Recently Google introduced new service: Google Photos. All existing images stored within Google account moved into that service. I appreciate that drift towards mobile devices is inevitable, so the layout is simplified and all the options are only available after several clicks (that is 'responsive' website design accordingly to Google - as long as you use touch interface...), especially that some new cool features were added. Unfortunatelly some not very cool, but plainly necessary features seemed to disappear as well. How to set album cover in Google Photos? How to change image date in Google Photos? How to... Well, it seems the questions now need to be rephrased and start with 'Why can't I'
Luckily, there is still a backdoor to the old interface: when logged into your Google account, just follow Picasa Web Albums link, and it redirects to your album, with existing functionality. Changes applied there are visible in Google Photos interface. I'm not sure how long for that will be active, hopefully new service will be polished by then making hacks obsolete.
2015/06/14
Copenhagen 2015.05.29 - 06.01
Unusually this time instead of travelling south (the hotter - the better /for some/) we moved up north and landed in Copenhagen.
Preparation for the trip started very well, with return flights booked for under £100 for 3 people. The grin on the face disapperaed when it came to booking hotels. Especially it wasn't a weekend break, but a 5-day visit...
In the end we found hostel Belægningen - for us it was great, half price of the hotel down town, shared kitchen being an advantage (one can heat milk or even prepare meals), bathroom - or actually wetroom - manageable with proper use of a squeegee (provided), and most of all a bunk bed, climbed by happy boy at least 100 times on the first day :) It's got not a bad connection with the city centre, within 45 minutes: 1A bus every 15 minutes after 3 minutes walk; S-tog every 10 minutes after 15 minutes walk, passing the shops on the way.
Another clever thing was to equip with Copenhagen Card - especially since we stayed 5 days and used bus/S-tog on daily basis, 120h version felt a good deal overall.
On day 1 we arrived at midday, used Metro to get to the Copengahen H (central station), which involved a change - one will be better off using a train. We put the bags into locker (right next to S-tog platforms, large locker fits 1 child or 3 bags - depending which is more of a trouble ;) - for DKK60.
We went along the main promenade, popped in to a local kebab shop for a lunch and left amount that usually funds a decent dinner. In the meantime the weather became as bad as in the forecast, so rather than having a boat trip, we hid in the National Museum. Since I'm not a museum man, the two things I remembered were that most of the exhibits were luckily preserved as found in a bog, and that Danish Vikings were actually not that bad :) As the sky did not clear by the time we learnt all about Danish history, we called it a day.
Morning of day 2 was much better, so we decided to take advantage and have the boat trip. As Copnehagen lies on the water that is actually more practical (and pleasant) than an open top bus (not included in the Copenhagen Card anyway).
Tracklog of the cruise
From the boat we went towards Christianshaven. We climbed the Vor Frelsers Kirke (quite a challenge) and were rewarded with fantastic bird view panoramas of Copenhagen.
Then we walked along the borders of Christiania, but we did not feel it was the right vibe, and didn't explore it further. We finished off sightseeing by walking across the town via Nyhavn to the Little Mermaid.
Day 3 was purely joy (for some). In the morning we went to the Experimentarium. It can be fun indeed, but many of the tasks rely on understanding physics, or explaining it, so children below 10 and those scientifically challanged may not enjoy it a lot. Afternoon was spent at Tivoli Gardens - avoid the place, it will empty your pocket and make your head spin - unless you love this sort of fun!
On day 4 we travelled outside the city: first to the Open air Museum of traditional Danish architecture. Then we carried on S-tog line A to the last stop, and boarded the ferry on the lake around the Frederiksborg Castle, with a walk along the bank of the lake (quicker than the ferry - just) on the way back.
Last day was filled with final walk along the promenade, visit to the Lego store and Den Blå Planet - the national aquarium. Coveniently located right next to the airport, we spent good time watching both ugly and colorful submarine creatures (we found Nemo!), and had a tasty lunch before returning.
