The photography thread

[StefTD]

My latest shot - it was more or less for fun, orderd some christmas lights, as soon as they arrived we realized
that they change their color every few seconds. My gf and me were both quite bored and I jokingly said
"let's try shooting portraits with that thing"... a few minutes later this happened:

There were a few shots where I only used the christmas lights as a light source in a completly dark room
but for this shot, I used a really cheap softbox, and reduced the shutter speed until it was quite dark.
That way I got an external light source and the light bulbs are only colorful dots without lots of light.
A little bit of editing and it was finished, I like it, and it's way different from everything I've done before

 

[Glenn Fricker]

Nice shots of the girls, but too much clothing!

FWIW, the a7 landed. Just getting my feet wet now. First impressions: It's really nice to drop on my Nikon 20mm F4 and use it as it was designed. 20mm on full frame is freakin' wiiiiiide. ...and sharp.


Edit: Damn does this thing ever have resolution! ...and I forgot how nice it is to shoot on Full Frame... I haven't shot film since the early 2000's, and all my DSLR's were APS-C. Throwing a Nikon 50 1.8 AiS onto the A7 brings back a lot... the right compression, the right DOF, it just feels "right." Super easy to focus manual lenses with the A7.... I don't think I'll be buying any AF lenses for it anytime soon. Can't wait for my M42 adapter to show up so I can try out my Zeiss stuff

 

[Soundlurker]

Great shots again Soundlurker, the only thing might be that the horizon in the last black and white shot is not 100% vertical (or it could be my headache and that i'm not wearing my contacts) ... very cool black and white btw.

How do you find your shooting locations? Do you just walk around and think "hmm, this would be a great location to do some killer portraits" or are you actively trying out different positions and angles.

Just checked and it's not tilted
I usually have an idea for the location before we shoot but quite often it's just a matter of meeting somewhere and walking around to find new places.

the right compression, the right DOF, it just feels "right."

Exactly! I tried the lenses I have on a d700 and couldn't believe how much better a 50mm looks in FF. The 105mm also just felt right, even though it wasn't as drastic a difference. Damn.. now i really want one.

 

[Ashgarth]

One shot from last night.
Wanted to get some Geminids, but there weren't many. And the almost full moon wasn't helpful either hahaha

Then a massive cloud appeared and covered EVERYTHING. Shooting at night can be a pain in the ass sometimes hahaha

 

[Glenn Fricker]

WOW! Nice work! Where was this taken?

 

[Ashgarth]

Sant Miquel del Fai, in Catalonia, it's a 30 min. drive from my place, and there's a nice valley with falls, a monastery and some nice mountain trails.

 

[MatrixClaw]

Nice shots of the girls, but too much clothing!

FWIW, the a7 landed. Just getting my feet wet now. First impressions: It's really nice to drop on my Nikon 20mm F4 and use it as it was designed. 20mm on full frame is freakin' wiiiiiide. ...and sharp.


Edit: Damn does this thing ever have resolution! ...and I forgot how nice it is to shoot on Full Frame... I haven't shot film since the early 2000's, and all my DSLR's were APS-C. Throwing a Nikon 50 1.8 AiS onto the A7 brings back a lot... the right compression, the right DOF, it just feels "right." Super easy to focus manual lenses with the A7.... I don't think I'll be buying any AF lenses for it anytime soon. Can't wait for my M42 adapter to show up so I can try out my Zeiss stuff

Been researching this thing you since you said you were getting it. Quite intrigued... with the Metabones adapter, I could use all my Canon lenses, with autofocus enabled....

I expect these will go fairly cheap on the used market, once people start selling them, might have to look into one as a second frame to my 6D. Can't really see it replacing it, since Autofocus doesn't seem to be as quick in reviews and that's a very important feature to me. But... the Focus Peaking has me intrigued for manual-focus lenses, though reviews say it's not super accurate. Still, if it can get close, and I can use a bunch of my old SLR lenses, it might be worth it for stills.

 

[Nebulous]

One shot from last night.
Wanted to get some Geminids, but there weren't many. And the almost full moon wasn't helpful either hahaha

Then a massive cloud appeared and covered EVERYTHING. Shooting at night can be a pain in the ass sometimes hahaha

Niiiiiiice!
Did you have any light set up for this one, a massive flash or was there some other light source behind you?

