Hip hop party in Gala Hala

Yesterday I was on a hip hop party in Metelkova Mesto. It was crazy. DJs were rolling mostly good old-school rap. I was there with my boy DkleMan . DJ Ninja put us on her guest list and we returned her the favour, by making her a few photos. We almost missed her gig, because one of the DJs canceled, so she started a couple of hours earlier, so we managed to get only a few photos of her, without the time to set up the camera and flash unit properly. We are "noobs" when it comes to party photography and need a bit more time to get the settings right. When we got it right she already finished and DJ Supastar came on the stage. I took most of the shots with the kit lens 18-55 and flash unit Canon 430 EX on Canon 350D. I mounted Sigma 30 1.4 (which I'm currently testing) for a short period of time, but it wasn't wide enough.

On the first two photos you can see miss DJ Ninja, on the last three DJ Supastar:

Goldeneye

The star of this short post will be a kitten I named Goldeneye. After the Photoshop manipulation. He had green eyes, but I figured they looked a bit dull when I partially desaturated the image (it sounds kinda funny using the word partly, since only a percent of it is left in colours). I met him when I was wondering what to shoot in one of the most interesting towns in Slovenia, Izola (I wanted to do some architecture since it's pretty interesting, colourful mediterranean, but I'm not sure if I made a single shot of it). That was back in October 2005.

Slo-Foto.net shooting

On August 25th 2006 Slo-foto organised another shooting with pro models. Until this shooting, we (I'm a part of the Slo-foto team) only had various photo workshops. This time we decided that theory and mentorship were unnecessary and focused on the practical part only, since many experienced photographers don't care much about theory and they just want to have a session with good models. And it's cheaper too. A friend of mine attended the shooting and she was amazed by professional approach of the models, which made it easier for her to take photos (and make good photos), since she had no experience with model shooting. At the same time this was a chance for her to see other photographers at work, especially more experienced ones - we all know that the relationship between the model and the photographer is very important (if you want your photos to be good).

We began the shooting on Metelkova in Ljubljana, which offers many interesting places to shoot. Urban&alternative. Interesting. The second part of the shooting was supposed to take place in Ljubljana's main park, Tivoli. But we had to choose another location, because DJ Umek had a big event there at that day, so we decided to shoot the second part in the surroundings of Ljubljana's castle. The environment is pretty much the same as in Tivoli (nature and a castle). We intentionally picked contrasting locations (urban/nature and historical architecture), to offer the participants a variety of environments for photography.








The editor chose this one for the magazine cover:



Since I didn't have the time to make a complete coverage (I was busy holding reflectors etc and took a few shots myself since I needed a photo for the cover of ONA magazine), here's a link to Slo-foto forum, with more photos.

My dawgs

I dedicate this post to all my friends, which I often bothered with my camera. All of this photos are spontaneous snapshots. Shots were made in the last year and a half, using various cameras (from Canon 350D to Canon 1Ds mkII), all of them with fixed focal lenght lenses, 50 1.8 or 85 1.8 (besides the two with obvious UWA distortions).

Let's start with the best hairdresser in town:

My mean man Nikolaj:

Desperate for the first hit of nicotine that day:

Luc, the administrator of the best Slovenian photo site

. . . Alien?


. . . OG #1:



Cheese:

A short session with Sandra

In the beginning of December I was supposed to have a session with Sandra. Unfortunately I got sick the day before the session, so I had to cancel it. Because she planned on going to Ljubljana anyway and I really wanted to have a session with her (although I was still sick and wasn't feeling well), I called her and asked her if we can still do a short version of the session. A kind of a try out session, since she didn't prepare for it, because I had to cancel it (she didn't had the clothes for the session, no extra make up etc). So we had a 30 min session and this is the result:



We're planing a real session in the spring/summer, I'll make her book photos, so she can take on pro modeling.

The best of 2005

2005 was the year I started taking photography as a serious hobby. In may 2005 I bought my first DSLR, Canon 350D (which I still use). Before that I used two compact cameras for around 9 months, before I finally realized compact cameras are limiting me. In 2005 I was a frequent visitor of the ZOO, I was there at least 15 times. On the other hand I had just a few portrait sessions (5-6). I attended a portrait/fine art nude workshop in the summer and a fashion workshop in the fall. At the first workshop, the most important thing that I learned is the interaction with the model (I observed the more experienced photographers). The second was more of a shooting, then a workshop, but it was a great experience working with many beautiful models. I chose the best portrait of 2005 and the best big cat photo.

Ghetto style



Far faraway is Africa

www.slo-foto.net fashion photo workshop

The workshop took place on a sunny day on may 13th 2006. We had 7 models and two sports cars. The practical part (shooting) was in Metelkova mesto, a place for alternative culture, art and music. There are many interesting places to shoot, endless walls of graffiti, staircases and sculptures. I'm going to show you a few of my photos (again I didn't take that many shots, since I coordinated the workshop and assisted photographers by holding reflectors). I wanted to put a link to the workshop coverage on www.slo-foto.net, but unfortunately all the photos were hosted on shrani.si, which deletes the photos after a few months (only text is left...).

On this image, behind/below the sexy model, you can see a Porsche Boxter S (a part of it really), which is no ordinary Boxter S. The owner RSR motorsport exchanged the engine with Porsche's 911 and tuned it up to 367 horsepower (over 100 more then the stock Boxter S), suspension and rims were changed and carbon body kit was added. Unfortunately I didn't take pics of the cars (there was a turbo charged 315 horsepower Audi TT roadster as well), since other photographers did. As mentioned before I can't link it to the workshop coverage, since the photos was deleted from webhosting site shrani.si.





. ... . . . Fetish?

