open with manual edge selection… menu option to open up a suitable raw-format photograph. Select an edge to measure I mouse-clicked two locations on the edge that I wanted to measure. After clicking the first edge location (little orange circle above), I watched the histogram display (lower left of dialog) while I selected the second location (mouse move) to complete the edge selection. The histogram feedback helps you ensure that you get a clean selection that can be properly analyzed. If you decide to change your mind after selecting an edge, then you can click Clear ROIs (Region Of Interest) and select another edge location. It’s also possible to select multiple edges (regions) to analyze. You can fine-tune your edge selection by mouse-dragging the little orange circle to another location after your initial selection. Just watch the histogram while dragging the orange circle to optimize your selection. Slightly different location, different measurement I re-measured the edge, using a different section of a shorter length, and got a different answer. Here, I got an MTF50 resolution measurement of 55.7 lp/mm (2663 l/ph). This probably means that the edge I’m measuring looks more consistent over a short selection length of the target. This is a pretty cheap clamp, and not a super-precision edge. Multiple short regions could have been selected along the edge to compare them, too. After you have selected a suitable edge, then click Accept and allow the program to calculate the resolution at your selected edge(s). Make sure that you set up the correct options for your camera sensor (under Settings) before doing the manual edge selection, including the sensor pixel size. Selecting lots of edges of a printed resolution chart The screen shot above shows how I have selected numerous places in a photo of a test chart to analyze. Some of these selections are poor/illegal, to demonstrate what kind of feedback will result. If you select an unsuitable edge for the program to analyze, you might get an error message when you request that the program begins the analysis. You’ll either need to select another location or another subject to measure. Program feedback Successful measurements (looking at the annotated results) are displayed in cyan. Unreliable answers (45-degree sloped edges) are displayed in yellow, and failed answers (vertical or horizontal edges) are shown in red. I set up my program options to display the answers in MTF50 lp/mm units. Another kind of target I sometimes use a razor blade as a target when I’m shooting at fairly close distances. I use an LED light to back-light the blade, so it shows up as a silhouette. In the shot above, I requested measurements on 3 sides of the blade. If I’m far enough away, it doesn’t matter if I select the sharpened razor edge or another edge. I placed a white background directly behind the blade to get good contrast. Using a precision edge from a caliper (indoors) I have a handy little dual-clamp device with a pair of adjustable alligator clips that I used to hold a precision caliper. The program feedback (under the histogram) indicated that the caliper’s edge selection was 114.5 pixels. The minimum allowed selection length is about 40 pixels, but I’d recommend always using more than this. The annotated resolution result Again, when I select shorter sections of the edge I almost always get a higher resolution reading since the program sees less overall edge variation. The MTF50 result here was 58.2 lp/mm (2782 l/ph), or within about 4 percent of the reading from my Workpro clamp outdoors with the same 700mm lens/teleconverter combination. This shot was done at 40 feet (12.2m). The caliper’s edge is un-coated stainless steel, but I set up a strong backlight to get a good silhouette. Whatever target you try to use for getting resolution measurements, the choice had better be carefully thought out. Rough or crooked edges just won’t cut it.  Let the program’s histogram feedback be your guide for selecting a good edge. As always, this is a ‘garbage in garbage out’ scenario. Using lone edges like this won’t give you the comprehensive results that a proper resolution chart will, but if all you want is a handful of measurements then this should work fine. This is also a good way to compare a printed test chart’s quality against a precision edge. Summary It's hard to beat free. If you can locate a suitable subject with a good edge on it, you should be able to get lens resolution measurements. As I have said many times on my site, thanks again to that very clever Frans van den Bergh!

The Nikon camera “Pinpoint” focus mode is supposed to be the most accurate way to focus their lenses. It’s only available when in “AF-S” mode (not AF-C), so it’s only useful for static targets. On DSLRs (D850 & D780), it’s only available in Live View; I think all of Nikon’s Z cameras support Pinpoint focus. Is this mode really better than other focus modes? That’s what I am going to analyze in this article. My personal favorite focus mode is “3D-tracking”, although I use various other modes if unusual subjects get focused better with the other focus options. In the tests that follow, however, I will compare Pinpoint focus against just the 3D focus using the Nikon Z9 camera. I chose to use the Nikkor 24-120 f/4S lens at 120mm for testing. Nikon cautions that Pinpoint focus might be a little slower than other focus modes, but I didn’t notice any slowdown while shooting with anything except my 700mm f/8 setup (500mm + 1.4X TC). It supposedly only sees a quarter of the area of single-point focus mode. Pinpoint is supposed to use contrast-detect (hence slower), while the other focus modes are strictly phase-detect on their mirrorless cameras. Pinpoint AF-area mode selection Pinpoint mode indicator Note that you have to set the camera to AF-S (single AF focus mode) to have Pinpoint AF as an option. To conduct the tests, I placed the camera onto a sturdy tripod and attached a wired remote release to activate the shutter. I was 17 feet (5.3 meters) from the resolution target. In between each shot, I would alternate de-focusing the lens either too near or too far before pressing the AF-ON button. I waited at least 5 seconds before taking each shot, to allow any vibrations to stop. The whole resolution chart I placed the focus point in the center of the frame, so that’s where I used the resolution measurements for my analysis. I shot 19 photographs with each focus type, in order to get a good feel for the consistency of focus.  In none of the shots that I took was I able to visually tell the difference in sharpness. The only way to note a difference was to use my MTFMapper software to analyze the resolution target photographs. Resolution results for the central portion of the test target As shown above, I had my MTFMapper program analyze each test target raw-format photo and then display each measured target edge. I would pick the best reading inside the red square for my data. The resolution readings shown are in units of MTF50 line pairs per millimeter. Resolution plots showing the entire FX frame The plots shown above provide resolution data about the whole lens field of view, from edge-to-edge. There’s one plot for meridional direction (tangent to a circle) and sagittal direction (like wheel spokes) measurements. I concentrated on just the 32 resolution readings around the center of the lens (both meridional and sagittal), since that’s where I had the camera focus point placed. Test Results The Pinpoint focus data from the 19 test shots had a peak MTF50 reading of 72.7 lp/mm, with an average of 69.2 lp/mm. The standard deviation was 1.93 lp/mm.  Very consistent focus. The 3D-tracking focus data from the 19 test shots had a peak MTF50 reading of 72.7 lp/mm, with an average of 68.5 and a standard deviation of 3.24 lp/mm. Note that both focus modes obtained the same peak resolution of 72.7 lp/mm, but 3D focus was a little sloppier and averaged slightly worse resolution as a result. I have to admit that Pinpoint focus is in fact more consistent, and on average gets marginally sharper shots. The spread of data is pretty small, and you couldn’t notice any sharpness differences by looking at the actual test chart photos for either the Pinpoint or 3D shots. The MTFMapper software is super picky, and it notices subtle differences you can’t perceive yourself. In case you wondered, in the past I compared 3D-tracking against other AF-C focus modes and I didn’t note any particular sharpness differences in the various modes. I just prefer how frequently 3D will hold focus on the desired subject, compared to other modes. The Nikon Z8 and Z9 camera autofocus accuracy is very good and quite fast, no matter which focus mode you choose. Since these cameras focus at the shooting aperture (through f/5.6), it also means that you don’t pay a sharpness penalty using lenses with focus-shift (spherical aberration), either. If you’re after the consistently sharpest shots you can get, then Pinpoint focus is the way to go. If you happen to have the Nikon Z8 camera, then combine Pinpoint focus with pixel-shift shooting for really sharp shots when using a tripod and there’s no subject movement (use either the 16 or 32-shot options).

