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Aperture Series: Peaks by Moonlight (Nikon D810)
This aperture series at f/1.4 and f/2 and f/2.8 shows how well the Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art captures night scenes at distance, including stars and very fine details of rock and snow in the mountain peaks.
Peaks by Moonlight
Adobe Camera Raw 9.7.0 (668): view ACR settings. Camera Profile=Adobe Standard. No lens corrections utilized. White balanced set using snow which was assumed to be white.
These were long exposures: 30 seconds for f/1.4, 56 seconds for f/2, 104 seconds for f/2.8.
The Nikon D810 was unable to focus even in magnified Live View, so I focused manually on the star just above the mountain at center. Whether there might have been a better focus point for that area of the frame or for focus across the frame cannot be said, but the only feasible approach is to minimize the size of the dot (the star) since the rest of the scene is far too dark to focus on. Unfortunately, focus seems to be off just a bit, the evidence for that being that must of the frame lacks good sharpness until f/2.8, excepting the extreme top left corner which is amazingly sharp at f1/4/
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Diglloyd DAP is DSLR-oriented, but also contains workflow and other topics. Much of the focus is on Canon and Nikon but also Pentax and Pentax medium format.
Special emphasis is placed on lens evaluation, focusing on Canon and Nikon and Sigma lenses, but with a few others like Rokinon/Samyang.
- Make better images by learning how to get the best results right away.
- Save money by choosing the right lens for your needs the first time, particularly some of the new Sigma Art lenses vs Nikon and Canon.
- Workflow discusses image organization, raw conversion and post processing. Many examples show processing parameters for direct insight into how the image was converted.
- Jaw-dropping image quality found nowhere else utilizing Retina-grade images up to full camera resolution, plus large crops [past 2 years or so].
- Real world examples with insights found nowhere else. Make sharper images just by understanding lens behavior you won’t read about elsewhere.
- Aperture series from wide open through stopped down, showing the full range of lens performance and bokeh.
- Optical quality analysis of field curvature, focus shift, sharpness, flare, distortion, and performance in the field.
Want a preview? Click on any page below to see an excerpt as well as extensive blog coverage, for example on Nikon or on Canon or on Pentax.
