Shooting at night without flash, just using 'found' lighting around the city. K-1, and (top to bottom): Sigma 35mm Art, FA 77 Ltd, DA*55

[clackers]

I love the FA31 for its warmth and character, but the Sigma completely towels it for sharpness wide open, and chromatic aberrations. When you really want a subject to pop it's hard to beat.

Yeah, it's all that extra glass, more similar to what the DFA primes will be than our beloved Limiteds.

[mcgregni]

The "found" light here is so good and natural, it looks like flash.

It is amazing that you avoided any (normally expected) weird colour casts, and the balance of colour tone is consistent between the subjects face and the surrounds. Did you pre-set a fixed WB on the camera at the time? I like them all, good focus and expressions all good ....

It's a pity there's what looks like a little blow-out near the nose on the last one ..... Did you get any with less exposure ?

[normhead]

Very nice....

[clackers]

The "found" light here is so good and natural, it looks like flash.

Well, light is light, we have to be able to shoot in all conditions etc etc. If you get your subject close to a large light source, sure, the restaurant menu in the last pic resembles a softbox.

It is amazing that you avoided any (normally expected) weird colour casts, and the balance of colour tone is consistent between the subjects face and the surrounds. Did you pre-set a fixed WB on the camera at the time? I like them all, good focus and expressions all good ....

I shoot RAW, Nigel, so never worry about WB, I'll set that as one of the first things I do in editing.

In the first pic, white tubes are the only lighting, so no problem there. In the second, the street lighting is yellowy (you can see it on the wall behind her), so I had to make sure her back was to it. In the third, there's a fair bit of yellow street lighting too but the menu is usually overwhelming it ... you can see the colouring in the shadows on her cheek and neck.

The expressions I'm proud of, because it was her first attempt at modelling, there was a disconnect between the shooters (older, Anglo, educated, full of banter) and her (very young, Turkish background I think, slightly serious, her boyfriend was there for support) but I persisted talking her up so that she was putting on some elegant confidence by the end (the first two shots are from the last half of the evening. The final shot you see here was actually earlier on and she was still very, very tentative).

It's a pity there's what looks like a little blow-out near the nose on the last one ..... Did you get any with less exposure ?

I reckon in Lightroom I could get that back with the exposure brush, Nigel, but probably not the highlights on her fingers ... inverse square law and all ...

---

Last edited by clackers; 10-11-2017 at 08:35 PM.