Gear - Brett Harkness Photography

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Gear Camera Lenses Round-up 84 July 2011 Taking your photography to the next level Mick Cookson wedding photographer - www.mickcookson.com my wedding photography takes me to all types of low light venues – especially in winter. The 24mm f/1.4G AF-S is a lifesaver when shooting reportage-style inside candle-lit receptions etc. At f/2 and 1600/3200 ISo (which is common), the images from it are simply stunning. In short, my reasons for looking at prime lenses over a zoom boils down to a number of factors: they are faster, often smaller and more lightweight, tend to be well built and offer great flexibility and excellent image quality. All of these things are helpful to me in the wedding arena because I have to be able to work quickly and in a variety of testing conditions. my clients will demand the very best quality in the images I provide. If I need to I will also know that the resolution is there in the files to allow me to crop into a picture and to still get great results. I need that back-up and primes are a great partner to have alongside my zooms. Nikon 24mm f/1.4G eD Street price: £1,619 Aperture range: f/1.4-16 Diaphragm blades: 9 (rounded) Elements/groups: 12/10 Close focusing: 25cm Filter size: 77mm Weight: 620g At most weddings I use prime lenses for the majority of the shoot, but had been struggling with a lack of a good 24mm/28mm fast prime. Nikon didn’t make one until a year or so ago – theirs was an f/2.8 version, unlike Canon’s gorgeous f/1.4L, which meant using a 35mm f/2 and compromising. However, when the 24mm f/1.4G AF-S was released I just had to have it! True to form, as with any pro lens, it’s bigger and heavier than a ‘standard’ f/2.8 version – weighing in at 620g with a 77mm filter thread. There’s no aperture ring on the G series of lenses, and the body is mostly polycarbonate. But it feels solid and bullet proof – like a working pro’s lens should. The new 24mm uses Nikon AF-S focusing, and in use is rapid and silent, with accurate spot-on focusing time after time. At f/1.4 the lens puts in a good performance, and is very usable in low light shooting at high ISOs, but really comes into its own from f/2 onwards. Barrel distortion and edge vignetting is still noticeable though at wide apertures. Computer design aside, you’d think that the distortion at least would be better corrected – perhaps a trade-off for resolution? In any case, any curved lines can easily be corrected in image editing software. In use this lens is worth the heavy price tag it commands. The images are just stunning – head and shoulders above my other prime lenses. Results from this 24mm are ridiculously sharp, with plenty of colour and contrast. You can see, even at the Raw file stage, just how much extra resolution this beast has over, say, the 28mm f/2.8 or 35mm f/2 lens. I’ve just bought the new 35mm f/1.4G to go with it and it’s important to me to have the quality and flexibility behind me that the best quality primes can provide. For those involved in the wedding market it’s a great way to work and although there is obviously a place for zooms as well in this environment, primes are the natural choice for my business. aBOVe: The extra width the 24mm allows, in combination with the f/1.4 aperture, is perfect for my style of wedding portraiture. It gives my images more of a ‘street’ look that really works for me LeFT: A fast prime lens paired with a high Iso gives you the opportunity to look for detail at a wedding and to shoot high quality images using just the available light
Gear Camera Lenses Round-up Karl Shaw portrait photographer - www.k4rl.co.uk As photographers, we should all take our time and think more, and a prime lens certainly enables me to do this. Studio environments are hectic places where you have so many things on your plate, from the model’s clothes and hair through to your lighting and backgrounds, and you are often paying for everything by the hour! So there is a temptation to rush, which I don’t feel is conducive to creative thinking. Primes also force you to use your brain more when it comes to composition, as you need to shift your position rather than just zoom in and out. Fast apertures are great for bokeh effects, but they also tend to make focusing easier and they give you a clearer viewfinder too – both of which are important to me.. But I also feel they make a photographer’s job easier in that your perspective is set and your options are more restricted. In short, I would be lost without my 50mm. Nikon aF 50mm f/1.8D Street price: £110 Aperture range: f/1.8-22 Diaphragm blades: 7 Elements/groups: 6/5 Close focusing: 45cm Filter size: 52mm Weight: 155g There are three main reasons that I like the 50mm: first it’s bitingly sharp, which is essential for portraits. Second, there is virtually no chromatic aberration (yellow/purple fringing) to be seen in the images and third, I favour the human eye-view perspective the 50mm gives. It helps that this f/1.8 lens is as cheap as chips as well, which for the quality you can get from it, particularly when partnered with my full frame Nikon D3s, makes it particularly good value. For this price you can afford to take a punt and add it to your kit bag just on the off-chance that you might find a use for it and, believe me, I’m sure you will. I don’t tend to need ultra fast maximum apertures in any case as most of my work is shot in a studio environment, so this is why I opted to go for the f/1.8 rather than the more expensive versions; it just gives me what I need. As you’d expect, the AF performance is very good, though it has been known to hunt a little if I am being super critical. It’s very light in the hand – big zooms, such as the 24-70mm, though lovely, are very heavy by comparison and you really feel them after a long studio session – but the small size of this prime can be also a bit of a disadvantage, particularly