Pope Owen

[ewx]

Right under a light isn't usually a good place for a subject but Owen seems to have come out looking, well, papal.

I got one of these. I like it; it's a good length, and opens suitably wide, for the opportunistic indoor portraits I go for.

I'm trying to pay more attention to metering, rather than just letting the camera's evaluative metering take the strain. Advice on the net seems suggests various exposure compensation values between 0 and +1 when metering off white skin; +1 seems to have produced the best results on my friends. Not that we're a bunch of pasty-faced geeks or anything.

(If you look at the EXIF on those images¹ then you'll see that not all of them did have the exposure compensation on; those that didn't had to be brightened in software, unfortunately.)

[1] FAQ: ignore the "35mm equivalent" which is bogus. The lens has focal length of 85mm, the sensor is 22.2x14.8mm, and apart from Owen none of the images are cropped at all, and this should be enough for you to work out whatever number it was you wanted.

All of the above and a couple more.

Comments

[baljemmett.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I do like those results... That 85mm would be giving you near-as-makes-no-odds a 135mm in 35mm terms? It certainly looks about right, judging by the results I got with the 135mm lens in my 35mm outfit.

I may have asked you this before, but do you have a general-purpose zoom at all? I'm currently trying to decide between the 28-135mm EF, the 24-105mm L EF, and the 17-85mm EF-S (all with IS, which I think I need for various reasons); the ready availability and affordability of second-hand FD lenses has spoiled me a bit in the past!

[ewx.livejournal.com]

An 85mm on mine gives the same angle of view as a 135mm does with 35mm film, yes. I have a 17-85mm EF-S IS.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

That was a bit of a short reply, sorry.

I like the 17-85 for general purpose use, but it's hopeless for indoor shots in dim light such as the ones above: f/4-5.6 just isn't wide enough and although the IS can help with camera shake you still end up with exposure times long enough that subject motion is too often too large. (The 17-55 f/2.8 IS might be a bit better for such shots but 50mm is already the short end of the reasonable range for the ones I take, so I don't think that's the lens for me.)

The IS does help a bit in other contexts. I usually leave it on and it's rather noticeable if I turn it off. Of course it's not the visually striking effect that you get thru e.g. a 300mm lens.

[baljemmett.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks, that's very useful information -- I suspected as much regarding the speed of the IS zooms (I'm used to a 35-105mm f/3.5 on the old camera), although the chief advantage I'm hoping for from the IS is alleviating the effects of shaky hands. I think the heavier body on the A-1 helped with that in the past.

Entirely agree with you on the 17-55 too -- looks like a very nice lens if you don't need that long end, but as soon as I started using the camera seriously I found the kit 18-55 wasn't quite long enough. I supplemented it with the 28-90 f/4-5.6, which is on the front most of the time now; both are cheap and cheerful, and get the job done, but obviously aren't great.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

IS does genuinely help with shaky hands, even at the short end. It's not the only strategy though; as well as traditional approaches, digital opens up the possibility of just holding down the shutter release and taking several photos in quick succession, which IME improves the chance of getting a shake-free one. Far from sophisticated but if it gets the shot... (Obviously you can do this with film but it'd be more expensive.)