Canon 16-35 2.8L USM preview

I returned the lens today and I intend to post the review by the end of this week. As you can see I didn't go to Venice, the trip was canceled. I really looked forward to it, since I could really test the lens on a carnival with all those masks and interesting architecture. Instead of that I had to test it in Ljubljana, which was almost "maskless". To be honest I wouldn't even take this lens for the test if it weren't for Venice, because UWA lenses really don't interest me that much. Besides that I've decided that I'm going to test portrait primes almost exclusively.

I'm going to save you from all this talking and get straight to the photos, that I've taken today with my mean man Fločo. All of this in a few minutes. Models like this are really rare. They're priceless. His specialty is appearing retarded. And I'm laughing out loud again, when I'm viewing them...

This one just has to be enlarged!

Šta da vam kažem...

Snapshot with Canon 16-35 2.8L

I took "my" new kit (Canon 1D mkII and Canon 16-35 f2.8L) with me to the local bar, where I met Blaž for a cup of coffee. I had to check the sharpness wide open and at f3.2, so I wouldn't mess up any shots tomorrow in Venice. As I suspected, it's pretty soft wide open, so I'll use it in the f3.5-f5.6 range most of the time. For min DOF shots, I'll take my 85 1.8 with me, which is razor sharp even when it's wide open.

Out of 4-5 shots, this one came out best. Lighting was interesting, so I boosted up contrast (yeah, the skin is intentionally overexposed:).

Trip to Venice

I've equipped myself today for the trip to Venice on Sunday, where I'll be one of the mentors (every mentor helps/teaches a group of people that attended the workshop). I got Canon 16-35 2.8L (a short review will follow next week) and Canon 1D mkII. It's the time of carnival in Venice, which is known for its beautiful masks, besides the interesting architecture.





I just hope the weather will be nice, with no rain. There's at least one good side, if it's going to rain; my photo equipment is going to be 100% weather proof:).

15 minute balcony session

I digged this session in my archive. Shots were taken in early October 2006, when my friend Matias was testing studio lighting in Kazina. After a few shots that I made inside with the 2 sofboxes he had, I got bored (I hate studio photography since you are stuck in one place) and shooting at f9 made me sick so I had to ran out on the balcony and make a f1.8 series with Andreja. I'm going to show you a lot of the photos I took, so you can get a picture of what we were shooting.

I started with my tiny Canon 50 1.8 at f2.5 (because it's not sharp below f2.5), the first 3 are made with it:




85 mm, f1.8:

Below you can see two 85 mm, f1.8 shots, with beautiful bokeh. Focused on the near eye:

Again 85 mm, f1,8 focused on the far eye:

Yeah that's me (reflection in the eye). Huge crop f3.5, 1/80 handheld and still sharp:

Please help me decide on the crop. The first one is the original capture, second is cropped:


This come out best of all in my opinion - yeah you've already seen it in another post. 85mm f1.8

EDIT(added at 16.00): I forgot about this "ninja style" photo. I took a few photos like this one, to focus on her beautiful eyes:

Experiment

Today I went to the abandoned factory Rog with my friend Nikolaj. I planned on having a session there, so we went there to try a few improvised lighting setups, so I'd be ready for the session and wouldn't be loosing time with finding the right setup. Ok, setup is probably not the right word, since I only have a single Canon 430 EX flash unit and a 95 cm reflector. So we played around with different reflector positioning, bouncing the natural light from the reflector and flash from the ceiling or just flash of the reflector (in most cases). I hoped I'd be able to shoot with available light only in some parts of the factory, but unfortunately that wasn't possible. Besides that, my favourite prop was gone, a bed, a part of it really, made from wood and some kind of fabric, similar to velvet. I planned a big part of the session (with a female model, not with my friend:) around that bed. So I don't think I'm going to have a session there. What a shame, I was so happy, because I thought I found a great spot for my next session...

This shot was taken with the Canon 18-55 kit lens wide open (f3.5:)) and Canon 430 EX flash bounced off the reflector on the lower left and window light on the right:

Assistant

Today I was assisting Ciril Jazbec, who's in my opinion one of the best Slovenian photographers. We were shooting portraits of talented, promising young actors, painters, web designers etc for one of the slovenian magazines. The session took place in an abandoned factory Rog in Ljubljana. The environment was awesome.
It was a great experience working with Ciril and watching him in action. I took only a few photos, since we were on a pretty tight schedule, so nothing special came out, I'm posting these two photos, so you can see the environment we worked in.

Full Frameless

Yeah, Canon 1Ds mkII is gone. I had to return it yesterday. Damn, it was fun using it, I was doing real min DOF shots for the whole weekend. I plan on buying Canon 5/6D and Canon 135 f2L 'till the end of this year anyway. So sooner or later I'll own the min (or mean:) DOF machine and use it all the time, not just from time to time like now. I can't wait...

These are the last photos taken with it. It was on Sunday during the "coffee time". I took just a few shots and those two came out pretty interesting.