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]

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.)