So what exactly is lens diffraction? Why do photographers hate it so much? How do you get rid of it? That’s the mystery that this article will unravel. That evil Airy disc Camera lenses, even if they’re built to absolute perfection, still make fuzzy images when you stop down their apertures too much. A pinpoint of light, after it travels through your lens aperture on its way to your camera sensor, gets ‘diffracted’ . Instead of hitting the sensor as a pinpoint, that spot of light ends up looking like the picture above. This light-dark-light circular pattern is called an ‘Airy disc’. In three dimensions, the Airy disc would look like ripples after a stone gets dropped into calm water. A guy named George Airy (1801-1892) first developed the mathematics for this diffraction phenomenon, and from then on it’s been known as an ‘Airy disc’. Sir George Airy was a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University. He became an expert in Latin, ancient Greek, architecture, astronomy, and engineering, just to name a few of his skills.  He even supervised the construction of London’s Big Ben chimes. But I digress. If you look at the picture above, the exact size of the Airy disc is ambiguous.  It just gets dimmer and dimmer at the fringes. When a lens aperture is stopped down, the size of this Airy disc starts growing in diameter. The Airy disc diameter is only a function of the aperture f-number and the color (frequency) of light. When apertures are idealized as being a perfect circle, the Airy disc diameter, measured in microns, can be estimated to be 1.34 times the aperture f-number for green light (549nm or 0.549um). For blue light, for instance, the Airy disc diameter is smaller. Green light can be between 500nm and 600nm, but 549 was chosen here. The Airy disc formula is: Airy_disc_dia = 2.44 * frequency_um * F_stop For the above, frequency_um = 0.549 This is why integrated circuits that get made by projecting an image onto silicon use ultraviolet light. This very high frequency light (short wavelength) produces a really small Airy disc diameter. The Airy disc is the culprit in making even ‘perfect’ lenses produce soft images, if they get stopped down far enough. For you to notice the image getting fuzzy, the size of this Airy disc has to grow until it covers more than a single pixel on your camera sensor. A rule of thumb is to start getting concerned about diffraction when the Airy disc grows to be two pixels across or more. For making prints, this rule can be loosened up considerably. For camera sensors that have anti-alias filters (to help rid any Moire effects) the images are even fuzzier. For an example, I’m going to pick on the Nikon Z9 camera, which has pixels that are 4.35 microns and NO anti-alias filter. Two pixels, then, cover 8.7 microns. We don’t care about the overall size of the sensor or how many megapixels it has, either; we only care about the distance between one pixel center and the next pixel center. If that pesky Airy disc covers a pair of pixels, then diffraction can be seen. Diffraction versus F-stop As shown above, when the lens (any focal length) gets stopped down to f/8 or narrower, the Airy disc diameter grows larger than two pixels (8.7 microns for Nikon Z9). As soon as this 2-pixel threshold is reached, some image softening starts. At f/8, diffraction is barely noticeable. Diffraction starts growing in leaps and bounds by f/16, and image quality suffers. Don't even ask about f/32. You have to decide if getting that large depth of focus is worth it. On cameras that support focus-stacking, it’s ideal to stick with f/5.6 or wider and take multiple shots to later combine them to get a large depth of field at optimal resolution. Just pick your lens’s sharpest aperture, and hope there’s no wind. Tripod required. You can manually re-focus between shots, if your camera doesn't have focus stacking. This is a trick to sidestep diffraction effects when there's no subject movement. If you buy a camera with huge pixels, you might get away with one or two extra f-stops before diffraction rears its ugly head, but eventually it will show up. When you hear the phrase “diffraction–limited”, it means that any lens aberrations except for diffraction have been essentially eliminated, so that any remaining aberrations all fit inside that darned Airy disc.  Making the lens optics even more perfect is pointless. Diffraction is always lurking. This lens fuzziness can’t be solved by money. It’s physics. Thanks, George (I guess).

Here’s an idea that probably most photographers have never explored: reflections by themselves. Nearly everybody has shot subjects that include reflections in water to get a nice symmetry. How about skipping the actual subject and just photograph it’s reflection in isolation? The main technique here is to either flip or rotate the reflection to get it upright. You don’t want a ‘perfect’ reflection, either, because then it would just be a repetition of the subject. I like to shoot reflections in infrared as well, to create an even more unique look. With color infrared, I like to switch around the color channels or make hue shifts, so that the sky is blue. I like using the Capture One editor when working on color infrared, and a link to how I use this editor for infrared is here. With water reflections, timing is everything. If the water’s surface is still, the reflection is boring. If it’s windy, the reflection is ruined. If the water has minor ripples, you’ll never get the same shot twice. Contamination floating on the water’s surface can give the illusion of a starry sky. May the wind not be at your back. 590nm infrared reflection, edited in Capture One 590nm infrared reflection, edited in Capture One

When I got my Nikkor 500mm f/5.6 PF lens, I was excited to try it out with my 1.4X teleconverter (mine is the Sigma TC-1401). This would give me a 700mm f/8 lens. At the time, my best camera was the Nikon D850, which reviewers have praised for its auto-focusing capabilities. Outside in bright light, this 700mm combo worked just fine, but then a bird flew into the shade. Disaster ensued. Nikon Z8 with 500mm f/5.6 PF and 1.4X teleconverter Nikon claims that the D850 autofocus system is the same as what’s in the D5 and D500 cameras, and focuses down to -4EV. In my own experience, I haven’t gotten even close to this. Additionally, they don’t specify how slow the autofocus gets when illumination gets low. I think that somewhere in the fine print Nikon mentions something about this only working with an f/1.2 lens, and I’m fresh out of f/1.2 700mm telephotos. The Nikon Z8 and Z9 cameras are specified as being able to autofocus down to -7EV (-9EV in Starlight mode). I just know that with a real telephoto in actual low-light shooting conditions, it just plain works. I quickly gave up using this unreliable D850/700mm combination, and instead stuck with the 500mm f/5.6 by itself. As much as you try, animals just don’t obey your wishes and stay in good lighting conditions. It occurred to me that I haven’t re-tried using this 700mm setup with my Nikon Z8 or Z9 cameras; big mistake on my part. Trying to crop 500mm shots to what a 700mm combination (500 + 1.4X teleconverter) gives you is never as good. I’m not saying crops of the 500mm shots are bad, but the quality takes quite a bit more of a dip than using a teleconverter. With birds especially, it seems like you can never have too much focal length. Tracking that bird at 700mm is quite another story, however! Before wasting time doing a potential known-to-fail test, I tried out the Z8 with the Nikkor 500mm PF with the 1.4X teleconverter on birds under heavy clouds conditions. Amazingly, the lens focused extremely quickly and didn’t appear to suffer from focus-hunting, either. The quality of light in these conditions can be really nice, which is why I’m interested in shooting like this in the first place. Beware of shooting flying birds against a cloudy sky, however; you risk getting nothing but near-shilouettes or else burned-out backgrounds. Z8 with Nikkor 500mm f/5.6 PF and 1.4X teleconverter The shot above is 1/2000 shutter, f/8, ISO 9000 with the 700mm combination. This shot hasn’t had any light or color adjustments, to demonstrate the quality of light in cloudy conditions. This light level equates to EV 9.4, and the Z8 focused the lens quickly in these conditions. The D850 does quite a bit of focus-hunting in these conditions, and successfully finds focus only about half of the time. The Z8 viewfinder is bright, while the D850 viewfinder is quite dim in this deep shade. Also, the D850 focus points away from the viewfinder center are even less sensitive and capable, although Nikon claims that 15 of the points support f/8 lenses. I might mention that the Z8/Z9 cameras also have focus ‘detection’ modes, while the D850 doesn’t.  I used bird-detection in the above shot, where the camera immediately finds the near eyeball of the birds. In addition, I no longer have to worry about autofocus fine-tune calibration, which is different for all of my DSLRs and different with/without a teleconverter, too. I decided to do a comparison of the Z8 (equivalent to the Z9) and the D850 in cloudy and then indoors conditions. As usual, I do my testing by using a 120-frames-per-second video while filming the lens focus distance scale. Test #1: 3 meters start, 100 meters finish, EV 11.5 The first test was to focus on a distant tree in cloudy conditions, so that the target had good contrast. I knew that both the Z8 and D850 could focus on this, but I was interested in both focus speed and any focus-hunting that might occur. I set the focus ring on 3 meters (10 feet), and took a video while the lens focused at about 100 meters. A sample photo of this target was 1/2000s, f/8, ISO 2200 (EV 11.5) The D850 took 52 video frames (0.433 seconds). I noticed that the D850 over-shot the target, backed up to 21 meters, and finally focused at about 100 meters. The Z8 took 41 video frames (0.341 seconds). This camera had the lens hesitate at 14 meters, and then finished focusing on the target at 100 meters. Even the Z8 (and therefore the Z9) could stand some improvement in how it acquires the target focus, but I can’t complain about the 0.341-second result. This amount of focus change is much more severe than you’d normally encounter in the field, where it would typically change focus  over a few meters nearly instantly. Test #2: 3 meters start, 8 meters finish, EV 6.6 (indoors) For a much tougher test, I shot a medium-contrast target indoors with only some window lighting. A photo check here indicated 1/200s, f/8, ISO 12,800 for an Exposure Value of 6.6. The room I tested in wasn’t 100 meters long, so I settled for a target at 8 meters away. The D850 totally failed to find focus, and just hopelessly cycled back and forth between minimum and maximum focus distance. No surprises here. And so much for that -4EV spec. The Z8 accomplished the 5-meter focus change in 32 frames, or 0.267 seconds. Really, really fast. There was no hesitation in focus during this test with the 700mm combination. Also, this camera doesn’t care where you place the focus point; it works the same everywhere. That’s very impressive indeed. Summary The Nikon Z8 and Z9 cameras are just amazing in their focus capabilities in poor lighting conditions. You don't even need to worry about lower-contrast subjects. The DSLRS just can’t compete. Honestly, I thought the contest would be closer than it turned out to be. Using my 500mm with a teleconverter is no longer a problem under any but the dimmest of lighting conditions! 700mm 1/2000s f/8 ISO 9051, EV 9.4