 

[Glenn Fricker]

FWIW, I'm a vintage lens junkie. Focus peaking combined with the zoom in function will let you nail focus. ...I was also trained to shoot completely manual, so auto-focus for me isn't really a big deal, or even needed, for that matter.


That being said, here's my first result with the A7, shot with a Nikon 50mm at around f4, 200 ISO, shutter at 80, I think... Lighting was some Mole Richardson 1k Fresnels. This is "on set" of a music video shoot, and not a glamor shot by any stretch of the imagination..

 

[Ashgarth]

Niiiiiiice!
Did you have any light set up for this one, a massive flash or was there some other light source behind you?

I always carry my Led Lenser flashlight on my camera backpack, I use it for lightpainting and being able to see where the hell I am gonna step! haha

Just "painting" the walls with the flashlight for a few seconds, then had to edit a bit in lightroom to make it a bit more even (higher parts of the walls were darker) and done.

I wish I had a flash there, the light on the walls would have been more even, but the only flash I have is an old Metz from the 80's my dad used, it's massive and needs lots of recently charged batteries!

 

[Soundlurker]

too much clothing!

here's my first result with the A7

Oh come on, one of my photos only showed a hat, while yours has clothing even in the background
Anyway, I know this one is just a test, but I'd like to see a proper shot, with nice framing and composition, preferably with a longer lens.

No way I can afford an A7 so I'm thinking of ordering a lens turbo adapter to bring the crop factor on my nex down to 1.1x.

 

[Glenn Fricker]

O
Anyway, I know this one is just a test, but I'd like to see a proper shot, with nice framing and composition, preferably with a longer lens.

Yeah, fair enough... like I said, it was "on set" of a music video shoot, not a proper portrait shot. Still, I'm blown away that I could get that kind of color out of it using tungsten lights & not strobes. Makes me really want to set up a shoot ASAP. That & the detail is freakin' unreal. I'm definitely not in Canon APS-C territory anymore. I don't think I've ever taken a cleaner shot.

As for longer lenses: many great photographers have had very successful careers using nothing but a prime 50. I've always had a soft spot for them... hell, my old Praktica got me through three years of media school with nothing but a low level 50...

That being said, I will break out the Nikon 85 f2 AiS & the 135 3.5 "pre" Ai & give those a shot at my next proper shoot. The 85 is the classic Nikon portrait lens & the 135 is a particular favorite. Apparently it was worth a pretty penny back when it was new, and I got it for a bargain on eBay. My camera tech was pretty impressed with it, anyway. I've nicknamed it "The Panavision lens" as it really does remind me of that look.


Meanwhile, here's a shot I did this morning with the 20mm wide. The Vignette is caused by my polarizer... looks like I'll have to put some adapter rings & a bigger filter on it next time.

 

[Soundlurker]

Cool, looking forward to more shots

 

[Nebulous]

I always carry my Led Lenser flashlight on my camera backpack, I use it for lightpainting and being able to see where the hell I am gonna step! haha

Just "painting" the walls with the flashlight for a few seconds, then had to edit a bit in lightroom to make it a bit more even (higher parts of the walls were darker) and done.

I wish I had a flash there, the light on the walls would have been more even, but the only flash I have is an old Metz from the 80's my dad used, it's massive and needs lots of recently charged batteries!

Sweet, thanks for the details.
Looking forward to the camera arriving soon and letting the wife have "her own" hobby haha.

 

[jipchen]

Congrats on the A7 Glenn! I'm trying to get my dad to buy one for himself, but he wants to wait until he's retired haha.

My latest shot - it was more or less for fun, orderd some christmas lights, as soon as they arrived we realized
that they change their color every few seconds. My gf and me were both quite bored and I jokingly said
"let's try shooting portraits with that thing"... a few minutes later this happened:

Great shot! I like the mood a lot.

Ended up grabbing a 70-200mm f/4L for super cheap. Figured I'd give it a shot at the price, I'm sure the optics will be enough for me, just not sure it'll be fast enough, but I can likely resell it for a good bit more if it doesn't work ut, so its worth the risk!

Ha, nice. How do you like your Canon?

I decided to wait for a good offer on the Tamron and got one including a large softbag and UV filter etc for 800€ (only 4 months old). They usually sell on Ebay for around 900-960€. The Canon would've cost me about 650€ and I figured I wanted the 2.8 pretty bad, so the difference in price was ok
The Tamron is one heavy motherfucker, good lord. I just used it for 20 minutes and now my wrist hurts The Canon 2.8 is the same in weight, though.

