Maribor through IR filter

On Wednesday night Gregor contacted me on MSN and he suggested photo trip on the streets of Maribor. I heave been planning to went in Maribor next day, and so I agreed to join group of photographers after my lectures on university. Few minutes after my obligations in school I went to the centre heavily armed with my photo equipment. Unfortunately all other photographers cancelled the trip, so me and Gregor were left alone. Though Gregor is skilled in IR photography, we decided to work in Infra red technique. When we were photographing, I found out the advantages of Nikon D70. It works a lot better with IR then my Canon EOS 350D. Gregor could take photos with 2 or 3 seconds, when my shooter time was 25 seconds or even longer. Beside shorter shooter times, the results of Nikon D70 are far catchier than results given by Canon EOS 350D. For better shots I some times combine HDR (High Dynamic Range) and IR (Infra Red) techniques. That kind of work demands some more time with retouching in Photo Shop, but the results are all worth of extra trouble.
First we stopped at Trg svobode (Square of liberty). In the centre of this square is so called iron ball. We decided to work on some shots of Franciscans cathedral. We also wanted to get some interesting street photos in IR technique. Most of the time, Gregor was more dedicated to photography, while I was playing with his Nikon D200. With battery grip Nikon MB-200 and Sigma 70-200 f/2,8 HSM lens it is quite huge toy. After few shots I found out I'm not capable of such heavy lifting. I like ma tiny EOS 350D better. Meanwhile I managed to take some photos with my camera. I did some HDR - IR combinations with my Canon 28-105 EF lens which is the only one appropriate for IR. All my other lenses provide so called hot spot.

I'm adding a photo taken just with IR technique, so you can compare which one do you like better.

When we had enough photos of red bricked church, we went to City Park. We stopped by first of three fish ponds. Late afternoon sunlight was great for some IR photos. You can look at Gregor's Blog and compare photos made with his Nikon D70 and my photos made with Canon EOS 350D.

Italian photo shooting

5th January 2007

Although this time it is more appropriate for skiing or it should be at least very cold, I decided to do on some portrait fashion photography. My task was make some portraits, but this time I was shooting a male model. To make everything more interesting and fun, model couldn't speak Slovenian. He is an Italian and he lives in Rome. Communication was basicly in English. Fortunately blue-eyed Italian brought his girlfriend which helped us very much.

On first location I found great lack of light and thou I didn't want to use my flash, Canon 430EX for no reason, I only made some face shots. Luckily I worked with quite strong lenses. For face shots I used my bellowed macro lens Sigma 105 f/2,8 EX. Basicly this is not real portrait lens, but it is quote effective. Slow AF (auto focus) is repaid by great sharpness and lovely bokeh as you can see on picture below.

In spite of the fact that I head strong light from front, I managed to save RAW file, which was low contrasted and bad colored. I think produced quite catchy portrait.

Second location there was better lightening. For some ambient shots I used my recently acquired Sigma 28-70 f/2,8 EX. This lens could not compare to Sigma 105 f/2,8 EX, but it is still sharp enough for 20x30 prints and even bigger.

At last but not least, my Canon 50 f/1,8 II provided razor sharp shots. I did some retouching in RawShooter Premium 2006. I added a lot of light and contrast thou I wanted to emphases the eyes.

Tight DOF zone of Canon 50 f/1,8 II @ f/2

At the finish, Riccardo wanted to include his girlfriend Mojca and so we made some »family portraits«. Although Sigma 28-70 f/2,8 EX @ 63mm in f/3,2 has quite shallow DOF (Depth Of Field).

Late afternoon after the sunset it ran short of natural light, so we decided to finish with our photo shooting.

Pleasant 10 degrees drops to 5 and on some final shots it could be seen relief of both models.

At the beginning of this photo shoot I was quite nervous. I never photographed a male model before and my friends told me, it is more difficult as shooting females. But at the end I was pleasantly surprised by professional modeling of Riccardo. And thou this is not happening very often I’m even satisfied with my work. Thou I don't heave a lot of experience I think I did it well. I’ll do better in some warmer places.