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.
Turn volume down! Sounds like old radio with broken speakers. And, beware, you might need to know your RD in order to really follow - anyways. It’s a simple workflow. :)
I’m taking this seriously! I realized that the more I learn about high ISO BW - the more I love the feeling of what comes out. These are all more or less taken at 16mm (28mm) - so this is what the DP1 would produce more or less. And the Dp1 has a sharper lens - it will produce nothing less than magnificent black and whites for sure!
All of these are developed using Raw Developer and the profile Monochrome XDR. PS has pleyed a minor role with burn tool and vignetting on some shots.
Been working with a photographer in HK with an very interesting photo book. The book contains photos taken mainly with tmax iso3200 film and I wanted to know how far the SD14 could go, especially with the “film alike” three layer technology that we’re blessed with.
So I set my camera at -1 exposure (-2 and -3 depending on wanted ISO) at ISO1600 and started to enjoy my new faster shutter speeds and everything you see here is handheld and most of the would be impossible with anything slower (camera shake). Speed varies between 1/15 to 1/100 and most of them are shot wide open. I used P mode.
Result? Noise characteristics and dynamic range feels very similar to black and white film. I have bought a Sigma SA-300 film camera and will in the near future take same shots in order to really see how well they compare. :)
Click each picture for full size.
Note: Most of these has absolutely no sharpening and noise reduction turned off. Especially extremely high ISO 6400 - 12800 has some noise reduction applied from Raw Developer. Continue reading ‘High ISO experiment. 3200 - 12800 BW’
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.
ArkadiaFoto in Partille / Göteborg invited me to help them shot some models. I wanted to see and test the studio so I went there this very evening and tried light and some of my lenses. So here’s some of the resulting pictures. All images availible as almost full size download. I ended up using one profoto softboxed 1200w light slightly behind me to the right.
Lenses used: 30mm, 70-200, 120-300 and 10-20. Camera: SD14 - ISO set to 100 by mistake. Should of course have been ISO50.
Sigma 30mm - RD note: Monochrome XDR
Sigma 10-20mm
Sigma 120-300mm RD note - colors slightly damped.
Sigma 70-200mm
Sigma 30mm again. Too much fun.
Note: All images has been altered slightly in PS with vignetting and some has seen a touch of Alien skin Exposure. The man on these images belong to Arkadiamodels.com
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 went out yesterday together with Linn and the amazing Sigma 4.5mm circular fisheye. We had a great time and my goal was to do some QTVR - stupid me forgot a small screw for the 303SPH - and had to play with the lens in other ways possible.
Like this: (Click for bigger)
All shots taken wide open at f2.8 with a shutter speed of around 2s. I used the 500DG Super turned back. I did drive at the same time (look at the light outside) - kind of stupid but I just couldn’t wait. (tricky stuff) The last shot was shot by Linn.
Some selected photos from Excet, BLVD and Tranquilo in Göteborg. All images are taken in RAW and processed with RD - some also post-processed using Exposure. (especially the first one) . Camera as always my good old SD14. pictures that looks wide are taken with the new 10mm fisheye from Sigma. I didn’t have any other flash then the on-camera for that one. I actually had TWO SD14 cameras with me out this weekend. I must have looked extremely pro. haha
I’m also sorry to say that after my Leopard installation I can’t get my Spyder2 to work. So I’m sure that colors are not as they should be, at least not perfect. I did the “visual” calibration now and noticed that all came out more dark than I thought. hmm.. Need a spyder2 update now!!
Linn is pretty active in some Chinese photo-forums and they have these missions that they give eachother. This time it’s about coffee and well, I became assistant! Nice. :D These are two of the resulting pictures, the rest can be seen over at Linns blog - put together in a very Chinese fashion with texts etc. We did that i Apple Pages.
Oh, and in a couple of days my USB sound card will arrive and I can do a screener with RD. I’m thinking about making a series. My problem so far has been that I can’t use my Hackintosh because no mic in. there is one but not supported. So a USB sound card will solve this and make everything much more fun.
I attended MyDog 2008 in Göteborg today and took some pictures. The light was really really bad. Weak fluorescent lamps all over the place. I used my SD14 plus my 30mm and set iso speed at 800. I didn’t take much much pictures because it looked horrible on the LCD and that didn’t encourage me.. ;) Please Sigma, let me select monochrome white balance! Later I found Raw Developers monochrome XDR input profile to make wonders - Colors could actually work but BW’s are just so much more beautiful.
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..
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.
I’m taking a small vacation for the internet and computer. Will use it for images and work only but I will try to spend tops two hours a day with it if possible. At least till new year.
Until then you might wanna see this little flash movie that I’ve shown to some of my readers but I decided that maybe everyone could get a little something from it. It’s a “in action” movie showing me working with Lightroom and Raw Developer. A screen cast thing.
Download rd.flv. (you might need a player such as VLC or some flash thingi from adobe)
So if a comment goes unanswered you know why. :) Happy Christmas!
I tend to forget that I lived in China for a very long time and during that time I took a huge amount of pictures all in raw. Since then lots have changed and new raw developers has popped up such as Lightroom, Sigma Photo Pro 3, Darkroom and Raw Developer. I decided to test one of them and this is SD10 images with the Sigma 30mm lens converted using Raw Developer. Click each image for a full size version. If you have time you can dig and find the old versions from back then. :)
Recent Comments