when hand-holding in portrait format. There’s not really anything to get hold of on this lens and I end up with both hands holding the camera rather than the lens, which is not always comfortable. The viewfinder image is nice and bright, so quickly checking AF accuracy is easy and doesn’t halt the flow of a sitting; I very rarely use the lens in mF. Chromatic aberration is virtually non-existent – even the best zooms suffer a little with this – and there are no issues with corner vignetting either, so this saves me time in Photoshop. The 50mm gives me flexibility with working distances too; a studio can be huge or really tight, but the 45cm close focus means I can get in close if I need to. In short, I’ve got a pro spec lens that costs less than a crappy kit lens on an entry-level DSLr, and really what more could you ask for! aBOVe: I’m always amazed at just how good this little lens is. Add to that the life-like perspective and I think this is one of the top studio lenses you can buy LeFT: You need to take a little care around the edges of the frame with the 50mm on a fullframe if working in close as you can get some distortions in your shots Camera Lenses Round-up Jon Buckle editorial sports photographer – www.jonbucklephoto.com I suppose some may say that I am old school, but I like the fact that prime lenses challenge you more as a photographer; zooms can end up being a distraction and you can miss things or spend too much time worrying about a fraction more or less magnification. Fixed lenses make you think more about where you position yourself and the type of shot you are after before you even get your gear out. Okay, I may miss a few shots here and there, but the benefits of far crisper images, greater separation and faster AF far outweigh the odd celebration shot I can’t capture. They also make you, the photographer, get up and move about rather than fall back on the zoom as some form of compromise in composition and quality; they make you look for a picture. Of course, zooms definitely have their place, I just prefer the primes for my sports and portraiture work. Nikon aF-S 400mm f/2.8G eD Vr II Street price: £6,648 Aperture range: f/2.8-22 Diaphragm blades: 9 (rounded) Elements/groups: 14/11 Close focusing: 2.9m Filter size: 52mm (rear) Weight: 4.62 Kg Nikon aF DC 135mm f/2D Street price: £969 Aperture range: f/2-16 Diaphragm blades: 9 (rounded) Elements/groups: 7/6 Close focusing: 1.1m Filter size: 72mm Weight: 815g Nikon aF-S 85mm f/1.4G Street price: £898 Aperture range: f/1.4-16 Diaphragm blades: 9 (rounded) Elements/groups: 10/9 Close focusing: 85cm Filter size: 77mm Weight: 595g Gear I have a passion for bold images that are generally quite tight, so the 400mm is ideal for this. It’s my main lens for action shots at the footie, usually on the 18 yard line, and it’s especially good for floodlit matches due to the super-fast aperture – but I also use it at Wimbledon for tight head shots too. I only shoot on full-frame Nikon D3s cameras to make full use of wide apertures. The images from the 400mm are just so crisp, clean and full of contrast, and I can shoot at f/2.8, and even f/4, and achieve such beautiful soft backdrops to my images that they sometimes seem unnatural. The AF is superb and super fast too; a complete trust in your kit is so important for me. I often use the AF limiter for things like cricket, which is a great feature. Though it does have VR II, I don’t tend to use it that much; the D3s’ ISO is just so good when combined with the fast aperture, it’s just not needed. Until you have shot portraits at f/2, you really don’t know what you are missing. The 135mm perspective is so lovely, and the bokeh you can achieve is amazing. More regularly, though, I use this lens for the footie and mid-length shots at tennis where scruffy backgrounds are a constant problem, but f/2 soon sorts them out. Being a little shorter in the focal length stakes you can grab shots of players closer in to goal, which is where I most often use it. It’s also employed down the wicket line at the cricket on a Pocket Wizard, which is operated by my foot. When wide open, your focusing has to be perfect as the depth-of-field is zilch, but the viewfinder image this produces is one of the best in my kit bag so checking accuracy is not too bad at all. This really is a lens that produces a ‘wow’ factor and in my line of work, where I need to stand out from others, this lens definitely helps me do that. If the 135mm f/2 was good then this lens, certainly at wide apertures, is just unbeatable. It’s such a flexible lens and good for anything from tight headshots to three-quarter length portraits etc. People sometimes look at the portraits I’ve taken on this lens and think I’ve done something whizzy in Photoshop, but, of course, I haven’t – in fact this lens is nicknamed ‘The Cream Machine’, and with good reason. Admittedly, this super-wide look isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I love it. It’s also a great lens to experiment with as the working distance is so flexible; 85cm on a 85mm is quite tight, and I love these bolder compositions, but by moving about a bit you can play with angles and views – it helps to keep me on my toes. The perspective of this lens is particularly pleasing for portraits, as it doesn’t have the slight ‘distortion’ of the 50mm. The images, to me, just feel so natural and really pop out at you. 86 July 2011 Taking your photography to the next level Taking your photography to the next level July 2011 87 LeFT: I’m a massive fan of tight shots as they add copious amounts of drama into the images – of course, it helps if you’re shooting rooney! rIGHT: You sometimes need to be able to leave some of the background in to give the image a sense of place. shot at f/4, the faces help to tell the image’s story
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Gear - Brett Harkness Photography

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