Nikon has a very capable feature set to enable manual focus assistance called ‘focus peaking’. Unfortunately, the camera menu system wording almost guarantees using it incorrectly. Nikon Z9 rear screen focus peaking display As seen above, the image details that are in focus get a color outline around them; in this case they’re red. If you look closer, you should notice at least a couple of problems with what is shown. The first problem with focus peaking you should note is that many of the fine details are shown as ‘in focus’, even though they’re largely mush. Another problem is that the nearly-horizontal edges aren’t ever shown as being in-focus; only the mostly-vertical edges are indicated as being sharp. The Custom Settings Menu Let’s take a look at the camera setup menus that activate and configure focus peaking. Locate the ‘a Focus’ option First, locate the Custom Settings Menu, and then open up the Focus option. Nikon Z9 Option ‘a13 Focus peaking’ Next, scroll down to the Focus peaking option. Don’t bother looking for in-camera help to explain peaking; on my cameras, it offers no help. Turn on the Focus peaking display Be sure to activate focus peaking by turning it ON. After focus peaking is active, your camera display (viewfinder and rear screen) will show peaking whenever you twist the Z-lens focus ring. It will even work when the lens focus switch is set to “A” for automatic focus; you don’t have to switch to “M” for manual-only focus. Some F-mount lenses may require a manual-focus switch setting to get the peaking display, and most non-Nikon lenses will also require the ‘manual’ focus switch setting to get a focus peaking display. Focus peaking sensitivity Please remember this: when Nikon says “high sensitivity”, they mean LOW focus resolution! With wide angle lenses, a setting of “3 (high sensitivity)” will often mean that the entire frame is shown as “in focus”. You will almost NEVER want a setting of “3”; maybe save it for use on a foggy day. For most conditions, please set the peaking sensitivity to “1 (low sensitivity)”; this setting will be the best indicator of what is actually in focus. Even this setting using an un-magnified viewfinder can give you pretty sloppy focus results. Nikon came up with the “high sensitivity” descriptor due to how they implement peaking. Very small changes in illumination levels between neighboring (horizontal) pixels will trigger peaking if the camera is configured to have a high sensitivity to these small light changes. Unfortunately, this small-change condition rarely means that the lens is properly focused. Focus peaking color Nikon gives you 4 color choices for peaking. With this, you can adapt to your subject’s color to get the best peaking contrast. How to get better focus results The key to getting critical focus is to use viewfinder/rear screen magnification. You magnify the viewfinder by using the little “magnifying glass +” button on the back of the camera. Multiple presses of this button will give greater viewfinder image magnification. No screen/viewfinder magnification The shot above shows the camera rear screen at NO magnification (it was too difficult to get a photo of the viewfinder view). The peaking sensitivity was set to “1 (low sensitivity)”. Even at the 1 setting, the “in focus” peaking is too sloppy and covers most of the frame. Single-press of the “Magnifier +” button Notice that the slightly-magnified screen view has significantly reduced the range of the red peaking display. This is a much better indicator of what is really in good focus. Double-press of the “Magnifier +” button At higher viewfinder magnification, the range of “in focus” is much narrower. By the way, notice how none of the nearly-horizontal edge detail is shown as “in focus” although it is clearly in focus. Triple-press of the “Magnifier +” button Bummer! At this very high screen magnification, there are NO focus peaking indicators. What to do? Again, the shots above are all using the “1 (low sensitivity)” setting. Triple-press of the “Magnifier +” button, ‘standard’ sensitivity I switched over to the “2 (standard)” peaking sensitivity. At the same high viewfinder magnification, peaking has returned! This setting is pretty sloppy at zero viewfinder magnification, but at high viewfinder magnification it is really good. Horizontal edge detail No peaking to be seen for horizontal edges Note the total absence of horizontal-edge peaking indicators. The reason for this is how Nikon implemented focus-peaking in their firmware. The camera is only looking at left/right pixel neighbors for changes in illumination level. If you’re looking at a subject made up of only horizontal detail, then you’ll need to briefly roll your camera about the lens axis to confirm focus. Focus-peaking math If you’re interested, here is a little discussion of how the low-level camera firmware operates to figure out focus-peaking. Don't freak out about the math. First, the camera makes up little lists of a pixel with its left-right nearest pixel neighbors. These lists consist of a pixel number and its illumination level. Next, these lists are run through a ‘linear regression’ to calculate an equation that best fits a line through the plot of pixel-number versus pixel-illumination. The equation of a line in most math books looks like this: Y = m*X + b The Y shown above represents pixel illumination. The m above is the ‘slope’ of the line, where a bigger (absolute) slope value is steeper. The X is the pixel number. The b is where the line crosses the vertical (Y) axis. When the line slope of pixel/illumination reaches a critical value, it means that the camera found a large-enough brightness change to indicate an in-focus edge and activates focus-peaking at this pixel. This process is repeated all around the image sensor, using a bunch of little lines. The camera menu peaking sensitivity is then related to each of these tiny rows of pixels. For high sensitivity, it activates peaking with fairly low slope values. For low sensitivity, it demands a high slope value. Sample of a line with low illumination changes Above, I show some made-up data of a short horizontal row of pixels somewhere on the sensor. I used pixel 900 through 910 (out of over 45 million pixels!). The brightness at these pixels ranges from ‘50’ to ‘94’ units. Using Microsoft Excel, I performed a linear regression on the data to calculate the equation of a line that best fits this data. The plot shows the original data (blue) and the best-fit line (red). The calculated slope of this line is “4.6”, which is fairly low. It would take a “high-sensitivity” focus peaking setting to decide that this represents an in-focus edge, and displays it in the viewfinder. If I had set the focus peaking to “low-sensitivity”, then this low slope value wouldn’t trigger any peaking to be displayed at this location in the viewfinder. A ‘high-sensitivity’ setting, however, would trigger peaking in the display, because it is sensitive to even small slopes. Sample of a line with large illumination changes Using my fake data above, the line was calculated to have a slope of “17.5” or so. This is a much steeper line (and higher slope value). Focus peaking would get triggered at ‘low sensitivity’ for a steep slope like this line has, as well as ‘high sensitivity’. This portion of the viewfinder would probably show peaking at any sensitivity setting. Nikon could have chosen to do the same peaking scheme using vertical columns of pixels, but decided not to do so. Most of the time, that decision has proven to be just fine. Summary I hope that gives you a better insight into what focus-peaking is, and how to use it to the best advantage. Stick with the lowest sensitivity that you can, and use the highest viewfinder magnification that you can to get the sharpest focus. Focus peaking makes using manual-focus lenses better than in any other time in history, especially when combined with the mirrorless camera viewfinders that allow magnification.

