Reikan FoCal 2021 is available

After just a few months of Focal 2020 out, there is a new version 2021 available. Unfortunately I never came around to even try the 2020 version, but I’ve spent some days playing with the 2021 release candidate around Christmas. For everybody that comes from version 2 and straight into 2021 version, there is a lot of new cool stuff to talk about. If you’ve read about my experience with version 2, you may remember that I had quite a few complains and wishes for improvements. Without going through all of those, I think most on my list has been enhanced or fixed if technically possible, although I see that calculated focus distance is still way off from the real distance.

One of my biggest wishes from version 2, was a more smooth and easy way of checking focus at different apertures, not only one at the time. On this point Reikan has come through with a very nice solution where you can test at all apertures at once, like here my Nikkor 24-120 f/4 at 24mm:

If you where familiar with version 2, you could only test one aperture at the time and get one best point for each one. Here each point on the chart above is the same as having run version 2 at all apertures and joining the best points all together in the end. It’s amazing! It also makes it easy to see the focus shift. The downside is that it takes about 100 photos to get the result on the chart above.

With that out of the way, there is more good news in the 2021 version. Apart from support for the latest cameras, you can also use photos taken from cameras without AF-fine tune, like many lower end cameras. As you can’t do any fine tune in-camera, I would guess it is most suited for 3. party lenses like Tamron and Sigma where you can add fine tune in-lens. I haven’t tried this feature.

Further there is a new stabilization test where you can test how many stops you and your in-camera and/or in-lens stabilization are able to get in somewhat real life. I found this test a little bit awkward, but anyway gives you some guideline to work from.

If you found this interesting, read more about it and the new features here: https://blog.reikanfocal.com/2021/01/reikan-focal-2021-stable-released/

Thanks for reading!

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Santiago de Compostela Cathedral

Santiago de Compostela Cathedral is the reputed burial place of Saint James the Great and is hugely popular among pilgrims who travel, often by foot, from all over Europe and beyond. Many of the pilgrims then continues the journey to Finisterre, the place in Roman time considered to be the end of the world.

The cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Sognefjellet in white

We have been crossing Sognefjellet several times, but never when it has been all covered in snow. The road over the mountain pass is more than 1400 meters high and are closed during winter. The road opened the weekend before Easter this year, and we used the opportunity to take a look, and to take some photos to share with you all. Hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Playa de Cueva, Asturias – Spain

We were driving along the N-634 in Valdés, western Asturias, when we noticed this pearl of a beach before the road turned inland towards Oviedo. Obviously we decided to take off and head to the beach and take some photos.

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Burgos Cathedral, Spain

Santa Iglesia Catedral Basílica Metropolitana de Santa María in Burgos, Spain, are maybe one of the most astonishing cathedrals you’ve never heard about. Details upon details wherever you turn your head, being high up on the facade, or tucked away in a corner inside. Had a huge challenge this time to choose the more interesting photos, and there are still so many more. If you like us to make a part II of this amazing cathedral so we can show you more of our photos, please tell us in the comments below.

Burgos Cathedral is the only independent cathedral in Spain (that is not a part of a larger historical center) on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list.

Autumn Colors

The winter is inevitable coming closer, but before that we have autumn, here we have a handful of photos with some amazing autumn colors from our archive.

Picos de Europa, Spain – Part II

There are so much more to Spain than just sun and beaches, as you can see in this and other posts we’ve made about this versatile country. Here are some more photos from hugely amazing place called the Peaks of Europe and you can see Part I HERE

Picos de Europa, Spain – Part I

The Peaks of Europe are a mountain range in Spain, situated at the junction between Asturias, Cantabria and Castile and León, and are part of the larger Cantabrian Range stretching along northern part of the country from the Pyrenees in the east. If you happens to like mountainous landscape, you will be in heaven. Deep v-shaped valleys and steep mountainsides compete with each other for you attention. In between houses and villages appear, some abandoned many years or even centuries ago, in the most unexpected places.  Where there are some green patches you will see cows and sheep grassing, and if you look closer, you will see some goats in the steeper parts.

Ringebu Stavkirke (Stave Church), Norway

Believed to be built in the first quarter of the 13th century, and is one of the largest of the remaining stave churches in Norway. The church was expanded in the 17th century into the cruciform shape it has today.

The Roman Wall of Lugo, Spain

The only remaining roman wall that completely surrounds a city in the world is in Lugo, Galicia – Spain. Protected by UNESCO World Heritage Site, the wall is more than 2000 meters long, up to 15 meters tall, has more than 70 towers and ten gates. Constructed in the 3rd century, the wall nowadays is mostly a tourist attraction and a way for locals to get around the city on the wide walkway on top of the wall.

A beginner’s buyer guide for Nikon DSLR

There are probably hundreds of similar guides out there, so why not one more? Here is my take on what should be considered when buying a beginners Nikon DSLR. The great thing about DSLR is that you can mix and match camera body with a massive number of lenses, not only Nikon’s own Nikkor lenses, but also Tokina, Sigma and Tamron among others.

Statues and monuments in Porto/Gaia, Portugal

When we visited Porto and Gaia earlier this year, we noticed that there is a lot of statues and monuments across the cities. Instead of adding them into the same post, we decided to make a separate post about those work of art. Hope you enjoy them as much as we.