Finding beautiful girls is easy. Convincing them to pose for you is another matter. It's hard in the beginning but once you've proven you can present people in a good light they are more willing to do it. In fact all of the girls in the last batch invited me to take photos

I see. Well, I'm fascinated by (some) portrait photography but don't really every try it myself.. might change that in the future. I was always one of those people who make pictures of "dead" things rather than people, though

 

[MatrixClaw]

Ha, nice. How do you like your Canon?

I decided to wait for a good offer on the Tamron and got one including a large softbag and UV filter etc for 800€ (only 4 months old). They usually sell on Ebay for around 900-960€. The Canon would've cost me about 650€ and I figured I wanted the 2.8 pretty bad, so the difference in price was ok
The Tamron is one heavy motherfucker, good lord. I just used it for 20 minutes and now my wrist hurts The Canon 2.8 is the same in weight, though.

Definitely a HUGE step up in terms of colors, sharpness, bokeh and overall quality from my 50mm f1.8. So far, I've been very surprised with it. I haven't even had a chance to use it at a time when the sun was fully out (only after work right before the sun was setting), and the ISO performance of my 6D makes shooting at that time no big deal. Even at 200mm, 1/400 sec, f4 at ISO 3200, images are completely usable. I can't wait until next week to finally get to actually play with it, since I'm off for a week and a half for the Christmas holiday.

TBH - I find it funny that people say the 70-20mm f4 is small and light to carry around... It IS smaller than the 2.8 model, but it's definitely a hefty lens on my 6D. The lens doesn't feel very heavy in the hand, not mounted to the body, but man, with it on the body, it started hurting my wrist after 20 minutes of shooting on it. I have a feeling it's the size of the 6D that plays a part in this more than the lens, though. I actually ended up ordering a Meike grip and 2 STK batteries for the camera, in hopes that it will counterbalance the weight of the lens a bit. It full-on neck dives with the 70-200mm on it right now, when it's just hanging on the strap around my neck.

I really wanted to step up to an f2.8, but I picked up the Canon for a mere $400 (~290&#8364, so it was pretty much a no-brainer at that point. Now that I've seen what nice glass can do to my images, I've started researching and compiling a list of other lenses I want to pick up over the next year:

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Canon-17-40mm-Ultra-Angle-Cameras/dp/B00009R6WO"]Canon 17-40mm f/4L[/ame] - Wide angle for landscapes/architecture
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Sigma-340101-35mm-Canon-Black/dp/B00A35X6NU"]Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM[/ame] - General purpose, walk-around lens
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Canon-100mm-Telephoto-Lens-Cameras/dp/B00009USVW"]Canon 100mm f2 USM[/ame] - Portraits and low-light telephoto

Still debating on whether it'd be worth it to upgrade my 50mm to the 1.4 from Canon or Sigma. Both seem to have quite a bit of trade-offs and my 1.8 works alright for me right now, but I'm not really sure after I get the Sigma 35mm that I'd really be bothered by not owning a 50mm. If I was shooting crop, it might make a difference, since it would make a good portrait length, but I can't imagine where I'd really need that extra 15mm of reach on such a small lens. I could just walk a few feet closer, if that's the case.

I would really like to try out macro photography, but I don't know what to get at this point. I was going to go for the Tokina 100mm AT-X PRO D, but after researching for quite a while, it seems the AF is painfully slow, and since it extends when focusing, it's probably not the best idea. The Canon 100mm 2.8L gets good reviews and could double as a portrait lens... but main criticisms seem to be that 100mm is too short and will force me too still have to get extremely close to things, which means if I want to take pictures of bugs, it might not be possible. The f2, non-macro, is supposedly the sharpest 100mm in Canon's lineup, is half the price of the L lens and is faster. Think I may just end up getting a set of Kenko tubes in the end?

Also debating a 1.4x teleconverter, for more reach on the 70-200mm... but it will drop the lens down to f5.6. I almost feel like I'd be better off just getting an APS-C body as a backup and using it on there, if I need the further reach (kinda digging the Canon SL1 right now... I can give it to my girlfriend as her own camera, and use it myself when I need it... that thing is TINY, though, but it'd probably work really well for her)?