Let’s say that you really, really love editing in Lightroom, but there are a couple of features that ON1 Photo Raw 2023 has that you envy. Even if you don’t have the official “plug-ins” from ON1, but you have the executable, you can use it from Lightroom. None of my photo editors seem to have everything that I need, so I often invoke a feature of one editor from another editor, and then return to the original editor. It’s not quite as easy as using plug-ins, but it gets the job done. The setup procedures in Lightroom to use the ON1 editor aren’t very straightforward, but this guide should help set you straight. I love my stand-alone version of Lightroom, but other editors know a few tricks that I want to take advantage of. Select ‘Preferences’ from the Edit menu Begin by locating the ‘External Editing’ tab in the Preferences dialog of Lightroom. Inside the ‘Additional External Editor’ section, click on the ‘Choose’ button. Locate your ‘ON1 Photo RAW 2023.exe’ location Browse to where the ON1 Photo RAW 2023.exe program is located, and then click the Choose button. In my computer, it’s located on the ‘C’ drive, under the ‘Program Files\ON1\ON1 Photo RAW 2023’ folder. Configure the file to send to ON1 Select the file type, the color space, bit depth, or whatever you want to customize for the file that Lightroom will send to the ON1 editor. This file will contain all of the edits that have been done while inside Lightroom. Save the new Preset settings Click the down-arrow of the ‘Preset’ control, so that you can give it a custom name. Select “Save Current Settings as New Preset…” This preset will remember all of the settings that you have specified for the file. Give the new Preset a name Preset configuration is now complete Review the settings that you want the photo files sent to ON1 to have, along with the Preset name you want to use, and finally click OK. If you change your mind later, you can go back here and change to a different file format, color space, resolution, etc. for this custom preset. This configuration setup only needs to be done once in Lightroom. Afterwards, you can just use the ON1 editor whenever you want. Now, you’re ready to start using ON1 from Lightroom. After you finish your edits in the Lightroom ‘Develop’ module, you invoke ON1. Right-click the photo, then select “Edit In” Right-Click the mouse button while the pointer is on your photo, and then select “Edit In | ON1 2023 editor”, or whatever name you chose to give the ON1 “Preset” when you configured it. Edit a copy with adjustments You should see a dialog like that shown above. You’ll want to tell it to use a copy that retains the adjustments you have already made inside Lightroom. Click the Edit button. Lightroom will get busy and make a copy of the edited photo in the file format you specified, with all of the specifications you wanted. After the file is ready, Lightroom will then call the ON1 Photo RAW 2023 program and pass it the file. ON1 editor starts running with your photo After a few moments, the ON1 editor will execute, and you should see your photo appear in the Edit module. As shown above, the correct file format specified from the Lightroom ‘Custom Preset’ should be shown for the photograph. Go ahead and use those special ON1 editing features, such as sky-swapping or AI-enhanced noise removal. After finishing the ON1 edits, click ‘Done’ Save Photo dialog After clicking ‘Done’, you’ll get the ‘Save Photo’ dialog; make sure you save it in the same file format that it got sent to ON1 from Lightroom. Just click ‘Save’ when ready. Yes, replace it Since the Lightroom and ON1 editors aren’t really communicating with each other, you get the dialog shown above. Click ‘Yes’, because you DO want to replace the original Lightroom version that was created and then shipped over to the ON1 editor. Back in Lightroom with the ON1 modifications Back in Lightroom, you’ll be in the Develop module with the ON1-edited photo. You can quit the ON1 Photo RAW 2023 editor at this point. Two versions of your photo The filmstrip inside Lightroom now contains the old photo version, with its original file format, and the new photo in the file format that was specified for the ON1 editor. The new photo will be located right beside the original photo on disk. Summary Like I said, it’s not very straightforward to invoke ON1 from Lightroom, but it does get the job done. My stand-alone version of Lightroom doesn’t know how to do the artificial intelligence tricks of my ON1 Photo RAW 2023, but this is a way for it to get some of those benefits. This general technique of course works for calling other executables as well, but your mileage will vary.

Sometimes, you take a photograph that can’t be repaired with simple ‘global’ adjustments. This is why many photo editors offer ‘masks’. Photo needs only half of it adjusted In the shot above, I’d like it better if the left-half was less bluish and also slightly brighter. No camera adjustment can do that for me, since I want to leave the right-half of the photo alone. Notice that the border between the blue water and green trees is quite complicated, which can be very difficult to mask. The ON1 Photo Raw 2023 has many masking features, including some with artificial intelligence assistance. Unfortunately, AI can’t solve everything. I’d like to show some masking features that ON1 has, where you can help the editor to do a better job. You will need ‘Local’ edits (masks) As shown above, you need to select ‘Local’ in the Editor to begin the job of masking. Click ‘Add Adjustment’ to add a mask To add a mask, click the “Add Adjustment”. Click on the ‘Refine’ tool You might think that you’d want ‘Mask’ now, but I’ll show you a little trick that does most of the mask-painting for you. Click ‘Refine’ instead. Size the brush and help the AI do a better job After you adjust the desired size (diameter) of the masking ‘refine’ brush, give ON1 a little help by describing what kind of object is going to get masked. For this example photo, I’ll be masking branches. Draw loop/border around your object: left mouse button I’m actually interested in altering the left side of the photo, but it’s easier for me to select the trees/branch area. After the sunlit trees are selected, I can flip the mask to select everything except the object that I masked. Just draw a complete border around the object to mask, and ON1 will fill in the interior for you after you release the mouse button. Make the mask visible and red color It’s generally easier to see what’s going on if you make the mask visible, which you can do under the ‘Mask’ menu, as shown. Note that you can later show/hide the mask easily by the ‘Control+M’ key combination. Help refine the mask edges even more: Levels By using the ‘Levels’ slider, you can further refine the edges of the mask. You’ll probably want to toggle the mask visibility on and off (‘Control+M’) to judge the best setting combination on the (3) Levels slider knobs. You won’t be able to see the Levels slider until you click on the little black-and-white ‘mask’ icon. Click the Adjustment ‘mask’ icon If you want to adjust the ‘other’ part of the photo that isn’t being masked, you’ll need to invert the mask. To see the hidden masking options, click the little mask icon next to ‘Adjustment’. Click ‘Invert’ to flip the mask selection Since the goal of this demonstration is to select the non-masked portion (left side) of the photograph, click the ‘Invert’ button now. You should see the little mask icon image switch the white portion from the right side to the left side. The areas shown in white will be the ones to receive the edit adjustments. You may have heard the phrase "White reveals, black conceals", which means that whatever is showing as white in the mask icon will receive edit adjustments, and black areas will be unaffected. Make the adjustments With the mask set up to now allow editing the left side of the photo, go ahead and make the editing adjustment(s). Here, I have adjusted both the mid-tones and the color temperature. Left side of photo color is now warmer and brighter Summary ON1 Photo Raw 2023 provides some nice masking tools, but sometimes they need a little help to get the mask just right. There are several other masking tools than what was shown in this article, but this should be enough to enable you to accomplish most of what is needed to succeed with selective editing. By using AI-assisted masking, you can take your photographs to the next level of sophistication without a huge amount of effort or time.

