The Sigma 50mm F1.4 in my hands during my hands on test.
Photo taken by Gerhard Joren + Nikon D3.
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Archive for the 'photography' Category
The above shots are wide open - shot at F1.4 and processed this time with my good old favourite - Raw Developer. Not sure why I jump from developer to developer like this. Maybe I’m crazy. The next shot with the flower is more or less wide open, shot at F1.6 - I thought that maybe it would be easier to catch the yellow middle thingi if DOF was a bit wider. hehe. A tenth of a millimetre or so.
The more I shot with this lens the more I realise that it’s more tricky than with the 30mm - DOF being even narrower and it’s sometimes painful to try go find perfect focus. When you got it it’s rewarding but don’t expect it to be a walk in the park - more a walk on the moon. (you do make touchdowns now and then..)
These are also sharpened in Raw Developer a bit more than I normally do - it’s needed as 1.4 is loosing sharpness compared to f1.8 and above. Still it’s quite amazing lens. And getting back to the weight of the lens. the SD14 + battery pack + 50mm 1.4 lens is a very good looking package and well balanced - easy to hand hold! I will soon post a shot of myself with it as soon as Gerhard Joren (who took it) send it to me. Until then enjoy these shots.
Click each for a full resolution version.
Just received the new Sigma 50mm F1.4 and due to heavy sunshine I couldn’t really in a fair way try it wide open - but even if the above shot is taken at F4 the bokeh is amazingly sweet.
I was thinking it would be bigger. a whopping 500g piece of glass could have been heavier. It’s pretty short and very fat somehow - gives a very cool impression - big opening that tell you I’M BRIGHT.
Alright, another shot at F2.5 and a shutter speed of 1/3200s. A friend holding a reflector to even out the light a bit. The widest I could go was F2 - so here goes another shot at F2.
(This one is not perfectly focused, it’s kind of hard at F2 - hard training lays ahead)
I will try hard the coming days to find other things to photograph and hopefully I’ll be back with some nice pics.
Second wedding with SD14 and DP1 hand in hand. Same workflow as before. SPP PC (on Mac) + Aperture. I will link to halfsize images later - but for now you’ll have to do some clicking if you wanna see more details. Btw, We had a great time! :) And the guy helping me with the reflector (best man) he owned an SD14 too - Wow. :D
Lenses used: 12-24, 30mm, 70mm, 70-200 + DP1 (16,5mm)
So you think it’s a hazzle to buy Windows XP and VMware in order to try Sigma Photo Pro 2.5 on your Mac? Well, try Crossover! - some sort of vierd software that makes it possible to run windows software without the need of windows - in OS X! 30 days free trial Recommended to watch in high quality.
I got lots of mail lately regarding my strange choice of running PC version of SPP rather then the native SPP 3.2 on my Mac. Well, as you will see in this video there is a good reason for me to do this. Watch this video in better quality.
Hopefully some smart guys at Sigma can fix this in the next edition of the Mac version of SPP, maybe release some open source? :D.
And Yes, I’m aware that I say “These are SD pictures..” when it’s DP1 images. I do correct myself without really knowing. :P Forgive me.
About a week ago I received the much awaited (at least by me) close up lens made by Sigma. I must say that I was happily surprised about the little leather box that came with the lens! Soooo retro and beautifully crafted! WELL DONE SIGMA! Now, is the lens as good as the box it came in? :D
I’ve read numerous threads over at dpreview on different solutions and I’ve seen magnificent macro shots with all sorts of filters - some good, some not so good. Now, when the Sigma AML-1 was announced I was a bit surprised on the closest distance which is 20cm - not very Macro on a 28mm lens is it?! :D and in order to show you just how close 20cm is and what it feels like - I made this little video. If you watch it on Youtube then you can see it in higher resolution. Embedded is low res.
The lens is very bright - not sure you loose any light. Can’t really see any difference in shutter speeds and the lens says nothing about it. You can’t focus to infinity with it on - but it’s made for closeups so it’s not really a problem. OOF becomes BEAUTIFUL! Especially welcome when you’re making movies. Along with the extremely sharp lens and sensor it becomes almost unreal. Take a look at the shot of Linn, click it and the full version will load. It’s so so detailed. If the DP1 only had MORE resolution when making movies!! :D
The AML-1 as a slight negative distortion in corners - The opposite to the type of distortion we’re used to with normal lenses. But it’s not noticeable in day to day images. The picture below shows the effect, look at the window and you’ll understand what I mean.
Conclusion. I should have had TWO lenses or even three and stacked them, that would probably give very nice macros. Right now you don’t get close enough for that type of photography with only one lens. For movies and portraits such as the ones above it’s a wonderful solution and gives you new views - plus that the extreme OOF is perfect for videos.
