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.
Another wedding session, and I’m happy to announce that DP1 is a great b camera! :D Linn had hers with her all the time (she assist me) and she took quite a few really nice shots. I used mine as well and I got more keepers from the DP1 (compared to amount of shots taken) than with the SD14. More time to think? I think one or two of Linns are among these too.
My workflow has slightly changed and looks like the following. I make the basic adjustments from SD14 and DP1 RAW in SPP 2.5 Windows. After adjustments are done I import all into a new project in Apple Aperture.
In Aperture I use the new plugin called Viveza to further adjust certain spots - add light to face or simply to enhance black and white images. I also use Aperture to dodge and burn, crop and straighten, add vignetting and my little watermark. I don’t apply vignetting to all but to many shots. So don’t judge lenses because of my images. hehe..
During all this I also add stars to my favorites, this I later use when publishing to the couple and the very best here on my website. I ended up with 44 images in this post and 133 to the couple, I started with about 300 from SPP and around 700 in total from field..
The two above shots are DP1
DP1
There is all in all 44 images in this post. Click each image to view the full size image. Remember that this is copyrighted material.
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.
Finally after much wait - here is the first of two parts from a photo session I had for the second year somewhere in the wilderness of Sweden. Now, these shots are not meant to be examined deeply - much because some of them are not extremely in focus. (I left the camera sometimes on a tripod having just a trigger in my hand and therefor they could walk out of focus).
I alternated between three different PS plugins to get the look that I wanted or simply to blow out the white background. The ones used most (for white background) is Viveza, the secondly most used is AlienSkin Exposure and the third used for one or two shots is Nik Color Efex Pro.
All shots are here presented in full resolution. Two shots have been slightly cropped. The rest have been left as is.
Click each for full size view. Enjoy!
Yes, it’s me (above and below).
There is more to come.
Click below for some more from this very session.
This was FUN! I took a lot of photos this way too, a cool way to frame your subjects but a bit tricky to balance it all. One hand filming and trying to keep sturdy and control the polarizer at the same time. AND walk. I’m not a woman am I.
I sometime visit a local school to spend time with local youngsters - most of the time I bring my DP1 and a snap a few. Always at ISO800 (badly needed). Colors looks ok but black and white is just so much better! These have had some vignetting added in Photoshop - so it’s not the lens fault. :D - And no, I wouldn’t use the flash as it would feel wrong. Btw, these are made black and white using the monochrome mode in Sigma Photo Pro.
[edit - Sigma today announced the new version for PC and Mac here as well as first DP1 update]
I’ve been lucky enough to get my hands on a beta of the next SPP 2.x and for those of you being irritated of green corners I can now tell you that green corners are now only a bad memory! :D I could only test the PC version but it ran extremely quick under vm-ware, actually much faster than my Mac version of SPP3.1. I did try some SD14 files and especially reds are now better. But this article will concentrate on DP1 images.
I thought that my photos from Elmia foto video 2008 could be used for this preview and at the same time you can see what I do in SPP and maybe learn something about processing. In every image there is important data inside. Exposure, ISO, White balance as well as processing. All kinds of situations ranging from high iso mixed light to long exposures in tricky situations. And as an extra bonus - studio shots! Continue to read this article.
People has been asking about mixed light shots so I took some of kids playing. This room had fluorescent light and daylight coming in from widows at roof level. So more daylight than fluorescent - (= Good mixed light)
Both ISO400 first 1/25s second 1/40, both has been slightly altered in PS.
I decided to see how good the battery was and how much juice I could squeeze out before dead - It’s not a perfect test but a real world sort of version. I manual focused more or less 99% of the time - I did try some AF shots but decided that manual focus was a bit more cool. I’m sure that AF + no LCD would give you lots and lots of more shots.
I turned off the camera very often. I’m not sure if that’s draining or some, but I guess that there is a good sleep mode that could have worked instead. Of course I looked and showed everyone around me so lots of peeking done.
Result? I have a total files of 182. Among those is 26 movies, 3 audio recordings and 151 RAW files. No Jpegs. Sorry, have a hard time getting used to the ability to shot JPEG’s since my early days with the SD9/SD10.. :) And camera is fast with RAW so there is no reason not to use it.