I found it to be challenging to figure out how to execute some external editors from within my ON1 Photo Raw 2023 program. I thought I’d save you the pain of finding out how to do this yourself. I’m not talking about plug-ins here, which ON1 can also use, but actual executable programs instead. I happen to feel that Topaz DeNoise AI and Helicon Focus programs produce better results than those built-in features of ON1 Photo Raw 2023. These are just two examples of external photo editing tools that can be invoked from within ON1 Photo Raw 2023. I’ll start by showing you how to run Helicon Focus from within ON1, and then later demonstrate Topaz DeNoise AI. Helicon expects a bunch of photos to convert into a focus stack. In addition, Helicon doesn’t know how to decode my camera’s raw-format files, so they need to get converted before running Helicon. Why would I use Helicon Focus instead of the built-in stacking feature in ON1 Photo Raw 2023? Because Helicon Focus can stack many more photos and is overall more sophisticated at stacking than ON1 Photo Raw 2023. Going against logic, you have to invoke external editors from within the Browse module of ON1 and NOT from within its Edit module. Running Helicon Focus from ON1 Run another application From within the Browse module, multi-select the photos that you want to get processed by Helicon Focus. For most other editors, you only have to select the single photo you want to edit outside of ON1. After the photos are selected, click the right mouse button, and then click on ‘Send to Other Application…’. In the future, you won’t have to do this procedure with your external application, because ON1 will remember it and you’ll be able to select it directly from the list. Locate your application and then click ‘Open’ In the shot above, I navigated to ‘HeliconFocus.exe’ and then clicked the ‘Open’ button. Multiple photo warning Since I selected a bunch of photos to get stacked, ON1 got nervous and wants to double-check that I really want to send all of the photos to Helicon Focus. Yes, I really want to. Send copies of photos; not originals The first dialog that shows up wants to know if the original file or a copy of the file should get sent to the external editor. I have elected to send a copy that retains the edits I have already done from within ON1. DON’T click ‘Edit’ yet!!! Helicon Focus doesn’t understand my cameras’ raw format files, so I have to get them converted into a file format that it recognizes. I decided to send it ‘tiff’ format. Next, click ‘Copy Options’. Select TIFF from the format options I have chosen to select the TIFF format and SRGB color space for my stacked photos. This is a file format that my program Helicon Focus is happy with. Now, I can click Edit to continue on to the external editor. Progress dialog while making TIFF photos from raw photos The ON1 program lets me know it’s busy converting those raw photos into TIFF copies, preserving the original raw files. This can be time-consuming. After the copies are all completed, the Helicon Focus program gets called and each of the photos is supplied to it. Now, you’re able to tell Helicon Focus to ‘render’ the focus stack as usual. Rendered focus stack is ready to be saved After Helicon Focus finishes ‘rendering’, you can click ‘Save…’ just like you normally do. Helicon Focus ‘Save’ dialog for finished stack After the stack is saved, exit Helicon Focus Quit Helicon Focus by selecting ‘Exit’, just like normal. Helicon Focus will close, and the results are available for further editing in ON1, if you wish. Now, you can continue editing in the ON1 program. If you later decide to make another focus stack, you’re now going to find that Helicon Focus is now visible as an external editor option when you right-click on a photo (or set of photos) from the Browse module! It will also be an option via the File | Send to Helicon Focus 8. ON1 will now remember Helicon Focus From now on, you can directly get to Helicon Focus without having to locate it manually. Running Topaz DeNoise AI from ON1 I happen to like the sharpening results from Topaz better than using the built-in sharpen features on ON1. Here’s how to run Topaz from within ON1. You start out just like you did in the example above, except you select only a single photo from the Browse module that you want to sharpen. Topaz also doesn’t like my camera raw-format files, so I’ll need to convert the photo first. Right-click on the desired photo, then click the ‘Send to Other Application…’ to get the following dialog. Browse to where Topaz DeNoise AI.exe is located In the shot above, I navigated to ‘Topaz DeNoise.exe’ and then clicked the ‘Open’ button. Send copies of photos; not originals The first dialog that shows up wants to know if the original file or a copy of the file should get sent to the external editor. I have elected to send a copy that retains the edits I have already done from within ON1. DON’T click ‘Edit’ yet!!! Topaz DeNoise AI doesn’t understand my cameras’ raw format files, so I have to get them converted into a file format that it recognizes. I decided to send it ‘tiff’ format. I clicked ‘Copy Options’ to see what’s shown above. After configuring the desired file format (TIFF), now I can finally click the ‘Edit’ button. ON1 converts the raw photo into a TIFF copy, and then it starts up Topaz DeNoise AI. Topaz DeNoise AI opens up after ON1 runs it. The screen shot above shows how Topaz DeNoise AI runs like normal, using the (TIFF) file that was sent from ON1. After finishing with Topaz DeNoise AI, you can use the sharpened file back in ON1. New Topaz option now visible under Edit menu also Just like the Helicon Focus example, once you get Topaz DeNoise AI configured it will be available automatically in the future for you to select when you right-click a photo in the Browse module or if you click on the Edit menu option. Summary It’s very common to need to process a photo for some special feature that your general photo editor cannot do. Being able to call an external editor from within ON1 is very powerful and useful.

A nice feature included in ON1 Photo Raw 2023 is their “Tack Sharp AI” control, with Deblur. This control has the dual purpose of enhancing image sharpness and repairing image motion blur. There’s always the occasional shot made in really dim conditions where your photo got ruined because of camera shake or subject motion; the “deblur” feature can fix many of these shots. I’m not going to claim that this tool can transform smeared shots into razor sharp and detailed images, but it can certainly help rescue an irreplaceable photo and give you a second chance. Artificial intelligence (AI) can do some amazing feats that were once considered impossible. ON1 2023 Using ‘Tack Sharp AI with Deblur’ pixel-level view The blurred details in the pixel-level view shown above aren’t perfectly recovered, but they’re pretty darn good. This could save shots from the fate of ending up in the trash can. Nikon Z9, 500mm f/5.6 1/80s ISO 50 repaired photo The shot above, in which I intentionally used a very slow shutter speed to cause motion blur, was repaired. I used the ‘Tack Sharp AI with Deblur’ tool by itself, just using the default settings (100% on the sliders). You can combine sharpening with the “NoNoise AI” tool, if your shot looks too grainy. My preferred sharpening settings I think that the default sharpening settings tend to add a little white border to some image edges, which looks artificial. I happen to prefer setting the sharpen/de-blur slider to a value of around 40 or so for most images. The shot above shows how the view gets split in half, with the left side of the screen showing the ‘before correction’ view. You can drag your image around and you can additionally shift the left/right split to align with a region of interest. When you’re happy with what the sharpen/de-blur algorithm will do, then simply click the blue “Apply” button to sharpen the photo. If your computer doesn’t have a decent GPU, it will take quite a bit of time to complete the sharpening/de-blur process. My computer has an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 GPU, and the sharpen/de-blur operation is nearly instant. I decided to try some experiments, using a special focus-calibration target; I chose this mundane subject, because it is able to illustrate the capabilities and limitations of the editor AI engine to de-blur photographs. The target squares make it easy to compare de-blurring in vertical versus horizontal orientations. Moderate horizontal motion blur, uncorrected In the shot above, I panned the camera left-to-right at a slow shutter speed to force some motion blur. There's a little bit of blur in the vertical direction, but mostly it's horizontal blur. Corrected motion blur (Tack Sharp AI with deblur) default settings The pair of shots above (at 100% magnification) show how the de-blur feature had no problems fixing the (mostly horizontal) blur. Heavy motion blur, horizontal and vertical, uncorrected Motion blur NOT fixed in horizontal direction! As shown above, when the blur gets too severe, the de-blur algorithm just gives up and does essentially nothing. The less-severe vertical component of the motion blur was fixed, though. All tools have their limits. Summary In an ideal world, you’d never need this tool, and all of your shots are sharp. Reality creeps in, however, and there’s some action that you want to capture near dusk. You really, really hate to delete that smeary photo of Bigfoot. This de-blurring feature can save the day. Fine surface textures might get lost, but the main image generally gets repaired really well. This tool can mean the difference between losing or saving a shot. ON1 Photo Raw 2023 has several AI-based editing tools to accomplish a diverse set of tasks; I find it a welcome addition to my photo-editing workflow. In case you were wondering, the ON1 company doesn't pay me anything; I just like to give kudos to companies that offer useful tools to photographers.

