ZEISS Batis 1.8/85 Images

xpfloyd wrote in post #17655931
They have got me wanting to buy my first strobe

Actually, with the 1.8 aperture, you might be able to use DIY flood lights.....take note Miguel shot the woman with an nd filter to shoot at 1.8 so you just might be able to do the same thing but skipping out the strobes....

ccp900 wrote in post #17657051
Actually, with the 1.8 aperture, you might be able to use DIY flood lights.....take note Miguel shot the woman with an nd filter to shoot at 1.8 so you just might be able to do the same thing but skipping out the strobes....

He also used the ND on the photo of the man with the beard. I have watched the 2 hour ish video he posted above and its VERY informative. Your comment on DIY flood lights has got me interested. Do you have a link to more info on this? Do you have to gel the flood lights to avoid WB issues?

Sorry, im at work so cant pull up links now but i will and send them through when i get home....

simple explanation though would be....because of the big aperture youre using, normal strobes would put out a lot of power even at their minimum setting. The big aperture allows you to use inexpensive sources of light to act as strobes....strobes are really just lamps that instead of providing a continous stream of light they concentrate light into a single flash pop (or multiple when using HSS but that is outside this topic).

Miguel used the ND filters which effectively cut the power of the strobes so he can open his aperture to 1.8. If he didnt he would have either shot it with a much smaller aperture maybe around f5.6 at such a close distance which destroys the look he is trying to achieve or bring the light much further from the model to reduce the light falling on the subject but would have probably resulted to a lot of spill which he also doesnt like. He can also put a lot of baffles between but that's a lot of unnecessary work.

So, take a halogen lamp preferably one that you can adjust the intensity....point that at the model's face and then it is just like taking a portrait using natural light....want to make it into a softbox type of light? Get a white bedsheet and hang it...then put the lamp behind the sheet and you now have what they call a SCRIM - this acts like a softbox.

There are other ways to use that lamp as well....get a big foamcore a white one preferably. Imagine your subject is the center of a clock facing the 6 o clock position. Put the lamp at the 10 o clock position, the foamcore at the 5 o clock position...you can aim that lamp to hit the foamcore and the foamcore bounces the light to the model's face....the nice thing about this is that the lamp will also hit the side of the model nearest to it so it now doubles as a hairlight and can even triple as a rim light...all that just by using 1 light source.

i hope this is clear if not we can PM and discuss further....not unless other people are interested to hear this type of stuff here.....

Some photographers i know actually have strobes but never fire them...they just use the modelling lamps as sources of illumination using 1.2 to 1.8 apertures.

On the color balance, yes this can be an issue and would greatly depend on the source of light. Using flouorescent might be a bad idea as those have really funky colors. If you shoot raw and the color temp isnt a weird one then you can always adjust in raw converter.

thanks.

ccp900 wrote in post #17657255
Sorry, im at work so cant pull up links now but i will and send them through when i get home....

simple explanation though would be....because of the big aperture youre using, normal strobes would put out a lot of power even at their minimum setting. The big aperture allows you to use inexpensive sources of light to act as strobes....strobes are really just lamps that instead of providing a continous stream of light they concentrate light into a single flash pop (or multiple when using HSS but that is outside this topic).

Miguel used the ND filters which effectively cut the power of the strobes so he can open his aperture to 1.8. If he didnt he would have either shot it with a much smaller aperture maybe around f5.6 at such a close distance which destroys the look he is trying to achieve or bring the light much further from the model to reduce the light falling on the subject but would have probably resulted to a lot of spill which he also doesnt like. He can also put a lot of baffles between but that's a lot of unnecessary work.

So, take a halogen lamp preferably one that you can adjust the intensity....point that at the model's face and then it is just like taking a portrait using natural light....want to make it into a softbox type of light? Get a white bedsheet and hang it...then put the lamp behind the sheet and you now have what they call a SCRIM - this acts like a softbox.

There are other ways to use that lamp as well....get a big foamcore a white one preferably. Imagine your subject is the center of a clock facing the 6 o clock position. Put the lamp at the 10 o clock position, the foamcore at the 5 o clock position...you can aim that lamp to hit the foamcore and the foamcore bounces the light to the model's face....the nice thing about this is that the lamp will also hit the side of the model nearest to it so it now doubles as a hairlight and can even triple as a rim light...all that just by using 1 light source.

i hope this is clear if not we can PM and discuss further....not unless other people are interested to hear this type of stuff here.....

Some photographers i know actually have strobes but never fire them...they just use the modelling lamps as sources of illumination using 1.2 to 1.8 apertures.

On the color balance, yes this can be an issue and would greatly depend on the source of light. Using flouorescent might be a bad idea as those have really funky colors. If you shoot raw and the color temp isnt a weird one then you can always adjust in raw converter.

thanks.

This is great stuff. Keep elaborating as this is a portrait lens and people would be interested in learning about this ...just add images here and there to keep with the conversation

Thanks for all the info. I understood the reason for the ND filter but just hadn't realised people use floodlights etc instead of strobes. Ill look into that further.

Sorry everyone for wording up the lens thread. Ill add images once I get the batis

Keep in mind that when you use flood lights instead of strobes that you need to be conscious of your model. They generate a lot of heat (unless you're using CFL or LED) and your model will not want to be cooked while you fiddle w/ settings.

ccp900 wrote in post #17657255
Some photographers i know actually have strobes but never fire them...they just use the modelling lamps as sources of illumination using 1.2 to 1.8 apertures.

I've been doing this lately with my Elinchrom BRX 500's. They're just way too powerful and it's much more convenient using the modelling lamps, especially if trying to shoot f1.8-2.8. I might look into replacing them with the Elinchrom scanlites (300w vs 100w).

Pre-ordered.

I'm a portrait/wedding shooter, i can only have one... this lens or the 90mm Macro?

vinmunoz wrote in post #17676119
I'm a portrait/wedding shooter, i can only have one... this lens or the 90mm Macro?

I think this question is on a lot of people's minds....me included......

Also consider the 100L Macro.

Batis all the way Vinz. The 90 Macro looks great optically, but that extra 1 1/3 stop of aperture goes a long way for portraits/events!

Thanks man. 1 1/3 stop is huge.

the 90mm is big and heavy too. it's cheaper though.

Another big Batis vote for me. The 90mm macro looks amazing....for macro, but the Batis looks amazing for portraits.

I chose batis between the two