Movie clips direcly from the DP1:
Now to some of the images: All hand held. Click for full size.
I got lots of questions / full size sample requests about the first black and white portrait so I decided to make it available not as RAW this time but resized to match 14mp. All noise reduction is completely turned off (possible using Raw Developer) which gives extra detail and realistic, film like qualities. - I also saved info in the darker portion of the image.
No additional sharpening, level, curves etc. I did clone out part of a wall though and added vignetting. :) - This sample should be perfect for anyone having a printer and that would like to know what a SD14 4.6mp image will look like a bit bigger. There is stair stepping in this image and with qimage or other software it would probably look a bit better.
Today we had the luxury of spending the day with film director Hou Hsiao-Hsien and his lovely wife. After a different dinner at the entrance cafeteria of ICA Maxi i Mölndal we continued to Kungälv where we looked at some old houses and a castle - Tried to go many places but couldn’t reach people. We decided to go to my home instead and just relax. (and of course I told everything and nothing about my cool equipment! :D
First picture where I was happy to see my self inside his eyes. :D (see crop below first picture) - I should of course have saved the blow out but well..
I came home a quarter past four last night (today) and It took me about one and a half hour for fix all RAW files from Excet and Lounge(s) and get all names etc ready for prime time. Still the same good old 30mm at F1.6. A few also with the 10-20. I used Raw Developer for this session and Lightroom for Excet session..
My first satuday and my second time at this very club. It was not as crowded as last time. I start to become good friend with the Sigma 500DG flash. Together with Sigma 30mm @ F1.6 we’re a great team.
See the rest from this very evening over at www.aveny.se
For the sake of speed I used Lightroom for developing and I’m sure I could squeeze quite some more feeling out of these with Raw Developer or Sigma Photo Pro 2.3.
I’ve started to take pictures for Aveny.se as a so called “vimmelfotograf” Not sure about the english translation but you understand the meaning a guess. :) It’s lots of fun. This very session I forgot to use RAW - and all these are more or less straight out from the SD14. I think they look great! (Hi - Fine mode)
I’ve started to take photos at night clubs here in Göteborg for a online magazine called www.aveny.se - my first night has come to an end and first images are up. I have never done something like this before and I must say I was a bit nervous. Not because of meeting people but because of equipment. I heard I needed at least ISO400 and some wide fast angle lens to do the job.
I wanted to do this my way and equipped myself like this: SD14 + 30mm + 500DG flash + a paper bounce card on top of the flash (home made) - the flash pointed straight up and only reflecting light would hit the subject.
ISO at 100 and M mode with an aperture of F1.6 and shutter speed of 1/4th of a second. I tried ISO50 but highlights was too much clipped. I will try ISO200 and 400 next time. Just to see what difference it makes.
Developed all using Raw Developer 1.72 and lucky me the new version just came out with great reds and wonderful dynamics. It was pure joy to adjust colors.
The 30mm was set at F1.6 and I was really relying on AF as it was way to dark to really see anything useful in the view finder. I took a quick look and more than 90% was perfect focus and by that I mean perfect. NO shot was trashed because of out of focus problems. This is a huge different from my 30mm before calibration. Even my Flash worked like magic. Bam Bam Bam.. :D Before this first night I wasn’t sure this would a good time for the SD14 - but clearly I was wrong. All images could probably be printed at A1 and look amazing.
The 30mm is awesome. Both pictures are ISO50, the one of dad was badly underexposed and thanks to the ISo50 it had enough to be brought back to life. I used Raw Developer for both shots. Click for full quality. (worth it)
These are in badly mixed indoor lightning. (and outdoor as you see in blue)
Here’s three pictures from a wedding I shot this summer. For some reason I don’t remember I had switched to MED resolution (1776×1184) Looking at these makes me think that maybe I would gain something. These are unaltered, just exported from Lightroom. Nothing changed from RAW. For me it looks very much like my old slide-film. I think this feeling is partly due to the use of VPS. (pixels stacked together to gather more light)
Sigma SD14 - ISO100 - Sigma 12-24
RAW Medium resolution (1776 x 1184 x 3)
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