Copenhagen is a beautiful city - one can see the wealth of an old sea port in the buildings along the roads. Layout, facades, and then detail - at every level it is pleasure to watch. There are many modern buildings as well, and I think purely because of their number it actually feels natural that they fill the gaps in 'traditionally' looking architecture. In the end they are traditional modern orgy of weird geometry covered in glass though...
What I do like is the fact that old, disused buildings aren't demolished, but rather turned into flats, offices, storage, or any other purpose (like our hostel!), but at least externally their history continues. Extra effort for sure, but it is noticable and much appreciated.
Copenhagen will be remembered for surprisingly wide S-tog trains, number of bicycles and their dedicated lanes, prices (including recycling fee for a bottle of water being higher than price of the water itself), but most of all for general feeling of easygoing thanks to good organization.
Preparation for the trip started very well, with return flights booked for under £100 for 3 people. The grin on the face disapperaed when it came to booking hotels. Especially it wasn't a weekend break, but a 5-day visit...
In the end we found hostel Belægningen - for us it was great, half price of the hotel down town, shared kitchen being an advantage (one can heat milk or even prepare meals), bathroom - or actually wetroom - manageable with proper use of a squeegee (provided), and most of all a bunk bed, climbed by happy boy at least 100 times on the first day :) It's got not a bad connection with the city centre, within 45 minutes: 1A bus every 15 minutes after 3 minutes walk; S-tog every 10 minutes after 15 minutes walk, passing the shops on the way.
Another clever thing was to equip with Copenhagen Card - especially since we stayed 5 days and used bus/S-tog on daily basis, 120h version felt a good deal overall.
On day 1 we arrived at midday, used Metro to get to the Copengahen H (central station), which involved a change - one will be better off using a train. We put the bags into locker (right next to S-tog platforms, large locker fits 1 child or 3 bags - depending which is more of a trouble ;) - for DKK60.
We went along the main promenade, popped in to a local kebab shop for a lunch and left amount that usually funds a decent dinner. In the meantime the weather became as bad as in the forecast, so rather than having a boat trip, we hid in the National Museum. Since I'm not a museum man, the two things I remembered were that most of the exhibits were luckily preserved as found in a bog, and that Danish Vikings were actually not that bad :) As the sky did not clear by the time we learnt all about Danish history, we called it a day.
Morning of day 2 was much better, so we decided to take advantage and have the boat trip. As Copnehagen lies on the water that is actually more practical (and pleasant) than an open top bus (not included in the Copenhagen Card anyway).
From the boat we went towards Christianshaven. We climbed the Vor Frelsers Kirke (quite a challenge) and were rewarded with fantastic bird view panoramas of Copenhagen.
Then we walked along the borders of Christiania, but we did not feel it was the right vibe, and didn't explore it further. We finished off sightseeing by walking across the town via Nyhavn to the Little Mermaid.
Day 3 was purely joy (for some). In the morning we went to the Experimentarium. It can be fun indeed, but many of the tasks rely on understanding physics, or explaining it, so children below 10 and those scientifically challanged may not enjoy it a lot. Afternoon was spent at Tivoli Gardens - avoid the place, it will empty your pocket and make your head spin - unless you love this sort of fun!
On day 4 we travelled outside the city: first to the Open air Museum of traditional Danish architecture. Then we carried on S-tog line A to the last stop, and boarded the ferry on the lake around the Frederiksborg Castle, with a walk along the bank of the lake (quicker than the ferry - just) on the way back.
Last day was filled with final walk along the promenade, visit to the Lego store and Den Blå Planet - the national aquarium. Coveniently located right next to the airport, we spent good time watching both ugly and colorful submarine creatures (we found Nemo!), and had a tasty lunch before returning.
Copenhagen is a beautiful city - one can see the wealth of an old sea port in the buildings along the roads. Layout, facades, and then detail - at every level it is pleasure to watch. There are many modern buildings as well, and I think purely because of their number it actually feels natural that they fill the gaps in 'traditionally' looking architecture. In the end they are traditional modern orgy of weird geometry covered in glass though...