The ON1 Photo RAW 2023 editor is a full-function photo editor that uses artificial intelligence for many of its features, which includes smart masking, smart noise reduction, smart sharpening, and of course sky swapping. This editor supports up to 14 layers and includes focus-stacking, multi-file HDR, panorama stitching, and plug-in support. Due to the many AI features, you’ll need a pretty modern computer with a good GPU in it, or else you will end up spending a lot of time waiting for tasks to complete. In this article, I’ll focus on the “sky swapping” feature. The editor comes with many built-in skies, but it also lets you import your own sky photos and therefore extend its library of choices. There are many photographers whose blood would boil at the mere thought of replacing the sky in a landscape with some ‘fake’ sky. If that’s you, then this feature is definitely not for you. The Sky Swap feature utilizes AI to do its masking, which means that you can replace a sky in mere seconds when the masking works properly. As I quickly found out, however, it doesn’t always mask correctly. When this happens, there are many helpful adjustments and manual masking tools to clean up masking problems. It’s tempting to get a little lazy and always pick a built-in sky image to use with your photos, but that would lead to many of your shots having an embarrassing amount of repeated skies. I’ll show you how easy it is to add your own shots into the sky library, so that you don’t fall into this trap. Before you start swapping skies, I’d recommend that you go into the Edit | Preferences… | System and change the “Auto” default to whatever your system hardware really is. I ran this editor on a laptop (Intel HD Graphics 4600 GPU) using both the “Auto” setting and also specifically the Intel GPU setting. The AI features all failed miserably with these settings. When I specified the “CPU” option for the AI Processor, then all features worked normally, although at quite a slow pace. Featureless sky replaced with dramatic clouds AI did a great job at complex masking to swap this sky The examples above show what artificial intelligence is capable of doing with complicated masking tasks. The black-and-white shot uses my own cloud image, while the color shot above uses one of the canned ON1 cloud images. To add new sky images to the ON1 library, you begin by clicking Import in the Sky tab: Add images for sky swapping The image file types that are allowed for skies are basically the same files allowed by the ON1 editor for general image editing. File types include jpeg, png, tiff, camera ‘raw’ files, and Adobe DNG. Import dialog Click the ‘Import’ button, and then you can browse to where your sky images are that you want to add to the library. Select the sky image(s) to add to the ON1 sky library In the screen shot above, I’m selecting raw image files from a Nikon camera. Place the selected images into an existing category or a new one If your image files are acceptable, you’ll get a ‘success’ dialog Select a custom category of sky shots The custom category is now available with your skies After clicking the “Sky” tab, the editor will start an AI masking operation of your photo being edited. Click the little ‘mask’ icon to get masking options You get a little icon showing the masking results, shown in black-and-white. If you click this little icon, you get several masking options displayed. You can then click the “View” button to see the mask overlaid on your image being edited, to see how good of a job the AI masker did. If the mask is fine, then you can just re-click the “View” button, and the mask overlay will disappear. Sub-standard masking job Clicking the “View” button gets the AI-generated sky mask to display. As shown above, it didn’t do a particularly good job. The masking tools just below the “View” button can help clean up the mask, though. The red color here is where a replacement sky won’t get placed. Manual mask fixes As shown above, the “Levels” control has 3 sliders on it. By moving those sliders (the little circles) to the left, the horizon line mask gets considerably better. Using the masking brush (left side of editor) the little spots still left can be erased. Make sure that the masking brush shows a little “-“ in it. If it shows a “+” instead, then click “Shift-X” to toggle the mode from “paint in” to “paint out” (erase). To change the size of the masking brush, use the bracket keys [ ]. If you aren’t using a custom category, then just click the “Category” underneath “Sky:” and then click the “v” underneath the category to select the exact sky you want to use. As you scroll over the different skies, you’ll see it overlaid on your photograph and replacing your original sky. Additional fixes As shown above, I adjusted the new (custom) sky’s brightness, I lowered the foreground brightness (to look more like it’s in shade), and I clicked the “Reflection” button, since this shot also has a body of water in it. The clouds shown above were tone-mapped a bit using HDR Efex Pro 2, prior to importing the shot into the sky library. With this sky replacement feature, I can now separately control the look of the sky and the look of the ground. Final shot In the final photo, you can see that I changed it from being originally a sunny day into a cloudy day. I doubt that anyone would ever know that the sky was totally altered. Summary I purchased the ON1 Photo RAW 2023 editor for its sky replacement feature. I could have purchased the ON1 Skyswap AI program for even less money, but then I wouldn’t have gotten the full-featured editor. I really enjoy the ability to get much more dramatic skies than I normally encounter. Now, I take the opportunity to shoot only skies sometimes, in order to expand the size of my custom sky library. Having more options for getting better skies than what I often encounter while out shooting landscapes is great. Like pretty much everything else, the ON1 Photo RAW 2023 isn’t perfect. With a little extra work, though, it can produce some really amazing photographs. Originally a cloudless day

Photographers are familiar with tripod heads with bubble levels on them, and some camera models offer virtual horizon features. But have you heard of a level for your camera that’s always available, even when your camera is turned off? I found out about a little bubble level that fits into my rarely-used camera hot shoe. If I use artificial lighting, it’s nearly always off-camera; my camera hot shoe just sits idle. Now, my hot shoe has made itself useful. Bubble level in a Nikon Z9 hot shoe Bubble level end view The bubble levels on my tripod heads often make me have to crouch down and move side-to-side to see them. Having the information right on the top of the camera is much more convenient. The bubble levels I got are from a company called Fire Rock, and they are sold in 3-packs. They fit standard hot shoes, such as Canon, Nikon, Fuji, and Olympus. They’re made out of a firm rubber, so they’re not brittle. They slip easily into the hot shoe, without any tendency to fall off. Several other companies offer them, but I suspect they all come from one source. These levels are totally cheap (less than $2.50 each) and don’t get in the way. The obvious question is: “Are they accurate?” For the levels that I got, the answer is “yes”. I used a 4-foot carpenter’s level to verify that a tabletop was level, and then placed my camera bodies onto the table. I verified that the bubbles were centered when mounted in the hot shoes. There are often occasions when you need to place your camera at a really low level, below what you could obtain with a tripod. With a top-mounted level like these, you can still manage to get properly levelled shots. It's never a good idea to leave your camera hot shoe unprotected. This little bubble level can work double-duty to protect the hot shoe from damage. These levels seem like such a great idea that I just had to pass the word along about them.

