Some shots I recently took of my sister Karin and her husband and daughter. :)

Sigma SD14, 10-20 (first shot) and 70mm. And yes, the Sigma 530DG flash is used from a distans – would be better if I for ones started to use some colored gels.. but, no. Not yet. :)

The knife maker. Shot on Marstrand using SD14 + Sigma 50mm 1.4 and using sun as main light and Sigma 530 DG and back shape light.  ISO50. Now, ISO50 is such a compressed format that you really need to expose with great care. His shoulder is totally white and if it was shot at ISo100 it would still be information there. There is, if I convert to Monochrome but because it’s only info from one or two channels (Showing strange colors if still shown) Sigma has decided to erase everything in those areas.. I had lots of overexposed ISO50 shots yesterday and I regret shooting at ISO50. Stupid me.

If you look closer you’ll see a light shadow in his glasses, that’s where the round shape of a tiny beauty dish were before I erased it using LR3. Strong sun from the back and the Sigma 530 DG from slight above using a beauty dish making the sharp light disappear. SD14 + 50mm 1.4 + ISO50 (or more ISO25). Too much light entered the 50mm so I had to emphasizes those shadows and the hat quite a lot.

The oldish couple. Shot using 10-20 with sun as main and 530 DG as side light. Slight green color on the left shows where 530 is placed. SD14 and ISO50.  This came out slightly dark, best viewed at full size.

The above shot was slightly overexposed ISO50 shot, skin was overexposed in the color version – this version is equal to ISO25.  These two guys are well known over at www.99.se Goflorp (handle) and Rei Trulsson.. Nice to talk a bit with to of my readers in real life. :)

Childhood friends passing by, had to take their picture. The 530 from the far right. I should have used one more flash on their legs, that would probably make this shot a lot better. And yes, the 530 was a little too powerful this time. SD14 10-20mm ISO50

And finally, three shots of Linn. I’m so happy to have her around so I can play!! :D

These last two could have been more worked on in SPP or LR but.. I didn’t. In the last shot the flash was slightly to close to her and skin is a little overexposed. Could work better as monochrome. All three  shot using SD14 and 10-20mm. ISO50 on all.

All above images available as full size on flickr. Handle with care.

This post will look strange because these images has been taken from my pbase gallery. They’re all uploaded at 100% quality, no PS used. Enjoy.

My friend and artist, XuYun has been artist in residents at the Nordic Watercolour Museum on Tjörn. She’s just leaving and I rushed out to her little island to take some last minutes pictures of her. Here’s some of them. All taken with SD14 and lenses used 10-20, 30mm, 70mm and 50-500 OS. Can you see what lens took what photo? edit: Some images has a warm light coming in from the side, my doing. Some of these shots has been lit by light from reflecting windows.

above: Double size output

One more thing, I wasn’t thinking about publishing these at first so I saved them as jpeg from Sigma Photo Pro – but then I thought that it would be much easier for her to find her photos if were published. I never before published photos that has been edited from jpeg and then re-saved as jpeg again. mmm.. I wonder how much has been lost?

above: Double size output.

This first one I prepared as a desktop image for Linn – it’s now 1900×1200 in size. I really enjoy my 10-20 again and it’s more like it was once upon a time, years back when I first got it.  Download desktop version.

I also spent most of today together with my little brother (the bigger version the two) and I couldn’t help taking a few shots. :)

Original above, below.

When one shot is not enough, then you can alter reality like this:

Today I got back two lenses that I sent for recalibration and they came back in very good condition. Well, the same as they went but now focusing nicely. (I recently got myself a newer SD14 body, that’s why I wanted to calibrate)

Oddly my 10-20 that I lately didn’t think much of now reproduces stunning photographes from wide open. I’m pretty sure they found something else about it – perhaps a glass not in a perfect position? Anyways – I couldn’t be happier. Look at the last bedroom picture – ISO50 and wide open at 10mm. Pretty amazing sharpness and feeling. SPP4.

The other two shots are 30mm 1.4 @ f1.4 (wide open) and at ISo50.. The light was much more yellow in reality but with ISO50 I could play a bit with white balance and get a pretty nice feel. I also like how SPP handles the overexposed area of the lamp.. Nice tones and roll off!

They’re all available as full size for pixel peepers.  first. second. last.

Linn doing her thing, actually, she’s painting the front of our wedding invitation card. Jaij! She’s a really talented painter in case you didn’t know.. maybe I’ll post some of her works.. :)

 

Photo taken by Martin Carlsson using a Canon 5D Mark2

Me and my friend Martin Carlsson had one of our nerdy meetings yesterday. We didn’t have a real plan, more then go out for a session but weather was really as dull as it gets and none of us felt really happy about it so Martin came up with this truly excellent idea to try out some extreme macro using the reversed lens technique.

I thought the idea was brilliant, especially in mind that I had my trusty 70mm macro that probably would become like a microscope and what if I turned my 120-300 bigma around? Would that make me see atoms for real? I was pretty sure I would so we made a setup with my Quadra, a bunch of lenses and a VISA card. Mostly because people know what it looks like.

Now, here’s a shot with the Sigma 70mm Macro NOT reversed. You get pretty close by doing nothing, just using it as it’s supposed to be used. This is as close as you get. (and don’t you dare try using those numbers!!!)

