Let's change things up a bit this week - I've spent the last few posts talking about videos I've been working on, but today I'm going to go over a piece of gear I rented from LensPro ToGo back in October, the Sony 70-200 f/2.8 FE GM OSS G-Master Lens. This post will be a little longer than the last few, but there's so much to talk about here. A few months back my a couple of my friends, Brian & Kristina, asked if I would photograph their wedding for them. Well, as many of you know, my "job" is video production/filmmaking, and while I shoot 90% of my own projects, I really do view my "photography" as more of a hobby. I've been asked by friends about shooting weddings before (both stills and video), and most of the time I'll refer them to other friends/colleges of mine who do that sort of thing more professionally, primarily because if I'm there for a friend's wedding, I'd rather be there for them as part of the moment rather than looking for the perfect shot through a viewfinder and focusing on the craft. This was an exception though for many reasons, one of the main ones being that it was a small semi-formal/informal ceremony at CCCT, a space I know how to shoot in well, and there was no pressure to turn out a significant number of really good photos, she just wanted a few nice ones for memories. Anyway, the wedding. To shoot it I knew I would need a longer and faster lens than what what I've normally got as part of my kit, so I rented the Sony 70-200 f/2.8 FE GM OSS G-Master to shoot the wedding and we also did a little post-wedding photoshoot later that weekend. (And while I had it for the weekend I grabbed some other test shots in Galveston). The lens is - in a word, "wow". Its sharp, the stabilization is awesome and it feels really solid to use. Not to mention the depth of field - its amazing what happens to the background of a subject at any "near" distance when shooting at 200mm and wide open to f2.8. It took me a little longer than expected to find the time to go through the raw photos and pull the good ones. (Which is why this blog entry is so late - I had originally planned on posting this in November!) I was so excited to dig into the photoshop work after looking at the preview on the camera though - many of the pictures looked great with very minimal, if any, work in Photoshop. Most of what I ended up doing was using the RAW images to pull up shadows that would have otherwise faded to nothing. Between the speed and sharpness of this lens, plus the sensitivity of my A7s, I was able to shoot at a fairly high shutter speed and effectively eliminate any jitter from me hand-holding the camera, even in the darker setting. None of these were shot from a tripod or any other support gear, and all of this was with available light, I didn't use any strobes or other production lights. Lets take a look at some of my favorites from those shoots. Please note that I've gotten permission from my friend to post these on my site, however for all intents and purposes they own this photos and they are not to be downloaded or posted elsewhere without their permission. That said, lets dig in:
This is one of the things I love about the type of photography I gravitate to. I don't like posing people as much as finding these great moments in time to freeze. No "1,2,3 smile!", no fake poses. I just look around, find a moment and push the shutter.
Well if you've ever seen a photographer walking around with a long lens, you know how hard "invisible" is. However, with the focal length and my height, I could grab these kind of shots from across the room. And because the A7s is a mirrorless camera, I could do it without making that disruptive shutter noise on top of it. (though I really found myself missing the affirmative beeps that camera makes when focus locks in!)
Plus with the very fast aperture, you end up with a really nice image where the background falls off smoothly and your subject just jumps off the screen.
Now I know earlier I said all of these were shot under "available" light. And that's not untrue - the stage lights were "available" for the wedding (though we couldn't refocus them obviously). I actually had to fight a little with these images in post because the shadows were so harsh - great for Jekyll and Hyde, not so much the "wedding" look. Thank goodness for RAW.
The only downside I saw in my brief time with this lens was the amount of time it took to autofocus. It felt a little sluggish at times, especially when there was anything in the foreground (like a bouquet of flowers!). The autofocus really did work beautifully though, out of 1000+ shots I think there were maybe a dozen that weren't focused exactly where I wanted them, but when you're shooting reactions and "the moment" the 1-2 seconds it took to lock focus sometimes felt like an eternity.
And while I was somehow able to navigate the wedding without people really caring about the size of the lens, going out "into the world" with it on a bright day, people notice -I talked to a bunch of folks in Galveston when I was testing it out because its a bit of a conversation starter. First you get questions like "who/what are you shooting for?" because most people associate big lenses with news/documentary/sports coverage. Then you get to talking about what it allows you to do and show them the pictures and it just blows their mind. I guess people are so used to shooting with their phones now though. Overall, I think its a great lens - the image it produces is sharp and between the stabilization and the autofocus, its electronics are reliable enough that you really just have to focus on the composition itself (at least for stills, I didn't play with it too much for video unfortunately). And really, that's what I think a good lens should do for you. When you're shooting - either professionally or as a hobby - I feel like you should be confident enough in the capabilities of your gear that you can just focus on whatever creative/artistic endeavor you're working on at the time, rather than worrying about how the technical side of your gear works (or doesn't) and how you'd need to account for that. Not to say that this lens just makes all pictures look amazing - I threw away a lot of "bad" ones - shots where I hit the shutter before the autofocus was done, some blurry ones as I whipped the lens around looking for a shot, ones that were just composed badly etc. However, at the end of the day the pictures I got looked much better under the circumstances than they would have had with my normal set of lens options, and was absolutely worth the cost of the rental, which really wasn't that bad. I definitely think I'd buy one of these if I was shooting event gigs like this more often, but for my film/video work its just a little too much lens for what I'm shooting 90% of the time. Now a documentary project, that might just justify the price of buying it. Hmmm...
Anyway, I think that'll wrap it up for this week's post - I know I've gone on long enough. As always, thank you for reading - if you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas you'd like to see me address in the blog, let me know in the comments below. Be sure to follow me on Twitter and Instagram: @tomameek And don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel. Until next time -Thomas |
AuthorThomas Meek is an independent filmmaker living and working in Houston, TX Archives
March 2021
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