How did people do photography before they could buy lenses? They built pinhole cameras, of course. All they would need was a light-tight box with some film inside it. The first mention of creating a pinhole camera comes from David Brewster in 1856, which actually predates the founding of Adorama or B&H photo… Nikon Z9 with 45mm pinhole lens The idea of viewing images through pinholes goes back as far as the 5th century B.C. as a matter of fact. Even in modern times, I’ve seen people who forgot their reading glasses put 3 fingertips together to be able to read what’s on the menu by looking through the little gap between those fingers. I thought I’d goof around and see what it takes to turn my Nikon Z9 into maybe the world’s fanciest pinhole camera. I wanted, of course, to make this pinhole lens interchangeable and reasonably robust. I found a website at pinhole.cz where a guy named David Balihar created a free program called PinholeDesigner. His site also has some fun information on making pinholes, and he includes a fun pinhole photo gallery. David’s program uses a formula developed by Lord Rayleigh in 1891, which determines the best pinhole diameter for a desired focal length and light color. The “best pinhole diameter” means that it yields the sharpest image, or maybe the least lousy image. I quickly discovered that optimal pinholes are really, really small. The smallest sewing needle I could find has a diameter of about 0.71mm. I found some straight pins as small as 0.57mm. I wanted to design a 45mm lens, and it needs a pinhole diameter of 0.3mm (half as big as a straight pin). I own a precision caliper to make measurements like this. I decided that I’d make a pinhole in the bottom of a soda can, where I’d pierce the metal with a sewing needle. I would try to limit the hole size by only letting a portion of the needle’s taper pierce the metal. I accomplished this feat by placing the aluminum can against a hard metal surface, and then pounding the needle through the can until it was stopped by this hard metal. This procedure also kept the aluminum can bottom from deforming while I was pounding on it. I chose a soda can bottom for the pinhole material because of its shape. A section of a sphere is very strong. Aluminum is an easy material to work with, and there is no concern about either corrosion or having it degrade with exposure to sunlight. And it’s cheap; I didn’t want any big investment in this fun little experiment. My basic lens design was to use a lens adapter (I have both the Nikon FTZ adapter and the cheap Minolta Fotasy adapter) and then add extension tubes onto the adapter. Using extension tubes, I have lots of options on the focal length. The pinhole in the soda can bottom neatly slips over the extension tubes. A bit of double-stick tape keeps the can bottom in place. After I got a really, really small puncture in the can, I rounded it out by gently rolling the needle tip in this hole with my finger tips. If the pinhole isn’t round, it will cause very poor image quality. I would also sand both sides of the hole in the can, to get the surface as smooth as I could. I used a powerful magnifier to make sure the hole looked reasonably good. Some tools used to make a hole in the can bottom First, I cut the can bottom using scissors; the thin aluminum is fairly easy to cut. I used vice grips to hold the needle; holding the needle in your fingers is too dangerous. I placed the can bottom onto a rounded metal fence post cap, so the can wouldn’t buckle as I pounded the needle through the aluminum can while using the hammer. Fence post cap, used like an anvil to hammer against After each tap on the needle, I would check the can to look for light coming through. As soon as I saw some light, I stopped pounding. I then rotated the needle tip in the tiny hole on both sides of the can until the hole was smooth and round. I also sanded both sides with fine sandpaper. I used my magnifier to monitor my progress, and repeated the steps until the hole looked good. I don’t know the final hole diameter, but it looks like about half of the size of a sample piece of can where I pierced the metal using the 0.57mm straight pin. My goal is to end up with a hole diameter of about 0.3mm, so that I can make a 45mm lens. Tiny hole in can center, about 0.3mm diameter Lens adapter with extension tubes and tape The shot above shows my Minolta Fotasy lens adapter (a hollow metal tube without any electronics). The extension tubes are mounted on the end of the adapter, which yields a focal length of about 45mm. This combination is slightly longer than 45mm, but the curved can bottom goes a bit inside the tubes. There’s some double-stick tape on the tube surface, so that the can bottom will stay in place after it’s slipped over this adapter/extension tube combination. Can slipped over the extension tubes and lens adapter Once the can bottom with the hole is slipped over the adapter, it needs to get sealed against light leaks. I used some black electrical tape for this purpose. The shot at the top of this article shows the completed assembly. If I wasn’t so lazy, I would have painted the shiny aluminum with some flat black spray paint (but mask the pinhole). Pinhole Designer showing diameter needed for 45mm lens The shot above shows the Pinhole Designer in action. Note that the light wavelength is for green light (550nm, or 0.00055mm). My lens has a calculated aperture of f/151. My tested aperture turned out to be really close to this value. After I made the lens, I compared shots of subjects against another camera with its lens zoomed to 45mm. This pinhole lens does indeed cover a 45mm lens field of view almost exactly. Now you know how I ended up with the 45mm focal length and the 0.3mm pinhole design. I just relied on this Pinhole Designer program. Lens Performance First, the good news: focus speed happens to match the speed of light. Chromatic aberrations are nearly absent. Optical distortion is near zero. Vignetting performance is good. Astigmatism is the lowest I’ve ever seen. Now for the bad news. Make no mistake: pinhole camera lens resolution is crap. Contrast is even worse. I thought I’d try to get some numbers on just how bad the lens performance actually is. Focus chart with measurements added Chart section up close: MTF50 resolution is about 4.9 lp/mm The focus chart image looks simply terrible. The black square edges look mushier than any results I have ever seen with a lens. I consider resolution to start looking sharp at about 30 lp/mm. Really professional lenses get MTF50 resolution measurements in the 60’s and 70’s. These pinhole results show a peak performance of 4.9 lp/mm. Most of the little targets can’t even get measured. Embarrassing. MTF contrast plot These are the lowest readings I have ever observed. The only good news is that the meridional and sagittal values are the same, which means that there is no astigmatism. I made all of these measurements using the MTFMapper program by Frans van den Bergh. I actually had to alter the program's "threshold" value before it could even see the chart details, because they were so fuzzy and low contrast. Sample photos Fountain 1/5s, ISO 400, sunshine. Mexican palm 1s, ISO 100. Sunshine. Statue up close, shade. 6s, ISO 100 Rusty the Rabbit, 1/160s ISO 12800. Hand-held, sunshine Succulent Close-up, hand-held. 1/100s ISO 12800. Summary If you ever want to take shots that look like they were made in the 1800’s, this is a way to do it. You might want to convert them to black and white first, though. And sepia tint. Close-up shots actually look a lot like they might be a painting. Landscapes have everything look equally sharp (or unsharp). I found this to be a really fun exercise. To me, it’s just amazing that images can be made with no optics at all. With modern cameras being so good at high ISO’s, you can actually get away without using a tripod while shooting at f/151! You probably want to stick with mirrorless cameras for pinhole 'lenses', so you get to see a bright image while shooting.

