Sharp photos depend upon sharp focus. You might be very surprised at just how sensitive your lens can be to focus changes. I wanted to show you an experiment that gives very precise numbers on how the resolution changes with errors in focus. Nikon Z8 camera mounted on a linear slide As shown above, I start by mounting my camera onto a linear slide. This slide can be moved with a micrometer in very small steps, so that I can shift my cameras’ focus very precisely. I conducted these tests using a 135mm lens at f/2.8 mounted on my Nikon Z8. Note that this isn’t a particularly fast lens, but even at f/2.8 you’ll find that focus precision matters enormously. Using the MTFMapper program created by Frans van den Bergh, I repeatedly photographed a new utility knife blade at different distances and then processed the photos in his software. I focused the lens only once, while the linear slide was near its midpoint (12mm), before starting the test. I could have of course used a more conventional focus chart to get the resolution measurements, too. A utility knife blade in silhouette The subject, shown above, is the edge of a very sharp and straight knife blade. The software doing the analysis is capable of analyzing a single edge that you specify. To get the best results, the edge should have high contrast; I used a light to make the blade show up in a silhouette. If you look very carefully, you can see the little number 37.6 shown on top of the blade edge, which is where the software made the resolution measurement. Since MTFMapper uses LibRaw to decode raw files, it uses zero sharpening (sharpening would falsely increase resolution measurements). For raw formats that LibRaw doesn’t support (such as the Z8/Z9 high-efficiency raw), I use the Adobe DNGConverter to make DNG raw files; these files also have zero sharpening applied. The downside to this DNG converter program is that it strips out some exif data, such as the focus distance. Resolution versus focus distance As shown above, I made a plot of the measured resolution of the blade edge photographs at different distances. I had attempted to focus the lens while the camera was placed at a setting of 12mm on the linear slide rail. The measurements show that in fact the sharpest photo was at a position of 15mm, where I got an MTF50 resolution measurement of 37.6 lp/mm. The entire range of the focus testing shown is only about 1 inch (27mm). I had missed focus by only 3 millimeters, while my subject was at a distance of 7 feet (2.13 meters). The MTFMapper program is able to tell the difference in resolution even with a 1 millimeter focus error! I had used “focus peaking” with a magnified view and manual focus to get the best focus I could manage. The camera focus-peaking feedback (set on ‘low sensitivity’) got me to within about 3% of optimal focus. Granted; these resolution differences are finer than what you can probably perceive yourself, unless you need to crop or print big. Also, telephoto lenses are far more sensitive to focus errors. Summary Image sharpness is more sensitive to focus than most people could imagine. This little exercise shows why people that measure lens resolution have to be so careful in controlling focus (and vibrations), or else their measurements are just wrong. In a more general sense, you want those feathers, hairs, and eye lashes/reflections to be totally sharp. The best lens you can buy won’t give you that unless you also nail the focus. A cheap lens that is correctly focused will usually give better results than an expensive lens that is slightly out of focus. I have found that my mirrorless cameras achieve more accurate autofocus than my DSLR cameras, and my lenses don't need focus calibration on mirrorless, either.

I had heard a rumor that the Nikon Z9 “Bird” subject detection was usable for more than just birds. I have decided after my own testing that this is an understatement. You need this mode. Switch to this mode. Make sure you update your firmware to version 4.10 (or newer) to get this new option. For every animal, bird, or insect I tried, this mode was either superior or equal to any other subject detection mode. Except... BIF (bee in flight) not what you expected? Here’s a caveat, though. The Bird subject detection mode is worthless for people (I know, they’re animals too). Use either the ‘Auto’ (generic) or ‘People’ subject detection mode for people. I found it kind of amusing how the bird-mode frequently refused to focus on the eye of a person. Artificial intelligence is funny that way. For myself, I would rather use the “stupid” modes, such as dynamic-area or single-point autofocus for occasional people/landscape shots (assigned to different camera buttons), and just leave the subject detection mode almost permanently on “Bird”. If I were shooting sports (soccer, football, track, etc.) however, then I would of course switch to ‘People’ subject detection to cope with tracking rapidly-moving athletes. For Nikon Z8 owners: too bad. Maybe next year Nikon will get around to this firmware upgrade. ‘i’ menu for quick autofocus-area and subject-detect selection For quicker selection, I have set up my “i” menu to include the “AF-area mode”. This way, I use the back camera scroll wheel to select the AF-area mode, and the front camera scroll wheel to pick auto/people/animal/car/plane/bird. Subject detection is available when you use Wide-area AF(S)/Wide-area AF(L)/3D-tracking/Subject-tracking AF/Auto-area modes. The ‘i’ menu icon will show the latest AF-area mode selection type (3D in this case), but it doesn’t give you any hints about the subject type. Quick front/rear camera wheel selection in the ‘i’ menu The menu above shows that I have chosen ‘Bird’ subject detection and 3D-tracking AF-area mode. Setting up autofocus area modes outside of the ‘i’ menu Nikon doesn’t force you to set up the ‘i’ menu, of course. The regular menu-diving technique will also work perfectly fine to set up mode/subject combinations, after you navigate to the “AF-area mode” and the “AF subject detection options” in the “Photo Shooting Menu”. The little icon above shows that the present AF-area mode is ‘single-point’. Picking subject detection mode outside of the ‘i’ menu Available subject selections now include birds Note that “Auto” above doesn’t mean “automobile”, but “generic” instead. My own most-used AF-area mode: 3D-tracking I definitely use the 3D-tracking mode the most, so I assigned that to my AF-ON button. Thankfully, bird-detection is allowed in this focus mode. I also like to use the custom wide-area AF, and bird-detect works there, too (assigned to another button). Summary Give this new ‘bird’ mode a try. If you photograph any kind of non-human animal, I bet you’ll like it. Artificial intelligence is quite fickle, though, so I’m sure there are animals that will fool this detection mode. Choice is a great thing, and multiple button assignments are, too. I'll bet that each new firmware revision will alter the subject detection capabilities, because Nikon is training its AI with more and more subject samples.

Do all of the photo editors create panoramas that are roughly equal? This article explores how well some popular editors make panoramas, or at least how they try to make them. A sample panorama made from 5 vertical shots I did a little comparison between Lightroom, Capture One 2023, and ON1 2023. I wanted to figure out if I have a preferred editor for making panoramas, among my most-used photo editors. For starters, I gave each editor the same set of 5 photographs that have plenty of overlap between them, so it shouldn’t be too challenging to stitch them together. ON1 Photo RAW 2023 First up to bat is the ON1 editor. Pick the shots to combine from the ‘Browse’ tab To make panoramas in ON1, just click the “Create Panorama…” after selecting the shots in the “Browse” tab. Create Panorama dialog with “Auto” By default, ON1 will offer the “Auto” option to automatically select how to create the panorama. Unfortunately, this selection is a big failure; the last shot in the set of 5 shots was omitted. ON1 “Collage” option Selecting the “Collage” option, the results are even worse! This time, it skipped the last shot and couldn’t even align the left side properly. ON1 “Spherical” panorama success? ON1: A glitch in the stitch At first glance, the ON1 “Spherical” mode seemed to do the trick. Upon closer inspection, I found a mistake in the stitching that I indicate above. I’m out of options with ON1 panorama stitching, so it has failed. Three strikes. Capture One 23 Next up is Capture One 23. Capture One 23: Combine the shots in the “Library” tab As shown above, select the photos in the “Library” tab, then select “Image | Stitch to Panorama…” Capture One “Cylindrical” option Capture One “Spherical” option Capture One “Perspective” option Capture One “Panini” option Capture One cropped and light-adjusted panorama All of the Capture One options succeeded, but I need to mention that this program is slow in stitching the finished panorama, unless you have a pretty fast computer. In the shot above, I did a little editing to touch up the picture to taste after generating the panorama. You might notice that it’s actually a double rainbow. Lightroom Finally, let’s see what Lightroom can do. Lightroom: Photo merge panorama from the “Library” tab Lightroom “Cylindrical” option Lightroom “Spherical” option Lightroom “Perspective” option Lightroom cropped and light-adjusted panorama Similar to Capture One, Lightroom made no mistakes in any of the projection options for the panoramas. I didn't try to exactly match the light in my Capture One version of the panorama; this version is very close to what my eyes saw. Multi-row panoramas Since ON1 is out of the running, I decided to see if Lightroom and Capture One could handle multiple-row panoramas. Both programs failed when I tried the “perspective” projection method, but both programs succeeded when trying either “spherical” or “cylindrical” projection. It’s easy to have several shots lost in the final stitch, if your goal is to end up with a rectangular photo. You have to be careful to go well beyond what you think might be okay for the stitched area. I’d recommend using a tripod for any multi-row panorama efforts. It’s too difficult to control the shot overlaps in both the horizontal and vertical directions when hand-holding the camera. Against my own recommendations, I hand-held all of the panorama shots in this article... Lightroom multi-row, using “spherical” projection Capture One, “spherical” projection Note how the un-cropped result has the tree tops well inside the stitched panorama, so you think all is well… Capture One, “spherical” projection cropped to a rectangle Dang it, the tree tops got lost after all. Should’ve brought a tripod along. There's a school of thought that you should just leave your panoramas un-cropped and get away from rectangular format; I just can't go there yet. Summary I noticed that Lightroom created the panos a bit faster than did Capture One. ON1 was the fastest editor of the three I tried, but it doesn’t count when the panoramas have defects. Capture One had the most projection options; it kind of depends upon the subject matter which projection method looks best for a shot. I can’t say that either Lightroom or Capture One wins; they are both very competent at making panoramas. For multi-row panos, I have historically had slightly better success using Lightroom. It’s a good thing that I didn’t buy ON1 for its panorama capabilities (I got it mainly for the sky-swapping feature). ON1 2023 struck out for this particular task.