This lens is advertised as an APS-C lens, but I’ll let you be the judge. The TTArtisan lens designers knew that the fringes of this lens wouldn’t be stellar, so they gave it a huge image circle that extends all the way to cover an FX sensor. I’m reviewing the version made for Nikon with the Z mount, but you can get it in many different mounts. Personally, I haven’t been interested in buying DX lenses, since they waste half of my FX sensor. This lens is an exception, because it does in fact cover the FX sensor. If I don’t like the outer fringes of a shot, I just crop to it to suit; you can’t stretch it if you shoot in DX mode. Unless you want to spend $8000.00 for Nikon’s 58mm f/0.95 Noct or $13,000 for Leica’s 50mm f/0.95 Noctilux-M, you might want to take a look at this TTArtisan 50mm f/0.95 lens. All three of these lenses are manual focus, by the way, and the TTArtisan costs a bit less (less than 2 percent of the Noctilux). You could actually throw in a couple of Nikon camera bodies with this lens instead of getting the Noctilux with an adapter. Am I saying that this lens is just as good as the Nikkor or Leica? Heck no. But if you’re after a specialty lens for portraits with a melted background, then read on. This is the very definition of a niche lens. If you’re after distant landscape shots, then run away from this TTArtisan. Try to imagine you’re more of a painter than a photographer when shooting, and it will put you in a better mindset. And forget about sharp corners. You don’t get a lens hood with this lens, so check out something like Amazon for a cheap 58mm screw-on lens hood; some of them also have pinch snap-on lens caps for the hood. You’ll want a lens hood to minimize lens flare. I also bought a snap-on lens cap that fits onto the hood, instead of using the provided screw-on lens cap. This lens is 1/6 stop faster than an f/1.0 lens, or 1 1/6 stops faster than an f/1.4 lens. That’s 2/3 stops faster than an f/1.2 lens. Lens Specifications 50mm, f/0.95 through f/16.0 14.5 ounces/ 411 grams 58mm filter thread Minimum focus: 19.7 inches/ 50cm 8 elements in 6 groups 10 rounded aperture blades Half-click stops f/0.95 through f/4, then full-stops (skips f/11). Manual focus only Focus ring rotation range 135 degrees No electronic contacts Metal and glass, period. TTArtisan 50mm f/0.95 lens design This version of their lens doesn’t have any aspherics; just a pair of high-index glass elements. That’s 8 elements in 6 groups. Usually, the lack of aspheric lens elements means that the bokeh is smoother. TTArtisan 50mm at f/0.95 (on left) versus Nikkor 85mm AF-S at f/1.4 (on right) Compare the two shots above. Both pictures were taken at their widest apertures, and I tried to get the same image magnification in both shots.  The Nikkor has much better resolution, and it has a very different look to it than the TTArtisan does. For a subject like this, I prefer the TTArtisan’s look; it’s more like a painting and unconventional. Your opinion may differ. f/0.95 Outdoors The Nikon Z9 and Z8 have a 1/32,000 shutter speed, so sunshine and f/0.95 work just fine together. For slower cameras, you’ll need to get yourself a neutral density filter for those wide-open daytime shots. Set up the Non-CPU Lens Data The first thing to do is to set up the non-CPU lens data in the Setup menu. This lets the camera get proper exposure and correctly use the IBIS system for anti-vibration. The EXIF data will now include what lens is being used, and what its maximum aperture is. The EXIF data won’t indicate the actual f-stop in use. Use Focus-Peaking, Please My mirrorless Nikons have great focus-peaking, which allows for very quick focus confirmation with manual focus. The ‘low sensitivity’ (1) setting gets the most accurate focus. The viewfinder image magnification lets me really nail focus when the subject holds reasonably still. Both the Z8 and Z9 cameras have the “Half-Press to Cancel Zoom (MF)” feature, to instantly let you frame the subject after proper (magnified) focus. Just half-press the shutter button after you focus on your subject to see the whole frame. The focus direction is backwards, compared to Nikkor lenses. And speaking of focus, the focus action is very smooth, but I wish the rotation was a bit more than the 135 degrees it has. The focus ring has sculpted indents in the metal, instead of the traditional textured rubber ring. Repair Distortion, Vignette, and Color Fringes Since TTArtisan hasn’t provided any lens correction profile (yet), you’ll need to manually fix various lens issues in your editor. You can save the fixes into a ‘profile’, which you can apply to subsequent photographs.  At these prices, you didn’t think that you’d get away with no image editing, did you? Image Distortion Distortion is rather pronounced, but it can be made to virtually disappear with suitable image editors. A sample lens profile manual setting in Lightroom is +15 to fix barrel distortion. In Capture One, the “SHAPE” section has a ‘Distortion’ slider in the Lens Correction | Lens area; I used 52. f/0.95 barrel distortion and vignette, full FX frame f/0.95 repaired distortion and vignette in editor f/5.6 un-modified distortion and vignette Vignette Vignetting is severe when wide open, but not that much different from the Noctilux lens. Again, use an image editor to eliminate this when it’s a problem. Many photographers actually increase vignetting with their editing software, since it can really enhance image aesthetics. A sample lens profile manual setting in Lighroom is +100, to get rid of vignette. Capture One, in the “SHAPE” section Lens Correction | Lens area, there’s the “Light Falloff” slider to fix this (84). Vignette reduces significantly when you stop down. Lateral Chromatic Aberration (CA) Lateral chromatic aberration f/0.95 Lateral chromatic aberration f/5.6 The CA at f/0.95 peaks at about 8 microns, which equates to 1.8 pixels. At f/5.6, the CA reduces to 1.1 pixels. I doubt you’ll notice it. Fix this “purple fringing” problem using your image editor. In Lightroom, I use the ‘Manual Lens Correction’ Defringe eyedropper. In Capture One, the ‘Refine’ tab has the Defringe slider in the ‘Purple Fringing’ section, plus a smart analysis in its Lens Correction section. Lens Flare Yes, flare is thare, but it’s not too bad. I purchased a separate lens hood to shade the lens and minimize it. Into the sun at f/0.95, full FX frame Into the sun at f/16, full FX frame Bokeh In a word, this lens is about bokeh. That expensive Leica lens has strange “half-moon” out-of-focus lights at the image fringes, while both this TTArtisan and the Nikkor Noct have symmetric “cat’s eye” lights at the fringes. Interestingly, the quality of the background heavily depends upon focus distance. It’s best at ‘portrait’ focus distances. At medium distances, you get a strange increased sharpness around the FX edges, which isn’t typically pleasant. TTArtisan cat’s eye at f/0.95 Contrast Wide open, and particularly at close focus distance, image contrast is reduced. Use your favorite editor to increase contrast to help fix this.  Stopping down even a little will enhance the contrast, which is the same for any really fast lens. Coma Coma is just plain bad in the edges and corners, but can be drastically decreased by stopping down the aperture. Never, ever try shooting the stars with this lens; you’ll have a hard time trying to un-see that coma later. Sharper, Please I love to use my Topaz DeNoise AI to sharpen the shot and also rid any image noise. Shots using the TTArtisan really benefit from this sharpening treatment. MTF Contrast Claimed MTF Contrast, from TTArtisan (24mm wide DX sensor) What’s shown above is the TTArtisan prediction for a 24mm-wide DX sensor at both f/0.95 and f/5.6. Measured MTF contrast, f/0.95 The measured MTF50 contrast curves are generally lower than the theoretical curves for the DX sensor range. My measured curves show why the TTArtisan engineers chose to call this a DX lens instead of an FX lens, when you look beyond 12mm from the image center. Measured MTF contrast, f/5.6 This lens shows a pronounced sharpness increase near the edges of the FX frame when stopping down. This leads to some strange-looking distant shots, where edges unexpectedly sharpen. Field Curvature Before I talk lens resolution, a disscussion on field curvature is in order. My testing is all done treating this lens as if it was made for an FX sensor. Since TTArtisan considers it an APS-C lens, measurements outside that area are a bit unfair. I have found that these optics have extreme field curvature, where the edges have the focus "plane" move away from the center. This means that the resolution near the edges will look really bad, since those tests assume the focus plane to be flat. The shot that follows was enhanced using the Photoshop "Find Edges" feature, which effectively shows where the focus "plane" really is. The focus 'Plane' looks like a Greek omega symbol The shape of what's in focus is quite distorted. I drew a green rectangle around the approximate DX (APS-C) sensor boundary. I drew a red line along what's in focus at f/0.95. This shot is a rug, photographed at about a 30-degree angle down from the horizontal. If the lens was perfect (no field curvature), then the in-focus portion would be a simple horizontal line across the shot. Instead, the focus (in the portion outside the DX sensor boundary) curves away from the camera. This severe field curvature is the worst aspect of this lens when you treat it as if it was made for FX cameras. At least now you'll understand in the resolution measurements that follow why the edge measurements look so horrible. Resolution I shot the resolution test charts in FX mode, but I drew a rectangle around the DX sensor area, to show what TTArtisan wants you to use. I shot the test chart from a distance of 5 feet (1.5 m). The lens center is excellent by f/2.8 and peaks at f/4. The frame edges don’t become decent for FX until somewhere around f/11 (no aperture click stop or marking for f/11). The whole frame is acceptable around f/8 for the DX area. FX corners don’t ever quite fully sharpen, but they get close at f/16. The FX frame edge sharpening after the mid-frame resolution plunge causes strange-looking landscapes on the frame edges. This is why I wouldn’t recommend this lens for general-purpose distance shooting, at least when you go beyond DX. If you stop down a little beyond f/8, then distant FX shots start to look ‘normal’ again. You’d never buy this lens for its resolution. It sounds like an excuse, but this lens really is about its ‘look’ with its bokeh and narrow depth of focus. I suspect that not using aspheric elements in this design caused more sharpness issues across the field of view, but enhanced the look of the bokeh. f/0.95 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, DX frame in green f/1.1 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, DX frame in green f/1.4 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, DX frame in green f/2.0 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, DX frame in green f/2.8 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, DX frame in green f/4.0 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, DX frame in green f/5.6 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, DX frame in green f/8.0 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, DX frame in green f/16.0 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, DX frame in green Samples f/0.95 full FX frame f/0.95 full FX frame f/0.95 Corrected for distortion and vignette, FX frame f/0.95 full FX frame f/0.95 full FX frame f/0.95 full FX frame f/0.95 full FX frame f/5.6 full FX frame. Edges are okay, but not corners f/0.95 FX frame. Edges show unusual increased sharpness Summary Let’s assume you have the cash to splurge for that Noct or Noctilux, but you hesitate to take the plunge. You could get this lens and play with it for almost zero investment (relative to those expensive lenses). If you decide that you really enjoy this photographic genre, then go ahead and Noct-splurge. If, however, you quickly lose interest in f/0.95 and manual focus, then you’d know to stay away from the dark side. I find that I have lots of fun with this lens, although not as a steady diet. It’s more like a high-calorie treat. Yes, it’s rough to focus on close moving targets at f/0.95; it’s best to do at least 5 fps and throw away the out-of-focus shots later. You find yourself more in the moment, having to manually focus while framing subjects. It’s easier to make suitable subjects look like “art” with this lens at f/0.95. If you were to notice that most of your shots are taken at f/5.6, then this lens is a waste; get a regular nifty fifty instead.  Of course it would be nice to have more even sharpness away from the frame center, but at the same time it gives you a more unique character to the pictures. Focus on what this lens can do and not what it cannot do. For me, I’ve decided that this lens is definitely FX and not DX. Minor cropping is called for on some shots, but that’s no different than for any other lens. At least the FX edges are there to crop.