What I do like is the fact that old, disused buildings aren't demolished, but rather turned into flats, offices, storage, or any other purpose (like our hostel!), but at least externally their history continues. Extra effort for sure, but it is noticable and much appreciated.
Copenhagen will be remembered for surprisingly wide S-tog trains, number of bicycles and their dedicated lanes, prices (including recycling fee for a bottle of water being higher than price of the water itself), but most of all for general feeling of easygoing thanks to good organization.
2015/06/09
2015.05.24-25 Brecon Beacons
Surprisingly this bank holiday weekend appeared not to be completely rainy, so immediately the sky started clearing up, we set off to the mountains. As for the first visit this year the plan was very mild. For the first day we wanted only to warm up by walking around Pen Tir. I planned the trip using Ordnance Survey map available over Bing maps. We parked the car next to lovely signpost indicating the path, but very quickly it nearly disappeared, and for the next half an hour it was a narrow line on a slope. The map suggested we would join the main Beacons Way trail, but instead we kept walking along farm fence. Finally we were forced to jump over the fence and traverse the hill, but then we managed to join a good path.
The views from Pen Tir were lovely, with surprise addition of small lake just at the top. We followed the path down the hill and then got stuck along farm fence again! Since it was coated with barber wire we had to walk along it to get to the road. On the map it looks like it is a through road, with some trail using it, but in reality it appeared to be blocked by farm gates. In desperation we trespassed them and were lucky that we met the very friendly owner who locked his dog.
Plan for the day 2 was Four Falls Trail, but since we stayed overnight in Swansea, we first visited Melincourt Waterfalls on the way. It was a nice short walk, and for return we chose a path around and above the valley.
When we got to Clyn-Gwyn it was already full of cars. There is no photo of Sgwd Clun-Gwyn, as it was full of people trying to get below, above and in it. Sgwd Isaf Clun-Gwyn and Sgwd y Pannwr are better in that respect, as it takes long link trail to get there. As an aside, this trail used to go directly from Sgwd Clun-Gwyn and must have been diverted recently, making the Ordnance Survey Map erroneous again...
We did walk down to Sgwd-yr-Eira, but path leading there is definitely not capable of handling Bank Holiday Monday crowds, there is no space down at the fall, and with everything covered in mist trying to use few remaining wet rocks was far from pleasant experience. No photo of this waterfall neither, especially that one (or actually many that very day) can walk behind it.
The views from Pen Tir were lovely, with surprise addition of small lake just at the top. We followed the path down the hill and then got stuck along farm fence again! Since it was coated with barber wire we had to walk along it to get to the road. On the map it looks like it is a through road, with some trail using it, but in reality it appeared to be blocked by farm gates. In desperation we trespassed them and were lucky that we met the very friendly owner who locked his dog.
Plan for the day 2 was Four Falls Trail, but since we stayed overnight in Swansea, we first visited Melincourt Waterfalls on the way. It was a nice short walk, and for return we chose a path around and above the valley.
When we got to Clyn-Gwyn it was already full of cars. There is no photo of Sgwd Clun-Gwyn, as it was full of people trying to get below, above and in it. Sgwd Isaf Clun-Gwyn and Sgwd y Pannwr are better in that respect, as it takes long link trail to get there. As an aside, this trail used to go directly from Sgwd Clun-Gwyn and must have been diverted recently, making the Ordnance Survey Map erroneous again...
We did walk down to Sgwd-yr-Eira, but path leading there is definitely not capable of handling Bank Holiday Monday crowds, there is no space down at the fall, and with everything covered in mist trying to use few remaining wet rocks was far from pleasant experience. No photo of this waterfall neither, especially that one (or actually many that very day) can walk behind it.
2015/06/08
Supertelephoto shootout: Nikkor VR 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6 vs Panasonic Lumix G 100-300 mm f/4-5.6 (2)
Test 2: 'landscape' mode - subject at 1km
Using telephoto lens for photograps of trains have two main reasons: one being the effect of perspective compression, allowing to squeeze sometimes long subject in the frame and also pronounce the curvature of the track, other - to be at all able to take a photo (from a location far and above), as track is usually guarded by trees/bushes obstructing the view. There are other usages of this setup, like airplane spotting.
