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| Paul Chuey playing Sax 300mm, f/2.8, 1/400, ISO 3200 |
It happened again this year....
I have completely no idea when whole December simply passed by. I still have a feeling we are the very beginning of the month, and now all of a sudden I realized I was in the middle of Christmas shopping madness and actually now we are already celebrating Christmas. Beginning of the month seems like yesterday, I had to travel to Poland for a week or so to take care of certain business matters, and today is almost end of the month... and I am already preparing myself for next trip. This time to UK purely for shooting landscapes...
will say few more words in a moment.
In general I have been learning new camera and lenses. After those few weeks I feel already way more comfortable with new buttons' layout and start to use them more comfortably and intuitively.
Another thing has been to find camera's limits in low light situation. Last few concerts I shot, I used unimaginable ISO levels 12'800, 25'600 and in few cases 50'200!
Images shot at 12'800 are really usable, and I can shoot concerts with shutter speeds of 1/500 or even faster. This of course depends on the venue and its light setup, and also band. Over all I am really happy with new gear and its capabilities. Here's a picture of Paul Chuey playing sax with Mojo Blues Band in Metropol, where typically light is very good and consistent. I can shoot totally clear and crisp picture even at ISO 3200 while having shutter speed of 1/400s which in most cases is enough to freeze the motion, well at least Blues players.
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| 600mm, f/5.6, 1/320s, ISO 12'800 |
With Metal guys it becomes more complicated. Mojo Blues Band Show at Metropol, Vienna.
Here's an example of 12'800 image taken at ((Szene)) during Dime Bash event.
I stand behind audience and above, on the gallery with light and sound consoles, about 30-40 meteres away from the stage. I used 2x extender on top of 300mm lens to get 600mm focal length. This pictures is full frame, and not cropped. Unfortunately 2 times extender takes two stops of light thus minimum aperture I can get is f/5.6. Compromise must always be found.
Guitarist is frozen but beer drops not fully. Because light situation was not so brilliant I had to step down to 1/320s which was really minimum, but to have even this speed I had to pump ISO to 12'800. And the pictures is absolutely usable.
I had to hand hold camera with lens. I tried monopod but hanging gallery vibrated too much together with heavy bass tunes. (good workout to hand hold about 5kg gear for 1-2 hours...)
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| 16mm, 1/250s, f2.8, ISO 6400 |
This is a good picture taken with ultra wide angle - 16mm at 1/250s, no flash.
I was waiting for the moment when lights explode fully illuminating the drummer. I do not like using flash at concerts. Anyway in most of the situations you would not be even allowed to use flash.
So I always try to predict the lights when they go on and off. Camera set to manual mode, metered to light peak conditions, and simply now it is a metter of waiting for both to happen, action and light.
Little bit of luck is also a good option.
So here I ended up with 1/250s, f/2.8, and ISO 6400. More pictures from Dime Bash 2012 are available my website.
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| Armageddon Event at ((Szene)). Party on the stage towards end of the show 300mm, 1/400s, f/2.8, ISO 12'800 |
Then it was time to test new continuous auto focus system, especially with fast moving objects and ideally towards you when focus distance changes constantly and fast. I took a trip to Krieau in Vienna, to photograph trotting races.
Horses are fantastic subject to photograph.
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| Trotting Races at Krieau, Vienna (Already under artificial light) 300mm, 1/400s, f/2.8, ISO 12'800 |
I used all possible scenarios - manual focus points selections, zones, and full automatic. It was very good exercise for memorizing buttons locations and sequence needed to switch between options while looking through viewfinder. I must say focus system is simply fantastic, even and full automatic selection the camera was in most of the cases selecting points I would select manually, and was able to follow running subject all the way through while shooting.
The only problem that day was bitter cold. I spent few hours at the races and thought I would freeze to death. Partially I was also wondering how camera and its battery can stand below zero temperatures for longer periods of time.
And we ended up with Christmas time, I simply have been so busy that I would have almost not noticed it. I hope 2013 will not run so fast. If there was a way to slow down time...
Anyway, Christmas dinners and family sessions are great photo opportunities. Christmas trees' lights, lit candles, glasses, reflections, nice warm ambient light... all this can produce fantastic family photographs. And then when Santa comes in and brings presents, especially for children... what a moment... so full of pure emotions... what would you say if you got our 1st mercedes from Santa?!
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| YES! I got my first mercedes! 85mm, 1/60s, f2.0, ISO 6400, on-camera flash pointing towards ceiling with diffuser |
He enjoyed it is so much, screaming in his language from joy, kept getting in and out for more than an hour. And from time to time running towards me and literally modelling in his natural way without asking. I was really happy to be able to capture his moments of joy.
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| YES! I got my first mercedes! 85mm, 1/60s, f2.0, ISO 6400, on-camera flash pointing towards ceiling with diffuser |
I used 85mm f/1.2 lens. It is great glass but it has few buts. First of all very sensitive to focus mistakes, if you miss focus point your picture is rubbish. F/1.2 has extremely shallow depth of field. I tried it few times on concerts as well with mixed results. To have a bit of buffer zone I set the camera to f/2.0 to have nice bokeh but at the same time have almost full head in focus. Single manually selected focusing points are must here.
Another problem is slow focusing, theoretically it has ultrasonic engine but focuses quite slow, it reminds me of kitty EF-S 18-55mm lens. It is a bit faster but way slower that all other glasses I use. So another learning curve, I still need time to really harnes this lens.
Last night Vienna was completely covered by fog, and I hoped it would last till today and planned short trip to Donau Auen National Park to capture some winter foggy moods. And I was lucky, on top of that Danube river had very high level of water. Place I visit quite often, around Haslau an der Donau, 30 km East from Vienna, was almost flooded. Already walking towards the river I could hear noise of fast running streams of water.
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| Flooded footpath by Danube 3 shots @ 24mm, 2s, f/11, ISO 50 |
I like such cold and wet days with fog. They bring something special and mystical, at least in my vision. So I kept the colours and white balance as they came from the camera without blowing up extra super duper colours.
Also I wanted to practice tilt and shift functionalities of tilt shift lens.
Shifting left and right, or up and down allows to capture wider angle of view without visible distortion. This function works really well in landscapes and architecture photos.
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| Flooding Danube Waters 3 shots @ 24mm, 1.3s, f/11, ISO 50 |
Final pictures above are merged together in photoshop from 3 individual shots. Full resolution merged pictures are around 30 megapixels. Will be fantastic to print such panoramas on large wall.
Notice, such a wide angle of view and no distortion, right out of camera. I think I will love this lens, and might become my favourite from good old trusty 16-35mm. And is extremely sharp.
Tilting is swinging front element of the lens up and down, or left and right. By tilting front glass we change plane of focus angle. This can help extending depth of field even at wide opened apertures but also can create funny effects where real world looks like small model in toy shop.
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| Danube Floods 3 shots @ 24mm, 6s, f/11, ISO 50 |
Tilting is quite tricky and apparently requires lots of practice. It is very easy to overdo tilting effect. If used right, you can get all picture in focus from your feet to infinity even at f/5.6 or f/8 where typically lenses have their sweet sharpest spots.
I am looking forward to using this lens during trip to UK next week. I plan about 2 weeks journey around Dorset, Cornwall and perhaps Wales. Except planned 2-3 days workshop with Jeremy Walker (Jeremy is based in Dorset), I have opened agenda and we will see where I end up... Scotland would be good, but that has to be trip on its own.
Let me go back to my Christmas table. On this occasion I would like to wish everyone Merry Christmas and just in case also Happy New Year, I am not sure if I have full web access while off-road in England.
Cheers
Jerzy
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