Does that older lens deserve a second look with a newer camera? Eight years ago, I did a review of my Nikkor AF-S 85mm f/1.4 G lens. Back then, my newest camera was the 16 megapixel Nikon D7000 DX camera, so I tested the lens on that model. It’s well known that a high-megapixel camera should give you better resolution with a given lens, compared to a low-megapixel camera. Since my D7000 camera days, I have obtained better gear and thought it would be interesting to re-evaluate that old 85mm f/1.4 Nikkor on my Nikon Z9 mirrorless camera. I’m using the FTZ-II adapter on the Z9, of course. Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 G mounted on Nikon Z9 As camera technology improves, you can get better results from a lens in more ways than just better resolution. Especially with the switch from DSLR to mirrorless, you get better focus accuracy without having to even bother with focus calibration. With fast lenses like this 85mm, focus shift problems with aperture changes are finally cured, since the mirrorless Nikons focus at the shooting aperture. Mirrorless cameras also focus better in dim light than DSLRs, since they don’t have focus sensors hidden behind partially-silvered mirrors. Another huge advantage is having in-body image stabilization (IBIS) on the mirrorless camera, since this lens doesn’t have VR. The Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 AF-S has been the highest-ranked F-mount Nikkor lens at the DXO web site since they first measured it about 13 years ago. It finally got beaten by some of the Z-mount Nikkors; the highest-ranked lens from any manufacturer is currently the Nikkor 85mm f/1.2 S, which costs about $2,600. My 85mm f/1.4 still sells for $1,600 (it cost $2,200 at introduction). As of this writing, this F-mount 85mm is most likely doomed: Nikon is probably done making any more F lenses. My primary interest in re-testing this lens is resolution. Since my original testing was done using a DX sensor, I’m particularly interested in how bad the edges look with a high-resolution FX sensor. Even though the Nikon Z9 has 45.7 megapixels, this lens isn’t quite good enough to reflect all of that additional sensor resolution. Nonetheless, the resolution measurements had better increase using this camera! I found that focus repeatability was indeed much better using the Nikon Z9 (and the Z8) compared to the old D7000, but it wasn’t infallible. I have found that single-point focus is the least reliable way to focus this lens, which seems opposite of what you’d expect. Focus speed is a little bit better on the Z9 and Z8 cameras than the D7000, but not by too much. The 85mm is fairly slow to focus, since it’s optimized for focus accuracy. There are better lens choices to evaluate focus speed than this one. If you want to try manual focusing, the focus-peaking feature on the Z9 and Z8 cameras is really nice. The ability to magnify the image while looking through the viewfinder to really nail focus is also worlds better than using Live View on the old D7000. Resolution Testing I re-ran my old Nikon D7000 raw-format resolution test chart photos, using the newest version of my MTFMapper software. These D7000 test shots were created using an older version of a resolution test chart, but that chart is the same physical size and created using the same printer, paper, and ink as my new resolution test chart. The chart dimensions are 40” X 56”, which provides a very useful focus distance of about 13 feet, or 4 meters using an FX sensor. I used my new-design resolution test chart for evaluating the 85mm on the Z9 camera. The MTFMapper program is happy using both the old and new chart formats, and the results are equal in precision. 85mm at f/1.4 MTF50 resolution on D7000 85mm at f/1.4 MTF50 resolution on Nikon Z9 As shown above, the lens resolution increased using the Nikon Z9 camera by about 14%. This is a lot less improvement than you might expect. What it shows is that the lens itself doesn’t have enough resolution to make a major impact on better resolution results with high-megapixel sensors. What’s interesting to note, however, is that the edges of this lens don’t suffer much from a loss of resolution when increasing from DX coverage to FX. The corners have the very slightest dip in resolution. I think that my copy of this lens has a slight lens tilt; the right-hand side always seems to have slightly better results than the left-hand side, at least when shot wide-open. I have always maintained that an MTF50 resolution of roughly 30 lp/mm looks “sharp” and I’m sticking with that position. Using programs like Topaz DeNoise AI really helps enhance the sharpness, too. This means that the 85mm f/1.4 can be used wide-open, if desired. You should be more concerned with background bokeh and depth of focus decisions; in other words, concentrate on composition and art instead of sharpness. MTF contrast plot (actual measurements) f/1.4 The plot above shows how much real astigmatism the lens has, starting from the lens center. Nikon doesn’t ever show you actual measurements, just ‘theory’. 85mm at f/2.0 MTF50 resolution on D7000 85mm at f/2.0 MTF50 resolution on Nikon Z9 At f/2.0, the Z9 managed to get about a 15% resolution improvement over the D7000 camera. You can see the corners take a resolution dip, since the FX sensor sees so much more of the lens fringes. The lens takes a significant resolution jump going from f/1.4 to f/2.0 of about 38%. Now, it’s getting closer to ‘modern’ lenses for resolution. 85mm at f/2.8 MTF50 resolution on D7000 85mm at f/2.8 MTF50 resolution on Nikon Z9 At f/2.8, the Z9 saw about an 18% resolution increase overall, compared to the D7000 camera. The corners and edges of the FX sensor are excellent here. You may have started to notice a trend; the mid-frame resolution performance always seems to be a bit better than the center. I have read that the Nikon engineers made a design decision to sacrifice some center performance to enhance the mid and edge performance. Nikon chose to use no exotic lens elements here; there aren’t any aspheric elements. The lack of aspheric elements means that there is a small sacrifice in what could have been done with smooth resolution, but that would also have probably meant worse bokeh. 85mm at f/4.0 MTF50 resolution on D7000 85mm at f/4.0 MTF50 resolution on Nikon Z9 The Z9 has an increase in resolution of about 22% overall, compared to the D7000 at f/4.0.  Resolution across the frame is really, really good. At this aperture, it’s now competitive with modern lenses. 85mm at f/5.6 MTF50 resolution on D7000 85mm at f/5.6 MTF50 resolution on Nikon Z9 This lens reaches peak performance at f/5.6, which is just a bit better than f/4.0.  Compared to the D7000, the Z9 is about 15% better. 85mm at f/8.0 MTF50 resolution on D7000 85mm at f/8.0 MTF50 resolution on Nikon Z9 The Z9 is roughly 14% better than the D7000 at f/8.0.  The resolution dip, due to diffraction, has begun. Summary Using this lens on a Nikon mirrorless, such as the Z9, does indeed improve the lens resolution results, although not as much as people probably expected. The biggest benefit is being able to nail focus far more often. Even after all these years, the Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 AF-S is a great lens. It’s a favorite of many portrait photographers for good reason. It’s pretty sharp, has great bokeh, and can provide very thin focus depth when needed. This lens has aged better than most. I feel that this lens’ biggest problem has always been focus shift when changing the aperture (spherical aberration). Now that the Nikon mirrorless cameras focus at the shooting aperture, that problem has been solved. This lens’ biggest strength is the overall edge-to-edge resolution balance, combined with really good bokeh. My Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 Sport lens, for instance, smokes this lens for resolution, but the 85mm beats it for bokeh and of course being able to get to f/1.4. I always missed having vibration reduction with this lens; with the Nikon mirrorless cameras having IBIS, that problem has disappeared. The new Nikkor 85mm f/1.2 S lens is admittedly better in every category (except price), but the performance of my 85mm f/1.4 is so good that I personally don’t see the need for an upgrade. Switching to mirrorless cameras has really been a delight. My D850 DSLR sensor is just as good as the Nikon Z9, but the advantages of mirrorless can’t be denied. It’s really amazing to see the progress in cameras since the D7000. There’s virtually no aspect of that camera that hasn’t been usurped. My old lenses seem more like new ones when I mount them on my Z8 or Z9 cameras.