At 'short' end M43 combo is clear winner: better lens contrast and bigger sensor resolution shows clearly.
Extending further, it holds the lead (even if focals were set wrong, producing higher magnification on Panasonic shots)
Reaching 500 mm (full frame equivalent) turns the table: now it is Nikkor winning hands down. Sudden transition feels a bit suspicious and could be attributed to:
- Panasonic reaching fully open aperture earlier (but at f/8 still loses)
- Panasonic struggling with focus
The latter seems more believable, as that focal was the closest that it could acquire focus at all! Fully extended (600 mm eq), with focus poits set on the signal gantry, that lens on E-M1 kept hunting forever. Whether it is an issue of the lens (quite likely, as on Panasonic bodies it would also be struggling above its 250 mm setting /native: 500mm equivalent/ ), or fact of pairing with Olympus body will remain unknown. As that was something I experienced in the past, I was not very surprised, maybe the fact that focusing target was static and looked pretty well defined was unexpected.
On other note, stopping Panasonic from f/5.6 to f/8 brings huge improvement in corner illumiantion.
Thus Nikkor remains alone for the full range shot:
In this case it also visibly benefits from closing aperture to f/8
Summary
Regardless the distance, the outcome is pretty much the same: Panasonic Lumix G 100-300 mm f/4-5.6 displays better sharpness and contrast up to about 400mm equivalent. Throughout the range it shows strong influence of aperture on vigneting. Longer focal ranges bias the scale towards Nikkor VR 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6, with extra reach of 810 mm equivalent being an outstanding feature.
Practice shows that Panasonic lens struggles to aquire focus when fully extended, but that does not apply to some subjects and may be influenced by a body attached.
Both lenses are of similar dimensions (when collapesd) and weight, but Panasonic is a bit (f/4 vs f/4.5) faster at short end. Panasonic did not equip the lens in tripod collar nor mount, Nikon on the other hand would have added VR switch - diving into V1 menus is killing pleasure of taking any photos. Tripod foot for this lens is also legendary hard to obtain, and lucky buyers are ripped for a piece of metal.
Extra reach of Nikkor against many little quirks of Panasonic (like incapability to focus in some cases and slow aperture mechanism, limiting top burst rate) led me to part with the latter.
The verdict of which of those lenses is the best can only be based depending on use scenario. In absolute terms I would call it a draw, with Panasonic gaining at shorter focal range and Nikkor at longer.
I put 70-300 on Nikon 1 V1 body, but with more modern models it has potential for resolving more detail, whereas M43 seems to be settled at 16Mpix.
Using telephoto lens for photograps of trains have two main reasons: one being the effect of perspective compression, allowing to squeeze sometimes long subject in the frame and also pronounce the curvature of the track, other - to be at all able to take a photo (from a location far and above), as track is usually guarded by trees/bushes obstructing the view. There are other usages of this setup, like airplane spotting.
At 'short' end M43 combo is clear winner: better lens contrast and bigger sensor resolution shows clearly.
- Panasonic reaching fully open aperture earlier (but at f/8 still loses)
- Panasonic struggling with focus
The latter seems more believable, as that focal was the closest that it could acquire focus at all! Fully extended (600 mm eq), with focus poits set on the signal gantry, that lens on E-M1 kept hunting forever. Whether it is an issue of the lens (quite likely, as on Panasonic bodies it would also be struggling above its 250 mm setting /native: 500mm equivalent/ ), or fact of pairing with Olympus body will remain unknown. As that was something I experienced in the past, I was not very surprised, maybe the fact that focusing target was static and looked pretty well defined was unexpected.
On other note, stopping Panasonic from f/5.6 to f/8 brings huge improvement in corner illumiantion.