Now I reversed it but to my surprise nothing much happened. I didn’t get any closer. hmm. I ran out getting myself a bigger gun. My 70-200mm 2.8 lens. I swong it around and it gave me less then the 70mm, at least at 200m. 70mm looked closer. So I figured that my assumption of more mm was wrong. So I got myself my 17-70. At least I could try and see if wider meant closer.

Sure enough, soon I was traveling over the VISA cards surface and maan was it a beauty. I never thought a piece of plastic could look this beautiful. Close to the same feeling looking at Avatar in 3D for the first time. :D

So if 17mm meant closer what was my next step? The 12-24 (which Martin now tried in the background) was a bit tricky because of the round frontal lens. But I did have something even wider – my 10-20!

Now, the 17mm was difficult enough to control. Every breath and dare I say heart beat effected my steadiness greatly and things didn’t get easier with the 10-20 at 10mm. It was really tricky, to give you a feeling for how shallow depth of field is I tried to catch the top of one of those small letters on the card.. See how background fades away! Nice bokeh too! :D

It was EASY to miss, either you got the top, bottom or just a big blur. All depending on who touched the table or walked the floor or if a big bird flew outside my window.

Now, what’s next? All above shots has been taken wide open. I had no idea how to change aperture on a lens that wasn’t mounted but Martin had an idea. By changing the Aperture while mounted he then pressed the “aperture test button” and while holding the button he gently released the lens and oala – aperture was still at wanted f-stop! Now things got even more interesting!

How about Linns face at f8 – f32?

Or why not some fine salt? (not sea salt or anything huge like that)

Or the landscape of a swedish 20kr bill? And yes, the black part of the image was me not holding the reversed lens perfectly aligned. It wasn’t that easy!

And finally Martin started staring into a good old light bulb – as if the quadras flashes and strong LED wasn’t enough disturbing. I’m pretty sure Martin took some better shots with his 5D but here’s my only sharp one. Or at least, a bit sharp. Lamp never stood really still and it was terribly hard to take a decent shot.

But I got pretty close! :)

Alright, if you have your own shots to share, then please do! (it’s easy to do when you post a comment).

Wanted to share how to use a Cokin filter with this little movie. I’m currently making my DP2 video review and I’m more or less testing my gear to make it possible. We’re experimenting with a new microphone from Röre.. And I think my voice is pretty clear.

Here’s photos used in above review. They’re pretty quick and dirty so I don’t want you to see them at 100%. That thing we stood on was moving some etc.. :D Btw, when I developed them they looked fine but right now I think they’re bit dark and too saturated. Oh well. :) (I place them under a “more” thing so you don’t find them easily.. haha)

…Right now. Or was, now it’s time for bed. These images are screen dumps taken from within Sigma Photo Pro, will deal with them later in Photoshop I think. Or play some using ACR too just in case. ;) I already tried some of these in RD with good result. Especially for BW’s. Oh well. These are all SD14 images, with the cokin on (as you see on some) and the lens is my wide 10-20mm. It’s really a sharp nice lens. I do want a 12mm f1.2 that is sharp from corner to corner and very perfect in all ways including beautiful bokeh.. oo aaaa I want that!

btw, I used ISO50 with both SD14 and DP2 – only – not my smartest move to date. Highlight did clip a little to often. Sun was really in and out a bit to often. Oh well. I got myself lots of keepers too, more than enough so I’m happy. Elinchrom ranger quadra used on all these shots.

Alright so here comes two shots from yesterday. Not only is it two shots – They’re taken with different cameras  – SD14 and DP2. Now, not only are they taken with different cameras they’re developed using different softwares too – jaij! ACR for the SD14 image (came out better) and SPP for the DP2 image (came out more thick).. I used my Elinchrom quadra for this and well, it was so easy to use and setup – weather was really tricky but for these staying in the shadows helped. :)

Looks like we had a terrible evening, even the dog seams to be sad. SD14 was bad boy and captured all those interesting moments instead of the happy 98% ones. Well, that’s life. I used a SD14 plus a 10-20mm lens and a cokin natural density graduated p121 filter (if you wanna know) and it really didn’t do much but I felt cool having it on the camera (makes it look bigger, I also attached the battery grip for the same reason). oh well..

Oh and the first shot is a extremely heavy crop. Original shot is like four times the size or more. Last note. I used Raw Developer 1.82 to make these. Nothing done using photoshop but that wasn’t too hard to see. :) Some more after the break.

Picture from a photo session the other day at Schillerska gymnasiet in Gothenburg. The class did some book and wanted a shot for the back or something.

This perticular picture was shot at ISo100 but I underexposed it in order to get some of that outdoor detail (Bright afternoon). No extra light was used inside the room itself. I saved two versions of the same image in color – brought them inside photoshop to marry them. I made the final image black and white using Alien skin exposure.

Another one done with the SD14 at the same day and same class. Used the Cokin ND grad filter used on the 12-24 (with a tint of coffee added in post) – had to use tejp in order to make it fit. hehe. Looked very cool ;) – Oh and some just couldn’t hold it for a 1s exposure! gha!

No full size shot available due to privacy.

Had a photo shoot together with my friend Bengt today. I like being with him because it’s with him that I feel like I need to take nature shots. (He’s a nature photographer, or something) So I took some images, some photographs and this one. I played with it to see if she had anything to give and after being angry about her not being sharp enough due to wide open and perhaps cold shaky hands I reviewed it again a minute ago and I think I’m falling in love. It’s grown since I worked with it and now she is able to stand on her own. So please welcome my latest black and white lady.