The Problem with Bright Glass

Click to Enlarge - Shot at F/2.0One tool that we have to improve our camera's low light performance is "bright glass". By that I mean a lens that has a very large aperture such as F/2.0 or larger. There are now lens, even for the small compact cameras, that are as large as F/0.95. But typically you will see F/1.8, F/1.4 or even F/1.2 lenses available for your camera. You can pick up a fixed length lens, known as a prime, for a very reasonable price.

Click to see full sized image on Aaron's Flickr page I've seen a photographer, Aaron Wallace, working with a model in the streets at night using nothing more then his iPhone as a light source. He was using his Olympus PEN with an F/0.95 lens in place. A large aperture lens allows a lot of light in and allows you to work in much lower light. They do wonders and give you such incredible Bokeh, see the lights behind his model?

But like all things in photography there are always trade offs. And in the case of portraiture the narrow Depth of Field (DOF) created by an aperture that large, is very narrow. DOF is the area... a band that is in focus where you hope

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Aaron Wallace

Click to Enlarge - Used with permision

I've pointed Aaron Wallace out before at some of our meetings and I'm doing so again... He consistently just does great work. What I suppose would be considered 'Fashion' and "Concert Stage Work" for the most part.

I don't purposely follow him at all but run into his work amongst the thousands that post on Flickr and find myself making a lot of his shots my 'Favorites' before noting who it is!

Look at the shot above... taken at the time of day we've been told is the worst time to shoot.. high noon. It just works. If you drift through much of his work he is exceptional in his use of flash too.... composition is often top notch.

To top it off he uses equipment that is considered by many to be no where near the best, other then his lenses. So his work just eliminates much of the equipment from the equation automatically.... a good thing.... It points us back to what is important, our skills and the need to improve them.

I think his work is quite an inspiration!

I believe he is using flash in this shot. The models face is lit up beautifully.

If They See Imperfections

Photo by Aaron Wallace, used with permissionIf someone looks at one of your photographs and sees imperfections, others might suggest that the photograph isn't that good. We normally don't see imperfections in a great photograph. Of course there are exceptions to this... Shooting at ISO 5 million (I know impossible) might produce excessive grain and make the photograph unusable.

The photograph shown here by Aaron Wallace is a great photograph and was taken with an Olympus EPL-1, a pocket-able 4/3rds camera. The lens used was a Zuiko 14-35mm f2.0, a really great lens. I saw an EPL-1 down at Staples yesterday with two kit lens for under $500... ($400 at Amazon). Take away the cost of the kit lens and what would be the price of the EPL-1, say $300? Chris Smith and I looked at one when he and Cami were up doing their course "Bending the Light: 411" in November.

I'm sure that if we looked at the the full resolution version of this photograph we might possible find some imperfections. And if there were imperfections I bet someone would have to point them out because we'd all be going WOW! I don't think we'd notice any imperfections in this shot even if Aaron had used one of the kit lens!

(Please note that this copy of the photograph is poor.. it is only 98k in size.. I snipped it with permission from Aaron's Flickr page).

Which one of us wouldn't want this shot to to be part of our portfolios. I would! In fact give me a couple of thousand like it!!!  I'm sure Aaron is making a living at this based on his skills... 

Some times we all do to much "pixel peeping" I think. It is fun.... It might be right.... but in the end there are many other factors, most importantly our skills as a photogapher that make for a great photograph. It isn't the equipment, it is the photographer.

To see more of Aaron Wallace's work head to his Flickr page, I personally think he is a very, very good photographer.