Btw, the lens / filter itself is very very well made and NO CA can be found. At least not in any of my photos so far. Contrast and sharpnes are really top notch.
Went out with family and friends yesterday late evening and played in a nearby lake called Hultasjön.
The 120-300 is wonderful to work with. So fast and easy to handhold. It’s very well balanced together with the SD14 body.
Most shot at ISO400 and ISO800. Manual mode. Directly from SPP3.2 mac. I must say it’s tricky with sunset in background like this, not sure where to put the WB - it looks good in many different ways. :) click to view as 1500×1000px. I realized now that the black and white shots has a bluish tint. (except one) My fault. :)
Three shots using HDR function on the SD14 (bracketing +1.7) - then using Bracketeer to bring them together. I haven’t bought the software yet so there is a big sign saying “Demo mode” in Swedish. :)
Trying to embed using “high video quality” but can’t so please click here and also click “watch in high quality” - if not it’s not worth watching. :D
Recorded with DP1 and in the end there is a “stop motion” part recorded with my SD14 + 50mm lens. Did not use any magic resizing just directly imported and edited using Final Cut Pro.
The movie is self explanatory, not sure I need to write anything here. I do thou need to tell you one more time how to deal with your movies AFTER you’re done shooting. Btw in this particular shot you see some flickering and that’s due to 50Hz light. :) (or is it 60Hz?!)
You need to resize (upscale) your shoot first. This is good to do because of two reasons. First. Protect the 320×212 data that you have - try directly to make the data embedded into a bigger file. That way it’s easier to deal with your shot in Final Cut or Adobe Premiere or any other software that you like to use. Less risk of loosing data due to re-compression.
The second reason is that by rescaling with “super resolution” you will take advantage of the fact that the scale algorithms reads more frames in order to upscale and therefore you squeeze more detail than what each frame originally had. This is something no other software that I know of does by default. I usually upscale to DV PAL or NTSC resolution. Easier to work with standard numbers. :)
Before posting to web I use Adobe flash converter and a high bitrate. Mostly to end up with a small file that I can send to viddler without another re-compression.
Video clip hosted by the Norwegian photographer Yvind giving us important info on the 120-300 and how to use it properly. Inside you’ll find people like Ole, Filip, Oliver and myself. We also try to find another lost soul - the danish dragonfly photographer Fritz. - these are regular posters over at Dpreview and we had a little “get together” here at my place this very weekend. We had really great weather and much to talk about. And of course to shoot. I will post several un-cut videos.
These are all taken with the Sigma Dp1. If you wonder why you can’t see the SD14 display in this clip, that’s because I looked exposure by using AEL (because sunlight was very strong at the moment) and therefore the LCD will not show.
Somehow the movie became squeezed, not sure when or how. hehe
I’m just having a smaller vacation from blogging. I’m also waiting for some good light for photos. Especially street photos. I just upgraded my blogs engine to Wordpress 2.5 - and I’m looking into different possibilities to make my site a little bit better without scaring people away. :)
I was asked to stand in the Sigma booth at another photo fair here in sweden, Elmia Foto & Video the 4-5th of April. I will show the Dp1 and SD14 to the public. If you have any nice shots that I could use then send them to carl@rytterfalk.com in JPEG format. Will be printed as A3 if I like what I see. :)
Just checked some statistics for my blog and for the last 30 days 114 countries has been represented among my visitors. That’s HUGE! Back when I only wrote about photography in general and other SD SLR’s (SD9/10/14) I had something like 35 countries on that list. Last on was Zambia - now just waiting for someone in North Korea to get hocked up. :) - Most visitors comes from US and A - second on the list is China third is Japan. But, on the other hand I have nothing to compare to. Only my own statistics.
Could this be called the DP1 factor?
EDIT, now with sound! Original post 12/3 2008
Sigma will come out with a easy to use solution within SPP itself or by firmware, until then we can do it our self’s in Photoshop (or other software such as Gimp).
Soon I will participate in a photo fair here in Sweden and for this I now have two DP1s - Trying to make the most out of this I connected them via the screw mount in the bottom via a small wooden (chop)stick. Then I started movie mode on both cameras (Not important to be sync). When finished I imported both files into the same sequence into Final Cut Pro and rotated both videos (each video different way) and placed them beside each other. Very very simple. Then I synchronized via my voice. Extremely easy. Took 15min all in all.
I’m sure that a nice day BEFORE sunset would make very cool videos like this. It’s so simple. :)
Viddler is kind of cool. :) I wonder if I can make the video show in my full 500px blog size. hmm..
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