High ISO/ASA (400+) | Carl Rytterfalk Fotografi

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Sigma 17-70 2.8-4 OS – preview

Published

on March 7, 2010

in 17-70 OS, All, Full size, High ISO/ASA (400+), ISO50, Sigma Photo Pro and Sigma SD14

. 1 Comment

Some time ago I was sent a pre-production unit of the 17-70mm F2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM lens made by Sigma. It has been out for some time for other cameras such as Canon and Nikon but my version was of course made for Sigmas SA mount. It was a pre-production unit and I couldn’t really utilize the full OS capability as it wasn’t yet optimized but I did get some real stunner from it with OS and even more so without. Some shots below has had the OS enabled and they appear less sharp in full view, I’m told this will not be the case with the final version.

Those of you that used the older 17-70 will most likely enjoy this new version as well as it’s now more of an EX lens although no EX branding on it. The build quality is very high and it’s bit heavy and feels very solid. It’s like a bigger brother to the current 18-50 2.8 EX – same materials but a bit longer and fatter. Both lenses can produce stunning captures.

Full size version

(another, ISO400 with OS on) View big. (notice that focus is slightly behind)

Full size version

The quality produced by this lens is quite extraorinary, to be a none EX lens and a zoom.

Full size version (look at his chest!, that’s where focus is)

Full size version

Final verdict will as you might understand comes later when I have the “real deal” to play with but what’s seen so far is pretty amazing. Good stuff! Just take a look at this last picture of the trees, detail is not bad and I’m told that it might give up to four full stops of stability. I did get some 1/10s shots that I might show later using ISo3200 (very dark environment) and they looked very nice! :) Me like.

Family picture from tonight..

Published

Carl Rytterfalk

on February 28, 2010

in High ISO/ASA (400+), Sigma DP2 and Sigma Photo Pro

. 3 Comments

Here’s my family from a couple of hours ago. Sigma Photo Pro saved as color, made black and white using Alien skin Exposure 2. Can you find me? And yes, some of my sisters and brothers wanted to pull a face.

Camera, Sigma DP2
Exposure ISO600 and 1/15s.
Incandescent light.

Should have left a little bit more space above heads but the table didn’t give enough freedom. And honestly didn’t notice before checking now. Perhaps you wonder why I made it black and white? Well, it was really bad light, no flash available and I had HDR mode on, so three shots – well this one looked funny and was one of the under exposed shots of the three. so. :)

some DP2 and SD14 from today..

Published

Carl Rytterfalk

on February 25, 2010

in 120-300, 50mm 1.4, Adobe Lightroom, Full size, High ISO/ASA (400+), ISO50, Polarizer / Filter, Portraits, Sigma DP2, Sigma Photo Pro and Sigma SD14

. 4 Comments

First some DP2 shots.. (all images, mixed ISO between 50-400)

Continue reading ’some DP2 and SD14 from today..’

the other day..

Published

Carl Rytterfalk

on February 18, 2010

in Adobe Lightroom, High ISO/ASA (400+), Sigma Photo Pro and Sigma SD14

. 0 Comments

I visited Church the other day, was there on a photo session and just wanted to share one of the shots. Above is taken using the SD14 using ISO400 plus a lens at 31mm.

What’s interesting about this picture is that white balance I selected was fluorescent – and that gave me very good colors in Sigma photo pro. Shutter speed was 1/10th of a second. Pretty alive if you ask me! :) The blue came out too strong (from outside light) so blue has been desaturated some. If I selected auto white balance or any other more “correct” white balance then colors became more muted and perhaps a bit more correct too. boring.

One week Winter.. 2009/10

Published

Carl Rytterfalk

on January 3, 2010

in 120-300, Full size, High ISO/ASA (400+), ISO50, Portraits, Raw Developer, Sigma Photo Pro, Sigma SD14 and Silkypix

. 9 Comments

(See full size version)

Happy New Year 2010!! Well, I’m late, I know. But I just came back from celebrating the new year up at my big sisters place in Brålanda. It’s so far away from everything and Internet hasn’t reached them just yet.. (not). I’m not too often up at her place, it’s a 100km drive (that’s the only good excuse I have not to go there more often and I know she reads this)..

Ah, and you might wonder why I have no splendid pictures of cool firecrackers – Well, it all comes down to luck and really, really bad timing. In Brålanda (a small town of what seams to me to be around 10 people) people have firecrackers but they all live randomly around my tripods position and none of them had ANY understanding of photography or photographers. They could have said: – I’ll let another rocket up right now, and I’ll wait for your signal Carl. But no, they just let them up a little here and there and always in the wrong direction from where I stood with my 20-30s exposure.

Oh well, there is always another one coming!