Thus Nikkor remains alone for the full range shot:
In this case it also visibly benefits from closing aperture to f/8
Summary
Regardless the distance, the outcome is pretty much the same: Panasonic Lumix G 100-300 mm f/4-5.6 displays better sharpness and contrast up to about 400mm equivalent. Throughout the range it shows strong influence of aperture on vigneting. Longer focal ranges bias the scale towards Nikkor VR 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6, with extra reach of 810 mm equivalent being an outstanding feature.
Practice shows that Panasonic lens struggles to aquire focus when fully extended, but that does not apply to some subjects and may be influenced by a body attached.
Both lenses are of similar dimensions (when collapesd) and weight, but Panasonic is a bit (f/4 vs f/4.5) faster at short end. Panasonic did not equip the lens in tripod collar nor mount, Nikon on the other hand would have added VR switch - diving into V1 menus is killing pleasure of taking any photos. Tripod foot for this lens is also legendary hard to obtain, and lucky buyers are ripped for a piece of metal.
Extra reach of Nikkor against many little quirks of Panasonic (like incapability to focus in some cases and slow aperture mechanism, limiting top burst rate) led me to part with the latter.
The verdict of which of those lenses is the best can only be based depending on use scenario. In absolute terms I would call it a draw, with Panasonic gaining at shorter focal range and Nikkor at longer.
I put 70-300 on Nikon 1 V1 body, but with more modern models it has potential for resolving more detail, whereas M43 seems to be settled at 16Mpix.
Supertelephoto shootout: Nikkor VR 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6 vs Panasonic Lumix G 100-300 mm f/4-5.6 (1)
Taking advantage of beautiful weather, I took two big guns (and some smaller ones) outside to see how they compare. That has actually already been done in excellent piece by Fredrik Gløckner, and more about 70-300 CX lens in his other post.
Why repeat the test? One of the assumptions and conclusions from my previous comparison attempt was to try to reproduce conditions the gear is going to be used in. I am no birder, in my case supertelephoto is used for landscape (kind of) and micro photography. Another thing is that testing itself actually shows many secondary effects, not often described in reviews, that occasionally can disqualify a piece of equipment for specific purposes. There is also sample variation involved, which at very close results can bias the scale.
Nikkor VR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 was attached to Nikon V1 body, MFT lenses to Olympus E-M1. The consequences are:
- 70-300 combination is handicapped by relatively lower spatial resolution of the sensor (10MPix, AA filter) when other lenses project on effective 14Mpix (3:2 crop of 16MPix sensor). All the files were downsampled to 2592px horizontal size for fair and direct comparison
- difference in sensor formats also slightly affected magnification: even though I tried to set the same equivalent (in 35mm format terms) focal length, because corresponding angle of view is defined over diagonal, the horizontal angles differs between 4:3 and 3:2 formats by about 10%
- V1 base ISO is 100, Olympus is 200. In reality Olympus is also close to 100 (and pulled in processing), but at the moment of exposure twice shorter shutter opening time is used, and that could affect sharpness by reducing any motion blur. Using base ISO is sensible anyway, to avoid reducing detail by added noise*
* in landscapes, especially with grass and leaves, false detail of noise grain can actually produce impression of increased resolution
Test 1: 'paparazzi' mode - subject at about 50m.
That wonderful piece of architecture seemed to be a good target, with brick wall as well as piece of fine text.
Camera mounted on a tripod with 2 sections extended and central column lowered, bag hanged for extra stability. Aperture priority, mechanical shutter, central AF point, self timer 2s to avoid shutter actuation shake. Raw files developed in LR5.7 with default settings (all sliders at 0, sharpening 25), exported to Jpeg at 90% quality, sharpening to screen - none, resized to 2592px on long edge (to match V1 - actually I made a mistake: it is number of horizontal lines, but the bottom line is they were normalized to the same magnification). Crops for side-by-side comparison edited in IrfanView and saved as Jpeg at 90% (different percents than LR) quality.
I added other lenses I found in the bag: Panasonic 45-150 mm f/4-5.6 and Panasonic 14-140 mm f/4-5.6 as well as Leica branded glass of Panasonic FZ1000 to see how they stack up agains big guns within their reach.