All of the Nikon Z cameras perform autofocus while stopped down to the shooting aperture, up through f/5.6.  This is different than almost all other mirrorless camera manufacturers, which focus the lens at the widest aperture. Is this a smart or a dumb strategy for Nikon? Let’s find out. Nikon Z9 with 85mm f/1.4 lens focusing at f/5.6 There are, of course, the internet fanboys that smugly claim how ignorant Nikon is for performing autofocus with the lens at the shooting aperture. I’ll ignore the performance issue of having to open the aperture, focus, stop down the aperture, and then shoot. The main advantage of stopping down during autofocus is to eliminate focus errors when using lenses that exhibit focus shift at different apertures. It’s true that the lens will focus more slowly in less light, so you should always want to perform autofocus at the maximum aperture (if focus accuracy is of secondary importance). But how much does a lens really slow down focusing when the aperture is stopped down? That’s what I’m going to explore. My preferred method of measuring focus speed is by taking a slow-motion video of the lens focus scale while it focuses. I can count the number of video frames to get a very good measurement of the time to change focus from one distance to another. I shoot these videos at 120 frames per second, so each frame lasts for 0.0083 seconds. This method of course breaks down with lenses that don’t have a focus scale on them… Most lenses are focus-motor limited in their ability to focus. The camera tells the lens what to do and has to wait for it to finish. Portrait lenses with bright apertures are typically slow to focus, both because it’s hard to nail paper-thin focus zones and because the lens moves a lot of heavy glass during focus. It’s not really fair to compare different lenses for absolute focus speed; this article just concerns itself with how much a lens slows down focusing as the aperture changes. It isn’t realistic to measure focus speed by having the lens travel through its entire focus range. Macro lenses would always lose any focusing contest. I’m measuring focus speed this way because it’s the most straightforward and repeatable way to do it. Just don’t interpret longer focus times to always mean ‘worse’ lenses. Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 AF-S Lens I shot this lens in fairly bright conditions (EV 13.2 to be exact). The focus action was recorded at 120 fps video. The lens was mounted on a Nikon Z9, using the FTZII adapter. f/1.4 through f/4.0      focus 0.51 sec. (3m to infinity: 61 frames) f/5.6                              focus 0.55 sec. (3m to infinity: 66 frames) As shown above, the focus time didn’t change until stopping down to f/5.6, and then it was only slightly slower to focus. The focus speed changed about 8%. Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 Sport at 200mm I shot this lens under the same bright conditions at EV 13.2. I also shot using my Nikon Z9 and the FTZII adapter. f/2.8 through f/4.0      focus 0.37 sec. (1.2m to infinity: 44 frames) f/5.6                              focus 0.40 sec. (1.2m to infinity: 48 frames) Once again, the focus time was consistent with f/2.8 through f/4.0 and got just slightly slower at f/5.6. Again, focus slowed by about 8%. Summary I am glad that Nikon made the design decision to focus at the shooting aperture, up through f/5.6. When I shoot action in dim lighting, where focus would start getting slower, I open up my aperture to keep a sufficient shutter speed. For landscapes (f/8 usually), I really don’t care how long it takes to focus. I no longer have to concern myself with missed focus when I use fast lenses that have spherical aberration and therefore suffer from focus shift problems. I appreciate actually seeing the real depth of focus as I stop the lens down, too, especially in close-up portraits. I can’t help but think that the Nikon engineers did some careful testing before making the design decision to focus at the shooting aperture. All of the Nikon DSLRs focus with the lens wide-open instead, because there’s really no choice when considering the dim conditions that those focus systems have to operate in. It would be optimal if there was a firmware feature that allowed photographers to choose which kind of focus method to use, but I’m not holding my breath on that one.

I thought that Nikon’s Z8 pixel-shift shooting would be the golden ticket for sharp landscapes, but I was disappointed. Even with no wind, heat-shimmer (unstable atmosphere) ruins the merged pixel-shifted shots. Nikon’s NX Studio is used to merge the pixel-shifted photographs (I usually combine 16 or 32 shots). For indoor work using a good lens, the resulting resolution is absolutely amazing (180 MP). NX Studio is ‘dumb’, though, when it comes to dealing with any subject movement between shots. I also found out that photographing the Moon doesn’t work with pixel-shift shooting, even when the Z8 takes the photos at 9 frames per second. Both the atmosphere and the Earth’s rotation spoil the results. The software I’m going to discuss isn’t limited to the Moon or the planets, although that’s what it was designed for.  It can also help with any distant terrestrial landscape shots, as long as your subject holds still.  The key to sharpness is based on statistics.  Most of the time, details of your subject are in the same location, but with a shimmering atmosphere, sometimes they move a bit.  If you take several shots of the same subject and look for details that are “usually” present in each of the photos, you can combine these shots into a single sharper picture. If you look close enough, you’ll find that some shots are sharper than others.  The software also recognizes this, and is capable of automatically only selecting the “best” shots it locates in a series (a ‘stack’). The program I’m going to describe is called “AutoStakkert”, version 4.0.1  for 64-bit Windows.  I’m using it on Windows 11.  It’s available on other operating systems, too.  This free program can be located here. The programs’ Dutch author is Emil Kraaikamp. Emil has kept up with making this program smarter over the years. I wrote an article about this program several years ago, before pixel-shifting was available, which you can look at here. The program hasn’t changed very much over the years, so the old tutorial is still mostly valid. This new article is only for the very pickiest of photographers, who really, really want to get the sharpest landscapes or moon shots. The AutoStakkert program isn’t for the faint of heart or the lazy people. Bear in mind, though, that it can’t cure a windy day; if leaves are blowing around, then stacking can’t fix that. You can also forget about shots with moving water; it won’t work for those, either. I converted my raw photos into 16-bit TIF files to use the program, but it accepts a variety of image formats.  It doesn’t accept raw formats, though. There are many, many options available with this program, but I’ll describe a couple of recipes that work for me.  Keep in mind that the intended users of this program are astronomers, not photographers. I have had best success when using at least 20 pictures in a stack. Since the Z8 pixel-shift feature can shoot up to 32 frames at a time, this is ideal. I’ve seen extreme examples where users have processed more than 10,000 shots in a stack (frames from a video) with this program!  The more atmospheric shimmer, the more shots you’ll need to counteract that shimmer. The Z8 lets you shoot a series of pixel-shift shots, so you can easily go beyond the 32 limit. Before I forget to mention it, AutoStakkert can output a ‘sharpened’ photo, but I don’t like the result (totally over-sharpened with haloes).  I use the unsharpened output and post-process it with my favorite photo editor instead. Finished result, after using AutoStakkert. 500mm PF The cropped shot above, using the Nikkor 500mm PF f/5.6 looks more like it was taken through a telescope. This is a 13-shot stack, using some of the pixel-shift raw shots from the Z8 after converting them into compressed TIF format. No atmospheric distortion seen here! This shot has received no post-processing. Same merged 16 shots using NX Studio to make NEFX file: disaster! The very slight orbital motion of the Moon ruined the pixel-shift merge, even with the shots taken at 9 frames per second (the pixel-shift ‘interval’ was set to zero seconds). Using the AutoStakkert Program Part 1: the Moon Run the program “AutoStakkert.exe” as an Administrator (right-mouse click on the file to do this). I believe the program author is from the Netherlands, hence the unusual program name. This program doesn’t like raw format, so you’ll need to convert your photos into any of a variety of image formats (I use 16-bit tiff with LZW compression). AutoStakkert: Moon uses “Planet” option, landscape uses “Surface” For my moon shots, I don’t bother to re-center the moon in the frame to counteract the Earth’s rotation.  The software takes care of that, when you choose the “Planet (COG)” Image Stabilization option. You get the same effect as you would from using a motorized equatorial mount. If you’re shooting distant landscapes, you need to use the “Surface” Image Stabilization option instead, where your subject isn’t moving. If you don’t use a tripod for this, then you might as well stop reading the article at this point. The screen shot above shows some of the settings when shooting the Moon. I’ll show an example later that demonstrates some suggested ‘landscape’ settings. Click the “1) Open” button, and browse to the folder with your (TIF, JPG, etc.) multiple shots to process.  Use the “control” or “shift” buttons to select the desired photos to process as a stack. Selecting the pixel-shifted files to stack Review the photos for alignment Scroll to center your subject in the window before reviewing the shots. The moon, even at 500mm, isn’t very large in the photographs. After clicking on the “1) Open” button and selecting the 16-bit TIF photos, I click the “Play” button to see if the automatic rough alignment was successful.  This rough alignment counteracts the rotation of the Earth between the shots, assuming you don’t bother to realign the moon in your viewfinder. The “Play” button starts a slide show running. Image quality grading numbers get displayed next to the “F#” (frame number) on the photo-display dialog upper left side. You can click in the “Frames” progress bar to manually step through the image stack, too. This lets you easily compare how sharp each shot is, relative to each of the other shots.  Click “Stop” to halt the slide show. If you have selected “Planet (COG)”, the stack of photos should already be roughly aligned with each other. If you set your camera pixel-shift ‘interval’ to 0 seconds, the alignment isn’t much of an issue anyway. Screen shot after photo stack analysis, before clicking “Place AP grid”. Click the “2) Analyse” button next.  This will perform an initial quality assessment of the selected pictures, and then decide which are the sharpest photos.  