Now, all these shots has been taken with my Sigma SD14 – some of them using the 120-300 and others using a new lens that I will get back to in a while. (all wider shots). 90% has been developed using SPP with minor adjustments using LR3 before flickry upload. The rest (two shots) has been developed using Silkypix.

Flickr gallery with all shots in full size.

(All above shots except the bird has been shot using the other lens..)

Now, the new year started with lots and lots of snow. We had to stay one extra day because of it. Below you’ll find “extra day with snow and my sisters family”, pictures.

Continue reading ‘One week Winter.. 2009/10′

Schillerska revisited – Day in Black and white!

Published

Carl Rytterfalk

on December 17, 2009

in 12-24, 18-50, High ISO/ASA (400+), Portraits, Sigma DP2, Sigma Photo Pro, Sigma SD14 and Studio

. 11 Comments

I must admit, I’m still in love with how SD14 handles monochrome white balance. It’s so rich! I had three classes to photograph today and I selected a few pictures to show. Everything is shot using SD14 + 18-50 2.8 or 12-24 except the very last shot shown. ISO is set between 100 and 800. Elinchom Quadra used in some way(s) in every shot. Some shots has been perspective corrected (bw group shots) – every development is made in Sigma Photo pro. Some shots has two other shots combined inside (No, Linn has no twin sister).

Why so many black and white? The heavy yellow light made it hard to get what I wanted + that I needed to go higher with ISO as I wanted a natural light and not “flashy” as I got yesterday (see group shot from yesterday and compare with todays). Yesterdays problem was that it was way to dark outside to have any use into the scene. Today was very dark too so I put them in the window.. hehe.

In above shot I used the 12-24, and it’s not very sharp wide open so I had to use a smaller aperture – I experimented with different ones but didn’t want to go above 1s exposure. So I ended up using ISO800. But as you know, using the monochrome mode that’s never a problem. I wanted F11, but was only able to get 6.3. Worked well.

Above: I sort of wanted a serious overall look so I asked them to look .. ehh.. cool? They tried. This particular class was pretty small so I didn’t need to go as wide as the one before so I used 18-50 – picture is wider in reality but perspective corrected to get straight lines. Do you notice any other changes made? – and 18-50 is faster and sharper than the 12-24 so I was able to do this one at ISO100 and. Jaij!

Continue reading ‘Schillerska revisited – Day in Black and white!’

Dali with DP1 and DP2 continued…

Published

Carl Rytterfalk

on July 30, 2009

in China, Full size, High ISO/ASA (400+), Sigma DP1, Sigma DP2 and Sigma Photo Pro

. 7 Comments

Jaij! I made it again! Another post. woohooo.. Alright, this time I included some of those cool skies from a couple of days ago, they’re in the end of this post. Also another note to all these shots. Some of them has two different developments put together from the same raw. One for sky and another for the rest. Also, one or two has two different exposures and what I did was dead simple, I just made a fuzzy cut out from one shot to the other to get some more DR. Sky behind pigs and the dirty work black and white with a truck and a man. Open them up full and you’ll see what I mean. I don’t have a tripod with me so everything you see is hand held. Developed using SPP 3.3 for everything.

The above and below lady is 92 years old and we visited her because she didn’t have many days left of this life and they wanted some pictures of her. I so much love to look at old peoples faces, listed to their voices and just imagine what life was back then.

Above: Using my sunglasses with some green fading cheap thing to bring sky for you to see.. very powerful – Lucky for us it stayed mountain side.

Below: This is acually shot at F14 using DP2. I cropped out some, the oof is very nice don’t you think? And woaa how sharp these lenses can be. DP1 is probably slightly sharper but Dp2 has slightly better bokeh. :)

Above: A really fast two shot sky magic thingi. Don’t look too close at the right side if the picture as it’s not a perfect match. I was shaking a little or something. Sat on a double seat bike at the moment (those bikes are so much fun!).

Below the below shot and the below shot: Cool with all these old style trucks! Not so cool with environment in mind. Also x3 fill light is used for many of these shots.

Above: Spiders!!! These are BIG things, totally dangerous for flies and stuff. :) And they come in massive amounts, I don’t like spiders too close to me..

Below: Sky is double exposed. Copied with fluffy border to fit nicely. I moved too much between shots so it’s a bit dirty. But works.

Above and below: Would you mind being here?

Below: Some of those shots from a couple of days ago. We went up for 276 stairs and enjoyed the view. If you open up some of the portrait shots you’ll find lots of dragon flies. There was literally thousands of them, especially higher up. They said it was because of rain coming. Pretty big too..

Above: Dragonflies!! See this shot even bigger, or you can’t really see any of those flying thingis..

Above: Lastly, a special breed of dog from Tibet, once made to protect tibetans from Tigers and other predators. This one is about a year old and will become much bigger. It’s nothing you really wanna play around with even if it looks like a family dog.

