I don't really shoot babies...

[Raymond Lin]

I met up with Ruth (from my first weddings) today for lunch, just to catch up and talk about her friend's wedding who I should be the photographer too next year. I knew she was bring her new born daughter so I bought along my camera to take a few pictures

Babies are hard to shoot!

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

 

[Raymond Lin]

I think your camera has a front focusing problem.

LOL, on a serious note....

It's not the camera, it's the lens.

I have noticed that lately, I am not sure if it is front focusing, it is ever so slightly off since the last wedding. I could micro adjust it but planning to send it to fixation when i get back from Italy since it is still under warranty.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Did you use the same lense that you use for wedding shots?

It's my 35L.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Any link to that lense?

Also do you need a licence to shoot babies (if you wanted to shoot them pro?) or just a CRB check?

It's this one

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/reviews/canon-ef-35mm-f-1.4-l-usm-lens-review.aspx

And no, no licence, I know her lol ! Her mother was there too. Plus, I would pass a CRB check if there ever needs one, I am a member of the law society.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Thanks for that Raymond , do you use the 35mm a lot in your wedding shots?

I mean just in general with working with babies if you wanted to shoot baby photography as a profession?

I have used it a lot since i got it. 1.4 means I can practically shoot in the dark. I love it.

i don't think you need CRB checks if it is a private client, but you would if you go anywhere near schools.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Nice lens but as with all fast lenses they usually work better a few stops above the minimum and with an unfussy background.

Better off pushing the ISO than relying on the aperture to draw in the light and losing detail in the dof.

That would be true for the kit lens or something cheaper but not for an L, and certainly not for one of the Holy Trinity.

Trust me, when i first got it, it can hit it at 1.4.

It's a £1,000 lens, if I need to shoot it a few stop narrower I would save myself £800 and get the 2.0. That's the point of the L, the ability to shoot wide open and sharp.

 

[Raymond Lin]

.. is a feature of every lens but doesn't always produce the right result in a given situation.

Those shots you posted as an example could be bettered with a nifty fifty if the wall lights in the background were not in the frame, you shot closer to the hyperfocal sweet spot of the lens and went tighter into the subject at f4 to get the whole 4" depth of the subjects face in focus, not just the nose, if you see what I mean ?

I would love to argue but thought I just show you some evidence instead.

In particular, the second shot - 1/40th at ISO 640.

 

[Raymond Lin]

I'm not going to argue, either, arguing on the internet and all that...

There's nothing in shot 2 couldn't reproduced with gaussian blur in photoshop.

Most people would just think it's OOF.

Photographers might reasonably argue that those are not good examples of what that lens can achieve.

Shooting a subject using available light with a lens which on paper should handle it doesn't mean that it will do
so hand held and that you shouldn't use a tripod and a reflector and select the right focus point or take your time.

And the chroma ?

I dunno where to start with all that.

1 - "Most people would think its OOF" - then why don't we all go home right now, sell our primes, sell our 2.8 lenses and all shoot with Kit lens.

2 - "Photographers might reasonably argue that those are not good examples of what that lens can achieve." - I don't really know what photographers you are referring to, but if that isn't a sample from a 35L then YOU show me some samples of what the lens can achieve then...action speak louder than words and all that.

3 - "Shooting a subject using available light with a lens which on paper should handle it doesn't mean that it will do
so hand held and that you shouldn't use a tripod and a reflector and select the right focus point or take your time." - What are you saying? That it isn't sharp at 1/40th? Or that I should have pulled out a tripod to take a photo? What does a tripod got to to with anything about my lens needing calibration? Seriously, what are you on about? The babies shots are all taken 1/80th at 400ISO and above and they are now not as sharp as when i got it...I can tell the difference, hence needing calibration.

4 - CA - see the fire behind it? That doesn't help, and the 35L is known for some CA, it could be my filter too.

But seriously, we are not talking about CA, we are not talking about Tripods, we are not talking about fake gaussian blur (that makes me laugh, and really doesn't help your credibility).............What are you talking about? I am talking about my lens needs calibrating, you are talking about how I should shoot with a kit lens stop down a few, fake the bokeh in Photoshop....

Sure, I am not going to argue on the internet, it is pointless. Clearly.

There's nothing in shot 2 couldn't reproduced with gaussian blur in photoshop.

Sorry, had to quote that again.

 

[Raymond Lin]

With a lens that good its madness to bung a filter on it though - a hood or nothing surely.

Well, it had it from day 1. and it is not madness. Have you tried to take photos amongst 100+ people holding alcohol, smoke machine, dancing, rain, wind, etc etc?

It was sharp with the plants, with the fire.

It is not as sharp now.

The filter hasn't changed, so its not the variable. Are you saying I should take it off and magically it will be sharp? or just give up on it and shoot with a 50/1.8 and fake all my bokeh in PS and avoid shooting in situations where there are lights in the background because it won't look as good compare to my 1.4?

