A good combination, especially when you have the adorable chameleon Thais D’Lima in front of the lens. Brazilian born, LA-based, and comes in many looks. The photo below features light through the fence at the studio of my dear friend Gianluca Bertone, who runs Bertone’s photo in Los Angeles. The amazing Photog and his video/rental company are a great resource for west coast photog.
She took pictures of this series while I was able to experiment with Nikon 58mm Noct Lens, entails, f-stop-wise, which is convenient, aside from the histogram’s scaling value of 0.95, making it the fastest lens I’ve ever used. (Write a bit about this session, because we just ran the image above Instagramand some people have some questions.)
Extended, manual focus, thin DOF razor. Like the robot said in Lost in Space, “Danger! Danger!” But, there are tools to help. precision of the focusing system, parallel to the highest focus, to align and confirm what my eyes are telling me. (With precise point or single area in manual focus, the little box will switch turns green when you press the right one.) Plus an instant button for 100% zoom, in the viewfinder I can tell if my focus drag is accurate. To some extent, and certainly not a practical approach for many jobs, but the crystal sharpness and dreamy drop of DOF are well worth it, at least on this occasion.
Another strategy? I used Gitzo Systematic in this shoot even though the lens isn’t too long. But it has weight. So the tripod is the way to go, on one end of the ball, which I have braked loosely on. I would pull a focal point, and then actually rock it back and forth in front of the camera, while shooting at high speed on the power drive. That works fine, along with the acceptance, I won’t be sharp, all the time.
I have already mentioned the variety of looks that Thais can bring to the camera.
All thanks to Lynn DelMastro who produced this footage, and Claire Piao, an amazing makeup artist based in LA. We went from studio lighting and looks, to raw sun, all done at 0.95 on Noct.
Lighting, lenses, subject, makeup all create different looks, done in one day. Interestingly, although nerve-wracking, playing on the edge of a cliff is known as depth of field.
More tk….
Item Hard Light, Fast Lens…. appeared first on Joe McNally Photography.