I have read claims on the internet that printed test charts are nearly worthless for use in measuring lens resolution. I have also read that a sharp razor blade or utility knife blade can be used to get really accurate resolution measurements. Which claim is true? Both? Neither? I use the MTFMapper program to analyze lens resolution. NASA has used the MTFMapper program to analyze lenses that they sent to Mars onboard their Rover Perseverance. I don’t think that this program is providing bad results. The software can be obtained from here. You should be very skeptical of internet sites that don’t tell you how they arrived at their resolution numbers. A sample resolution test chart MTFMapper provides printable files, which I used to make my test chart targets. This same software provides a way to use things such as back-lit razor blades or utility knives for resolution targets. The target edges being measured are all on a slant; the measurement mathematics doesn’t like edges that are vertical, 45 degrees, or horizontal. I believe that MTFMapper uses LibRaw to decode raw files, which uses zero sharpening (which would increase resolution measurements). For raw formats that LibRaw doesn’t support, I use the Adobe DNGConverter to make DNG raw files; these files also have zero sharpening applied. The downside to the DNG converter program is that it strips out some exif data, such as focus distance. For sites that use other camera photo file formats, particularly jpeg, resolution measurement results are worthless. Just about all of these formats add some level of sharpening. Depending upon the amount of sharpening, you can make the resolution measurements as high as you wish. I use a printed test chart that measures 40 inches by 56 inches. The chart is printed at 1200 dpi on heavy-weight paper with a fairly glossy finish. The chart is dry-mounted and placed into a frame to keep it perfectly flat, and I temporarily mount a mirror to the center of it using magnets to align my camera and get it perfectly parallel to the camera sensor. The chart is clamped into position to eliminate any movement, and the camera is on a heavy tripod. I use either a wired shutter release or a self-timer, using either live view or a mirrorless camera to eliminate vibrations. Chart lighting needs to be even, and it’s best to keep illumination levels above at least EV 10. Surprisingly, the ISO value has little effect upon resolution measurements; it’s still best to keep the ISO low. A sample setup to use a quality blade edge for a resolution target I conducted some tests to compare resolution measurements using my chart and a pristine utility knife blade. I can’t prove resolution results in an absolute sense, but I can at least compare results from two entirely different test methods. When I first started doing resolution testing, I tried using small (11” X 17”) printed charts, both with inkjet and laser. I also tried matte/glossy/satin surfaces and single/double weight papers. I determined that laser prints weren’t quite as good as inkjet, and that satin-like surfaces worked best. Small charts are poor for testing lenses at realistic shooting distances (you want to fill the frame with the chart if possible). I’m forced to use laser prints for infrared testing; my inkjet ink is invisible in infrared! I always struggled to accurately align the test chart to the camera until I began attaching a mirror to the chart surface (using powerful magnets). When you can see your own reflection looking through the viewfinder and the lens center reflection is in the middle of the viewfinder, you’re perfectly aligned. Rotation is easy; just align the chart edge to the viewfinder edge. The MTFMapper program will change the color of the resolution measurements to yellow for edges that end up at a poor angle. Camera (Nikon Z8) mounted on an accurate sliding linear rail Accurate focus is an absolute requirement to get the best resolution measurements. It’s possible, using contrast-detect focus or a mirrorless camera with autofocus, to get reasonably good focus. I can get a bit better focus using low-sensitivity focus-peaking and image magnification. It’s necessary to take several shots, with focus set both in front and behind the target before re-focusing. You need to pick the sharpest results from the many test shots, and make sure the focus is done at the shooting aperture The best way to get optimal focus is to use a linear rail and move the camera in very small (1 mm or so) increments starting in front of the subject correct focus and taking shots until you’re behind the subject focus plane. Again, pick the sharpest result (highest measured resolution). Select where to take the measurement The photo above shows how to pick where to take a resolution measurement along the knife blade. Choose a location and orientation to match a similar edge in the resolution test chart. Selecting a different section of the blade will probably give slightly different measurements, because the MTFMapper program is supremely sensitive to edges. The illumination behind the blade only needs to be even in the selected region of interest that