3rd session with Tisa

That's the third session with my favourite model. We've had 5 so far and she was a model on a portrait workshop that we organized on slo-foto, but I didn't take many photos with her since I was one of the project managers (I was too busy with other things). We've waited for a long time, for this session, since the winter was so long, so we had this session on 22nd april 2006. I could say this was a breakthrough session, she's an excellent model since then, I always get many good photos (for my level, ofcourse) when shooting with her, many more then with most of the other girls.

This one was on the cover of ONA magazine:

Having fun with Sigma 8 mm f3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye

Last week I had this lens for a test, so I had some fun with it. I took a few funny portraits of my friends. I'm going to get it back soon, together with Canon 1Ds, so I'll do serious tests later. I'm not sure how serious, because I'm not sure what you can shoot besides photos of skateboarders and funny portraits, which I already did. I heard it's also usable for astrophotography and for paragliders (if they shoot during the flight, they really get everything in the picture). And ofcourse for panoramas.

All the photos are taken in a bar at ISO 400-1250 (800 pushed for 2/3 stops):




Shot wide open at f3,5 and ISO 1250 (800+2/3 stops in Rawshooter). As you can see, sharpness in the center is excellent.

My last session

I had my last real session almost 2 months ago. I was shooting together with my boy Matjaž aka Matias. He's a photoreporter and a semi-pro fashion and portrait photographer, you can see his works on billboards all over his hometown Celje. We were supposed to have two models, Andreja and another girl. At the end only Andreja came, because the second model had a mood swing, and changed her mind right before the session. Working in pair with one model sucks, but we still managed to get a few good photos from this session. I've decided to keep my future posts short&sweet (my previous were way too long for most of the visitors of my blog), so I'll get right to the photos.




This one is going to be on the cover of ONA magazine in january.



Here's the link to the photos taken by Matjaž aka Matias

Sigma AF 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC Macro Review

In this post I'm going to write down my thoughts and experiences with this lens. I was testing it for around ten days. That's supposed to be enough to get it all done - but I had 4 more Sigma's to test at the same time (70 2.8 Macro, 10-20 f4-5.6, 18-200 f3.5-6.3 and 50-150 2.8 - review already posted a few days ago), besides that weather was really bad most of the time, either cloudy or it was raining. So it was a full time job. But I enjoyed it, while it was exhausting walking around with two full photo bags (I had two bodies, since 70 2.8 had Nikon mount).


Ok let's get to the lens itself. Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4.5 DC MACRO is in a pretty busy segment. It has a lot of competition, because it's the type of lens that everybody needs on an APS-C camera. That's why it was also highly anticipated, after it was announced. It's a DC (Digital Camera) lens specifically designed for the reduced image circle of today's APS-C DSLRs where its field of view is equivalent to 27-112mm on classic full frame SLRs. The lens is available in Canon EOS, Nikon and native Sigma mount. I tested it on Canon EOS 400D. The optical construction is made of 15 elements in 12 groups with 2 aspherical and one SLD (Special Low Dispersion) element. The aperture mechanism features 7 aperture blades. The minimal focus distance of 20 cm resulting in a maximum magnification of 1:2.3. The Sigma has no floating elements for close focus correction so don't expect wonders at extreme close focus settings. The lens extends significantly during zooming reaching its maximum length at 70mm. It measures 82.5 in lenght and 79 in diameter. It weights 455 g. Built quality is good, not like EX class, but better then most (or even all)of kit lenses. It features a standard micro AF motor, which is not that slower than HSM AF motor (it's surprisingly fast, at least at the center AF point), but it is noisier (but not to the extend to be annoying). Focus accuracy is good too. The front element does not rotate so using a polarizer remains easily possible. Filter size is 72 mm. A petal shaped hood is part of the package.

Sharpness is very good in the 17-50 mm range, when stopped down (1 stop or more) , average at 70 mm (even stopped down, it doesn't get much batter). The distortions are average, it suffers from barrel distortion at 17mm, it's quite pronounced. Vignetting is visible also at 17 mm at f2.8. Stopping down 1-2 stops helps to reduce vignetting down to a normal degree (making it hard to spot). I could say the same about CA.

Let's get to the test shots. Unfortunatelly all the photos were taken at ISO 400 (except for CA test), the light condiotions were really bad (I mentioned it before). I've added two crops under each photo. All the shots were taken at 70 mm. As you can see, sharpness is below average. I accidently erased shots taken at 17/24/35/50 mm, they were all better regarding sharpness. Please take this into account because this lens is pretty sharp in 17-50 mm range if stopped down for 1 stop and very sharp if stopped down 2-3 stops.

F4.5, 1/400, ISO 400




F5.6, 1/250, ISO 400




F8, 1/125, ISO 400





All the images below were taken at 17 mm at f2.8-f8(the first sample at f4) from top (f2.8) to the bottom (f8) . Crops show sharpness at various aperture settings, CA is visible on the first crop, on the others you can barely spot it or you even can't spot it.








In this standard CA test Sigma 17-70 performed excellent. I've posted a sample on which CA is most visible, on the other shots I didn't spot it.

F3.2, 1/640, 23 mm, ISO 100


Macro sample (there's a watermark with a www.slo-foto.net sign, don't be alert, I'm the author of the photo as well as author of the text - here's link to the review in slovenian http://www.slo-foto.net/reviews-120-page3.html )

F5, 1/80, 40 mm, ISO 400


Pros:
-sharpness when stopped down a bit (1 stop or more)
-almost no CA
-price
-built quality (at that price)
-fast AF (for a non HSM lens)
-large aperture (at least at the wide end)
-min. focus distance

Cons:
-sharpness wide open
-vignetting wide open
-sharpness at 70 mm at any aperture