You’re probably surprised to see me back already with another post but I’ve been in a very photography orientated mood recently.
There’s also the slight boost you get when you receive new gear that makes you want to shoot more although that’s not usually long lived. Despite that, you need to make the most of it and that’s what I’ve done for this post.
The Newest Lens
I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear I’ve got myself ANOTHER new lens. I believe I may have toyed with the idea of this in a previous post but I was still deciding if I’d go ahead with getting it or not.
When I travel I’ve always just relied on my 35mm lens and not really shot with anything else. I don’t mind doing this but I do admit at times I’ve wanted to be able to shoot a bit longer. I honestly find it so hard to move away from using my 35mm prime only, but I’m also happy with the challenge.
Below are a few images taken with the lens using the Sony a7IV and Sigma 105mm f/2.8 Macro Art.
I took these images using some Godox continuous lights and I feel this is an area I still really need to improve. A lot of my favorite images are still taken using natural light and I know it’s an area that has a lot of room for improvement (Photography is all about capturing light after all). Now I should probably mention, the lens itself is quite small and light which is why I ended up choosing it over the Tamron 28-75mm G2.
The Tamron had a pretty good sale on it making it only $1180 but as good as that was, the Sigma was an additional $300 cheaper. It does appear the Tamron was the slightly better lens optically, but I didn’t feel it was that much better to justify the extra cost, size and weight.
All images below were taken with the Sony Alpha a7C II and my new Sigma 28-70mm f/2.8.
One thing I find myself doing is always taking one image of something/somewhere rather than multiple images and creating a story. After using IG again I’ve noticed some photographers I like doing this so I decided to give this a try. Above you’ll see images of Cucina Porto, an Italian restaurant that is probably my favorite due to how good the food is and Yayoi which is one of my favorite Japanese restaurants.
I also took the below two images on the way home as a way of telling the story of the walk home. Run clubs have become quite popular here in Sydney as many use them as a way to meet potential romantic partners so I wasn’t too shocked to see this massive group running at me.
Now with the third and final image, I went for something slightly different. This was shot at 70mm which in all honestly I took as a test to see the sharpness and it didn’t do too well. This lens is known or be somewhat soft when shooting near MFD wide open on the long end but this wasn’t the best conditions either. The wind was very strong, I was squatting down which makes me very unstable and I was also focusing on the side of the flower, rather than the front of it. In my limited testing, I do think it may have to do with the autofocus as I’ve found using manual focus it can get somewhat sharper results.
Because of this I tried something different with the editing by adding a film grain overlay in Photoshop and going a different route with the colors which actually made me like the image more. I’ll definitely keep using and testing this lens more but so far I’d say I’m quite happy with it. I got it to fill that gap between 35mm and 85mm while also being more convenient when travelling or out with family for events etc.
In all honesty I do enjoy the lens so far but I can’t help but miss the look of a prime. This zoom can get me somewhat different looking images to what I can do solely with my 35GM but that lens and focus length just have a certain look to me I can’t move past. I have a small vacation in in coming months so I plan to try use the lens for that and see how if it’s something I’ll keep long term or not.
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