Workshop: Shooten en Shoppen

Afgelopen zaterdag heb ik de eerste workshop "Shooten en shoppen" gegeven. Deze workshop ging over het fotograferen en photoshoppen om schilderachtige portretten te maken. Als modellen was ik blij dat steampunkers Spike "Wolfcry mcDark en Minerva McDark mee wilde werken, Spike heb ik ontmoet op de FotoFair afgelopen jaar!

Hier onder staan enkele van de resultaten die ik gemaakt hebt:

Jeroen Zelle heeft geassisteerd bij de workshop en ook wat spullen van Broncolor meegenomen zodat we zowel met Broncolor als Elinchrom konden werken. Ook heeft hij wat Behind the scene fotos gemaakt:

Qua gear heb ik gebruik gemaakt van:
Camera: D610 en D800
Objectieven: Sigma 24-15 Art en 50mm 1.4 Art

Review: Sigma 24-35mm f2 Art Nikon

For the last week I had the new Sigma 24-35 f2 Art lens for Nikon. I used it during a commercial shoot and on some portrait work. And I must say, I am a little puzzled about this lens.  How and why I will tell you further up in this review. 

First things first. As you might know. I am not a pixel peeping lab testing reviewblogger. I like to test camera's and lenses in the field and give my opinion based on my experience working with the gear. 

The quality of the Sigma 24-35 f2 Art lens

Let's start with the easiest part of the review, the quality of the lens. This is simply excellent. Like all other Sigma Art lenses the Sigma 24-35 f2 Art lens is build really well. It feels nice in you hands, focusses smoothly, feels like a high quality lens and performance as a high quality lens. I must say the lens is large. It is even bigger then my Sigma 50mm f1.4 Art lens. I can't find anything quality wise to say anything bad about the Sigma 24-35 f2 Art lens!

Where to place the Sigma 24-35 f4 Art lens

So now the hard part. Where should I place the Sigma 24-35 f2 Art lens in my current range of lenses, what will it add. While working, a lot of time I was just using my Sigma 24-105 f4. And I forget I had the Sigma 24-35 f2 Art lens in my bag. So later I switched to the Sigma 24-35 f2 Art because I had it and could try it.

While working with it, the Sigma 24-35 f2 Art lens performed greatly. The zoom range was convenient. When I thought it was a little to wide at 24mm I could zoom in or a little to tight at 35mm I could zoom out. In dark places the f2 was handy, and due the focal length a lot was even in focus at f2. But I could also get a small depth-of-field when getting close to the subject. And you could focus it nice and closely.

A storyteller lens

Working with the lens and thinking about where to place it I slowly was figuring it out. This lens is not build for studio and portrait work but for people in the field and story tellers. If I was a wedding photographer or journalist photographer I would buy this lens. I love the 35mm range. But sometimes it is just a little bit to narrow to tell the story or when you are shooting in small rooms. A 24mm lens is a great lens to get everything in, but a lot of time it is just to wide. When there is to much information and noise in the image. Also the f2 aperture makes it great for working indoors. I could see myself shooting weddings with a 85 1.4 or 70-200 2.8 on one camera and the Sigma 24-35 f2 Art lens on the other and shooting all day without having to swap lenses. 

The conclusion

The Sigma 24-35 f2 Art lens is a very high quality lens! And I can recommend it highly to every wedding-, travel- or landscape photographer. Or everybody who doesn't own a basic high quality zoom lens. But for me I don't think it will add enough to my current range of lenses. The  Sigma 24-105 f4 Art lens covers the whole range from me, from wide to tele.

I hardly ever use the 24mm, so I am thinking about adding the 35mm art. I love the 35mm range my Fuji X100 and on the Leica M (Monochrome) (check the review for the Leica M type 240 HERE and the the M Monochrome HERE). But sadly the 24-35 f2 properly won't get back in my bag again. Although it is a great lens, it is not my lens. 

Autumn Leaves

Hi All,

As you might have noticed, it is autumn! The time of year to go out in to the forrest and shoot some beautiful peaces of nature. As you might know I recently discovered the pleasure of nature photography. And NO I will not be a fulltime nature photographer, but I just love it as a way of relaxation and getting out of the studio and shoot without any pressure! 

Here are some shots I made last week. All are shot with the Sigma 24-105 f4 Art and the Nikon D610. And for anybody who think they need 2.0 or wider apertures for a small depth of field, take a look at these! It was hard getting the things in focus, so i even went to f5.6 and 8!

Portrait Session: Kees Visser

Yesterday I did a studio portrait sessions with comedian Kees Visser. For an assignment I am working on I asked Kees Visser to model, but more on the assignment later...

The set up

For the lighting I mainly used my big friend the Elinchrom Rotalux 150 indirect Deep Octa. On some Images I used the 35x90 Strip soft box with a 30x50 grid in it. But somehow this looked a little to modern. So I removed it and used just the white side of the 5-in-1 reflector handheld by my assistent.  The background was just used a roll of grey seamless.