It generates a plot of the shot quality as well. The program will place your shots in order of decreasing sharpness. The gray line in the plot is in the same order as the input photo file stack, and the green line is the sorted order of the frames. Click on the “Frames” button to switch between sorted or original input frame order, and use the slider to switch from frame-to-frame (or else type in the desired shot number). The “Frames” button turns green when this feature is available. If you place the mouse pointer over the slider area, the tool-tip text will indicate the active sorting order (“The frames are now sorted by quality”). “Frame” slider/input box to view stack images and their quality rating Note the “F# below the slider, such as “F#3 [15/16]”, which indicates the 3rd frame of 16 is the fifteenth sharpest photo, and the third shot (file) in the stack. This example frame is in the “top 93.3 % ” of the entire stack, and has a quality rating of  “Q 3.3%”. You generally want a photo quality rating of 50% or better in your final stack. Frame #3 shouldn’t be included in the stacking. There is a zoom slider and horizontal/vertical sliders to magnify and shift the view of the selected photo in the stack. This is an under-appreciated program feature.  You might have hundreds of photos, and it would be a terrible chore to manually figure out which ones are the sharpest. This feature automatically finds them and sorts them. You’ll get an error (!#@Anchor) if your shots aren’t aligned well enough for analysis. You’d probably get this error if you did a whole moon shot but selected “Surface” instead of “Planet (COG)”, and the moon was in a different location in each shot. I presume “!#@Anchor” is some form of Dutch swearing. Alignment Point setting If the Analysis looks good (view the graph for a nice continuous plot showing gradual decrease in image quality of the sorted shots), you’re ready to select the final alignment points. For quality ‘planet’ input images, select a “small” alignment point size (AP Size) of 24. For lesser quality images, select a larger number. I have experienced alignment mistakes when using larger alignment point sizes. I’d suggest you use the automatic alignment point creation, which will put many points on your image.  Lots of points are needed for quality alignment of the shots in the stack. There’s a manual placement option (“Manual Draw” checkbox), although I haven’t had good success with it.  After Analysis, there will be a red rectangle over your displayed photo. If you want to try placing manual alignment points, don’t put any points outside of this rectangle, since some of your shot details go outside of this rectangle. Place the Aligment grid Click the “Place AP grid” button next. This is the automatic way to get the alignment point grid added to your displayed photo. This is fast, easy, and lazy, which I’m all for. It will put a grid of points over the entirety of your subject, but avoids the black background (if you’re shooting moon shots). There’s an “Alignment Points” “Clear” button, if you decide you’re unhappy with your detail selections (and you want to start over). You can try changing the alignment point size, if you wish to experiment with that option. I have a value of “80” (green box) for the “Frame percentage to stack” in the section labeled “Stack Options”.  This will cause the program to only use the best 80% of the shots in the final processed shot, and it will throw out the worst (most blurred) shots.  Use the “Quality Graph” and “Play” results to help you decide on the percentage of sharp shots you want to retain for the final stacking process. The “Normalize Stack” option will enforce a consistent brightness level for each shot, and isn’t typically needed unless you have a non-black sky with your moon. The “Drizzle” option was originally developed for the Hubble telescope. It is intended to take under-sampled data and improve the resolution of the final image. This option doesn’t seem to help my shots any. It will really slow down the stack crunching if you select it. I selected “TIF” for the output format of the final processed shot (under “Stack Options”), which will be placed in this case into a folder next to your input photos, and called “AS_P80”.  This folder name indicates it was created by AutoStakkert, and has the results of selecting “80 Percent” of the input shots. I left the “Sharpened” checkbox un-selected and the “Save in Folders” selected. I’m not a fan of the sharpened results from this program, but it can still be a useful evaluation tool, even if it’s not good “art”. You’ll get an extra output file with “_conv” add to its name if you select “Sharpened”. Notice in the screen shot shown above that the program automatically added 1801 alignment points onto the photo after clicking the “Place AP grid”, and added the text “1801 APs”. When I have used less than 300 points, I have noticed occasional alignment errors in the final results. Now, click the “3) Stack” button.  And wait. Then, wait some more. You’ll get some progress messages with little green check marks and how much time each of them took as they complete.  Expect several minutes to elapse before the stacking is complete.  The finished output files will be in TIF format if you matched my TIF output format selection. A fast computer is really handy here. Unfortunately, this program doesn’t take advantage of a GPU to speed things up. The resulting pictures include an unsharpened image and also a sharpened image (with “_conv” at the end of the file name) if that option was selected. As I mentioned, I don’t like how this program does sharpening, so I would post-process the unsharpened stacking result in another photo editor. The finished result (TIF) file has “_lapl4” and “_ap1801” as a part of the file name, because in this example I used the “Laplace” delta, noise robust 4, and created 1801 alignment points. Note in the shot above that you can see green checkmarks with timing measurements.  This section gets filled in as the program progresses. Finished results (TIF files here) go into the “AS_P80” folder, since 80% percent was selected for the “Frame percentage”.  If you had chosen 70 percent, you’d have an “AS_P70” folder instead. You’ll find that the program is smart enough to not only shift your photos for accurate alignment, but it also applies rotation correction!  Impressive. Like I said, this guy’s an astronomer. Single (unsharpened) shot example crop.  NOT a stacked photo. The picture above is the best single-shot photo I had to work with, which has not been post processed. It is actually missing some subtle details and also has some ‘false’ details, all due to (minor) atmospheric shimmer. It’s pretty good as-is, but can still stand some improvement. The un-cratered “mare” are particularly noisy and contain some misleading ‘false’ detail. You’ll be doing yourself a favor if you take your photos with the Moon high in the sky, so that you aren’t shooting through as much atmosphere. Autostakkert final processed shot detail, no sharpening. The cropped shot above (magnified a few hundred percent) shows the result of using the best 80% of my stack of 16 original shots.  It still needs post-processing for any brightness, contrast, or other alterations.  If I had shot many more photos for the stack, the quality would improve even more. This crop is from the photograph at the top of this article. If you compare the details between the “single shot” and the finished AutoStakkert stacked result, you can see several extra details that show up in the stacked picture.  Note the smooth surfaces are starting to show subtle shading, which is missing in any of the single shots. This program really does work. If I had shot many more photos, then the results would improve even more. I’m certainly not an expert at using this program, but it’s clear to me that stacking photos can absolutely increase the level of detail that moon (and general landscape) shots contain.  It’s almost like getting a better lens than you really have. You could, if you’re inclined to do so, even shoot a movie of your subject (converted to AVI) and Autostakkert can use that as input, too. But this article is about using the pixel-shift feature. Part 2: Landscapes If you photograph a distant subject, especially on a warm day, heat shimmer can be severe.  Using the “Surface” option (instead of “Planet”), you can dramatically improve subject detail if you use a tripod and take at least a few dozen shots for stacking. Distant landscape “Surface”, with many alignment points The screen shot above shows the selected options for processing a stack of distant (10 km, or about 6 miles!) landscape ‘Surface’ shots. Unlike moon shots, you must keep your subject framed exactly the same shot-to-shot for “Surface” processing. If you look carefully, you’ll notice that the auto-alignment grid shows 58574 points (!). Notice that I set the “AP Size” to 48 instead of the 24 used with the Moon. It placed the alignment points all over the photo, except in the places that were really out of focus, after clicking the Place AP grid. Just like moon shots, you can “Play” the stack of frames to evaluate sharpness and alignment.  Try to stack only the frames that have a quality rating of 50% or better, and rid any frames that don’t align well relative to their neighboring frames. Mid-stacking progress screen, using 60% of 32 photos Stacking has finished (16-shot example) with 58,574 alignment points Stacking has finished (32-shot example) with 60,410 alignment points My best single RAW shot in the stack, 100% magnification Plenty of shimmering air turbulence here. The antenna structures are really distorted. Antenna detail, single RAW (NEF) shot Pixel-shifted NEFX merged 16 shots, NX Studio The NX Studio merged picture looks a bit better than the raw shot in this case (many times it’s actually worse), but details are fuzzy. NEFX ‘merged’ shot detail AutoStakkert from 16-shot pixel-shift tif photos, 60% used All of the details are a bit clearer than the NEFX results. Using only 60% of 16 shots is about the minimum number you should use for this program. More is better. AutoStakkert 16 shot series detail AutoStakkert from 32-shot pixel-shift tif photos, 60% used AutoStakkert 32 shot series detail The more shots you use, the better the results using AutoStakkert. You can always make a series of pixel-shifted photos, if you want to get the results even sharper. The sharpness differences aren’t vast, but you do get better resolution using AutoStakkert, and the sharpness increases with more shots taken. Conclusion If you’ve got the time and motivation to get the very best out of your gear, then give this program a try.  You might just find AutoStakkert becoming a welcome part of your tool kit.  If you’d like to read more explanations of this software, here’s a handy link . This program does a superior job at handling pixel-shifted shots when compared to the Nikon NX Studio, although it’s definitely slower and much more difficult to use. Once again, photos and science make a perfect blend for your art. Thank you so much, Emil Kraaikamp!