 

[jipchen]

Tell me about it, my 7D + Tamron 70-200 VC weigh 2,38 kg (ca. 5,25 lbs?). My tiny arms and wrists can't handle it
Awesome price on the Canon, think I also would've jumped on the offer. I am still considering getting a Canon 70-200 f/4 IS instead of the Tamron since it's half the weight and you get great bokeh too. One of the reasons I wanted the 2.8 so bad was that I am also interested in a Kenko 1.4x converter and then I'd still be at f/4 instead of f/5.6 where the auto-focus is said to crap out sometimes.

By the way, you absolutely need get one of those camera straps (or a SunSniper Pro, or any company which makes similar ones): http://www.blackrapid.com/products/classic
I swear it's one of the best things I ever bought, and makes photo trips so much more fun. It's comfortable as fuck, and even with the 2,4kg pulling on it I don't feel the weight at all.
Personally, I HATE the normal neck-strap, one time my neck and back started hurting after about 30 minutes and we were in a wildlife park for about 5 hours.. fuck. Never again.

I think if you get a 30/35mm lense it would make sense to sell your 50 -or keep it but not upgrade to a 1.4 - and get a 85 or 100 like you mentioned. To me having both a 35 and 50mm or 50 and 85 makes one of them kind of futile (if you don't have a ton of money to waste) cause they're too similar.

Now that you mentioned it, my girlfriend got her Canon 100 2.8L IS just today and I hate her because it's ridiculously cool. Personally I'd go with this one instead of the 100 f2 because of the great IS which should be useful for both portrait and (supposedly even) macro shots because of the hybrid IS, but I have never used the f2 so it's just guessing. The Kenko tubes would be a nice combination for the 2.8L macro lens as well, since you get a lot more magnification.
The Tamron 90mm VC macro is also supposed to be real good and about half the price of the L. Then again the Canon 100 f/2 is perhaps the better choice for the money. Happy GASing anyway

(Hate how I'm GAsing just as hard as I did for audio engineering stuff before )

 

[MatrixClaw]

^Yeah, I really wanted the IS version, but I got the non-IS at half the price, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Optics are supposed to be the same, so as long as I can get along with no IS, it seemed worth it. If not, I could sell it for more than what I paid. My 6D can handle over 3200 ISO just fine, but I haven't found much need to go over that yet. So far, the quality is outstanding!

I'll definitely take a look at the strap - I've actually never been too bothered by the weight around my neck with the Canon strap that comes with their cameras. I tend to end up carrying the camera in my hands most of the time, which relieves stress on my neck and back. I'm always afraid it's going to come lose and fall to the ground for some reason, so it kinda freaks me out just letting it hang there for long periods of time LOL! We'll see with the 70-200mm, though. I can't imagine carrying that thing around handheld for a few hours, so a better strap might be a good idea if I'm letting it hang on my neck for long.

That's exactly what I was thinking, I've been doing a ton of research on 50mm and the best ones all seem to be scourged with issues. I really enjoy the focal distance, but if I'm going to spend that kind of money on glass, I think I'd be more comfortable going for the 35mm, as they tend to get much better reviews as far as build quality and IQ is concerned. The Sigma 50mm 1.4 gets some awesome reviews, but they seem to be plagued with focusing issues, and even though I live close to their repair center, I'd really rather not have to take it in to be calibrated right off the bat. Not to mention, I can't buy used and save a few bucks, because the repairs cost more than the difference I'd save. I'll probably just keep the 50mm as a backup, on the off-chance I'll need it. They only cost like $100, so it's not like I'll get much return selling it

That's right, I forgot the 100mm f2.8L has the hybrid IS... Definitely something to consider, as it's actually useful for macro - It's more expensive than the f2, but at least the difference isn't nearly as large as it is between the 50 1.4 and 1.2L or 85 1.8 and 1.2L. Really the main reason I was considering the f2 was because all the reviews online say it's the sharpest 100mm made (even fully open) has slightly better color rendering than the L, plus it has a slightly larger aperture, so I can get a slightly more shallow depth of field. It doesn't have Macro though, like the 2.8 or 2.8L, but at the same time, I'm afraid I'll have to get too close to some of the insects I'd want to shoot, that they'd quickly fly away, or I'd have lighting issues in a studio setting, because the lens is in the way of the strobes doing their job. I dunno though, maybe I'm overthinking it...

 

[GuitarHack]

I bought this:

 

[GuitarHack]

Belgium