If you have a computer that doesn’t have a high-performance GPU in it, then Topaz DeNoise AI probably takes seemingly forever to process your photos. Artificial intelligence can do amazing things, but the amount of processing it can take is mind boggling. If you can instead batch-process your shots, then all you need to do is start the processing and then go do something else until the computer finishes. This article will show you how to batch-process photos if you use both Capture One 22 and Topaz DeNoise AI. A really great feature of Topaz DeNoise AI is the ability to use a different algorithm on each individual photo, even while performing batch processing. Select the photos in the Library module For starters, you should do all of the editing steps you normally do on your photos, but skip any noise reduction or sharpening. The Topaz program is an expert at these steps, and it’s going to be better than your photo editor. Next, pick the desired (edited) photos to batch-process in Topaz from the Capture One Library module, using Ctrl-Click with the mouse. Right-mouse click and select Edit With | Topaz After all of the photos are selected in the film-strip area of the Library module, then click the right mouse button and select Edit With | Topaz DeNoise AI.exe. Select ‘Edit Variants’ When the dialog shown above appears, select the desired file format, and then click ‘Edit Variants’ to create the new files that will be created by Topaz. All of your Capture One edits will be included in the Topaz files by default. Topaz will automatically begin running and then show the files to be processed. Select the photos suitable for a particular algorithm Select (via the left-hand checkboxes) the photos to apply the desired de-noise algorithm, and click above on the algorithm name in the corner of the photo. Next, un-check (deselect) these photos and then check another set of photos to apply a different algorithm. After they’re selected, click the algorithm name in the photo corner above for that desired algorithm to use. You can, of course, merely check “Select All” and then choose a single algorithm to apply to the entire set of photos for batch-processing. After all photos have the desired algorithm to be used, click on the ‘Apply’ button. Progress screen processing the first set of shots You will be shown a progress screen, while Topaz runs the first algorithm on the appropriate photos. After batch processing finishes, you can select the next set of photos and ‘Apply’ to those. Processing selected photos using the next algorithm After the final set of photos is finished, you’ll be returned to Capture One. Back to Capture One You’ll be returned back to the Capture One Library module, and you can see that the photos edited by Topaz will be included in the set of pictures in the filmstrip at the bottom of the screen (in the requested file format). The Topaz program automatically closes after it finishes processing the photos. This procedure for processing several photos is much more efficient than using Topaz one-at-time, especially if you don’t have a really advanced GPU in your computer. And if you aren’t even using Topaz, maybe you should consider getting it; the difference in quality is worth this effort.

Not every focus stack goes smoothly. Reality often gets in the way, with things like moving subjects and wind. Helicon Focus has an advanced feature to help you save otherwise ruined focus stacks. What follows is a scenario where I took a 20-shot focus stack, using a Nikon Z9 with its “focus shift shooting” feature. Despite what people typically assume, focus stacks are just as useful for large subjects as they are for macro shots of tiny things like bugs. I took a stack of shots of a bird using my 500mm lens, where I wanted to get a thicker depth of focus, while using a wider aperture that gives the best resolution. If I had significantly stopped the lens aperture down, then diffraction would have ruined the resolution. It should get mentioned that landscape photographers often run into the problem of needing a deep depth of field, but stopping down their lens will ruin the resolution. Focus stacks can solve this problem, although they often run the risk of having the wind move some leaves or branches in one or more shots of the focus stack. Another reason you might want to bother with a focus stack is to get a couple of subjects into focus that aren’t positioned at the same focus plane. You can get a shot of each subject separately in focus, while trying to keep your camera still. The risk of unwanted subject motion is high, though. Extended depth-of-focus shot The shot above shows a bird with a larger depth of focus than what should be possible with the selected lens aperture. This is the result of a focus stack, even though there were a few problems getting here. First shot of a stack of 20 images You begin by using the Helicon Focus “Render” step, after first loading all of the images in the focus stack. Notice how a plant behind the bird’s tail is pretty out of focus, and then compare it to the cropped shot at the top of the article. You can see that I got a much deeper depth of focus by doing the focus stacking. Rendering disaster! Note in the screen shot above how the stacked image on the right has the bird’s head ruined. The bird moved while shooting the stack of shots, leaving a bunch of ghosts. The left-hand side of the screen shot shows the last photo in the stack, with the plant behind the bird being in focus and the bird totally out of focus. Select the ‘master’ shot to use for fixing the ghosts I selected the photo that would be used as the ‘master’ to clone its parts in place of the right-hand ghosted shot. This is the photo that has the bird’s beak in best focus. Select the ‘Copy’ option I next clicked on the “Copy parts from source image” option. There are several options that appear at the bottom of the screen to be used while doing the ‘copy’ action. The main thing I used was to set the diameter of the brush to use. Move the mouse over the part of the image to repair, as shown by the white circle in both images. Just hold down the left mouse button, and ‘paint’ over the defective parts of the stacked image. The master image portion under the circle will replace the ghosts in the stacked image. If the copying operation isn’t looking successful, you can click the “Undo” icon to get rid of the repair work and try again (the “X” icon). There’s a “clone” option next to the “copy” option that you could try, instead. The right-hand “?” icon will take you to an online help link that Helicon Focus has, to read more about using the program and its features. The repaired stack As shown above, the copying operation successfully got rid of the ghosting in the stacked shot. You can also see how the stacked shot has a deeper depth of focus that the un-stacked photo on the left. Save your results Once the retouching operations are done, you can then click the “Save” button in the “Saving” tab to finish saving the results. The saved photo can then be edited in other programs. Summary The image repair features in Helicon Focus can really save the day in an otherwise ruined image stack. You can’t always re-take the shots in an image stack, particularly when you don’t even know your subject moved until you’re back home processing the photos. Helicon Focus is a more useful program than many people realize. There are a lot more focus stack opportunities than just insect close-ups.