The latest firmware (2.0) for the Nikon Z8 includes the ability to pixel-shift. You can supposedly get resolutions up to about 180MP from its 45.7 MP sensor. Is this true? It’s time to find out. First of all, the final resolution in a photograph is a combination of the lens resolution and the camera sensor resolution. That means that a crappy lens won’t get you any more resolution on the high-resolution sensor than on a lower resolution sensor. A high-resolution lens, however, will show higher resolution in the photographs when switching to a higher-resolution sensor. I’m going to do some tests using my Nikkor 24-120mm f/4 S lens, which has pretty good resolution. I’m going to perform the tests using f/5.6, which is peak performance for my lens. Shots using pixel-shifting require you to use a tripod, since it takes the camera some time to shoot each individual shot in the pixel-shift sequence. Pixel-shifted shots are generally only useful for static targets, such as landscapes or product shots. It's my understanding that the 'shift' amount is about a half-pixel, shifting toward each neighboring pixel. This shifting provides data about the neighboring pixel color. When shooting more shots (8, 16, 32) it gathers additional 'noise' data that can get averaged into a better-quality result. Now for some disappointing news: the Nikon pixel-shift feature doesn’t produce a single high-resolution raw photograph. Instead, you must combine the series of photographs made while pixel-shifting using NX Studio (version 1.6.0). Most camera companies do this same sort of thing, forcing you to create the high-resolution shot using an editor. The most disappointing aspect of this is that NX Studio won’t let you create a conventional raw output result; it makes an ‘NEFX’ file, which you can only export as either jpeg or tiff. You should of course select “16-bit TIFF” for export if you’re interested in quality. At least you can then use this TIFF file in your favorite editor, such as Lightroom, Capture One, or ON1. Update: The newer Adobe DNG converter (I'm using 16.1) DOES understand that an NEFX file is in fact a raw file, and can convert it into DNG! Update2: As of February 7, 2024 Capture One Pro 16.3.5 announced that they now support the NEFX file format for both the Nikon Z8 and the Nikon Zf. (I don't have this version to try it out). Update3: The Adobe DNG version 16.1 creates DNG files from the NEFX files that are defective. They came out with version 16.2 as of 2-22-2024 that fixes this problem. I performed a resolution analysis of the pixel-shifted results file to find out just how good these TIFF files are. As you may know, TIFF files have some embedded sharpening applied to them, so you get bogus resolution numbers when compared to using raw-format photos. I came up with a procedure that lets me quote resolution measurements that are comparable with raw-format photographs, even though they’re provided in TIFF format. How to use Pixel-Shifting Shooting In order that I don’t put the cart before the horse, a discussion on how to make the pixel-shifted shot is in order. To make using this feature easier, I started by assigning pixel-shift shooting to my “i-menu”. If you don’t want to do this, then you have to delve into the ‘photo-shooting’ menu to use this feature instead. Pixel-shift shooting is assigned to my Z8 “i” menu. When you use the "i" menu, you can then control some of its settings using the rear and then the front control dial. The ‘Pixel shift shooting’ menu Once the settings are configured to your liking, you activate it by setting the ‘Pixel shift shooting mode’. How many shots to combine Select the ‘Number of shots’ to configure how many photographs will get combined into the final pixel-shifted file. The higher the number of shots you select, the more potential resolution you can get. It will also of course take quite a bit longer to perform the entire pixel-shift operation when you pick a larger number. I tried the 16-shot option, and the resulting NEFX file was nearly 1 gigabyte! The number of shot choices are 4, 8, 16, or 32 How long to delay before starting the shooting How many seconds between each shot: 0 is okay and FAST I measured 9 frames per second when the interval is set to zero. The screen is blacked out when shooting at this speed. Select a single pixel-shifted shot sequence or multiple shots If you select a ‘single photo’, then the camera leaves pixel-shift shooting mode as soon as the ‘number of shots’ for the combined shot is finished. How to combine the shot sequence NX Studio version 1.6.0 “Pixel shift merge” After collecting the pixel-shifted shots, it’s time to merge them together using NX Studio.  Hopefully there will be other editors in the future that can do this same operation, but merge them into a raw format such as DNG. Begin by multi-selecting all of the shots in the pixel-shift sequence (4, 8, 16, or 32 shots).  Next, click the “Pixel shift merge” feature as shown above. Create your “NEFX” merged high-resolution photo Browse to your photo collection, select the group of raw files representing the whole pixel-shifted photo, and then merge them together into an NEFX file. Note that NX Studio can generally figure out how the shots are grouped, so that you can just click the checkbox on the groups and then start the merging. Of course nobody except Nikon presently knows what an NEFX file is. Maybe Adobe will eventually know, so that it could make a DNG file from it. Update: Yes, Adobe now knows how to convert NEFX into DNG! Convert your NEFX file into something useful Once the NEFX file is created, you can export it into either jpeg or tiff (8 or 16 bit). It is of course possible that you can stick with NX Studio for further editing, but most photographers will prefer at this point to make a 16-bit TIFF file to edit in other editors. Update: Now that Adobe can convert the NEFX into DNG, you can bypass any editing with TIFF, and simply import the DNG version into other editors, such as Lightroom, Capture One, and ON1. Analyzing the Pixel-shifted Result The purpose of this article is to find out just how good the final pixel-shifted file is. I used the MTFMapper program to do this operation. I photographed a large resolution target, using my Z8 with the 24-120mm f/4S lens.  I chose to shoot the target at f/5.6 and zoomed to 61mm for the test. The pixel-shifted resolution result Hold your horses. Before you go bragging about how your resolution has nearly doubled from 75 lp/mm to 137 lp/mm, a little reality check is in order. The plot above is using a 16-bit TIFF file (exported from the NEFX file). I always do resolution analysis using un-sharpened raw-format (either DNG or NEF file). Before we really know how good pixel-shifting is, we need to compare apples to apples. I took a raw shot out of the pixel-shifting series and did a resolution analysis on it. I did a resolution analysis using both the NEF raw file and also a TIFF version of the same file.  By knowing how the resolution numbers change going from NEF to TIFF, I can then know how good the NEFX file really is. A TIFF file taken from the pixel-shift sequence The peak resolution from the TIFF version from one of the pixel-shift sequence has a resolution of 108.6 lp/mm. A raw-format file taken from the pixel-shift sequence Analyzing the same raw-format photograph (un-sharpened) in the series gives a peak resolution of 72.6 lp/mm.  This means that converting from NEF format into TIFF format changed the resolution from 72.6 to 108.6 lp/mm. Since the TIFF-format resolution of the pixel-shifted NEFX file is 137.1 lp/mm, the same percent change in resolution would mean that in fact the real resolution would instead be 91.65 lp/mm if it was converted into a raw-format NEF (or DNG) file. Update: I will be re-analyzing my NEFX file results converted into 'DNG' raw format, after I installed the latest Adobe DNG Converter. If there are any resolution result changes, I'll add them here... Another DNG shot, 8256 X 5504 pixels 77.6 lp/mm peak Pixel-shifted (16 shots) DNG shot, 16512 X 11008 pixels 74 lp/mm peak In the above pair of shots, I used the new Adobe DNG converter on the NEF and the NEFX shots. The single-shot DNG version has a peak resolution of 77.6 lp/mm at 5504 pixels tall. The DNG version of the pixel-shifted 16 merged shots has a resolution of 74 lp/mm at 11008 pixels tall. So why in the world does the pixel-shifted shot seem to have slightly lower resolution? Because it has twice as many equivalent pixels in both the horizontal and vertical directions! Another way to express resolution is in units of line pairs per picture height (lp/ph), where you multiply the line pairs per millimeter by how many millimeters tall the sensor is. With pixel-shifting, you essentially double the number of millimeters in the sensor, so the Z8 sensor would change from 23.9X35.9 to 47.8X71.8 millimeters! This means the resolution changed from 1855 lp/ph to 3537 lp/ph! Definitely improved resolution! The percent change in resolution is actually about 90 percent! This resolution is the equivalent of an MTF50 148 lp/mm from a non-pixel-shifted sensor with the 23.9X35.9 dimensions. Update 2: I saw unusual results using the DNG files made from the NEFX file via the Adobe DNG Converter. The external editors only saw the middle section of the DNG, but were okay using the exported TIFF file. If this happens to you, then you'll need to stick with the exported TIFF file from the NX Studio application. Update 3, 2-22-2024: As of now, Adobe just put out their 