is being measured. You want to do this in a dark place, to maximize the silhouette contrast. Note that every position and orientation in the camera’s field of view will likely give a different resolution reading. Life and physics isn’t as simple as what is portrayed at most photography websites. A single resolution number is nearly meaningless (as is a single center/edge/corner number). Also keep in mind that different camera sensor resolutions will give different answers as well, because the resolution measurement is actually a combination of the lens and the camera sensor. Blade Placement Blade placed near to chart target edge in viewfinder As shown above, I placed the blade edge in a similar location to a chart measurement that I was interested in comparing. I tried to select the section of the blade edge in MTFMapper that would roughly match the length of the chart target edge (about half of the blade edge length). Blade placement relative to test chart placement As you can see above, I have drawn in roughly where I placed the blade in the camera viewfinder that I measured in red. The little cyan numbers are the MTF50 resolution measurements on every target edge in the chart, as calculated by MTFMapper. A potential upside to using a blade edge is that you can focus on it wherever you place it in the frame. For lenses with field curvature, this will probably get you a higher resolution measurement than simply using a chart that you probably just focused in the frame center. A downside to using the blade is that you get a single measurement from your photograph, versus over 700 measurements by using a chart like that shown above. Comparison Results I decided to use my Nikkor 24-120mm f/4 S lens on a Nikon Z9 camera to compare resolution test results between my printed chart and the blade. The lens was zoomed to 34.5mm (the lens barrel marking was 35mm). The MTFMapper program was configured to provide resolution measurements in units of MTF50 lines pairs per millimeter. I like to use these measurement units, since you can get the same answer using any size of camera sensor. MTFMapper measurement of blade edge: 34.5mm, f/4 Pretty comparable measurements between the blade edge and the chart! Summary Although none of what I have written can absolutely prove that I’m getting correct lens resolution measurements from my printed test chart, I think it shows that the measurements are at least in pretty close agreement between these two very different test methods. A site that I use to compare by own lens resolution results against the same lens models is Lenstip, found here. They also measure resolution in units of MTF50 lp/mm, and our results are typically very comparable (when using similar camera sensors). Lens sample variation is a real thing, so you should never expect to see the exact same results between any two lenses.

When you read about lens sharpness results on the internet, can you believe them? Maybe. I believe that you see more variation in lens resolution measurements at different internet sites than in the lenses themselves. What follows is a technique to inexpensively get some very accurate resolution numbers. At the core of my lens resolution testing is the program MTFMapper, written by Frans van den Bergh. His software, documentation, and printable test chart files can be found here. The MTFMapper program can do many different things related to camera lens testing, which includes resolution, contrast plots, sensor alignment, chromatic aberration measurement, and focus analysis. I’m only going to discuss resolution measurement in this article. There are many elements that are required to get good, repeatable lens resolution measurements. Normally, these elements include the following: Stable camera/lens support Quality test chart Even test target illumination Proper target alignment Precision linear rail with micrometer adjustment Un-sharpened, raw-format photos of test target In this article, I’m going to discuss a way to avoid the need for the “quality test chart”. Frans’ MTFMapper program will let you get by with only a single high-contrast edge to measure, which can be supplied by a simple razor blade or utility knife blade. A good reason that this option exists is because it isn’t trivial to get a large, accurately-printed, quality media, and properly-mounted test chart. I inspected a blade edge under very high magnification to convince myself that it had no defects or roughness that would degrade the measurement results of the program. A Sharp Target Edge The ideal lens resolution target is a chart with many edges that can be measured by the testing program. Although printable files are supplied with the program, those files still need to be printed and mounted. How big should it be printed? How good of a printer is needed? What kind of material should be used for the chart? How do I mount the printed test chart? These issues have kept many people from even attempting to make their own lens resolution measurements. A back-lit blade target It might sound a little crazy, but a really good target to test lens resolution is a razor blade, photographed