Noo......get the lens calibrated would be easier....I don't really know what you 2 are trying to say...

 

[Raymond Lin]

I will give you more samples from OTHER lenses shooting wide open AND Sharp.

135L

85/1.8

24-70L

Need any more proof that you can shoot wide open and still get sharp images?

Or should I start gaussian blur them all?

Or start shooting with disposables so everything will be in focus?

 

[Raymond Lin]

Most people would think it's just OOF. Any attempt to explain dof and primes to parents usually fail by about word 6.

Is that what you think when you watch a movie? I am pretty sure 99% of the time it is only the actors that are in focus, the background are always blur. do you immediately think the movies is shot entirely out of focus?

You should bring people up to your level of understanding, not lower it to theirs.

Educate, not lower your standard.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Knock yerself out, kidda ..

1 needs to lose the brown blob bottom left and the yellow orb centre

which is

2 sweet image but needs a tighter crop to lose the distraction left and right

3 lovely

4 NOSE

5 focus in on the wrinkles of the knuckles, Women hate wrinkles. I would have tried to put the focal point on the bride's ring (and probably failed)

6 ditto, highlights blown, no definition in the diamond, overall ? wrinkles.

Just an opinion mind

LOL, are you serious?

2, 4 & 6 are not photos per se, they are 100% cropped of 1, 3 & 5 respectively. I am showing you they are sharp at 100%...and you are commenting on how I should crop the nose out and remove wrinkles from the hand? lol

Okay, time for bed, but you have given me some laughs tonight !

 

[Raymond Lin]

Raymond, next wedding I think you should shoot at the smallest aperture possible and then just use gaussian to mimic a shallow depth of field. Shouldn't take too long to do that to 400+ photos should it?

LOL, and tell them they can have the photos by their Silver Anniversary ?

 

[Raymond Lin]

Not having a go, I was just saying the uv filter is achieving nothing useful and may affect image quality. It adds nothing, the hood protects the lens and minimizes the chance of the filter interfering with things.

That's all I was saying certainly not advocating any of the other stuff you mention.

Well, the question here is always going to be MAY break the lens vs MAY affect IQ.

I prefer to be safer than sorry. I can't exactly go out to get another lens in the middle of a shoot. If I work in a studio then I would agree but when I can't control the environment, not to mention I can't control others, that'd the main thing, other people, it's why I leave it on.

 

[Raymond Lin]

In all honesty you seem very aggressive. This would be ok if it were me you were critiscising, as im not very well liked and im rubbish at photography, so people would put up with it, but tbh I and many others consider Raymonds work to be excellent so coming on here with 167 posts to your name and almost ridiculing his work is not really something anyone wants to see This coming from me is about the nicest thing you will hear on this forum

I was aware of them when she took her coat off, but it's just nature, having a baby and all that. She's also becoming a good friend, so I don't see her that way. There are other shots where she leaned closer hence in focus but i am aware of the male population here soooooo I left those out lol

I have put them in a gallery for her to see though, behind a password of course

 

[Raymond Lin]

i think people are being a little harsh on the new guy. Some of what he says holds credence, i dont profess to be an expert by any means mind. The crops for example to prove sharpness, were all taken from the centre of the frame. Its my understanding the effects will be observed more in the corners and edges, which would have been a better test of the quality of the Lens, no?

As for your work Raymond, i said in another thread i wish you'd done my wedding, typically you produce great shots. HOWEVER, two points i'd make further are:

1) you don't seem to take criticism well, deserved or otherwise (which is fine, no one likes criticism, but i have noticed a couple of times you get very defensive very quickly)

2) i fear you are using DOF to generate a focal point too much maybe now? I dont see all of your shots, so i may be seeing a skewed ratio, but whilst i agree they create a focal point they do render a lot of the other image useless. As an example, that one at the top of the woman sitting at the back of the room. Technically a great shot. For me and my wedding, i'd rather see a nice photo of the whole crowd than a blurred shot of the crowd, and a clear photo of someone who may not be that significant to my day. Just my 2p though.

I do welcome criticism, when it has merits. I can see faults (quite a few in the photos at the start of this thread too but no one seem to picked up on it) The first photo could have been framed a little wider. I didn't like cutting off half her head, especially where her eyes are. The bottom where the table was could be cropped out, same with No. 3, bottom left corner.

But saying I should have use gaussian blur…I am sorry if I choose not to take that seriously, I mean, how can I?

The lady in a crowd shot, that's just one, out of many, I usually take a serious of photos where I pick a person out of a crowd so they make more sense as a set. I can see what you mean that I get defensive, perhaps I do, but I do so because I see more than you guys see. I see the 700 photos set of a wedding so when you say something like "I prefer to see a photo with the every person's experssion", well, they are there, but it's not shown here that's all, which means your comments is invalid, but you don't know that since you can't see what I see. So I can't say "you are wrong" because its not your fault that I chice not to put them up. Also, the technicaly restriction to shoot everyone in focus in a crowd is practically impossible at a wedding a lot of the time. You need to shoot at F/16 or something to get about 20 metres deep (some of the venues I have been in are HUGE)…..that's just not possible a lot of the time, especially when indoors. The aperture size/DOF is both a choice and physics. Choice is that I like it, physics is one of necessity to lower the ISO and keep shutter speed up. It is a balance of the 2.

