silhouette

5D Mk III, EF 24-70 f/2.8 L II at f/3.5

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Silhouette's can be a very interesting to shoot, finding the right background is key, here is a fern set against a brooding sky, converted to black and white in lightroom. I especially like to shoot people in profile like this one here or this one.

Ross

Images In Light

Stormy Weather

 5Dmk III, 24-70 f/2.8 L II, f/9, 1/125 sec, 35mm hand held

5Dmk III, 70-200 f/4 L IS, f/4, 1/800 sec, 100mm hand held

 5Dmk III, 24-70 f/2.8 L II, f/10, 1/160 sec, 35mm hand held

I love shooting weather, one of these days I'll go storm chasing in the Midwest and chase some real weather, until then I will have to work with the occasional hurricane remnant that works its way up from Mexico like this one last weekend in Big Sur. 

I head out whenever possible if weather is in the forecast, the next trip to Yosemite will be based on that. Incoming weather is always a good opportunity for landscape photography, it sets a mood that sunny blue sky's just can't do. Ideally it happens at sunset or sunrise, adding that wonderful light to a moody sky.

Ross

Images In Light

Panasonic DMC-GX8 announced

Panasonic announced the new GX8 with some pretty nice specs for a M43 (micro 4/3) camera, 20mp's is a first for a M43. Dynamic range is supposed to be increased and new processing power is supposed to keep pace with the 16mp GX7's 6fps speed continuous AF. The Dual IS system, sounds very interesting. It combines sensor and optical lens stabilization.

It seems Olympus has gone to sleep and left Panasonic to do the innovation in the micro four thirds realm, not sure why Olympus has been so quiet, perhaps they are preparing a 20mp sensor from Sony also. If this f/.95 lens was AF, I would consider this option. Come on Olympus, give us some really fast primes. The lens options are not bad, but not good enough to budge me to the mount.

Review: Imaging Resource here
Pocket Lint here
Camera Labs here
Phoblographer here
DPreview here

20.3 MP Digital Live MOS Sensor

Venus Engine Image Processor

Micro Four Thirds System

Tilting 2.36m-Dot 0.77x OLED EVF

3.0" 1.04m-Dot Vari-Angle Touchscreen

4K UHD Video Recording at 30/24 fps

Built-In Wi-Fi Connectivity with NFC

10 fps Shooting with AF-S and ISO 25600

DFD AF System, 4K Photo Modes

In-Camera Image Stabilization, Dual I.S.

Priced at $1198 body only, it will be a hard sell for a small sensor camera, but if image quality comes in high, it would be nice used with some of the fast primes from Panasonic and Olympus.

See the preview at DPReview here 

Ross
Images In Light

The right lens for the job

Image: Soberanes Point, 5d Mk III, EF 16-35 f/4 L IS, f/13, 18mm, 1/100 sec, hand held.

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I have been in search of the right wide angle lens for a long time for my system, finally Canon produces with the EF 16-35 f/4 L IS, after a few weeks of using this lens I could not be happier.

If you are looking for a good landscape lens, this is the one, even adapted to an A7r II with a Metabones adapter this will produce sharp images with plenty of resolution to match even the new 5DSR.

I would say this is the best wide angle lens on the market, I have tested out the EF 11-24 f/4 L and I would rather have this lens any day of the week. The 11-24 f/4 is a great lens, but this is a lot smaller, can use filters and fits my style of shooting better than the 11-24.

Ross
Images In Light

Getting the right shutter speed for motion

Garrapata Beach. 5D Mk III, 70-200 f4 L IS, 1.3 sec at f/13

With neutral density filters you can get the shutter speed you want at almost any time of day, on this very bright morning at Garrapata I used a 6 stop filter on a 70-200 f/4 L IS lens to isolate the rocks and show movement in the waves. 

It takes a while in the morning for the sun to get over the hill behind the beach, so when it arrives its pretty intense in the summer, holding back the light with a neutral density filter helped to cut down on that very bright sun and give me the shutter speed I wanted to show some motion in the waves without completely smoothing out the water.

I could have used a 10 stop filter but the effect would have been more than I wanted, by using aperture priority I could have easily gone to 30 seconds and completely smoothed out the ocean, but I was looking for crashing waves with a small amount of motion to show the interaction with the rocks.

I have found for slight motion in waves .6 to 2 seconds is a pretty good rule of thumb to use depending on wave height and light conditions.

Ross

Images In Light