[quote=Gene51]The thing about the Rokinon/Samyang/Bower etc lens is that you will not find a lens as sharp wide open from corner to corner like this one.

Thanks, Gene. I did upload one of the Rokinon shots to LR and the profile for it does a great job eliminating the distortion.

While I was playing a game on my phone a few weeks ago an ad for B&H popped up showing a $70 instant rebate on the Rokinon 14mm f2.8 bringing the price down to $279. Even though I already have the Nikon 16-35 f4 I thought the extra stop might be beneficial for Milky Way and astral photography and, because I've read good things about the Rokinon, I bit. Of course, this isn't Milky Way season in the northern hemisphere so I won't be able to try it for a few months. But, because I read in the B&H reviews that getting a good version of the lens can be pot luck, I wanted to test it while still in the return period.

The attached pictures were all taken with my Nikon D810. Unfortunately the brick wall presented itself to me when I didn't have a tripod. But because the pipe across the top and the marked dark brick in the center all really aid the test I shot handheld. Shutter speeds were all high enough and I tried to maintain the same camera position between shots (and yes, that's appear to be my finger in the bottom right of the 14mm shots). I shot at every aperture but am attaching only a smaller sample.

The first really noticeable difference is the severe mustache distortion with the Rokinon vs the much more moderate barrel distortion of the Nikon at 16mm. The good news is that's easily corrected in LR. What is not correctable are the differences in sharpness. Center sharpness of the Rokinon at 2.8 is fair; edge sharpness is pretty poor. Center sharpness improves considerably at f8; edge sharpness is better but never great. Of course, since the point of this lens when used for astral photography is the wider aperture, the improvement as one stops down isn't terribly germane. By contrast, even wide open the Nikon gives acceptable results across the frame.

So, I have two questions: To those of you who have the Rokinon, are these photos representative of what I should expect (in other words, did I get a "good one") and is that extra stop worth the lens's other shortcomings?

14mm 2.8

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14mm f4

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14mm f8

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14mm f18

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nikon 16-35 at 16mm f4

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nikon 16-35 at 16mm f8

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nikon 16-35 at 16mm f16

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With dues respect to Mike, I actually think it is both motion blur and focus, specifically too shallow a depth of field.

You need a smaller aperture to increase the depth of field. Of course, that will force an even slower shutter speed so the solution here would have been to boost your ISO to a point that would have enabled both a higher fstop and higher shutter speed.

That’s a beautiful station. Did you get a good photo of the attached? “Angel of the Resurrection”, built to honor the men and women of the PA Railroad who died in WWII. This is a poor quality image from an old cellphone.

The wedding guests are not a party to the contract. The contract can certainly prevent the couple from hiring a second photographer but it’s difficult to see how they can possibly be expected to prevent guests from taking pictures.

I think it’s an overprotective and unenforceable clause. That said, he’s doing it to make a living; you’re not. Be respectful and stay out of his way.

Of course there is nothing wrong with posting a picture of our flag. But this is a photography group and the expectation is that pictures posted will be of superior technical or artistic quality. This picture is neither. By the op’s own admission, it’s simply a snapshot of a flag taken from a car window. That, plus the op’s accompanying comments, make it not unreasonable to suspect it is being posted as virtue signaling and a veiled attack on those the op considers less patriotic.

My preference is that folks post that kind of stuff on their personal social media pages rather than trying to take advantage of this group’s larger audience by posting unrelated content.

The best camera in the world won’t do you any good if you don’t have it with you. I have a d810 and love it BUT I find there are times I don’t bother taking it with me because of its size and weight (and the 850 is even a little heavier). I realize the z7 isn’t THAT much smaller and lighter than the 850 but I wouldn’t be too quick to discount the difference.

I just returned from the U.K. with a backpack full of camera equipment. None of my bags were checked. For what it’s worth I have Global Entry, which I very highly recommend, but even when I travelled internationally before I had it, I never had a problem.

[quote=quixdraw]Worth a try to totally discharge the battery and try to recharge again.

I figure it was fully discharged when he gave it to me but I do intend to try what you suggest. Thanks.

[quote=Kmgw9v]Too many times attempts at trying to do the right thong comes to a bad end. ....

True, but I still prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt. Besides, if that’s the worst thing that happens to me this year, I’m a lucky guy.

True but I still prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt. Besides, it that’s the worst thing that happens to me this year, I’m a lucky guy.

Funny story. I was in England 2 weeks ago and my wife and I, along with some friends from Bristol, were visiting the beautiful seaside town of Lyme Regis. Of course I was taking pictures. A Canadian tourist walked up to me and asked what camera I was using. I told him it was a Nikon d810. He then explained that he has the same camera and his battery had died and the spare was back at his hotel hours away. He asked if I had a charged spare and if I would swap it for his dead one. I thought how I’d feel if I were in such a beautiful place and unable to take pictures so I said I would. He needed to go to his car to get the battery so I told him where we’d be so he could meet us later.

While we were waiting for him my friends and I were joking that this was some kind of battery scam and this guy was just waiting to find someone with the same camera or, alternatively, he had a large supply of many different dead batteries and prowled tourist areas to unload them. In a little while he showed up with his battery. I noticed it was an after market brand and pointed out mine was a genuine Nikon battery. He agreed that wasn’t a fair trade and immediately handed me £20. I almost didn’t take it but he was insistent.

So that evening when we got back to our Bristol hosts’ home, I plugged it in to charge. It seemed to charge normally and I didn’t give it any further thought. However, days later when I put it in my camera it showed about 3/4 and almost immediately dropped to half. I charged it fully again with the same result. So he got a virtually brand new Nikon battery worth $55 and I got a useless piece of crap plus £20 (about $26). I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t realize his battery was shot and I imagine I’d probably do the same thing in the very unlikely event something like that ever happens again. Better yet, maybe I’ll try the same thing he did when I happen to run into someone else with a d810 ; ).

You’re correct that any change you make to one variable in any automatic mode will be compensated for so you can’t adjust exposure that way. You could either shoot in full manual and intentionally under expose by as many stops as you like or you can use your EV +/- switch in any of the automatic modes to under or over expose.

The problem in this case is the overall exposure of your shot is pretty good so if you underexpose for the boathouses, the rest of the image may be darker than you’d like.

The best way to handle it in a situation like this is through post processing software like Lightroom or the like wherein you can select a specific area of the shot and adjust exposure for just that area. If you’ve ever worked in a traditional darkroom that is the digital equivalent to what’s known as dodging and burning.

As someone who lived most of his life in Philly and still maintain a part time residence there I appreciate seeing these images here. They’re great shots. You asked for suggestions so I’ll offer just one. In the first shot I would dial back the exposure of the boathouses a little bit. That would make the lights appear sharper and less diffuse.

Also, as an aside, I find the negative comment about the city unfortunate and unfounded. I lived there for over fifty years and wasn’t shot once.