in silhouette. The MTFMapper program has the ability to measure a single straight edge in a photograph. If you can provide a high-contrast, in-focus, very straight edge, then you can get a really good resolution measurement of that edge. In the photo above, you can see an example of how to mount a blade whose flat face is parallel to the camera sensor. I use forceps held with a clamp. If you look closely, you will notice a number superimposed over the razor’s edge that says “37.6”. This number is the MTF50 resolution value, measured in line pairs per millimeter (this is a very old lens that isn’t as sharp as modern lenses). A light was placed to cause the blade edge to be in silhouette, since you want a high-contrast edge to get a quality resolution measurement. The edge to measure can be placed anywhere in the photograph, which is handy when you’re interested in resolution in maybe a corner of the frame. You can also orient the edge to enable measurement in meridional (tangent) or sagittal (wheel spoke) directions. If your lens has a curved focus plane, then you can focus on the blade wherever it is located in the frame to get a better resolution measurement. An optimal edge angle is 5 degrees or 85 degrees, but the program is fairly flexible. Please avoid perfectly vertical or perfectly horizontal edges, due to the way the programs’ mathematics work. You don’t have to use the whole edge, either; you can measure just a piece of it. Take a photo of the edge in RAW format. You might need to convert the photo into DNG format, using the free Adobe DNG converter program, if MTFMapper doesn’t understand your camera’s raw format. Don’t ever give MTFMapper jpegs!!!! Since jpegs have varying amounts of sharpening applied, the subsequent resolution measurements using these files will be totally bogus and useless. The most reliable results are obtained by using a remote release or the self-timer and an electronic shutter or mirrorless camera and manual focus. If you take a few shots with the same setup but get different measurements, then the first suspect is unwanted vibrations. Edge measurement in MTFMapper To perform the resolution measurement, you need to do the following: In MTFMapper, first make sure the Settings,Preferences has the pixel size of your camera sensor (measured in microns). Select File | Open with manual edge selection… Browse to your camera’s RAW (or DNG) file of the blade The “Select one or more edge ROIs” dialog opens up (shown above) Left-mouse-click the beginning of the blade edge to measure Left-mouse-click the end of the blade edge to measure A small cyan rectangle is drawn over the region to analyze. Click the Accept button Open the resulting “annotated” file on the right-hand side of the program. If your lens is in proper focus and your camera is steady, then you should now have a very accurate measurement of the lens resolution at that location. Focus Aye, there’s the rub. If your photo of the edge to measure isn’t in proper focus, then the results turn into garbage-in-garbage-out. Camera mounted on a linear slide with micrometer You may think that using contrast-detect focus and/or focus peaking will get you perfect focus. Think again. It’s true that mirrorless cameras generally yield vastly better focus, but optimal resolution measurements actually require millimeter-level accuracy. Manual-focus lenses are even harder to focus properly. Shown above is a camera on a linear-travel slide controlled by a micrometer that is capable of repeatable movements as small as 0.01mm. Using a system such as this, it’s easy to make a series of photos that start before the expected correct-focus zone and then travel up to and finally past the zone of correct focus. Just let MTFMapper analyze each shot to let you find the peak resolution; it’s rarely in the shot you anticipated. I like to use focus-peaking to at least get the lens into the general zone of correct focus while in the middle of the focus rail travel. I manually focus with the least sensitive focus peaking level (1), and with the most screen magnification that still displays peaking. Sometimes I’m forced to use the ‘medium’ focus peaking level, because the magnified screen doesn’t display any peaking feedback. I have found that some lens/aperture combinations can show focus changes (and resolution changes) by movements as small as one millimeter, even when focusing on targets a few meters away. The MTFMapper program is sensitive enough to detect the smallest focus (and resolution) changes, well before your own eyes can detect it. Most lens focus rings are much too coarse to change focus by these small amounts, and autofocus is almost never this precise, either (even using pure contrast-detect). These fine changes will be lost if you don’t also trip the shutter using remotes/self-timers/mirror-lockups, etc. to rid any vibration. And turn off lens vibration reduction. Summary It doesn’t have to be very expensive or complex to measure your lens’ resolution. You mostly just need to have the patience to carefully align your target, control the lighting, and nail the focus. And never use jpeg for measurements.

