Debate
The photo below was taken at a debate hosted by the University of Limerick Debating Union. The debate was on whether or not the West should intervene militarily in Africa. I like covering these events, it’s a great opportunity to practise taking pictures of people, and what I hear of the arguments can be pretty interesting too! It’s amazing what a difference in body language there is between speakers. When you’re taking photos like this, you’re trying to capture people at their most expressive, so I’m more or less concentrating completely on their body language. You really notice the contrast actutely in situations like this – some people are much easier to photograph than others.
This was taken with a Canon 450D, which I borrowed because I have access to an incredible lens – the 85mm f.1.2L. This is an astonishing piece of glass. It feels like a watermelon sized solid block of stone, and it weighs even more. The drawback to this is that it weighs about five times more than the camera body itself, and I’m not exaggerating. I realise, however, that I must be one of the first people in world to pair one of the most entry-level and lightweight camera bodies currently made with one of the most exotic and bulky lenses available. My hand aches after using it for a while because the balance is so bad. Here’s a couple of photos of the lens. It hard to portray the true nature of this monster lens, because it’s heavier than it looks!
It’s worth the pain though. The lens is like night-vision device, and this is on a camera which is very good but can’t go up to very high ISOs. I’d be terrified to see what happens when it’s paired with a 5D MKII!
It’s the perfect lens for events such as this. I can shoot in low light with no flash and it’s also got just about the right reach to capture the action up close. The lens has some kind of photgraphy version of the Midas touch; everything it photographs looks amazing., no matter how mundane. I spent about half an hour the other night just looking at the back of the screen with liveview on, just manually turning the focusing ring while the camera was pointed at some lights from houses. When out of focus the lights make perfect little circles! Yes I am easily amused… At f1.2 the depth of field is teeny-tiny, but the upside of this is that the photographer’s control over what the viewer looks at in the photography is extremely high. This is one of the keys to good photography, and any tool that makes it easier is fantastic.
Well, that was much more of a rant than a technical, objective review, but there’s plenty of them out there. I just wanted to share my opinion!
New Toy
I was in Bristol recently, visting family, but while I was there I took advantage of the weak Sterling and treated myself to a lens I’ve been coveting for a long time: the Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6. I’ve led myself to believe that an ultra-wide angle lens is an indispensible tool for my main interest, landscape photography, but also one that will be great for other stuff like architecture and ‘enviromental’ portraits. My first impressions of the lens are good – the wide angle is very dramatic and different, just as I had hoped. Of course, paying such a reasonable price for a lens with such an extreme focal length means there will be certain compromises, and it does not seem to have anywhere near the contrast or sharpness of my personal ‘gold standard’: the Sigma 105mm f2.8 Macro, which puts everything else I own into the shade. I knew all this, however, so I’m extremely happy with my purchase.
I haven’t had much of a chance to try it out yet, but while I was in Bristol I took a few snaps – unfortunately I wasn’t in the city long enough to get too involved photographically. I love big cities, and the best ones have a certain character that makes them inexplicablly yet undeniably unique. Even with the advent of identikit high-street shops, and architecture that could be almost anywhere on the globe, places like Bristol somehow seem to exude a one-of-a-kind identity that can be picked up even on a passing visit.
I’d love to tell you that I chanelled some of this through the photographs I took there, but that is unfortunately not the case. It’s partially due to the time constraints, but mainly because I have never been much of an urban photographer. I have never progressed past taking snaps of buildings which interest me aesthetically, or that I think would make an interesting photograph. A couple of these are below. The first is a random building and the second is part of Bristol University:
