p.83 #1 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
thousandths wrote:
Delightful. In your ideal circumstances, do you prefer to use a fill flash, reflector or just natural light?
Thank you very much, Carlos! In general, I prefer soft lighting and how to get that will depend on the shooting circumstances. I use fill-in flash quite a bit but not straight up but inside a soft box. The problem with that is, especially at this large park, you have to carry it around and it can get cumbersome. And it was pretty breezy there, too; it can topple your lighting setup easily. I expected that and left my flash gear and light stand in the car.
Reflectors can provide the necessary fill and one can get a wrap around light by wrapping or changing the shape of the reflector, making is curvy. It works great but you have to have reflector fairly close to the model. One big disadvantage of using a reflector is you have to have an “assistant” to hold it for you. I had my reflector but ended up not using it for her. Regardless of the fill light source I use, I prefer that to be not overpowering. I dial it down the flash setting and feather the reflector away slightly to just give me enough fill-in light to make it look more natural.
So, to answer your question, since the available lighting quality was good, I ended up using just that since that what I was after anyway.
Although she is lovely and sweet, I took tons of images of her, but I don’t want to post too many of her images in one swoop. In addition, she is quite photogenic and her images are easy to process/edit. Here is the last one of her for the time being… BTW, I never thought of a 50mm lens to be this enjoyable for portraits, but the GM 50mm changed my mind and quite easily at that.
p.83 #2 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
AGeoJO wrote:
Thank you, Dennis! You got me thinking.... I wasn't planning of editing this one, another one of her sweet laugh but this was taken with the GM 70-200mm II at f/2.8. Of course, the circumstances are not the same but this one shows the DOF at f/2.8 although she was closer to me here than at the other one, My answer to your question would be, not much different and probably not noticeable for the web.
You can't help but smile when you look at this picture. Well done to both of you.
p.83 #6 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
AGeoJO wrote:
Thank you very much, Carlos! In general, I prefer soft lighting and how to get that will depend on the shooting circumstances. I use fill-in flash quite a bit but not straight up but inside a soft box. The problem with that is, especially at this large park, you have to carry it around and it can get cumbersome. And it was pretty breezy there, too; it can topple your lighting setup easily. I expected that and left my flash gear and light stand in the car.
Reflectors can provide the necessary fill and one can get a wrap around light by wrapping or changing the shape of the reflector, making is curvy. It works great but you have to have reflector fairly close to the model. One big disadvantage of using a reflector is you have to have an “assistant” to hold it for you. I had my reflector but ended up not using it for her. Regardless of the fill light source I use, I prefer that to be not overpowering. I dial it down the flash setting and feather the reflector away slightly to just give me enough fill-in light to make it look more natural.
So, to answer your question, since the available lighting quality was good, I ended up using just that since that what I was after anyway. ...Show more →
Thanks for the detailed reply! It's helpful to hear your thought process as your outdoor photos always have an evenness and fullness of light that rarely looks overtly artificial.
p.83 #9 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
ICee wrote:
You can't help but smile when you look at this picture. Well done to both of you.
Thank you very much, ICee!
fuzzykeys wrote:
Welcome to club 50mm!
Thank you, Matt; I am glad I join that club!
thousandths wrote:
Thanks for the detailed reply! It's helpful to hear your thought process as your outdoor photos always have an evenness and fullness of light that rarely looks overtly artificial.
Here is a portrait, where a white reflector was used from my left close to her just outside the frame. Since the lighting conditions were still quite strong at around 6:00 that day, the reflector was aimed pretty much straight on her face. Based on the close proximity, the reflected light was quite soft. Whatever shiny parts on her face were reduced in PP.
p.83 #10 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
I’ve once again acquired one of my favorite lenses, the Loxia 50. I took it for a spin yesterday in a nearby sunflower field where my 8 month old but on a show. Here is one of my favorites.
p.83 #12 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
When I have a portrait session, I normally grab my Sigma 35mm f1.2, Sigma 105mm f1.4 and/or GM 135m... sometimes my Sigma 85mm f1.4 DG DN, and even less often, the GM 70-200mm f2.8 II. Since acquiring the GM 50mm f1.2 lens, I now find myself using that lens more than the others. I absolutely love this lens.
Last weekend, I had a portrait shoot on a local island - mid-day, in bright sun. I normally will not even actuate a shutter in full-sun, unless I can overpower the sun with my AD600's. Wanting to travel light, I took an AD300 with a small modifier. To avoid power-robbing HSS, I used a 6-stop ND filter on the 50mm f1.2 and was able to overpower the sun shooting at ISO 64, f1.2 and 1/200 second on the A1. I like the Breakthrough filters as there are no discernible color shifts or loss of sharpness.
Even with an after-market extended eye cup, the bright sun made it difficult to use the EVF, so I used the LCD for most of the shots. I couldn't verify eye-focus and just hoped the shots would be in focus. As it turned out, 99% of the shots were in perfect focus(!!). How did I ever live without Eye Focus? How did I ever shoot f1.4 portraits with rangefinder Leica's?
I took a bit of artistic license with processing, but these are a few of the shots I got:
p.83 #18 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
jmmaher wrote:
Just the lowly 24-105 which I seem to reach for most of the time.
Spookily awesome, Jim!
InFocus2014 wrote:
When I have a portrait session, I normally grab my Sigma 35mm f1.2, Sigma 105mm f1.4 and/or GM 135m... sometimes my Sigma 85mm f1.4 DG DN, and even less often, the GM 70-200mm f2.8 II. Since acquiring the GM 50mm f1.2 lens, I now find myself using that lens more than the others. I absolutely love this lens.
Last weekend, I had a portrait shoot on a local island - mid-day, in bright sun. I normally will not even actuate a shutter in full-sun, unless I can overpower the sun with my AD600's. Wanting to travel light, I took an AD300 with a small modifier. To avoid power-robbing HSS, I used a 6-stop ND filter on the 50mm f1.2 and was able to overpower the sun shooting at ISO 64, f1.2 and 1/200 second on the A1. I like the Breakthrough filters as there are no discernible color shifts or loss of sharpness.
Even with an after-market extended eye cup, the bright sun made it difficult to use the EVF, so I used the LCD for most of the shots. I couldn't verify eye-focus and just hoped the shots would be in focus. As it turned out, 99% of the shots were in perfect focus(!!). How did I ever live without Eye Focus? How did I ever shoot f1.4 portraits with rangefinder Leica's?
I took a bit of artistic license with processing, but these are a few of the shots I got:...Show more →
Excellent captures, Jeff! I see similarities in your lens section with mine. I love the GM 50mm lens for portraits, although I combined it with a longer lens, mostly the GM 70-200mm f/2.8 II.
mudlake wrote:
Nothing here more than a shot in the front yard. But I love the 50GM and portraits.
Wonderful image, Eric and like you, I also a fan of the GM 50mm lens now.