All shots can be viewed bigger. Not full size but with very low compression and higher resolution.

DP2 and Raw Developer continued.. [added shots]

Published

Carl Rytterfalk

on June 10, 2009

in Full size, High ISO/ASA (400+), ISO50, Portraits, Raw Developer and Sigma DP2

. 9 Comments

ISO800 shot – original sized jpeg

ISO400 shot – original sized jpeg

Raw Developer has always giving me a very natural look (as with these) to things and I have no idea of how much processing is done by Adobe – perhaps Brian Griffith at Iridient Digital can give an answer to that one. Anyways, I like the result. :) But I want “real” support with RD doing ALL the computing like with my beloved SD14 raw’s.

Original sized jpeg

Original sized jpeg (a bit bluish?)

Original sized jpeg

Sigma DP2 recent shots..

Published

Carl Rytterfalk

on May 11, 2009

in Full size, High ISO/ASA (400+), ISO50, Portraits, Sigma DP2 and Sigma Photo Pro

. 15 Comments

Hi again, a smaller pause in posting but not so much in shooting. Here follows some of my every day play with the DP2 and as you might see I often use it wide open playing with the out of focus area to create focus and space.

Workflow for these has been Sigma Photo Pro develop RAW file with slight adjustments – no sharpening added, color mode is either standard or landscape. Saved as Adobe RGB and later converted to sRGB before saving in Photoshop. No further adjustments made in Photoshop except text and curves on the black and white shot. And I must add that when saving to JPEG a pretty big part of the glory is gone. Even if I shoose 100% jpeg quality it’s never the same – colors and contrast is just not “there” the same way.

Full 100% size available here.

Sigma DP2 RAW pack I for download!

Published

Carl Rytterfalk

on April 28, 2009

in High ISO/ASA (400+), ISO50, RAW and Sigma DP2

. 21 Comments

ISO50 – 800. + bonus movie. 99MB – Download now!

No people inside more than inside the movie. Will make another pack with some skin. You’re free to play around with these for noncommercial purposes only. If anything else, please contact me. Also note that these are taken with a pre-production camera but using the “final” firmware.

You also need: Sigma Photo Pro 3.5 (Win) or Sigma Photo Pro 3.3 (Mac)

Other RAW packs availible for download (SD14, Dp1)

DP2 high ISO short review.

Published

Carl Rytterfalk

on April 25, 2009

in Full size, High ISO/ASA (400+), Review, Sigma DP2 and Sigma Photo Pro

. 26 Comments

[EDIT, just to clarify. All images in this post was shot last night some time after sunset. ISO800 or more was a good idea to use, all hand held and often using three continues shots in order to make sure sharpness. Three continues is done in less then one second using RAW]. Lots of emails and questions (here and on other forums) about what the DP2 can do with higher ISO in color. Well, it’s a dual sided coin. On one hand, they look very nice and impressive. Pretty noise free (using color) and much thanks to the great lens it’s perfectly ok to shoot wide open.

The other side of the coin is maybe more a questions about taste. I don’t like colors being smeared and showing up a little beside it’s “real” pixel and that’s what happens sometimes when using too much noise reduction. I can see when opening these files that the embedded shot has less noise reduction applied and therefore looks better. So, I’m hoping Sigma to add some sort of option so that I can get MORE noise of I want. :D

Local store shot without any alterations at ISO800 and F4.

This biker shot has been exposed twice to save the sky a bit (fast and dirty). Also a bit of warmth is added in photoshop. Also all above shots are taken using auto focus, I needed to see if I could trust it, and it seams to work very nice. And I must add that even if I feel that the DP2 is faster than the DP1 – it’s not a huge step forward. I would like it to be much faster still.

Ones more we have double exposed one RAW. Started out with a ISO800 raw that I saved +0.7 and another with -1 (for the sky). So the final image ending up as a ISO1250 shot with a ISO400 sky. :D

I do find banding in darker areas, in some pictures more and some less. I hope this is something that can be fixed in future firm wares or gone with the “real” cameras. Btw, the guy in the above shot is a friend of mine that currently suffers from col, he’s not feeling well tonight.

Ending this serie with a ISO3200 shot tweaked with a strong curve in Photoshop. (i think it’s more ISO4000) :) I’m still a HUGE fan of the monochrome mode! Last note, all above shots has been taken using triple exposures. (in order to be safe about one sharp exposure – too much coffee)

All above shots are availible as full size at this DP2 flickr set.