 

[Raymond Lin]

I'd sound a note of caution about fixation at the moment - I've had a couple of bad experiences with them recently which have really put me off (such as not doing something they'd been explicitly asked to do and then charging for having done it - and that was actually going in to see them they managed that...).

I know they have a generally good reputation and I haven't had problems before the last few months but the last couple of times have really put me off, I'm getting my Nikon stuff serviced elsewhere these days and looking for another option for Canon gear (anybody??)

That's good to know I guess. Who would you suggest for Canon gear then?

I could send it to Canon I suppose.

 

[Raymond Lin]

yeah thats what i suspected (about one shot out of many) just wanted to give you feedback which a customer might not feel comfortable doing.

Regarding the point about getting the whole group in shot and in focus being difficult, i have no idea how difficult i'm sure! But certainly the newer Nikons (dont know the Canon range at all) have amazing high ISO with pretty low noise, so whilst not always possible i'd be amazed if something couldn't be achieved?

As a whole i like your work Raymond, but wanted to point our that ALL of your pics having very narrow DOF results in the effect being over-used and reduces its impact.

An album of them may even become tiring - and thats feedback from a "customer", not a photographer. However, if you are confident that you have a good mix of narrow & deep DOF shots, in a range of styles but dont post them all here (i wouoldnt expect you to tbh!) then great, and as long as your customers are happy, and you keep getting business then even better!

I guess what i'm saying is the style is so good don't cheapen it with over-use.

But are you saying I should sell all my Canon gear just to get a Nikon D3s?

I am not going to do that ! Lol I am also not going to start taking a tripod to a wedding either because that is not my style. I guess the DoF has become part of my style, to start shooting more deeper DoF stuff would means I am changing it for the few? When many of my clients like what I do? I don't follow that logic.

I do push the aperture up to 6.4 (shocker) sometimes, in a group shot, but never when I want to shoot a single person, and never when I shoot with the 135L. That lens has never shot over F/2.8 lol It's because I like what it does, and even at F/4, the DOF is narrow because of the focal length.

However, at say 24mm, at 2.8, or 3.5, the DoF is deep enough for a small group of people, and seriously, you don't need the entire room to be in focus. That's what you get when you take a photo with a disposable camera.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Personally I don't appreciate Raymond's style and find the pictures samey and boring.

I'm not being critical of his work from a techincal perspective - it is what it is and he is producing a commercial product and clearly he has client's that like it.

I don't like it and wouldn't pay for it, but others do. Prodcuing this sort of stuff would do my head in as would weddings generally, which is why I don't shoot weddings ever.

We all have our views, and sometimes maybe we don't express them as delicately as we might; but likewise, people are often protective of the work they produce and are proud of it and will therefore not necessarily agree with the criticsm made of that work.

A bit of robust dicussion is good for us all.

That's fine, I don't try to make everyone happy. I try to make my client happy, and trying to make me happy. They are both equally as important.

The day when i start shooting the way other people want me to so the day I should shooting for others.

 

[Raymond Lin]

.....

What you said do make sense, and I agree, he has some valid points albeit came out just totally bizaar, I do realise lenses DO get sharper when you stop down a bit, but you can't deny that the 35L was not sharp at 1.4.

I personally dont see what all the fuss is about. Raymond takes some photos and posts them here. Yes we all know his wedding 'style', for some it works, for others it doesn't but at the end of the day if he thinks he's done his job properly and the client is happy with the outcome (we know if they weren't he wouldn't have the work load that he does) then why should anyone criticise what DoF he's using? After all he takes so many hundred photographs, and after processing the client will see a fraction of them and here on OCuk we'll see even less so its just a snapshot of what he shoots on the day.

Onto the photographs though, typical Raymond style and for me thats a good thing, works well and the main focus is on the infant, really like the expression on the 3rd one with the clarity on the eyes. One note though is the processing style (same as the wedding ones?) I'm not totally convinced by it as the indoor lighting has got quite a distinctive yellow cast to the photos which doesn't sit right with my eyes. Altering the WB may help the images?

Actually, this set is processed totally different, it is "crossed processed" or what i labelled it as anyway.

I got home last night and applied my usual preset, played with the WB, exposure and no matter what i did, it felt wrong because of the light in the place. I dunno what light bulb they used but it just looked wrong.

So I experimented a bit, and this is a processing that came frmo it, and you are the first to spot it ! I might use it more, it doesn't have a true crossed processed look (where it has a lot of blue), it's almost an inbetween vintage/70's tone too i think. But it works quite well with what i had to work with in this set of pictures.

It probably won't work for every situation and i don't expect every processing does, but nice to have something different