Hey, this is Scott of Photography Banzai.
Gonna give my final thoughts on the Yongnuo 100mm f2 lens for Nikon cameras.
Of course, I've been using it quite a bit since the original review.
That was version 1.01.
I made a video on version 1.03 firmware.
That fixed quite a few things with this lens.
It helped out the exposure issues.
It fixed and made decent the focusing in liveview, which is a big benefit.
And basically it fixed everything for the most part.
But then one of the commentors on my firmware video found an issue with TTL flash.
Regarding this and it wouldn't really focus.
Now version 1.05 fixed that issue as far as I can tell.
Basically, this lens does what it should for the most part in my testing with the D600, D750.
Now what I also did was I bought a hood for this lens.
Again, thanks to one of the commentors on those videos for pointing out that the Canon
hoods will work perfectly with this lens.
This specific one is this Altura hood.
There were different options, but this one was relatively cheap.
Seems pretty nice.
I went out with this hood, Tried a few different things with the D600, so let's get to that.
You can see it looks pretty nice.
It works well on this specific lens.
Once it locks down in the normal configuration, it's not coming off...
You can put definitely quite a bit of force on it and it seems fine.
Alright, I have the camera in full manual mode.
That way we can see if there is any difference with the hood in brightness or reflections.
Getting some really unusual results with this one.
First I was at f5.6 and there was some very large inconsistency with the exposure between
with the hood and without the hood.
Sometimes the second photo would just be extremely dark.
Now I think that might be an issue with the lens or the camera.
Just not being able to consistently keep the aperture at a proper size.
So I jumped it up to f2 and not nearly as much of an issue, but I do see a difference
in the exposure on the histograms between with and without the hood.
Now, at f2 it's not nearly as extreme, but it is there, so this hood is doing something
at this specific angle.
As you saw in the clips about the hood.
I was having issues with the aperture taking consecutive frames quickly.
Now I'm not really sure what was happening.
It could have easily been the camera itself, but it is also possible the lens was at fault
or a combination.
I'm not sure.
If you have this combination or a different combination feel free to test it out for yourself.
Go out in hot conditions and try it.
Take quick consecutive frames and see what happens, but it did work after a little bit
of delay with each frame.
So it's not a huge issue for what I do with this lens.
But it was there and I did notice it.
I have taken some people photos with this lens.
I do think that's one of the best use cases for this lens, because it is a little bit
of telephoto.
I have gotten really nice results with people photos.
I'll show you a few of those.
It's not a perfect lens.
There are some issues with contrast and just getting washed out looking photos, but I think
that can be a benefit depending on your style of photography.
A few quirks of the lens.
I'm not super fond of...
Is the little switch on the side for auto-focus and manual focus.
It just seems kind of lower quality than the rest of the lens.
Not a huge deal, but also the auto-focus motor is a little loud.
I bought this lens knowing there would be potential issues.
Even with the firmware fixes, I wouldn't say that it's perfect.
It does lack in contrast in various situations.
The hood can help, but it also can potentially add some vignetting.
I will probably keep it for the moment, and if I do change systems with my larger gear
when all of the full-frame mirrorless stuff comes out.
We'll see, but...
So far I'm just going to keep it.
I think it's a relatively decent value for the price.
You do get that larger aperture and that focal length.
Of course, there are a lot of options out there.
Everything regarding firmware, they did a good job fixing that.
That's my final thoughts on this lens.
I hope you enjoyed this video.
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