Ethiopia photo essay

At the end of 2018 I had my first real visit to Ethiopia, traveling to three areas in the northern region; Mekelle, Bahir Dar and Injibara.

I’ve come back with a large workload and the video edits of three different projects will take some time. In the meantime, here are a collection of (unedited) pictures, which are still images taken from the video files.

Being with people that lived in-country and spoke the language did open doors to get a glimpse of every day life in each region I visited. But being a tourist is OK too.

We visited family homes, saw coffee and injera being made (and enjoyed the end results!), got a real look into the Orthodox church, agricultural practices and started to get a picture of the people through their own eyes. Attending a funeral in Injibara was truly memorable - the Awi people have such intriguing tradition at such a time.

Right now I am in the hard slog phase of video editing and I would love to be out shooting again. But, I believe the videos will be something that offers insight to what is a wonderful, communal culture.

Laowa 105mm f/2 STF lens review: It's sharp...in the right hands

Laowa is a dab hand at creating unusual lenses and the Laowa 105mm f/2 STF lens is a case in point. It's one of the very few lenses that features an apodisation element.

The weighty metal lens features two diaphragms, one your regular f/stop aperture and another a T stop aperture (apodisation element) halfway up the barrel. In this case, the element is labelled Smooth Transition Focus (STF).

STF creates images with extra smooth out-of-focus areas while keeping the area in focus particularly sharp. It is THE selling point of the lens and the results are wonderful. When using the T Stop aperture wide open, you get perfectly circular bokeh with next to no chromatic aberrations (fringing). 

It's impressive stuff and for the quality of images possible out of this lens, its RRP of £750 is very reasonable.

But, and it's a big but, this is a manual focus lens only. 

I don't mind manual focus lenses, in fact I rather like taking manual control. But there are lens focal lengths and subjects that really benefit from autofocus and this is one of them.

Throughout testing the lens my hit ratio of sharp shots was much lower than I would like. Even with the large Nikon D850 viewfinder at my disposal and live view focus magnification, it's exceptionally difficult to obtain pin sharp focusing on the eyes at f/2.

In the end, I resorted to manual focus bracketing. Taking the same shot around 5 times in quick succession while making micro adjustments to focusing. That way I could ensure one of the shots was pin sharp on the eyes and discard the rest. 

One other downside is that lens flare is a bit of a problem. I like to shoot towards the light for backlit portraits. Yet, when doing this the chances of substantial lens flare are higher than normal - I got a few shots that were totally unusable.

Otherwise, the image quality and control over lens distortion is top notch.

All being said, I enjoyed the precision required of me to get images that I am happy with. I may have numerous slightly blurry images in the review gallery, but this lens has sharpened me up.

Check out Photography Blog for the full review. 

Nikon D850 for portraits

Last week I shared my review of the Nikon D850, which I said may well be the only DSLR camera you ever need. As a follow up I have used the D850 in various scenarios to check its prowess in popular photography disciplines.

First up is portraits. Here are my five top reasons as to why the Nikon D850 is so good for portraits:

• Resolution & Detail
• Dynamic range
• Colour & Metering
• Lenses
• Composition

Resolution & Detail

45.4-million-pixels gives you a heck of a lot of detail and massive prints sizes of 874x583mm at 240dpi. Of all DSLRs, only the Canon EOS 5DS out-resolves the D850. Detail is clean from ISO 32 to ISO 1600

Dynamic Range

From my experience with the D850, its dynamic range is quite exceptional. At its true base ISO 64 setting, the breadth of tonal detail from highlights to shadows has been likened to medium format cameras. Less detail lost in those bright highlights like shine on skin. More detail recovered from dark areas too.

Colour & Metering

Perhaps one of the bigger surprises is just how well the D850 renders colour. Nikon’s latest 3D colour matrix metering III system and 180,000-pixel RGB metering sensor gives accurate exposures right off-the-bat and skin tones are lovely when using the Neutral picture setting.

Lenses

You'll want dreamy out of focus areas in most portraits. Well, there are plenty of fast-aperture f/1.4, Nikon-fit prime lenses that give the control over depth of field akin to medium format cameras.

Composition

Getting the right composition is key too. With Nikon's largest through-the-eye viewfinder yet and vibrant 3.2in tilt-touchscreen, you can clearly see the composition even when it's dark or the camera angle is awkward. 

For a little more detail on my experience using the Nikon D850 for portraits, including how it compares to the Nikon D800, please read my feature on Photography Blog.