At 'short' end frankly there is little difference in the centre.
When looking at the whole images, the vignetting reduces - slightly for 70-300, quite considerably (especially between f/4 and f/5.6) for 100-300 when stopping down, but acuity seems to stay the same even on the edge (bush). Panasonic on the other hand shows better contrast than Nikkor, especially in grass and bush.
At 300mm equivalent (end of story for most of the telephoto lenses) Panasonic 100-300 mm looks for me better than Nikkor 70-300 mm, but again with more visible vigneting. All the other lenses noticably worse (but not terrible), FZ1000 needs stopping down to f/5.6 for the best result
400 mm equivalent - only 3 contenders left. Panasonic 100-300 still better regarding detail, still worse regarding illumination uniformity. Nikkor looks exactly the same at f/5.6 and f/8, only depth of field gives away change in aperture setting. FZ1000, even with 20Mpix sensor, way behind Nikon 1 combo with 10Mpix under the bonnet. Clear evidence what optics at its worst (FZ1000, end of range) and its best (CZ 70-300, middle of range) brings to the total output.
Supertele: 600 mm equivalent. This is what these lenses were made for: the same reach on APS-C or full frame formats costs much more weight and money. Still Panasonic leads in acuity department, with huge change in corner shadowing between f/5.6 and f/8. Here Nikkor starts showing vigneting when wide open too. Panasonic lead is actually a bit of a surprise for me, as it always looked the softest at the long end, but maybe Nikkor starts losing in that range as well. What surprised me even more, was the fact that Panasonic kept acquiring focus immediately, whereas Nikkor at about a third of attempts was scanning slowly through the whole range (lens limiter was off). It is exactly opposite to my field experience, where I artificially limit Panasonic to about 250mm of its focal, because above that, focusing on moving object is pretty much impossible (and on static is slow). Nikkor on the other hand is fast (not instant, but fast) in those conditions.
800mm equivalent - one actor left: there is clear benefit of extending Nikkor CX 70-300mm lens to the full reach (not true for all the lenses), so very good result.
Conclusion: high contrast target is not a good test subject (unless you love shooting newspapers and abstracts). In this conditions lenses with higher abberations will lose (large influence of 'white' light), when in normal conditions (especially with landscapes) greater bias towards green/blue spectrum can shift the outcome. No way to judge microcontrast. Also as much as great focusing target for contrast dependant method, phase AF seemed to struggle with such pattern (and focus position is critical for sharpness) - see results for 600mm range.
Metering gets dumbed as well, Nikon seems to place more importance on centre in its matrix metering and it needed exposure compensation.
The worrying thing is that Imatest charts, so much loved by reviewers, are exactly that: high contrast targets, moreover photographed at short distance. How much are those results reliable then?
Other things noticed:
- it was occasionally windy (side wind) and it can be seen on the photos, especially at long end, that there are minute offsets between frames. It seems like area of a lens is large enough to act like a sail and move the setup slightly
- even though not felt in hand, there is sag in Nikkor 70-300 3-tube construction: lens set to the central point at tele end, showed the same point lifting upwards at short end. Other contributing factor can be flex on tripod bracket joint to the lens (secured with coin screw, I'd appreciate normal screwdriver slot) and tripod plate joint to tripod bracket.
- with lack of remote trigger I relied on 2s self timer and Nikon V1 implementation is terrible: not only it resets to normal mode after each exposure, to set self timer the option needs to be highlighted AND confirmed with OK (unnecessary operation, what for going to self timer menu if not with intention to choose one of the options?). It is faster to highlight by turning the dial, but it is counterintuitive: turning it clockwise (thumb travels down) moves the selection up...
Why repeat the test? One of the assumptions and conclusions from my previous comparison attempt was to try to reproduce conditions the gear is going to be used in. I am no birder, in my case supertelephoto is used for landscape (kind of) and micro photography. Another thing is that testing itself actually shows many secondary effects, not often described in reviews, that occasionally can disqualify a piece of equipment for specific purposes. There is also sample variation involved, which at very close results can bias the scale.
