For today's morning walk I got what my family calls "the Beast" from the lens bag - the old Sigma 85mm F1.4 EX DG HSM . Indeed, with both parts of the lenshoods assembled for APS-C use, the bloody thing looks positively huge on the little (gripless of course) K-70. I got the lens when I was still using a K-5 with grip and it was nicely balanced on that combination - a bit less so on the K-70 regretfully. It looks slightly out of place.

Now this lens got a pretty darned good score on the PF lens review but it has its limitations. It seems very easy to get it to produce horrific purple fringing wide open and even down to f2.8. It is also notoriously hard to focus wide open due to the tiny sliver of DOF and the fact even swaying back and forth a bit after focus locks can throw your image out of focus very easily.

Having said all that, when this lens delivers, it absolutely kicks *** with this almost model photography like look. It's just short of the exaggerated effect of a tilt lens, enough though to catch the eye for a millisecond before you realize you are looking at a live scene.

I can't say much about the colours of the lens in particular as I use my own presets in Darktable to convert the raw file. Sharpness is already pretty good but I tend to lift out the main subject on a separate layer in Gimp, apply a gradient mask (or forgrond extraction with feathered edges) and sharpen the in-focus area even a bit more.

Anyone who has seen my posts before already knows my trusted companion Noam who has gotten used to me dicking around with a camera for a while. After a while he just plops down and keeps his eyes trained on me to make sure I don't do crazy things. Pretty cool for an 18 month-old dog!

As usual, full exif when you click through to Flickr as the latter strips out exif from the resized BBCode versions.

[EDIT]As a PS, this kind of low to the ground shooting is why I dearly love articulated LCD screens. The ground was pretty wet and muddy but with a flip&twist LCD you can stay on your feet to get the low-angle shot.

[bertwert]

This is an awesome shot, nice composition, focus, fall colours!

[lesmore49]

Composition, subject, bokeh...it's all there. Lovely dog...Old English Sheepdog ?

[newmikey]

Lovely dog...Old English Sheepdog ?

Yep, spot-on! We've had OES's for the last 25 years or so and I really love the breed. Nice and silly animals, friendly without slobbering, keep the family together on walks/outings and love to cuddle. What more could a man want from his best friend?

[ToddK]

This is a beautifully composed shot, and a terrific looking dog!

[Adam]

For today's morning walk I got what my family calls "the Beast" from the lens bag - the old Sigma 85mm F1.4 EX DG HSM . Indeed, with both parts of the lenshoods assembled for APS-C use, the bloody thing looks positively huge on the little (gripless of course) K-70. I got the lens when I was still using a K-5 with grip and it was nicely balanced on that combination - a bit less so on the K-70 regretfully. It looks slightly out of place.

Now this lens got a pretty darned good score on the PF lens review but it has its limitations. It seems very easy to get it to produce horrific purple fringing wide open and even down to f2.8. It is also notoriously hard to focus wide open due to the tiny sliver of DOF and the fact even swaying back and forth a bit after focus locks can throw your image out of focus very easily.

Having said all that, when this lens delivers, it absolutely kicks *** with this almost model photography like look. It's just short of the exaggerated effect of a tilt lens, enough though to catch the eye for a millisecond before you realize you are looking at a live scene.

I can't say much about the colours of the lens in particular as I use my own presets in Darktable to convert the raw file. Sharpness is already pretty good but I tend to lift out the main subject on a separate layer in Gimp, apply a gradient mask (or forgrond extraction with feathered edges) and sharpen the in-focus area even a bit more.

Anyone who has seen my posts before already knows my trusted companion Noam who has gotten used to me dicking around with a camera for a while. After a while he just plops down and keeps his eyes trained on me to make sure I don't do crazy things. Pretty cool for an 18 month-old dog!

As usual, full exif when you click through to Flickr as the latter strips out exif from the resized BBCode versions.

[EDIT]As a PS, this kind of low to the ground shooting is why I dearly love articulated LCD screens. The ground was pretty wet and muddy but with a flip&twist LCD you can stay on your feet to get the low-angle shot.

Quite an impressive capture- not just in terms of the bokeh and composition, but also the lighting.

[Outlander]

Love the shot well done