If you have hundreds of raw photos that you want to edit and convert into jpeg, what’s the easiest way to do it? If you are using ON1 Photo Raw 2023, you can use their batch-mode feature that’s accessed through the Browser Thumbnail-View dialog. Make sure you’re in ‘Thumbnail view’ first Make sure you’re in ‘Browse’ mode, and NOT ‘Edit’ mode when you want to do batch-mode features. You also want to make sure that you’re viewing thumbnails of your photos, which is enabled as shown above. The “Thumbnail View Options…” dialog will pop up after you click your right-mouse button while in the Browse mode, after multi-selecting the shots to convert. There are actually a bunch of features available in this dialog, but I want to draw your attention to just a few of them. Rotate your photos to the proper orientation It’s important to note that before you start any photo editing, it’s handy to make sure all of your vertical-mode shots get rotated to the correct orientation. This can be done from the ‘Browse’ module. Start by multi-selecting the photos that need rotation in a particular direction. Next, click the right-mouse button to activate the “Thumbnail View Options…” dialog. Rotate to the correct orientation Near the top of the ‘Thumbnail View Options…’ dialog, you’ll see a “Rotate” option; from here you can select either ‘Rotate CW’ or ‘Rotate CCW’. I noticed that my shots actually needed to get rotated the opposite direction of the commands (rotate clockwise to get counter-clockwise rotation). Try a single shot to make sure it rotates as expected prior to batch-rotating hundreds of them. If any shots need rotation, get this done prior to converting the raw shots into jpegs. Batch-edit multiple files If you have a routine set of edits that will apply to several files, then do the following after editing a sample photo (in the ‘Edit’ module). Copy the active photo edit steps First, copy the editing steps from the active photo in the ‘Edit’ module by selecting “Copy Settings” as shown (or else click Ctrl+Shift+C). Second, leave the ‘Edit’ module and then multi-select the desired files in the ‘Browse’ module that you want to apply to the copied editing steps. Paste the edit steps into selected files Finally, as shown above ‘Paste’ the editing steps into your selected set of files (or click ‘Ctrl+Alt+V’). The selected collection of files will immediately receive the edits from the ‘Copy Settings’ step. You can verify that your photos received the requested edits by selecting a sample photo and look at the edit settings in the “Edit” module after the batch-edit process has completed. Batch conversion of Raw to Jpeg Batch-convert files via the ‘Export’ option After selecting the desired set of photos while in ‘Thumbnail view’, click the right-mouse button to see the dialog shown above. The Export Dialog When you click on the Export… item in the Thumbnail Options dialog, you’ll see the dialog shown above. You can export the raw shots into more formats besides jpeg. You also get to specify where you want the exported files to go; I like to place them into a sub-folder from my raw shots called “jpg”. I noticed that the dialog “radio buttons” don’t act like radio buttons; they act like checkboxes, where you can select more than a single option. You could export to both ‘dng’ and ‘jpeg’ at once, for instance. Progress dialog while converting selected photos As shown above, you’ll get a progress dialog while the batch process is executing, once you click the “Export” button. This way, you’ll know how long the conversion should take. If you now discover that ON1 is doing something unexpected, you can cancel the batch process. The ‘Export’ dialog also lets you tell ON1 what to do after finishing the batch process. I like to see the finished results in Windows Explorer, but you can also do things such as opening the shots in another editor. My version of Lightroom doesn’t understand my raw-format shots, unless I convert them into DNG; this is a handy way to get the raw (high-efficiency raw) converted into DNG and then automatically run Lightroom. Summary You can easily save hundreds of hours by batch-editing. It’s a fundamental skill that all photographers should get familiar with. ON1 Photo Raw 2023 provides these tools, although it's not very obvious how to use them.

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.

Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S, mounted on Nikon Z9 I have heard so many good things about this lens for so long that I finally got one. Since I already have the very professional AF-S Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8 ED VR, it would seem a mostly redundant acquisition. Yes and no. I have a dedicated infrared F-mount camera, and that 24-70 is nearly always parked on it. Since the Z 24-120 has a different mount, that IR camera won’t ever see this lens; pity. Before I digress too far, let’s get back to the subject at hand: the 24-120 f/4 Z lens. This is a true walk-about lens which goes wide, telephoto, AND macro. I’ll show some shots later that prove the point. By definition, 5X zooms produce images that are crap. Right? Not this one. It beats my 24-70 f/2.8 F-mount lens at every f-stop and focal length for resolution. It is even slightly sharper than my Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 AF-S VR, at least in the central part of the image. I got this Z lens for HALF the price of what the 24-70 f/2.8 AF-S lens goes for these days (which I actually paid $2,400 for). So what’s missing here? 24mm setting Note that you can see the entire range of zoom settings above (about a quarter turn). I included the lens hood; you should, too. 120mm setting Notice the two telescoping pieces that make up the zooming portion of the lens. Nikon claims that the lens is still entirely