Nikkor VR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 was attached to Nikon V1 body, MFT lenses to Olympus E-M1. The consequences are:
- 70-300 combination is handicapped by relatively lower spatial resolution of the sensor (10MPix, AA filter) when other lenses project on effective 14Mpix (3:2 crop of 16MPix sensor). All the files were downsampled to 2592px horizontal size for fair and direct comparison
- difference in sensor formats also slightly affected magnification: even though I tried to set the same equivalent (in 35mm format terms) focal length, because corresponding angle of view is defined over diagonal, the horizontal angles differs between 4:3 and 3:2 formats by about 10%
- V1 base ISO is 100, Olympus is 200. In reality Olympus is also close to 100 (and pulled in processing), but at the moment of exposure twice shorter shutter opening time is used, and that could affect sharpness by reducing any motion blur. Using base ISO is sensible anyway, to avoid reducing detail by added noise*
* in landscapes, especially with grass and leaves, false detail of noise grain can actually produce impression of increased resolution
Test 1: 'paparazzi' mode - subject at about 50m.
That wonderful piece of architecture seemed to be a good target, with brick wall as well as piece of fine text.
Camera mounted on a tripod with 2 sections extended and central column lowered, bag hanged for extra stability. Aperture priority, mechanical shutter, central AF point, self timer 2s to avoid shutter actuation shake. Raw files developed in LR5.7 with default settings (all sliders at 0, sharpening 25), exported to Jpeg at 90% quality, sharpening to screen - none, resized to 2592px on long edge (to match V1 - actually I made a mistake: it is number of horizontal lines, but the bottom line is they were normalized to the same magnification). Crops for side-by-side comparison edited in IrfanView and saved as Jpeg at 90% (different percents than LR) quality.
I added other lenses I found in the bag: Panasonic 45-150 mm f/4-5.6 and Panasonic 14-140 mm f/4-5.6 as well as Leica branded glass of Panasonic FZ1000 to see how they stack up agains big guns within their reach.
When looking at the whole images, the vignetting reduces - slightly for 70-300, quite considerably (especially between f/4 and f/5.6) for 100-300 when stopping down, but acuity seems to stay the same even on the edge (bush). Panasonic on the other hand shows better contrast than Nikkor, especially in grass and bush.
Conclusion: high contrast target is not a good test subject (unless you love shooting newspapers and abstracts). In this conditions lenses with higher abberations will lose (large influence of 'white' light), when in normal conditions (especially with landscapes) greater bias towards green/blue spectrum can shift the outcome. No way to judge microcontrast. Also as much as great focusing target for contrast dependant method, phase AF seemed to struggle with such pattern (and focus position is critical for sharpness) - see results for 600mm range.
Metering gets dumbed as well, Nikon seems to place more importance on centre in its matrix metering and it needed exposure compensation.
The worrying thing is that Imatest charts, so much loved by reviewers, are exactly that: high contrast targets, moreover photographed at short distance. How much are those results reliable then?
Other things noticed:
- it was occasionally windy (side wind) and it can be seen on the photos, especially at long end, that there are minute offsets between frames. It seems like area of a lens is large enough to act like a sail and move the setup slightly
- even though not felt in hand, there is sag in Nikkor 70-300 3-tube construction: lens set to the central point at tele end, showed the same point lifting upwards at short end. Other contributing factor can be flex on tripod bracket joint to the lens (secured with coin screw, I'd appreciate normal screwdriver slot) and tripod plate joint to tripod bracket.
- with lack of remote trigger I relied on 2s self timer and Nikon V1 implementation is terrible: not only it resets to normal mode after each exposure, to set self timer the option needs to be highlighted AND confirmed with OK (unnecessary operation, what for going to self timer menu if not with intention to choose one of the options?). It is faster to highlight by turning the dial, but it is counterintuitive: turning it clockwise (thumb travels down) moves the selection up...
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