"A Study In Violet"©David A. Ziser
In keeping with the Gear Bag Friday post, I'd thought I'd post this image taken with the lens discussed below. The image was taken on a photowalk in Mexico about a year ago. The 100mm lens was the only lens I used on that particular walk and I was lucky to photograph some of my favorite subjects - flowers. This image shows the power of a macro lens to easily isolate the subject and create some really cool compositions. This is one of my favorites from that shoot. Camera specs; Canon 30D fitted with 100mm F2.8 macro, F 8.0 @ 1/800 second, ISO 800. Enjoy! -David
So, why am I discussing that lens today? Well, as I said, I still enjoy using it in some instances on the wedding day and I reflected that in some of the images accompanying this article. But, I have to say that I find the greatest pleasure in using this lens when I'm just shooting for myself. For example when time restrictions aren't part of the shooting routine. I really enjoy this lens when I'm on a neighborhood walk or hiking through a nature reserve.... It's kind of a throw back to when I was younger and really enjoying my macro photography.
When on vacation, I love doing a photo walk with just this lens on the camera. It's interesting to behold what the viewfinder renders when this is the only optic of choice for the shot. For me, I always try to get just as close as I can when I use this lens. I just love the close-up peek at nature it gives me.
4 -- Explore different focus points of your subject matter. When I'm photographing a wedding band with a special inscription on the inside of the band, I want to be sure that the inscription is in perfect focus with the rest of the band going slightly out of focus. This is also true of my floral subjects I occasionally photographed too. I may just want to concentrate the photograph on the pestle of the flower blossom in sharp focus while letting all the colors of the flower go into soft focus behind my main point of interest. Then I'll reverse the focus to the blossom area while allowing the pestle to go soft.
Also try this for your other macro subject matter too. I remember going out on a photo walk about a year ago, planning to use high shutter speeds and small f-stops to guarantee that very little ambient light would be part of the exposure. My only light source, in this case, was my small Canon 580 EX2 fired with my Quantum Free-Wire radio transmitter/receiver combination. It was a great exercise shooting in a way that I don't happen to use in my day-to-day business and more importantly I was able to obtain some great shots on that shoot.
2 -- We arrive on site usually about 30 minutes before were due to start photography. This gives us a chance to review locations for group photographs and other special photographs of the bride and groom. It also gives us a chance to introduce ourselves to wedding consultants, florists, lighting technicians, hotel staff, etc. All this PR just helps the day go much more smoothly.
3 -- Typically the shoot goes like this for me. If the event is happening at a large hotel like Netherland Hilton, which I've discussed several times previously at Digital Pro Talk, we ring the bride's room to announce our arrival and just see how everybody is progressing getting ready. The girls are generally at some stage of hair and makeup. I love to make this part of our coverage. My first images are usually images of the bride and her bridesmaids and other female family members getting ready. That, as I said, could be in the hotel suite or at the bride's home or even at the church.
5 -- At this point we generally check back with the bride as she goes into her final moments of preparation. This is a great time to get some great detail photographs of maybe her attendants buttoning up the back of a gown, for adjusting the jewelry, and mother placing the veil on her head, her jewelry, shoes......
This is also a great time to get those wonderful and often emotional images of the bride's father seeing his daughter for the first time in her wedding gown. It’s a terrific time to capture all those actions and reactions – the special moments - the special feelings - of the day. We take several images during this part of the day knowing that only a few select chosen images will be in the wedding album. We also know that capturing at least one spectacular expression or wonderful emotion will add priceless memories for my client.
We also give a pretty thorough coverage to the interior of the church as well. That would include wide angle views of the church itself, close-ups of the flowers and candles, and various views from the front and the back of the church – whatever can serve as added backgrounds and points of interest that add to the finished album. It's at this point that we begin photographing some of the guests as they arrive. This section of coverage may also include the attendants passing out the programs, any ushers seating the guests, parents greeting guests.
7 -- We want to be sure to capture the bride arriving at the church and making her way to the waiting room in the short moments before the ceremony. We also like to track down the groom as he waits those last few minutes before the ceremony as well. These are great times to capture some wonderful emotional images between the bride and groom and their loved ones on her wedding day.
There are several photographs and stories about last week's visit to the UK. We do it mostly for family members who like to keep track of where we're traveling and what we are doing. But you might find it interesting, so give it a read if you like.
Now come the days of digital. I remember one of the first challenges most of us faced in our early digital days was finding a wide enough optic. That would give us a reasonable wide-angle view with our APS sensor sized cameras. The 1.5x magnification factor was just killing us with the then current crop of 35mm lenses that we already owned. That reality necessitated most of us rethinking our lens collection and making additional lens purchases to accommodate that 1.5x magnification factor.
Anyway I digress. When I picked up my Canon 5D a number of years ago, I was thrilled that it was a full frame sensor. That meant that when I put a wide-angle lens on the camera. I was going to get a really wide-angle view. Years ago, a 24 mm optic was considered very, very wide. I even remember the introduction of the 18mm wide-angle optic a number of years ago – WOW, was that wide. It had an unimaginable field of view for its day. We now have lenses that zoom from 18mm- 200mm in both the Canon and Nikon's arsenals – super cool!
I got thinking, “What would that look like on my full frame DSLR?” It sure would provide a super wide field of view. I had to do it, I ordered the lens. It cost around $650 at the time, still a far cry from my $5,000 40mm Distagon lens for my Hasselblad – super cheap by comparison.
