Cool Christmas Present

Dr Lobster* · Sun 02 Jan, 2011 22.35

hey hey,

i got the sigma 85 1.4 for chrimbo, my first 3rd party lens and i am very impressed by it's performance. all these shots, except the slide one, were shot wide open at f1.4 (the slide one was at f2).

i know there are a few photography enthusiasts on the board so here are a few shots from christmas and new year.

if you're looking for a fast 85mm prime and you don't want to spend megabucks (the canon 85 1.2 and nikon 85 1.4 are both around £1600.... this cost £600) then you should seriously give this lens some consideration.

it will take some practise at f1.4 if you've never used a large aperture lens before, but when you crack it you'll find your photos have a dreamy quality about them that's hard to reproduce with anything else.

Steve in Pudsey · Mon 03 Jan, 2011 22.17

Stunning shots, spectacular Depth of Field on those.

Once you've used a prime lens you'll never go back to a zoom - I love my 50mm/f1.8 prime for my Sony

Dr Lobster* · Tue 04 Jan, 2011 17.22

thanks steve.

you can't go far wrong with 50mm prime

as much as i love my primes (i've got the 85 1.4 and 135 f2 now), i couldn't be without my flexible zooms - i use primes when i've got complete control of the situation, but with kids, i have to use a zoom. i just can't shuffle fast around enough!

but you are right of course, a wide aperture prime gives an image an intangible quality.... i guess it's because we're so used to seeing everything in focus with our eyes, some people are quite surprised when they see the picture on the back of the lcd and the busy distracting background is rendered into a wonderfully soft defocused coloured mush.

Critique · Tue 04 Jan, 2011 20.13

As always, wonderful! I love how your children have a sort of glow around them as the background turns defocused. By default though, I do like pictures with an out of focus background, which Macro can be rather bad at sometimes, even in my best attempts.

dosxuk · Tue 04 Jan, 2011 20.59

Dr Lobster* wrote:i guess it's because we're so used to seeing everything in focus with our eyes, some people are quite surprised when they see the picture on the back of the lcd and the busy distracting background is rendered into a wonderfully soft defocused coloured mush.

I wonder if it's actually the opposite... While everthing is optically focused in our eyesight, we're very good at picking out a particular item to focus on that, and that alone. We're so used to seing pictures where we have to search out the item of interest as everything is focused and sharp, that seeing a photo where only the item of interest is focused makes it easy on the eyes and the brain.

Dr Lobster* · Tue 04 Jan, 2011 22.33

thanks critique - what lens do you have, btw? my canon ef 100 f2.8 macro was quite a good portrait lens... i sometimes regret selling it, but you could do some really nice out blurry backgrounds with that. obviously not as diffused at the 135f2, but still really nice.

dosxuk - maybe you're right... maybe it does help you workout what's supposed to be important in the photograph - never really thought about it that way.

i think you have to be really careful with narrow depth of field though and use it wisely - i'm not sure if any of you guys watch the nigella lawson cookery programmes, but how everything nearly everything is out of focus AND the camera moves around like it's being held some somebody being tickled makes it completely unwatchable... well, nearly unwatchable

that in my mind is how to do narrow dof badly.... it just doesn't work. maybe if the camera was still it would, the wonderful spectacular highlights in the background are very pleasing.

Critique · Tue 04 Jan, 2011 22.43

I have a Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8, macro lens, of couse. That too is a nice lens in itself, but I think the problem I'm having with it,

Dr Lobster* · Tue 04 Jan, 2011 22.48

that's a great lens. silly question, but i presume you're setting your camera to AV mode and forcing it to use f2.8?

Critique · Tue 04 Jan, 2011 22.50

... I think the problem I have with it is that there isn't much of a feel of depth at times, which ruins the effect for me. It can be very sharp, and the contrast can be great, and at f/2.8 it makes great portrait shots, but I feel that it is lacking at times. I'm going to look at the lens you've got, as maybe I'm looking for something more like that.

Critique · Tue 04 Jan, 2011 23.03

Yes, I do that. I think, as I'll elaborate, it's due to the fact that, although this may sound contradictory to previous posts, shots seem softer at 70mm, although I'm probably expecting too much.

Apologies for not editing, I'm on the BlackBerry mobile client.