The first main portrait shoot of the year was well worth the wait, as we hit the SA1 area of Swansea and had a wonderful portrait session with our model Mark. It was very cold, we had some technical difficulties, and I had a new lens to try out, so it was an eventful day!
First off, let us talk about the new lens. I picked up a Tamron Z mount 16-30mm F/2.8 super-wide angle lens (the last 9 images in this set). Although many regard it as a landscape lens, I picked it up to use as a playful portrait lens (fun at the super-wide ends, and very useful at 30mm!), and a general walk around lens. A major use of it will also be for this years weddings and events, so testing in the field at all focal lengths is most important before these kick in.
My Nikon Z6ii was attached to my Nikkor 50mm F/1.4, while the Nikon ZF was attached to the Tamron 16-30mm F/2.8. Initially I was going to use my trigger on both cameras (using the Godox Xt2n and AD200 strobe), but it failed to work at all on my ZF, so I attached my Godox TT300 for bounce flash on that camera. The technical difficulty mentioned led to many a stressful moment trying to work out why it did not work. When I got home, I decided to do a firmware update on the Godox X2Tn trigger, and it worked! It seems that the latest Nikon ZF update had caused issues with the trigger. It is all sorted now.
Those on my social media will know I have been experimenting with my darker images this year, losing my light and airy look that I have been doing for the last couple of years. These images are my first set of new images to embrace that look.
As you can see, although I used the 16mm-30mm lens to create some more natural portraits, I also had a bit of fun experimenting. These stretched characteristic shots I would have usually done with a fisheye lens, and I was planning to do with my 14mm lens, but now with autofocus, everything is so much easier!
All todays images were edited in Luminar Neo, and I have saved them as jpeg files so that you can see the EXIF data of each image.
It was a great, but stressful day, and a day of looking at my photos after the shoot and seeing what did, and what did not work. I have my favourites in this set, and I hope you guys do to. I also hope you like my new editing style and technique, please let me know in the comments!
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Hey Mark, the thing with opinions is that for every weaker one there are always nine better ones – and the other way around too. In the end, the only opinion that really matters is your own, at least that’s how I see it.
I actually think the darker style fits this series quite well; it distracts less from the background and really puts the model in the spotlight. There are some genuinely beautiful shots in there, and the header image is excellent.
Would this work with every model and under all circumstances? That’s probably something you can only judge on the spot, with a few test shots.
The wide angles? The first one at 16 mm (no. 15) is great, but the next two work a bit less for me personally.
So yes, a very strong series with two images I like a little less – but isn’t that almost always the case when you look at a series of photos? Above all, keep doing what you enjoy and what feels right to you, Mark.
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Thank you Marc. I agree, of the 9 16mm-30mm shots, there are a couple of experimental shots that are not as strong, but I wanted to include them as examples. A few of the ideas with the wide angles will work much better with female models, so that will be coming very soon!
Obviously, for my wedding and event photography, they won’t have as dark backgrounds, but I’ve been posting and testing different darker edits over the last few months, and for a lot of shoots this is what I’ll be doing (as you say it won’t suit all scenarios, and that will always be a consideration).
The new lens is great! I had a deal with it and I’m super happy, it is going to be much more useful than just my 14mm (which I find too wide for most things generally).
Thanks again 🙏
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