Capture One 22 doesn’t allow use of the Adobe-style plug-ins, but you can still use the executable-style forms of these editors. It’s pretty tricky to make them available inside Capture One, however. These same procedures I describe below will work for programs like the original Nik plug-ins and Topaz De-Noise AI. External editors are accessed by clicking the right mouse button in the photo to be edited while inside Capture One. The problem, though, is that these editors aren’t available as an option. How do you make these programs visible to Capture One? I’m going to show you how to do this from Windows. I’m going to demonstrate how to add an external editor by using the Viveza2 program as an example. Viveza2 comes in two formats, namely a plug-in (Viveza2.8bf) or as a stand-alone executable (Viveza2.exe). Capture One 22 can only use the .exe form. I have chosen to use the 64-bit versions of the external editors, as shown in the example below. Where is Viveza2? Inside Capture One, you would normally click the right mouse button, and select “Edit With” to pick the Viveza2 program. The only problem is that it’s not there! How do you configure Capture One to make Viveza 2 visible, so that you can select it? It’s true that you can select “Browse” to hunt for your external editor, but the very next time you want that editor, you’ll be forced to go hunting for it again. Very irritating. There’s a better way. Select a photo in Windows Explorer To begin, you’ll need to exit Capture One. Open up Windows Explorer. Navigate to a typical photo, such as a jpeg, tiff, png, dng, etc. Right-mouse click on the photo. Select “Open With” Click on “Choose another app” Scroll to the bottom of the dialog Click on “Choose an app on your PC” Locate the editor (Viveza2.exe) Browse to the desired external editor, such as the example Viveza2.exe, which on this computer is located in the folder “C:\Program Files\Google\Nik Collection\Viveza 2\Viveza 2 (64-bit)\”. Click on the file name, and then click “Open”. Click “Always” after selecting the executable file Note that “Viveza 2” is now selected in the list above. Click the “Always” button. It doesn’t matter that the example photo is a “Tiff” format. It could have also been a jpeg, dng, or another format. The program will start up, but you can choose to Cancel, since you don’t want to start editing yet. The program (Viveza 2) will close. Now, start up Capture One 22 again. Select a photo to edit. It doesn’t matter if it’s .NEF, .DNG, .TIFF or something else. Click inside the photo, while either in the Library or Adjust section. Now Viveza2 is available! Select the “Edit With” option You can now see that the example “Viveza2” is available! Just click on “Viveza2” in the list. Select suitable file format for Viveza2 Select a file format that your editor can use in the dialog that appears. Viveza 2 cannot edit raw format files, for instance. I chose “tiff” format in the example above, since Viveza 2 knows how to edit that file format. Capture One 22 will convert the photo, if needed, into the selected file format before sending it to the external editor (Viveza 2). Inside the Viveza 2 editor Now, you can edit your photo in the external editor (Viveza 2). When edits are finished, click on the “Save” button. You will be returned to the Capture One 22 editor, and Viveza 2 will automatically close. Note that Capture One will have the edited photo in the filmstrip, in your selected file format, which you can then edit further or else export it. You’ll need to repeat this exercise for every external program you want to use. I have configured my favorite external editors such as Silver Efex Pro 2, HDR Efex Pro 2, and Topaz Denoise AI using this same procedure. Now, I can easily run these programs from inside Capture One 22 without having to hunt for them any more. I need to add a word of caution about HDR Efex Pro 2. This program doesn’t seem to want to place its output in the same directory as the original photos. If you don’t want it to put stuff into your Documents folder, then you need to save the results by selecting File | Save Image As… After you’re done saving, then do a File | Quit. You’ll have to manually import it back into Capture One 22 if you want to do more editing on it. Messy.

I got a copy of this full-frame lens in the Nikon Z mount, which I tested on my Nikon Z9. This manual-focus lens is offered in many different camera mounts, such as Sony E, Leica L, Fuji X, Canon RF, and Nikon Z. The main feature here is, of course, that the lens has a tilt and rotation feature. This TT Artisan has no electronics, so you have to add “non-CPU lens” information to the Z9, to tell the camera about the 50mm focal length and the maximum aperture of 1.4. The ‘exif’ image data will always indicate f/1.4, but you can still get automatic exposure. The ‘TT Artisan’ lens name stands for “The Thinking Artisan”. You’ll find a very rare real aperture ring on this lens, without any click stops. It has a cinema-like feel to it, especially with both the focus ring and aperture ring having cinema “follow focus” gears on them. The aperture has 12 rounded blades, which will give very round out-of-focus highlights. To get critical focus with this lens on a Z-mount camera, you will need to either use focus-peaking or else zoom in with the viewfinder to judge the focus via a magnified image. This lens isn’t meant for action shooting, so manual focus shouldn’t be a big issue. The focus ring has roughly 150 degrees of rotation from minimum focus to infinity, which feels about right. The focus and aperture rings are well-damped, without taking a lot of effort to twist. TT Artisan 50mm f/1.4 Tilt Lens on Nikon Z9 Top view, showing the tilt control and follow-focus gears Side view. Lens rotated 90 degrees and tilted down 5 degrees Why a ‘Tilt’ lens? The main reason to get a ‘tilt’ lens is to adjust the focus plane. Without tilt, the focus plane is of course parallel to your camera sensor. Strictly speaking, ‘tilt’ means leaning the top of the lens forward and back relative to the camera sensor. For left-right motions (rotation about the vertical axis) it’s called ‘swing’. This lens does both kinds of motions; tilt is forward/backward motion while the lens is at 0 degrees on the ‘rotate’ control. If you use the lens ‘rotate’ control +- 90 degrees combined with the ‘tilt’ control, then you accomplish ‘swing’. If you try to photograph a subject plane that isn’t parallel to your camera sensor, then some of it will be out of focus. You generally stop the lens aperture down to try to get more of the subject into focus. Landscape photographers fight this problem all the time, trying to get both near and far into focus. In the photo shown above, the lens has been rotated 90 degrees and then tilted down about 5 degrees. This configuration will tilt the plane of focus for a typical landscape shot to get both near and far subjects into focus. Lawn grass at f/1.4, no lens tilt. Focus peaking in red. In the shot above, the camera has focus-peaking active to show what’s in focus. The lens is set to f/1.4 without any tilt or rotation, and only a narrow band of the grass is in focus. Even at f/16, not all of the grass will be sharply focused. If the top of the lens could be tilted forward, relative to the camera sensor, then the plane of focus can be adjusted to match the plane of the lawn grass. In theory, all of the grass could be brought into sharp focus at even a very wide aperture like f/1.4. Grass at f/1.4, lens tilted 4 degrees and rotated 90 degrees Sure enough, the grass is able to get into focus by tilting the lens a mere 4 degrees. To get the correct tilt orientation, the lens also had to be rotated by 90 degrees. This lens has a full 360 degrees of rotation, with click stops at every 15 degrees. Some other designs for other camera mounts only rotate through 90 degrees. It works best to set/unset tilt while the rotation is at 0 degrees with the camera in landscape orientation. At 90 degrees rotation, the front part of the lens will free-fall down if you loosen the tilt control and not support the lens. Lens tilted 4 degrees, with rotation of 0 degrees. f/1.4 In the shot above, tilting the lens about 4 degrees got the entire plane of the wall into focus, even at f/1.4. Notice, however, that either side of the wall is out of focus. This is a slightly disturbing visual effect, in