Category: Photography

Trying out new studios and locations is always a slightly nervous affair. Some studios have little height, getting the centre of a brolly or soft box above eye height of the model to give natural looking light with big lighting modifies can be difficult

Some old buildings and farm houses are often hired out as locations. Life style shoots in modern kitchens or boudoir in a bedroom can often be done well but space and light is often an issue.

In older larger buildings you can often get away with a 50mm or longer lens as there is room to get back, but high ISO or portable lighting may be necessary as the light in older buildings is often not good.

In a modern building light is often better but then many modern building are small, leaving you to work tighter to your model and use wider lens, sometimes 35mm or even 28mm or wider that can be tricky to pull off a pleasing composition.

The Leica Q series has been incredibly successful. It has two criticisms; price, but a European built camera made in small numbers is never going to be cheap; and the choice of lens, a 28mm for full frame. For many just too wide for general use.

Many asked for 35mm and just as many requested 50mm.

For many 35mm is too wide, which is why Leica chose 28mm originally. Leica’s new model is 43mm, now 40mm to 45mm was very popular in the past, and by choosing 43mm Leica is likely to capture those wanting a 35mm and the 50mm.

I think it was an excellent choice.

Some of my project ideas are extremely simple but end up working very well.

Project Red is one such idea.

I have been going back to this theme since the early 2000’s and it’s interesting how the idea has changed from studio to more environmental out door shoots. Something that I will be continuing to come back to over the next few years.

Canon have their L glass. Sony have G class. With the Nikon Z system we have S glass.

Top of the range, very little compromise.

Now back in the old f mount days, Nikon did not differentiate there top professional glass, but in general it was f/1.4 prime lens were pro and the f/1.8 were a slightly cheaper option.

Nikon caused some surprise when they released the new S range f/1.8 lens with people wondering if these were actually pro as they were not f/1.4. They have now started to fill out there range with some S glass at f/1.2.

So it was with some surprise they released a couple of non S f/1.4. It’s been an interesting choice. For those that feel the S glass is too clinical we now have a smaller lighter f1.4 lens with a bit more character.