I self invited myself to a studio portrait shooting session organized by photographer and friend, Jojo. He was collaborating with Canon Malaysia, with the R5 and 70-200mm F4 on loan, and he arranged a model photoshoot with make-up artists and all, and I just shamelessly tagged along and planned to have a little fun. I brought along the old, budget Olympus PEN E-PL7, which is more than 10 years old now, together with the cheapest AF Micro Four Thirds kit lenses you can find, the Lumix 12-32mm and Olympus 40-150mm R. While these are super budget setup, I thought they performed incredibly well in this studio shoot and delivered amazingly sharp and detailed results. This is a reminder to myself that I don't need the latest and greatest gear to produce excellent results, there are many other factors that can determine the outcome of the photography results - lighting, talent, make-up, the photographer's vision, just to name a few. And of course, in my latest video showcasing the E-PL7 in action, I also shared some tips on optimizing E-PL7 for this shooting situation. You can find the video here (click).
As for this blog entry, I shall share the selected images taken from that shooting session.
Credits
Organizer & Lead Photographer: Julius Elisan (IG @jojoelisan)
Model: Ivani Leang (IG @ivani_leang)
Make Up Artist: Jojie (IG @iamjojiemakeupartist)
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Having full control over your lighting can be such a tremendous equalizer!
ReplyDeleteI've had the opportunity to do a bit of studio shooting with various cameras and formats. In one such shoot, I shot full frame, APS-C and 1" all under the same lighting and of the same scene. Aside from depth of field differences (which I could have equalized on the larger cameras by stopping down, of course), the results were all extremely good. The full frame and APS-C were practically indistinguishable. The 1" was a little behind if I really pixel peeped into the highlights and shadows. But even the smallest would have been completely usable for the final use cases for the shots.
This generalizes: When shallow depth of field isn't strictly required and decent light is on hand, many formats can often do an excellent and "good enough" job with image quality. When the envelope gets pushed with very challenging light, or more shallow-depth-of-field is a must, that's when larger sensor formats and brighter/longer-focal-length glass shows more an edge. (Of course with macro and perhaps other situations where shortest minimum focus distance matters, this sometimes works in reverse with smaller formats being better tools for the job.)