For camera I used the Nikon D800 with the Nikon 85mm 1.8g or 50mm 1.8g. The settings where around ISO200, 1/250 f5.6 or f8.

Post processing 

During the shoot I shot straight into Capture One Pro 8. Normally I just do basic RAW-editing in Capture One Pro 8 and all the rest in Photoshop CC. But this time I wanted to do all my editing in Capture One Pro 8. And I must say, Capture One pro 8 is great for RAW-editing, but some how for the complete editing workflow I don't know... Masking and working with curves keeps feeling easier in Photoshop. Also the dodge and burning stuff is easier in Photoshop.

But for sharpening and correct lighting Capture Pro 8 rules! I think Capture Pro 8 is great for full workflow on like weddings or landscape. but for commercial and  portrait jobs I will keep Photoshop on the side!

Please keep in mind that I am still learning Capture Pro 8, so my opinion may chance in the feature. 

I switched from Canon to Nikon

After a long of wanting to switch I finally switched. I had Canon but was unhappy with canon as a company and especially their arrogance.

D800 vs D4 vs D4

Last year I had the opportunity to work with the D800, D4 and D600 from Nikon for my Dutch Jazz Portraits Project. I love the High res of the D800 but the file size of the camera was huge. The D4 is a speed monster, but it didn't felt the camera I would love to work with. It is great for journalists,but not for me ad a commercial music and dance portrait photographer. The D600 was also a really sweat camera. But I missed he resolution of the D800 sometimes.

The Decision

So now almost a year later I was still doubting adding D610 or D800, and I couldn't choose. So I took the next solution, I took the D800 with the Sigma 24-105 f4 lens and traded in all my Canon gear for the D610 and the Nikon 85 1.8 (a lens I really love for portrait work).

Upcoming weeks I am planning some shoots to test the camera's out and post some new work with them.

Fuji's

Some off you might think now, what about you Fuji's. Well I still keep them and love them, especially for traveling work. Because the Nikons great, but heavy! In two week sI will go to Paris for some new street work, and I will only take my Fuji's. Also the Fuji's are not good on video so I will use the Nikon for that. So the Nikons will for most be my studio and big shoot camera's and for when I have to more post work. The fuji will keep being my reportage/documentary camera's.

Analoog avontuur: Nikon FM

Ik heb het eerder deze week al even voor bij laten komen, één van mijn nieuwe liefde is mijn Nikon FM 35mm camera met de standaard 50mm F2.0 lens. Na de hype van de Nikon DF> leek het me leuk om een blog aan de inspiratiebron van de Nikon DF te wijden.

Hoewel het ontwerp van de Nikon DF geleend is van de FM serie zijn er grote verschillen, kijk alleen al naar het formaat. Trouwens genoeg over de DF, deze blog gaat over de FM. De FM is een volledig manueel instelbare camera. In tegenstelling van de FE en FG heeft de Nikon FM geen automaat standen. Wel heeft hij een licht meter ingebouwd.

Body

De body is relatief compact in tegenstelling tot de huidige Full Frame camera's. Alleen gaan er in plaats van CF kaartjes rollen 35mm film in. Verder bevat de camera alle knoppen die je nodig hebt.

Bediening

Bovenop zit links de film terugwind knop/slinger. Vervolgens de Hotshoe voor flitsers, De sluitertijd en ISO knop, de ontspanner en de doorwindhendel. Om batterijen te besparen wordt de lichtmeter pas actief als je de doorwindhendel een eerst stukje "open" draait. Mocht je batterij leeg raken kan je de camera nog steeds blijven gebruiken. Doe dat maar eens met je high-tech DSLR! Je kan dus met deze camera altijd werken, of het nu heet of ijskoud is! De licht meter was de eerste met het 80/20 principe.

Links onder de sluitertijd knop bevind zich nog een heel klein knopje, of eigenlijk is het een schuifje. Door deze schuif naar links te duwen voor het door draaien, kan je een multiple exposure shot maken. Oftewel je ontspanner wordt wel gespannen maar je film niet doorgeladen.

Sync

Naast de flitsschoen bevat de camera oom een pc-sync poort om flitsers aan te sluiten per kabel. De X-sync tijd is trouwens 1/125th wat heel snel is voor de tijd waar hij uit komt. Meestal was het maximale 1/60.

Film

In de camera gaat 35mm film waarmee je gemiddeld 36 foto's kunt maken. Zelf gebruik ik meestal Kodak Porta 160 of Kodak Tmax100 film.

Hieronder staan enkele foto's gemaakt van Benjamin Herman met de Nikon FM en Kodak Tmax100 film en de YongNuo YN-560 en Westcott Apollo 28" softbox