Decided that I wanted some practice using my Sigma 530DG Super and my Elinchrom Quadra. Today was a bright sunny day and I was hiding together with my students in the shadows trying to get optimum conditions for photography. I used both Sigma DP1 and DP2 and as soon as you see strong colors around the flash, that’s the DP1 used and It’s me forcing it by placing the light inside the frame (I enjoy those colors tremendously) . All shots processed using Sigma SPP4 and Lightroom 3 Beta 2. (from TIFF)

These above where the very first shots, I noticed that I had to turn on something in order to make it work. :) And as you might notice it has a very strong “flashy” feeling and by increasing shutter speed and lower the quadras power I got a more natural looking light. See below. Also notice that there is no “color” problems as long as light is outside frame.

Zooming by running! Above shot shows how you can get some cool colored light even from the DP2.

ON / OFF, With and without light below. Sigma DP2 used. It was pretty tricky to get a good ambient light in order for the background blue sky to show, but after a few exposures I found a good balance. ISO100 used.

And about the same place a few meters to the side, but this time using the Sigma DP1. And it’s also slightly cropped.

Silly tests below. ISO200. Dp2 and DP1.

And finally, one shot of Johannes who was holding the light most of the time. Shot taken using Dp1 and ISO200.

All shots available as full size, click here if you want to have a closer look.

Well, I don’t ever get any cash for anything I do but alright, why not just continue to be nice? :) Here’s one app that I really LOVE! I used this quite some recently and I find it so easy to work with and.. I’ll let this shot speak loud, it’s taken with Sigma’s DP1 and imported to my iPhone:

Pretty amazing really how shallow DOF can isolate an object like this. It’s like entering a new world, and I find it very fascinating. Above shot is taken with the Sigma DP2.

Original

As some of you noticed we like mushrooms, and fall in Sweden is like candy store for kids. These mushrooms are called Trattkantareller in Swedish and Cantharellus tubaeformis in Latin. Now you know. And we will dry them and use them during the cold and inhuman Swedish wintertime. See above shot at original size.

Here follows some shots that been on flickr for some time, but without me saying much. These are a bit Strobist as you can see how I did most of them. :) Btw, Everything in this post is developed using Silkypix. I actually learned more on how to use Silkypix since I developed these but they’ll do for now.

Hi again, now I developed some more from last days. I took some today that I hopefully can post tomorrow of the lake here. Very dramatic weather these days. Oh, and we’re on 2000m elevation (height?) and mountains around are just below 3000m. Very cool environment. :) And these are developed using none calibrated screens. I checked on some other computers and it looked ok. Mixed DP1 and DP2 shots, click each for bigger and with info regarding DP and ISO. Exif should be there too.

Something you drink always, tea! Like in Britain only it comes in more visible form. Often they have some herbs inside that they call medicine and doctor told them to drink. When eating you always get green tea to the food, lots of people carry a tea thingi with them at all times such as these below.

I was teasing Linn telling her that modern China used VC machines to cut all those fancy patterns and images they have everywhere in windows and chairs and stuff. How wrong I was. Lots of those are man made. I walked on a street with a huge amount of smaller companies with people making really really beautiful stuff such as these below. Light was worse than I though so ISO should have been higher for better sharpness. My fault.

Pictures below are from Dali ancient city. Very cool place.

Above shot isn’t ISO400 as image says. It’s 100. Too fast work. Linn is waiting for the computer. ;) She wanna develop her shots now. aaaaaaa

Food, what can I say? Chinese cooking is just from another planet and something to die for. A restaurant often looks something like this and you point your finger on whatever vegetable, meat or mushroom or whatever is visible and they’ll tell you one or two ways to cook it – you select one and oala you have your dish. So if you point a tomato they will most likely make a tomato egg mix that is very nice.

I went with friends to some different restaurant these days and I took some shots to show you what it looks like with many dishes on a table. And I’ll ask Linn to fill in some short info on what’s being served but in short it’s donkey, pork, water living vegetable, beans etc etc – even grasshopper (but not on any of these shots) and the candle is not there to be nice – but to keep flies away.

Such a nice feeling being able to handhold when light is really really terrible. :D These are all processed using Lightroom more or less with a click (prepared setting). Shutter speed was extremely bad. So bad that I will not give you the full size this time! haha!

Camera? DP1.

Pushing the DP1 to ISO3200 is easy and very very needed sometimes. Adding the Monochrome WB in SPP is great and the noise is to my eye very beautiful. You can in some pictures see a slight banding (when light is really really bad such as yellow indoor light bulbs etc) but nothing I would worry about.  I wish that I could use Raw Developer but at the moment is a no go so I’ll have to wait some more. :´(

I have done a test series with some ISO3200 situational shots. Real life, real needed type of shots (shutter speed around 1/10 – 1/30 at low F numbers) . I’d like to know where your limit and preferred preference between sharpness and detail goes. Or if you have any other way to deal with this. I will not give you my RAW this time, but you’ll have these at all settings at full size good quality JPEG’s to play with.

Six copies of the same image:
A First: Straight out of SPP. Pushed to ISO3200 | A2 Curved (Photoshop)
B Second: Sharpness -1.0 in SPP. | B2 Curved PS
C Third: Sharpness -2.0 in SPP. | C2 Curved PS

1.

open at full size

2.

open at full size

3.

open at full size

4.

open at full size

5.

open at full size

6.

open at 50% of full size

Thanks! :D When you comment you could refer to the Image 2 picture A. etc.
This is the same post as I did over at Dpreview sigma forum.
Lightroom versions

Pushing revisited.. Someone might remember my High ISO post prior to the release of the DP1 – and now it’s time for a follow up. Setting the DP1 to ISO800 and underexpose about two steps brings your much better shutter speeds and a very dark image as a result. Pushing it upwards again in SPP or Lightroom brings the picture back to life, although a bit noisier. Here’s six examples. They are all except the car shot done when higher ISO really was badly needed. Only option would have been to turn on the flash. (speed ranging between 1/10s – 1/30s). I did add a lot of vignetting.

To get the best results: (without extras)

Lightroom2: No sharpening. almost full noise reduction. Monochrome WB (set using SPP).
SPP: Sharpening between -1.0 and 2.0 depening on taste. Add shadow ca -0.6. You need some PS in order to get a good feeling. Use Curve and darken shadows some more.  See next post on this.

And here’s some ISO1600 images pushed the same way from ISO800 but this time only underexposing one stop. Noise reduction and vignetting added using standard Lightroom2 magic.

All Full size on my flickr account.