16.2 version of their Adobe DNG Converter. This fixes the problem with other editors seeing only the middle section of the DNG merged pixel-shift file. Now, other editors work correctly with the NEFX-->DNG merged file! Real Life Example So what's this mean in a real-life example? Check out the following shots (both observed in raw format inside the NX Studio editor). The first (regular raw NEF picture) shot was zoomed to 400%. The 16-shot NEFX merged shot was zoomed to 200%. You need the zoom difference between views, because the pixel-shifted NEFX photo has twice as many pixels in both the vertical and horizontal directions. Raw-format single shot at 400% zoom NEFX shot at 200% zoom This kind of result is golden for photgraphers doing product shots in a controlled environment. It really is like getting a new (medium format) camera. The shots above were photographed in essentially 'deep shade', in order to see how the colors were handled. Notice that the pixel-shifted NEFX shot has vastly better color handling in the reddish-colored label details. Summary The pixel-shift feature, taking 8 shots and combining them into a single shot, resulted in a 26.2 percent increase in resolution. While this may seem underwhelming, it is in fact quite good. This is only looking at TIFF-format pictures. The EXIF data analysis indicates that both the 4-shot and 8-shot sequences yield 8256X5504 pixels (45.4 MP). The 16 and 32-shot sequences both yield 16512X11008 pixels. Update: After getting the new Adobe DNG converter and doing an analysis using all DNG raw photos, the resolution change using 16 combined shots was about a 90 percent increase! I didn't try the 32-shot pixel shifting yet (the file size would be truly gigantic). Is pixel-shift shooting worth it? Heck yeah, as long as your subject is completely stable (which includes the air in front of your subject). The resolution increase that pixel-shifting creates depends upon a few factors, including which lens you test and your choice of 4, 8, 16, or 32 shots being combined. For my 16-shot test, what's 16512 X 11008? It's 181,764,096 or 181MP. Beware that shooting landscapes when there is wind, moving water, or 'heat shimmer' will result in the pixel-shifted shot being worse than a single raw shot. Air turbulance plays havoc with the shot-merging software. The merging of the shots into an NEFX will not go well. The smoothing of color noise may be a bigger factor than resolution improvements. The Nikon Bayer sensor is also called 'RGGB', referring to neighboring pixel color sequences. The pixel-shifting operation changes this into something more like Sigma's Foveon sensor, that stacks all of the color information under a single pixel. The 8-shot and 32-shot sequences add more color-noise smoothing, compared to the 4-shot and 16-shot sequences. Next, look forward to seeing this feature show up on the Nikon Z9, right?

Is your photo editor telling you the truth? Probably not. How can you know for sure? One of the last things that photographers concern themselves with is having a calibrated computer monitor.  You paid good money for that monitor, therefore what you see on the screen is correct, right? If you have gotten your photos printed and discovered that the prints don’t look like what your screen shows, you probably need monitor calibration. If you have two different monitor models and pictures look different on each display, then you need monitor calibration (perhaps on both of them). Room lighting is important. Bright or unusual-colored lights will affect the viewing experience on your monitor. Most people have room lights that are too bright to be used for accurate photo viewing/editing. This article will show you an example of how you can calibrate your computer monitor. You may think that your computer screen is operating just fine, but chances are that it isn’t displaying your photos correctly. Can you get your monitor calibrated without using special hardware? Nope. Is calibration hardware expensive? Nope. I own monitor calibration hardware called Spyder5 Pro, which also comes with the necessary software to control the hardware. Newer versions of this hardware are now available. There are of course other products on the market for this purpose, and probably any of them can accomplish the same goal.  I have used my same calibration hardware for several years on multiple computers without any issues. I’m not trying to sell you anything; I’m just going to show you a typical monitor calibration experience. The Spyder5 Pro software that is included with my hardware will produce an .ICM (Image Color Matching) file, which will get loaded each time you boot up your computer. The proper brightness levels of red, green, and blue will be automatically adjusted using this .ICM file information. Once the monitor is calibrated, the Spyder hardware used in the calibration process can be disconnected. Computer displays can drift over time, so regular checking and recalibration of monitors is also recommended. Computer monitors have different capabilities; my main monitor only has a brightness control. I have other monitors that allow manual control over things such as the color temperature and gamma. Generally, monitor controls over things such as the hue will be overridden by the calibration data contained in the ICM file. Room Lighting The lights in your room can ‘contaminate’ what you see on your computer monitor. It is recommended that you have fairly low room illumination; a light dimmer switch can help. It’s also helpful to close any window curtains to keep room light levels lower. My Spyder hardware has a feature that measures room illumination separately from the screen illumination. The calibration process includes analysis of the room lighting. Measuring room light level The sensor just under the “Spyder5” text shown above gets used for this measurement. The screen sensors are on the bottom of the unit, (facing the desktop) in the shot above. You don’t need to close the rear cap under the Spyder 5 to take room light measurements unless it’s on a glass surface that transmits light. Preparing for room light measurement Room lighting result Room lighting measurement is conducted before any monitor calibration. You’d be surprised at how low the recommended room illumination levels are. I have worked with people that always keep a hood over their workstation when doing critical photography editing and viewing. If the screen brightness is wrong, then photo prints won’t have the correct ‘lightness’ in them. Monitor Calibration Before calibration Prior to calibrating the monitor, the program reviews what needs to be done. The monitor should be warmed up to get the display stable; the colors might be a little different from when you first turn your computer on. The room lighting needs to be checked, and you need to know what controls are available on your monitor hardware, such as brightness and the color temperature. Specify your available monitor controls Setting up the calibration process Before performing monitor calibration, the program needs to be told what to do. In the screen above, I have requested that monitor brightness be adjusted (via buttons on the monitor) and room lights will be on. To actually calibrate the monitor, the hardware needs to be physically placed onto the screen. After plugging the device into a USB port, the Spyder hardware is hung down from the top of the monitor and aligned to the target displayed on the screen. Kind of like a spider hanging on a thread of silk. Now you know how the Spyder people came up with their name. Aligning the Spyder hardware on the monitor The Spyder hardware is capable of analyzing both screen brightness and colors. Measuring screen brightness The program will guide you through measuring/adjusting screen brightness, if you requested that feature. If your monitor doesn’t allow brightness adjustment, then you can skip this step. In the shot above, I was able to adjust the monitor brightness to get within 2 cd/m^2 of the goal of 180. The “cd” stands for “candles”, which is a measure of illumination. Monitor brightness is out of adjustment After screen brightness adjustment is done, the program will then proceed to automatically measure the screen red, blue, and green colors at many different brightness levels. Calibration complete When the program finishes measuring the different screen colors at various brightness levels, it will let you know it’s done. At this point, the Spyder hardware can be removed from the monitor and unplugged from the USB port. The calibrated screen view After calibration, you get to see a set of sample photos using the new calibration. This program offers a “Switch” button to toggle between the calibrated and un-calibrated view of the same sample photos to compare them. Calibrated sRGB actual display gamut The monitor actual sRGB gamut can be displayed after calibration. The shot above shows that my monitor can display 100% of the sRGB color space. Calibrated AdobeRGB display gamut The monitor actual AdobeRGB gamut can be displayed after calibration. The shot above indicates the calibrated monitor is displaying 98% of the AdobeRGB color space, or "gamut". Summary If you’re serious about the quality of your photography, then don’t ignore your computer monitor. You also can’t ignore the lighting conditions of the room your computer is in. It’s neither expensive nor overly complicated to calibrate your computer monitor. Using calibration hardware and software can take your photography to the next level.