I just love how the image encompasses such a dramatic view of the surrounds. This, obviously, is one use for this particular lens -- architectural photography. I may have to be careful when I say that because architectural photography generally connotes that all parallel lines need to remain parallel. This is the case most of the time, but I think a super wide-angle optic can really bring some great dramatics into the composition with all converging lines that it can supply to the composition.
I typically shoot this lens at F5.6, which I call my aperture of convenience, because of my shooting routine with my off-camera flash. We'll go into that at another time at DigitalProTalk.com. That said, I think the lens produces some quite nice results.
If you're wide-angle lens fiend, then this lens may be for you. It's a kick to use, it gives you some really unusual views, along with the opportunity to create some really cool compositions.
Good Morning Everybody,
That's where I was. I was ready to stand my ground. I had a whole slew of jokes that I gingerly tossed back to the RAW shooters in the crowd. Things like, “RAW was for sushi and oysters only.” Or “It takes a real photographer to shoot a JPEG. We've got a nail the exposure every time.” And, lastly, “What does RAW really stand for.... R-eally A-wful W-orkflow?” I’d stoke the crowd, encouraging the JPEG shooters to join me - cheering my remarks.
When I put that lens on my Canon 5D and looked through the viewfinder, I was indeed impressed with what I saw. I particularly liked the lens at the 24mm setting. It was pretty darn wide for me. I remember the old days when I had a 24mm prime lens for my Nikon F2. It was a pretty darn wide topic too. Now I had that same wide-angle field of view on my DSLR. My Canon 5D fitted with the 24-105 IS lens quickly became my favorite and main shooting camera-lens combo at weddings.
So I eventually started using the 24-105mm lens on my 40D. That worked most of the time, but now I was still missing the wide-angle aspect that I loved with my 17-85mm IS lens. There were just too many times when I needed to be wider for the shot than the 24mm would give me on the 40D. So I found myself switching back to the 17-85mm lens. I was going crraazzzzzy!!
Last weekend I mentioned that I got to shoot the Canon 5D Mk 2. The 24-105mm IS lens was optic of choice for most of the day. I didn't really feel I needed to go to any fast glass in this case, because with my 6400 ISO setting f4.0 was plenty wide to capture everything I needed to capture, even in lower light level situations.
3 -- The intermediate range of the lens also works nicely for all the wedding party group photographs letting me work very quickly in getting those images.
2. -- Do a good edit keeping it fairly tight. If you've taken six pictures of the wedding party only show the best two. Don't be too concerned about taking 15 minutes to find which the best two are. Pick two that are representative of the group. You can do the fine tuning on the back end after the client places the order on that particular image. We typically shoot about 4000 images on the job and I like to show about 1500 to 2000 images to the client.
6 -- Remember, also that within our large body of work are several subplots within the larger story. For instance, we may have the bride getting ready at her home. We may have a series of images of the groom at the church. We have the entire series at the church and ceremony images - guests arriving, wedding party processing down the aisle, the entire ceremony and the bride and groom coming back up the aisle at the end of the religious portion of the celebration only to be then followed by the receiving line images.
Folks, that's pretty much it. It's always about getting the best presentation of your images in front of your client. It's always about putting our best foot forward. We want our clients to relive the high points of the wedding/celebration. We want those high points to carry them from the beginning to the end. We want them to be thrilled when they get to that last image – looking at each other knowing they had a beautiful wedding and a great series of images to remember their wonderful celebration.
Turns out, this was the lowest ISO I used all day and night. And, I have to say unequivocally, that it was about the coolest way to shoot for me in recent times. I was able to shoot in extremely low light at a fast enough shutter speed to still get the shot!! Wait, there's more. My main lens was Canon's 24-105mm IS lens - yep, you heard me right - even with the smaller aperture, the super fast ISO still let me get the shot - AMAZING!!!.
The message here is that the old ISO 1600 is the new ISO 12,800!!!
I then ran this image through Noiseware, lighten it a bit, and color corrected it slightly. Check out the second image here.
I think it's a good save and it was shoot at F1.8 @ 1/250 second in the DARK!!!
I wish I had more time to tweak the camera settings to see if I could have ameliorated the noise a bit more too - maybe next time around.
I was pulling off some shots down to 1/20 and 1/8 second routinely. The ring-bearer image is at 1/8 second and the priest with couple is at 1/20 second.
I decided to make it my default lens for the ceremony shots when the action was slow and I need to get in close. The lens was much lighter that my 70-200mm IS, which I still love, by the way, and was just easier to carry around my neck.
For most wedding and family shots, I usually shoot the lens at F5.6. For low light wedding shots, I shoot at ISO at 1600. Normally the wedding images I produce using this lens will be 5x7 or smaller size in their wedding albums, so a little noise reduction works just fine here. Under higher ambient light conditions like the bridesmaids and family group above, I would use the appropriate ISO for the shot - ISO 200-400. 
WOW! What an experience it is to zoom in tight on the subject matter just isolating a bit of it in my composition. I've just found it's a new way of thinking photographically with this lens as my only choice during some of these shoots.
It seems the town's last mayor had to be euthanized - yes, it's legal in Rabbit Hash, Kentucky to euthanized public officials! Watch this short movie for the rest of the story, just click on the movie to view it - 
Hey gang, all kidding aside, this is a "hoot" of a story, and since it's election today, I think it fits appropriately into the blog post this election day. Hit all the related links and start your day out with one of the best "election giggles" ever. Then you can be serious for the rest of the day;~)
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