weather/dust sealed nonetheless. Shown: lens controls Shown above left-to-right: Focus ring Zoom ring Lens function button (L-Fn) Lens control ring A/M switch What’s NOT included with this lens? This Z lens has no VR, but my Z9 and Z8 bodies both have IBIS; for me this is a “don’t care”. For you, it may be important. This lens has no focus scale. It messes up my ability to measure focus speed by filming a slo-mo video of the lens focus scale in motion, but otherwise it’s a “don’t care”. No quality lens case. It comes with a nearly useless flimsy pouch without even a drawstring. I have several really good lens cases, so again I don’t care. Lens Specifications · Weight: 1.39 lbs., 630g. (24-70 f/2.8 F-mount is a huge 1067g for comparison) · Dual stepping motors for internal autofocus (almost perfectly silent and super fast) · 77mm filter threads · ARNEO/Nano crystal/fluorine coating: repels dirt; very little flare. · 9 rounded blades, electronic aperture (circular out-of-focus lights) · 3 ED glass, 3 aspherics, 1 ED/aspherical combination lens element. Sharp! · Total lens elements: 16, 13 groups. · Constant-aperture f/4 (all focal lengths). Minimum aperture f/22. · 1 programmable lens function button, e.g. “AF-ON”. · A/M focus switch. “M” will stop autofocus behavior. · 1 programmable lens control ring, e.g. a real aperture control! · Metal lens mount, mostly high-quality plastic exterior. · Moisture/Dust sealed. No Nikon refunds for H2O damage… · Minimum focus: 35cm/1.15 ft. (0.42X at 120mm, measured) near-macro! · Length: 118mm, 84mm diameter · HB-102 plastic petal bayonet lens hood General Impressions The zoom ring on this lens is stiffer than any lens I have ever used. Getting to the nearest millimeter is a challenge. It takes about a quarter turn to go through the whole zoom range, so you can zoom very quickly. A sort of giveth and taketh away. The dual-telescoping zoom action has NO wiggle. This lack of wiggle is necessary to obtain the very high resolution at all focal lengths. This is probably why the zoom action is stiff. The astonishing close focus distance and 0.42X magnification at 120mm has enabled me to mostly abandon using my 105mm macro lens. I rarely need to get all the way down to 1.0X magnification, and the super high resolution allows for significant cropping. The intensely fast auto-focus lets me get macro action shots that I’d miss with my slower-focusing 105mm Micro Nikkor. With my usual editors (Lightroom, Capture One 23, ON1 Photo Raw 2023) the photos don’t show any vignetting or image distortion. The information embedded in the Raw images (I’m using either the “High Efficiency Raw” or DNG format) has distortion-correction information and vignetting-correction information. The editors auto-correct the images without asking. For my old version of Lightroom, I use the latest Adobe DNG converter to use my Nikon Z8 raw files as DNG and still get automatic distortion correction. Focus Speed Due to the lack of a focus scale and internal focusing, I haven’t figured out an accurate way of providing actual focus speed numbers. Suffice it to say that those dual stepping motors make focus really fast. A crude test I performed involved focusing at minimum distance on a close subject at a focal length of 120mm, start video recording at 120 fps, and then press the AF button while panning to focus on a distant scene. When I reviewed this video, it took roughly 57 frames, which is 0.48 seconds (in sunlight). Keep in mind that this lens focuses closer than most, so minimum-to-maximum focus range is much further than most lenses. For normal photography, you'll find the focus to be blazingly fast. Sample Shots 120mm f/4 1/800s bokeh example Bokeh circles can show slight edge brightness, and the frame edge highlights become non-round. Even the $8000 Nikkor 58mm f/0.95 Noct has non-round highlights at the frame edges, so don’t use that as a pass/fail test. After you stop down the aperture, the non-round edge highlights become circular, although of course they’re smaller. 120mm f/4 1/800s pixel-level crop from the shot above Note how sharp those feathers and eye reflections are in this 100% crop. This lens is sharp. I haven’t seen any “onion skin” in the highlights, which is something which really bugs me when it’s present in photos. Nikon Z8, 120mm f/5.6 crop from a close-up To my eye, this is as sharp as a good macro lens. I cropped some, but the resolution really holds up well. 24mm f/9 1/400s 24mm f/9 1/1600s 120mm f/7.1 1/1000s. Packard hood ornament 24mm f/7.1 1/500s (license plate altered) 80mm f/8 1/400s converted to black and white Infrared Performance For those of you that are interested in infrared photography, I tried out this lens with an 850nm infrared filter. This is very deep infrared. The lens passed with flying colors (except that ‘color’ is undefined in this part of the spectrum). No dreaded hotspots seen. 850nm deep infrared, 120mm f/5.6 180 seconds I had to use an infrared filter over the lens, since this Z lens won’t mount onto my F-mount infrared camera. Super long exposure, because the image sensor cover of the Z9 used in this test really screens out infrared. Lens Optical Characteristics 24mm f/4.0 “hidden” barrel distortion and vignetting I was able to “uncover” the actual optical distortion of this lens by converting the raw file into the Adobe DNG format, and then using my image-analysis software MTFMapper. As shown above, there’s hefty barrel distortion at 24mm. As you’ll see later, there’s pincushion distortion that’s pretty evident at 120mm. Again, you’ll probably never see this distortion in your photos, since most photo editors will automatically remove it. Relying on photo editors to remove optical distortion is getting more common all the time, and isn’t necessarily bad. Lenses would always