Tag Archives: landscape

*Sony brings two new, sexy ultrawide zooms to the Full Frame party. JUST ANNOUNCED!!!

by in Photography gear and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

We’ve heard whispers of the Sony FE 16-35mm GM lens bandied about, and perhaps those in the know have also been hearing about an even wider option, but the FE 12-24 f/4 lens just caught me by surprise!

While pre-orders won’t be taken until this Friday, you can submit to have an email alert once they are available via these links which you can see more about these lenses, their specs and will take you directly to B&H:

Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 GM HERE

Sony FE 12-24mm f/4 G HERE

B&H lists the specs of the 16-35 f/2.8 lens as follows:

  • E-Mount Lens/Full-Frame Format
  • Aperture Range: f/2.8 to f/22
  • Two Extra-Low Dispersion Elements
  • Three Aspherical and Two XA Elements
  • Nano AR and Fluorine Coatings
  • Two Direct Drive SSM AF Groups
  • Focus Hold Button, AF/MF Switch
  • Dust and Moisture-Resistant Construction
  • Eleven-Blade Circular Diaphragm

…And the 12-24 f/4 lens is listed at B&H as such:

  • E-Mount Lens/Full-Frame Format
  • Aperture Range: f/2 to f/22
  • Four Aspherical Elements
  • One Super ED and Three ED Elements
  • Nano AR Coating
  • Direct Drive Super Sonic Wave Motor
  • Focus Hold Button, AF/MF Switch
  • Dust and Moisture-Resistant Construction
  • Seven-Bladed Rounded Diaphragm

Obviously, the B&H site has mis-listed the max aperture on the 12-24, but both of these lenses look really, really good on paper.  How they test out optically is yet to be seen, but I’d imagine it won’t take long for us to get many comprehensive reviews very soon.  These are going to be two popular lenses.

The 16-35 looks very nice, and I’m sure will be an extremely popular UWA zoom for pro use, the price is very high in my opinion.  Reminds me of the Canon debate between their EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L and EF 17-40mm f/4 L lenses where the extra stop costs nearly twice as much.  For me personally, I use an ultra wide zoom for interiors and landscapes which usually see me stop down to f/8- f/11 or so, and will be shot on a tripod.  That made the decision for me an easy one.  I see a similar situation here with Sony’s offerings.  The 12-24mm lens looks pretty damn intriguing, and while the price is still very steep, by comparison to the 16-35, for my UWA use, I’d be opting for the wider, slower zoom myself, assuming these both test well optically.

Both are dust and moisture resistant meaning they should do well to hold up in inclement weather for outdoor shooting, as we should expect for lenses like these, targeted and priced for professional use.

Anyhoo, keep an eye out for these bad boys.  Should go some way in helping round out Sony’s full frame lens game for those serious, and deep pocketed shooters.

Cheers, and happy shooting,

Tyson

*Get it off the screen! Beautiful print options via @DigitalSilver Imaging

by in General ramblings, Postprocessing techniques and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

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Remember that really cool feeling of camping out in the dark room, focusing and projecting your image onto photo sensitive paper?  Watching your creation materialize before your eyes in the developer as you lightly rocked the chemicals back and forth, only to see your final image come to life for the first time?  I do.  It’s what sparked my love affair with photography, and if you never got to experience that, I think you should try to find a local community college or community space that still has enlargers, and give it a try.  Now, fast forward… Do you remember me telling you about Digital Silver Imaging and their unique, digital silver gelatin printing process?  To quickly summarize, DSI (find them here) has a process that takes your digital files, and exposes them like a negative, onto photo sensitive paper, and develops them in photo chemistry producing a beautiful, museum quality, archival print.  The beauty and depth of a digital file, with the organic analog feeling of a silver gelatin print, is a very cool, very harmonious and nostalgic thing.  Well, I’ve been back in contact with those fine folks, and after some delightful conversation surrounding the next step in actual mounting of said beautiful prints, this is what came back to me…

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*New Aurora HDR Pro for Mac OS from @wearmacphun

by in Photography Apps, Photography tutorials, Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

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While the practice of merging exposures is a topic of much debate, I don’t really care.  If you’re not into it, I totally understand and respect that.  I too enjoy capturing and processing final images using single frames for 90%+ of my own photography.  For the other stuff though, I do love me a nicely balanced, merged exposure and have for many, many years.  I find the ability to bracket and merge in post a valuable tool when needing to be in and out of a space in a shorter amount of time (as opposed to setting up multiple lights for each and every shot which can limit the total amount of finished shots in the same time period).  I’d like to say that clients will happily pay for 4 or 5 hours while you set up and shoot, but I’ve not found many that will A) have that much down time to shoot unless I want to shoot at 3 in the morning, which I totally don’t) or B) have the budget for, or see the value in a photographer that takes that long to shoot a space.  Time is money, and the more I can save myself (and price my time to the client accordingly) the better off I’ll be. 

