Quest for the magnificent light

The 50mm Planar, which was reviewed last time , follows me everywhere. This time I spotted a bunch of sword lilies waiting for planting in my grandmother's garden.  A strong ligthbeam illuminated the whole scene...     Sword lilies   Metadata Camera: Canon 5D Lens: Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm F1.4 ZE Aperture: F4

Finally there are enough photos to present the next review in this series. I already wrote a quick post about the lens right after it arrived. It has became my favourite prime since then. That's not a suprise, as 50mm focal length is considered to be the standard for 35mm system. Let's start with a few images of the lens itself.   Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm F1.4 ZE front   Markings on the front show the usual data including serial number, focal length and speed. Of course big, white "Carl Zeiss" and "Planar" text, moreover the famous red T*  are also there to always remind you what you are shooting. ;-)   Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm F1.4 ZE with lens hood  "Lens made in Japan" - Cosina, Zeiss' manufacturing partner, really knows how to build great lenses! The Planar is made of metal including the mount and filter ring as well. Although I love vintage lenses, none of them is as well made as this one. (Including Conta...

First I have to start with the bad news; I couldn't finish my second post in The other perspective series. The good news is that a  busy weekend has just passed, and some nice photos are prepared for an upcoming review! But today I would like to show you one more shot from our vacation. This was roughly the last one before my batteries run out of charge. It's too bad that we left the charger at home...   The simplicity of this theme caught my attention on the day we arrived. A boat chained near a reeds bed. Just a bunch of horizontal and vertical lines. Contrast between the vivid red/white paintwork of the boat and the faded brown of the vegetation. And that's all! Perfect opportunity to mount the Vario-Sonnar, and let it shine.     Lonely boat     Metadata Camera: Canon 5D Lens: Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar 80-200mm F4 Applied 16:9 crop in post processing.       ...

It's summertime! Yes, this also means going on holiday, nice weather and lot of sunshine. Ideal conditions for taking some photos as well! Today I decided not only to publish a new post, but to start a mini-series about my recent experiments. "Learn the rules; then break them." Probably this is the most quoted rule of photography.  But how does it apply to sunset images? I think about this quite a lot, mostly while walking around with a camera in my hands. Shooting these kind of photos is pretty straightforward; the time of sunsets are well-defined on each day. The only thing to do is finding a nice place, then fire the shutter in the right moment. So what makes the difference between an average capture and a great one? I consider the following things to be the most important aspects: Timing Weather conditions Composition Timing Usually the right time to make the shot is 15-20 minutes before sunset. There is no point in arriving ear...

This is just a short post about my first impression with the mighty Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm F1.4 ZE . I will definitely write more about it later, but let me share close-ups this time. The lens does not perform really good in this type of shots according to many forum threads on popular photo sites. However I like its painterly rendering , so I don't mind that it is not clinically sharp at closer distances and faster apertures.     After lunch tablsecape     Metadata   Camera: Canon 5D Lens: Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm F1.4 ZE Aperture: F2     The center sharpness is already good at F2. Even F1.4 is sufficient to shoot portraits; the slight softness adds to the dreamy atmosphere of shallow depth of field shots. At least F2.8 is required to achieve sharpness across the whole frame. (But DOF is still thin on full frame, so I have sometimes problem with getting my son completely in focus.)       ...

Welcome to the first post of this series! It's not hard to guess the topic of the posts; yes, it's all about my experience with shooting the old-fashioned film. Film cameras are pretty affordable these days, and it's easy to fall in love with those simplistic, but sturdy, well-made and nice looking image capturing machines. Most of them are all manual, without any "electronic trickery" of modern cameras. And simplicity is not necessarily a bad thing! Digital cameras made it too easy to capture meaningless and soulless snapshots. If you use manual cameras, you have to pay more attention to the fundamentals of picture taking. If you think more about pictures before actually taking them, then your pictures will improve. Photography is about the vision; more precisely, about the personal vision of the photographer. Developing your own vision is the key to create images with soul and meaning. Mastering the picture taking process is the first step on this path; you mus...