be bigger, heavier, more expensive, and more complicated to totally rid this distortion purely through the glass. Lens designers are going to just embed the mathematics of the geometry corrections into the photo file (correction profile), so that editors can straighten curves, and even adjust transmission loss (vignetting). It only gets ugly when you’re using an image editor that doesn’t understand this embedded information. Resolution, Contrast, and Lateral Chromatic Aberration I use the MTFMapper program to perform resolution tests, which you can get here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/mtfmapper/ This image analysis program was used to measure the Z-cam lenses on board the Mars rover Perseverance. My resolution chart size is 40” X 56” to get a better working distance. My tests were done using unsharpened raw-format shots using a 45.7 MP Nikon Z8. The contrast plots are real contrast plots, and not the theoretical ones that lens manufacturers put out. They include the camera sensor effects, since you’re going to be using the lens with a real sensor. The MTF50 resolution plots, measured in line pairs per millimeter, are shown in both the sagittal and meridional direction across the whole field of view. Resolution is a 2-dimensional thing, and not a simple single number. I stop measuring after f/16, because diffraction destroys the resolution. MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 24mm f/4.0 Peak resolution, central = 76.4 lp/mm (3652 lines per pic. height) Peak resolution, worst edge = 57.9 (2768 l/ph) Peak resolution, worst corner = 43.2 (2065 l/ph) MTF Contrast plot, 24mm f/4.0 There’s definite astigmatism here, since the sagittal/meridional lines don’t overlap very closely as you get further from the lens center. The meridional (tangent) direction has less contrast and resolution than the sagittal (wheel spokes) for this lens at most apertures and focal lengths until the lens is stopped down typically beyond f/11. Lateral chromatic aberration, f/4 The worst (blue vs green) chromatic aberration is about -5.7 microns. The sensor has 4.35 micron pixels, so it’s 1.3 pixels worst case. MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 24mm f/5.6 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 24mm f/8.0 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 24mm f/11.0 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 24mm f/16.0 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 34.5mm f/4.0 Peak resolution, central = 72.7 lp/mm (3475 l/ph) Peak resolution, worst edge = 39.1 (1869 l/ph) Peak resolution, worst corner = 32.4 (1549 l/ph) (Like I said, zooming to an exact millimeter is very difficult on this lens.) MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 34.5mm f/5.6 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 34.5mm f/8.0 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 34.5mm f/11.0 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 34.5mm f/16.0 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 50mm f/4.0 Peak resolution, central = 77.4 lp/mm (3700 l/ph) Peak resolution, worst edge = 50.5 (2414 l/ph) Peak resolution, worst corner = 43.2 (2065 l/ph) MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 50mm f/5.6 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 50mm f/8 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 50mm f/11 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 50mm f/16 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 70mm f/4 Peak resolution, central = 65.2 lp/mm (3117 l/ph) Peak resolution, worst edge = 41 (1960 l/ph) Peak resolution, worst corner = 38.3 (1831 l/ph) MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 70mm f/5.6 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 70mm f/8 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 70mm f/11 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 70mm f/16 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 120mm f/4 Peak resolution, central = 66.5 lp/mm (3179 l/ph) Peak resolution, worst edge = 42.7 (2041 l/ph) Peak resolution, worst corner = 41.2 (1969 l/ph) 120mm f/4.0 “hidden” pincushion distortion and vignetting MTF Contrast plot, 120mm f/4.0 Lateral chromatic aberration, f/4 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 120mm f/5.6 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 120mm f/8 MTF Contrast plot, 120mm f/8 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 120mm f/11 MTF50 lp/mm resolution, 120mm f/16 Summary It never occurred to me that I would use this lens for macro photography. The 0.42X magnification, good working distance, and fast focus has made it my go-to for most macro work. Most close-up photography doesn't really need to go all the way down to 1.0X. This lens really does compete with many prime lenses. It’s in the same ballpark for sharpness, and the bokeh isn’t that bad. And you just can’t beat being able to zoom over such a large and useful range. I didn’t fully appreciate how much better it is, compared to my 24-70 f/2.8 zoom, for sharpness, focus speed, focal range, and close focus. It would of course be nice to have the same f/2.8 aperture, but you can't have everything. Telephoto zooms are famous for being much worse at their maximum focal length. Not this guy. For those times that you can take only a single lens on a trip, this is it. It will handle everything except the really big glass required for wildlife. And it’s maybe a little long for architectural interior shots. The Z lenses, especially the ‘S’ line, have a reputation for being overpriced, but here’s a case where what you get is a real bargain. I got it along with my Z8, so I got an even better bargain. Sample Shots 95mm f/8 1/100s 96mm f/5.6 1/400s 120mm f/8 1/2000s

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.