Over my personal journey with HDR, I’ve used quite a few programs (HDR Soft/Photomatix, Everimaging HDR, HDR Efex, Photoshop…) and when Macphun and Trey Ratcliff recently announced Aurora HDR for Mac users, I was very interested.  Much of my actual paid photography work falls into the interior design and hospitality realm, working with that wonderful group of folks at the ELK Collective.  

My goal has always been a natural representation of light and space, which as many know, can be tricky when tonemapping images through an HDR program.  When shooting an interior space, I want to take advantage of the actual dynamic range, getting detail in the highlights and shadows when and where I feel necessary, not just tone mapping for a more dramatic effect.  Well, I chose to process my most recent shoot using solely Aurora HDR Pro, and here’s what I found out about that program along the way…   Continue reading →

*Sigma 20mm f/1.4 Art Lens on the Sony a7II and Canon 5DII, a user review w/ @adorama

by in Photography gear and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

 

Sigma Art EF 20mm f/1.4 Lens review

Happy new year! I’ve been having a wonderful holiday season, largely thanks to Adorama for lending me this beaut of a lens.  The Sigma Art 20mm f/1.4 is the widest, f/1.4 full frame lens, and is the newest addition to the much vaunted line of f/1.4 Sigma Art Primes available in Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony FE, Leica L and Sigma mounts.  In this article, we’ll explore a bit of the more measurable aspects as well as the more touchy, feely parts of interacting with this lens.  I shot this lens on both the Canon EOS 5D mkII and the Sony a7II via the EF>FE Metabones MkIV smart adapter, and it performed equally as solid on both cameras.  Is this a viable option for full frame system shooters for fast, ultra wide applications?  Well, seeing as there has never been a full frame compatible lens this wide, this fast, it’s forging new ground for many shooters, and that is pretty rare in this day and age.  C’mon in to see some example images and read my rambling thoughts…

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*Wanna see differently? Check out the Lensbaby Super Holiday Sale

by in Photography gear and tagged , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

©2011tysonrobichaudphotography

My friends and hometown optics company, Lensbaby is offering a wide gamut of their unique products at substantial sales for the holidays.

As many of you know, I tend to shy away from using this site to push gear specials or sales constantly because we get them from many other sites, especially this time of year.  I will however give a shout out for Lensbaby because they’re a very cool, forward thinking, local company that I have been fortunate enough to become friendly with over the years.  I’ve helped create promotional imagery for them, I’ve done quite a bit of beta product testing and feedback, and have been published in a coffee table book focused on Lensbaby imagery.  When I was a wee blogger, they didn’t look twice when I asked about reviewing their lenses for the mirrorless systems way back in the day.  They even had me do some acting spots for their educational videos for larger retailers like B&H and Adorama which was a lot of fun, so you can say that I’m a bit of a honk.

I make no money from you buying Lensbaby products, so I’m not saying this because there is monetary incentive for me to do so, I just like them as a company, and like their products.  If you or someone you know has been interested in one of the many cool Lensbaby optics or creative products for photography or film making, now might be a good time to check on their sale.  You can see updates and find links to all of the discounts going on through the 22nd of December on Lensbaby’s website HERE.  Have a look, and let me know if you have any questions about the Lensbaby stuff, I’ve used quite a bit of it 🙂

If interested, you can see my various Lensbaby reviews and articles on the Review Page HERE.

Happy holidays to all, and happy shooting.

Tyson

*Congratulations to Giovanni Tabbò, our winner of the June Flickr Photo Blog Challenge, Nature!

by in Photo Blog Challenge and tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Congratulations Giovanni Tabbò!  The winner from a very beautiful grouping of wonderful, nature images.  Visit Giovanni HERE to see more of his images, connect with him and befriend him.  I love that I’ve made so many connections across the world through photography, and I hope to continue to do so.  We’re all a few key strokes away, and there is much beauty to be experienced through another’s lens, so don’t be shy.

Giovanni is now entered into our contest of champions where he will be entered into a 6 month vote from our first 6 monthly winners with the title of ultimate champion, and some free stuff on the line.

Thank you to everyone that entered images on both our Flickr group and Mirorrlessons threads, and thanks to Heather and Mat from Mirrorlessons (click here to visit them) for the continued cooperative fun.  Every month, we grow more and more connections within our constantly growing family, so please keep it up!

Stay tuned for this months theme, to follow shortly.

Happy shooting and again, congrats to Giovanni for this well deserved win.

…end transmission 🙂