Recent Posts

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Your Weekly Blog / Re: January 2026!
« Last post by Fons Baerken on January 13, 2026, 16:07:35 »
January 13

ventilation

D3s  af 180mm f/2.8
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Themes, Portfolio Series, PaW, or PaM / Re: [Theme] b&w's
« Last post by Fons Baerken on January 13, 2026, 11:12:14 »
ventilation

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Your Weekly Blog / Re: January 2026!
« Last post by Birna Rørslett on January 13, 2026, 10:45:39 »
Still very cold, but we might see a weather change soon(?). Snow levels are pretty normal for this time of the year, though. Thus a sense of normalcy has returned, if we only consider the domestic scene ...

Very early morning test shot with Rodenstock TV-Heligon 50mm f/0.75 on my Z9. 43 frames.

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Themes, Portfolio Series, PaW, or PaM / Re: [Theme] : Natural Disorder/Chaos
« Last post by pluton on January 13, 2026, 07:14:46 »
Some human-created disorder.
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Thanks a lot, Erik and John!
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Camera Talk / Re: The Lens Adapter Nikon REFUSED to Build
« Last post by Les Olson on January 13, 2026, 03:09:00 »
Perhaps the main reason is that a number of F-lenses perform better on a mirrorless camera.  (less disadvantages, sharper, better focussing)

Perform better than they did on F mount or better than native Z lenses? All cameras are mirrorless when the picture is taken, so mirrorless-ness doesn't change the performance of the lens, and the optical penalties of retrofocus designs apply to any lens with focal length less than 50mm, so I am sceptical of any claim that an F mount lens 50mm or shorter is better on a Z mount camera and even more sceptical of any claim that it is better than a Z mount lens of the same focal length.

Sure, some Z cameras have better AF, for some uses, than some F mount cameras. If you add up serial numbers on Roland Vink's site you can see that AF-D lenses outnumber AF-S lenses at short and medium focal lengths, but at longer focal lengths AF-S greatly outnumbers AF-D. That probably has to do with the fact that AF-S was introduced for long focal lengths in 1998, but not for short focal lengths until 2010. The superior AF of Z cameras is of most use with long focal lengths, and there are just not that many AF-D long focal length lenses out there.

The reason people give for wanting an FTZ adapter with screw drive is not that they have all these AF-D lenses that were OK on F mount but are or they hope might be better on Z mount. They want to use them because they really like the way they performed on F mount cameras. So, even if the lens was better on a Z mount camera, why would they care?

Fashion in lens design has changed, so portrait lenses like the 85mm f/1.4D with under-corrected spherical aberration have been replaced by lenses like the Z 135mm f/1.8 with no spherical aberration and some people like the less sharp but "creamy" out of focus look. So there are people who want to keep using the 85/1.4D, typically for portraits. Fine, but why do they need a FTZ adapter with screw drive? The only reason is because they can't use manual focus or they can't use a D850 like they always did.

Nikon has provided a solution for people who want to use AF-D lenses and have AF that is perfectly adequate from a photographic point of view: use them on an F mount camera. Some people may find that inconvenient, and there are people who want to use the 85/1.4D and they dropped their D850 overboard on a Rhine River cruise and since they were buying a new camera it made sense to move to a Z8, and there are people who mainly use a Z8 for sports and sold their D850 to pay for the Z8 but they have a 20/2.8D they use occasionally and they can't afford to buy the Z 20/1.8. Nikon has implied that they just do not see that as a big enough problem to justify making an FTZ adapter with screw drive, and IMO it is very hard to disagree.

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Lens Talk / Re: TC 16A
« Last post by dak on January 13, 2026, 01:45:29 »
I live in the Netherlands. I own a TC-16A and would like to have it modified. My problem is that it's for me not possible to modify it.
Is someone willing to do this for me?
Germany here.  I'd offer to do it for EUR100 plus postage.  That is quite a bit of change.  The mod consists of two parts: rerouting one pin which makes the converter electrically compatible with modern bodies.  However, it identifies then as a teleconverter with F1 or F0 and you need to meter closed-down I think.  That is not convenient.  Also focusing may not work well.  The second part of the mod involves cutting two pins of the CPU (sounds brutal but is more straightforward to reverse than cutting traces).  That makes the teleconverter identify as a 70-210mm/ 1:4 lens at 145mm focal width (which is pretty much perfect for 90mm 1:2.8 behavior but will work comparatively well with a number of other lenses).  This lens has a range of 7 stops and you _must_ close down the aperture 6 stops from the open position to make the body happy.  So an 1:2.8 lens has to be set to 1:22 when controlling the lens via the camera dial. or the camera will protest (the usual FEE).  You can also set the aperture to be controlled via the aperture ring.  Either way metering will happen wide open, but if you close the aperture more than 6 stops from wide open with the aperture ring, the camera will likely not close the aperture more than 6 stops from wide open on the lens (it just goes as far as it thinks it needs to go).  If you use a G lens, the camera will probably only work if the lens has a 7-stop range.

So you are safer off with an aperture ring.  Those are the restrictions, and you better tell your raw processor that it should refrain from any geometric corrections on a "70-210mm/4" lens since those will be inappropriate.

All that being said, this is even surprisingly useful for an AF Nikkor Micro 105mm 1:2.8 because that lens is totally tedious racking even the "limit" range back and forth when it cannot really focus well.  With the TC-16A, you need to prefocus almost correctly (like by using the 1:x scale) manually and the converter will only cater for a rather small distance range which is racked back and forth much much faster.

I've done this mod before and am pretty confident to be able to repeat it, but there is no warranty.  I won't charge when messing up, but the worst case will be a converter that will not talk to any body any more.  Which is close to what you have now…
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Touching story and great images of this cold trip !
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People, Portraits, Street, PJ & Cityscapes / Re: World Cup Bobsleigh at Igls
« Last post by John Geerts on January 12, 2026, 20:05:16 »
super series, the last two are outstanding or outjumping?
Yes, great series !!
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