MjaoMjao in B&W and color. DP2

Published

Carl Rytterfalk

on April 22, 2009

in Full size, High ISO/ASA (400+) and Sigma DP2

. 3 Comments

Original

Original. In a apartment, well it’s not called apartment because it has no water nor toilet – lives a friend of mine. She’s called MjaoMjao and I ask if I can take a shot or two of her, she replies that she never look good on photos – but I’m allowed. Manual focus on? Check – carefully moving the thumb wheel as I’ve done thousands of times trying to nail that eyelid of hers. click. It’s so silent. She has no idea that I actually squeezed the trigger. They never do.

Original

Initial DP2 review with full size shots..

Published

Carl Rytterfalk

on April 20, 2009

in All, High ISO/ASA (400+), ISO50, Review, Sigma DP2 and Sigma Photo Pro

. 72 Comments

Hi all, you probably wondered where I’ve been hiding – some of you know about me moving and trying to build a new home (repairing that is) and it’s taken more energy than I hoped for. Now – one bright light lately have been the Dp2. I will be making this very short and let pictures speak loud – as the camera that I used isn’t the final production unit.

Click on picture for “large” flickr size.
Click “original” for full resolution version.

Original. Not sure how Sigma makes this possible but this insane 24,5mm F2.8 lens wants to be used wide open. And working in monochrome white balance in Sigma Photo pro is just a joy! Look at these tones! (and yes, that’s my grand mother!)

Original. Another shot wide open. Not sure you understand how useful and cool this is. Look at rendition of the fabric and her skin. And how sweet isn’t the bokeh? and and and..

Original. Strong spring sunlight ISO100, wide open. :)

Original. The blue “sky” is water – and this is a good example of the new color modes within the DP2. To get the very best color dynamics Sigma created different color modes that really brings life into every shot. Of course these color modes can be changed later in Sigma Photo Pro if RAW is used. This particular picture is slightly overexposed but I think it managed this bright sunlight well. Oh, and slight hand shake included! :)

Original. Please take a closer look. admit it’s a really insane lens!

Original. 15 second exposure. Trying those color modes. I do have a “real” looking shot with correct white balance and another color mode but I liked the look of this one. It came out way dark and that’s why 100-200 ISO (was shot at ISo50) – Also my only picture with tripod used.

Original. Bokeh / close up test. And this is F5.6 and ISO50 which does burn highlights if not careful. Amazing detail even at lens corners. Here’s a recent post with more DP2 ISO50 shots and comments.

Original. The Dp2 now has a ISO1600 and 3200 mode – which I think should be considered monochrome modes as they don’t really look good in color. But as soon monochrome white balance is selected in Sigma Photo Pro they really come to life!

Original. Just processed. ISO200 and F2.8. And NO, no saturation added, only the magic Landscape mode. ;)

Ok, main pointers.

Faster operation! Now very useful in studio as shot to shot is much improved! Also for 360 panoramic photography. Wait is now over. :)
Color Modes! For color maniacs such as myself I really like this. Will get back to this in more detail later.
Lens. 24,5 (41mm) at F2.8. One word! Wow! There is a slight distortion but none has been taken care off in the above shots – it’s really no issue.Just look at that Bokeh and how well it handles tough light etc. jaij!
TIME LAPS function! From 30s to 24h (and options in between) – Will make something fun using this. :D
Sigma Photo Pro 3.3 is now speedier on Mac. :)
ADDED! ISO1600 and ISO3200! Not perfect for color but very very nice for the unique monochrome setting available in Sigma Photo Pro.
ISO50 looks fantastic!

And negatives? Well, I’ll get to those later as well. First I need to get my hands on a “real” production unit so I don’t give you rubbish. UPDATE! But a little something is now made with both good and bad. Link to High ISO.

Edgy DP1 shots

Published

Carl Rytterfalk

on March 5, 2009

in Full size, High ISO/ASA (400+), Portraits and Sigma DP1

. 6 Comments

There is a house close to where I live, it’s a house where people live that haven’t got the best out of life. I go there a couple of times every week and I almost never bring my camera – mostly because I don’t want them to think I’m there for the shot. But this Monday I brought the DP1 (I so much love it’s size!) and I under exposed ISO800 to get better shutter speeds. (light was dim).

full size available on flickr

Anyways, long time since I posted and I’m sorry for that. :/ work work work.

Healed from AIDS | Hans Gardelach

Published

Carl Rytterfalk

on February 3, 2009

in 70mm, Full size, High ISO/ASA (400+), Portraits, Raw Developer and Sigma SD14

. 18 Comments

Hans Gardelach story, translated and partly edited by me and google.

[slightly updated] My dad was a alcoholic, mom divorced and we moved in with another man. Some guy from the neighborhood tricked me down into a basement and raped me when I was four years old. I was almost beaten to death at the age of 12 and a couple of years later raped again by another man.

Continue reading ‘Healed from AIDS | Hans Gardelach’