my opinion. Without any tilt control, only a very narrow band along the wall would have been in focus at this aperture. The shot is still somewhat lacking, however, and can be improved a bit more. Lens tilted 4 degrees, with rotation of 0 degrees. f/16 In the shot above, I stopped the lens down to f/16. Now, everything is focus. I didn’t notice any corner vignetting, even when the lens is tilted. This lens has a tilt range of +- 8 degrees. For most photography, only about +- 5 degrees is usually needed. There’s a detent at 0 tilt, so it’s easy to know that you got rid of any tilt. The ‘miniature model’ effect You can, of course, abuse the tilt/rotate controls and make crazy focus effects. A very common effect is to tilt in the opposite direction and force a distant shot to look like it’s a miniature model being viewed under a magnifying glass. People generally find this either charming or disturbing. The Scheimpflug principle to focus on a plane A French guy called Jules Carpentier filed a British 1901 patent, in which he spelled out the mathematics to get a tilted lens, a camera, and a subject to line up and make a sharp photo. Austrian army Captain Theodor Scheimpflug used this principle for aerial photography and made it famous. In the end, Scheimpflug got the credit, and it’s now called the Scheimpflug principle. Just get the subject, the camera sensor, and the lens tilt to intersect at a common point, as shown above. Lens Accessories Padded neoprene case with belt loop and hook I quite like the included lens case. It has a locking drawstring and protects the lens very well. I like using this case for my other smallish lenses. It’s much better than the flimsy pouches that Nikon makes. Metal slip-on lens cap The lens cap slips on easily, and shows no tendency to accidentally slip off. It fits over the lens 62mm filter threads. More lens specifications The metal lens weighs about 450 grams. The metal lens mount doesn’t have any weather sealing. There are 7 elements in 6 groups, with the rear pair of elements made of high-index glass. The lens image circle is much larger than normal lenses, so that lens tilts still keep the camera sensor fully covered. Bokeh 12 rounded aperture blades This lens has 12 rounded aperture blades. The large number of aperture blades, plus the rounding, makes for much better-looking backgrounds and lights that are out of focus. Those same rounded aperture blades mean that you won’t get extreme diffraction spikes coming off of lights. You can’t have it both ways. f/1.4 lights out of focus The out-of-focus lights shown above are fairly smooth, but their edges show some discoloration. Because I shot this photo wide open, you’ll note the “cat’s eye” effect on lights near to the edge of the frame. You can also see some of the effect of internal reflections. It’s up to you to decide if these effects are beautiful or ugly. I have definitely seen lenses do worse than the performance from this lens. f/1.4, no tilt It isn’t always about maximum sharpness. Dreamy background. Diffraction Spikes Diffraction spikes, f/16 Nothing to write home about. Some people call these sunstars. Lateral Chromatic Aberration Yes, you get purple corners. f/5.6 There is some purple in the corners with high-contrast subjects, but it honestly isn’t that bad. Even small branches are sharp edge-to-edge by f/5.6. Lens Resolution I have read very disparaging comments about this lens’ resolution. I did find that f/1.4 and f/2.0 look pretty weak, but f/2.8 and beyond are totally acceptable. Highest resolution is seen at f/5.6, while f/8.0 is probably the best overall performance. This is, of course, only one lens. I know nothing about quality control at their lens factory. I noticed that resolution is weaker as you focus nearer. My resolution testing was done at 2 meters, or about 7 feet away from my target. This distance would get roughly head-to-waist portraits in landscape orientation. MTF50 resolution measurements above roughly 30 lp/mm will be perceived as sharp. The best pro lenses might get some resolution readings in the 70’s. I provide the peak resolution measured (either meridional or sagittal) at each aperture. I also give the worst corner measurement I got at each aperture (the best of 4 measurements in each corner). If you didn’t know, “sagittal” measurements are in the same orientation as the spokes of a wheel. The “meridional” measurements are along tangents to a circle, which are then perpendicular to the sagittal orientation. Resolution measurements are a bit messy. They represent 2-dimensional information, and are also measured in 2 different orientations at each location. Web sites that give you just a single measurement for resolution are crap. Manufacturers that provide MTF contrast plots are almost always just theoretical; they aren’t made from actual measurements. Also, the theoretical measurements don’t take the camera sensor into account. The MTF contrast plots that I include below are from actual measurements, and they include the effects of the camera sensor, too. I use the MTFMapper program for the resolution measurements. This is the same software that NASA used to evaluate the lenses that are on the Mars rover Perseverance. Actual MTF contrast measurements, f/1.4 Lateral chromatic aberration f/1.4, microns My Nikon Z9 has 4.35 micron pixels, so worst case aberration is about 1.4 pixels. Corners of shots with small tree branches against the sky definitely look purple when you look real close. Actual MTF contrast measurements, f/5.6 Lateral chromatic aberration f/5.6, microns Minimum focus distance performance The shots below were taken at the minimum focus distance, which is 0.5 meters. You definitely need to use the viewfinder magnifier to get critical focus at this distance; at f/1.4 the depth of field is paper thin. I think that the eye looks reasonably sharp even at f/1.4, but you’d almost never achieve this with a live, moving subject at this distance. It’s a challenge that some photographers thrive on, however. I suppose you could ‘cheat’ and set the camera on high-speed continuous shooting and then throw away the 99% of the out-of-focus shots. Full frame of the subject at 0.5 meters. f/1.4 f/2.0 f/2.8 f/4.0 f/5.6 Resolution Summary This lens is indeed pretty weak at f/1.4 and f/2.0. It does sharpen up just fine by about f/4. You’ll need f/5.6 to get good corners. For the lens target audience shooting things like landscapes or product shots, they wouldn’t be using tilt features with the aperture wide open. When stopped down, the lens has plenty of sharpness. My old 50mm f/1.8 Nikkor (F-mount) beats this lens for sharpness, but it can’t do tilts (unless I were to drop it onto concrete). f/1.4 Sharpness isn’t always the primary criteria. Shots like this look just fine without super high resolution. Star shots Don’t. It has really bad coma. Summary I waited till the end to mention cost. This lens is really cheap; I didn’t want to influence people into thinking the lens has to perform badly, given how inexpensive it is. This is a physically very solid lens, which should easily tolerate moderate handling abuse (not including rain or dust storms). If you’re after sharp everywhere, then use the old photojournalist adage of “f/8 and be there”. If you like portraits with some character to them, don’t be afraid of f/1.4 (and pay attention to that background)! This lens is the opposite of mindless automation. You actually have to think about focus and taking advantage of unique perspectives via the focus plane tilt. The Scheimpflug principle definitely isn’t mindless. This lens makes me feel more like a photographer when I use it, since I have to be a more active participant. I’m forced to consider shooting subjects at angles with alternative planes of focus and I have to work a bit more at getting critical focus. I have found the experience ‘fun’, as opposed to ‘irritating’; others will invariably disagree with this perspective. The Z9 camera is flexible enough to go from the ultimate in automation to fully manual, and just about anything in-between; it compliments this lens very well. There are lots of optically superior 50mm f/1.4 lenses out there, especially in the corners. They cost a lot more, too. And they don’t have a tilt feature. This lens produces pictures that have a unique character, which you may or may not like. It’s all about choice.