Hunter Cavanagh

It has been a goal of mine to make portraits since I started learning the basics of photography. After a long while of avoiding it, I began dabbling in self portraiture after purchasing a GX7; implementing its remote shooting mode to experiment with lighting set-ups in my spare bedroom (examples here). From there, I  moved on to photograph my partner which gave me a little experience on shooting another person. I liked the results of all these "studio" efforts but really wanted to make an attempt at environmental portraiture. I knew that the nature trail by my apartment would make the perfect setting to try this, but my partner is terrified of snakes and refuses to step foot in leaf littered terrain. So without any talent, I've just spent my time at Shingle Creek scouting sites and practicing general composition for when the opportunity did arise to shoot there. 

Handy-Dandy Notebook

Hunter, the aspiring model centered around this shoot contacted me through Instagram at the end of last year wanting to work with me based on my non-portrait work. After a several month long discussion and scheduling conflicts and then more discussion we decided to do a bohemian style fashion shoot against a natural setting. The day of the shoot I woke up quite nervous and decided I needed to plan the anxiety away. I wrote down the equipment I was wanting to use, ideas we had discussed, and drew out several shots with information on what camera body and lens to try first, lighting, and how much time to dedicate to the shot. I knew that I wanted to limit myself to two focal lengths and chose to have the 45mm f/1.8 and coco ringflash mounted to my EM5 and the OM 28mm f/2.8 + generic focal reducer mounted to my GX7. I also used two Yongnuo YN560-III speelights, the YN560-TX flash controller, and a silver umbrella. For a few of the shots I abandoned artificial lighting and relied on the wonderful natural light that was streaming in through the forest canopy.

28mm f/2.8 + generic focal reducer
Natural Light

In the end I found that trying to use two systems simultaneously was frustrating so I abandoned the GX7 and just switched lenses a few times throughout the shoot. Like I said in the GX7 review, my EM5 just feels like home and handling it is just more intuitive for me since I learned on this system. In regards to areas of improvements/changes, I wish that I would have brought something heavy to stabilize my light stand. In one instance, it fell over and ended up bending the umbrella on one side :/ Also, I should have used my OM 35mm f/2.8 instead of the 28mm f/2.8 because I could not use the ringflash with the latter without it interfering with the shot. Next time, this will be my second focal length. My last "head-desk" moment happened when I came home, put my card in the computer to download the images only to realize that I had shot the entire session in JPEG only. Despite all this, I learned a lot and wanted to share some of the gear and lighting scenarios I used to create these images. As far as post processing goes, I edited one image from scratch in Lightroom, saved the edits as a preset and then applied the preset to the other images in that set/"look". I then made made minor adjustments to ensure the images were similar in aesthetic and exported them to VSCOcam for final edits using the VSCO uploader.

All That Glitters 

• EM5 and Olympus 45mm f/1.8
• Ringflash + Yongnuo YN560-III mounted to hotshoe
• Lighting Diagram:

Inspired by Misty Day

• EM5 and 28mm f/2.8 + generic focal reducer
• Yongnuo YN560-III bounced off silver lined umbrella
• Yongnuo YN560-TX mounted to hotshoe
• Lighting Diagram:

Same lighting diagram as above, except model stood and I moved to the other side of the tree, ie. position of umbrella did not change.

Umbrella camera right

Roses

• EM5 and 28mm f/2.8 + generic focal reducer
• Yongnuo YN560-III bounced off silver lined umbrella
• Yongnuo YN560-TX mounted to hotshoe
• Lighting Diagram (only applies to first image):

Natural Light

Ringflash

Wildflowers

• EM5 and Olympus 45mm f/1.8
• Ringflash + Yongnuo YN560-III mounted to hotshoe

Natural light

We shot all these in the shade between 3:30 and 05:00 pm. Hunter did her own make-up and provided most of the wardrobe and we both contributed to the styling. In general, I shot at iso 200, with a shutter speed of 1/125 to 1/200 and was stopped down between f/4 and 8 when using the speedlights and ringflash or silver umbrella. For the natural light shots, I shot wide open and increased my shutter speed accordingly. All this was based off experimentation as I do not own a light meter and for each of the scenes I let Hunter know when to start modeling once I had figured out what parameters worked best. I would love to hear any additional questions you have in the comments section. I hope this inspires others to try and shoot portraits using off camera flash. It really is not that hard and although there are more efficient ways of figuring out exposure I hope this shows that it can all be done using a little guess work.

Sam

If you live in, or are traveling to Florida and would like to schedule a photo-shoot, I am currently offering portrait services in and around Central Fl. Check out more of my work at www.samgoldphotography.com

Spy-hopping
MZD 45mm f/1.8

After a long while on land enjoying Florida's mild winter, I was shipped back out to the Western Neptune for work. I was introduced to this vessel during the Fall of last year and published some photos from the trip here. In this field it is always nice going back to a familiar ship because you "know the ropes" and preparing for the voyage is easier. However, when it comes to photography, it is difficult to document the same scenery and still keep things interesting. I am always up for a challenge though and no matter what the situation, try to dedicate a couple of hours every week to practice this craft. I decided to leave my OMD EM5 home this trip and spend some quality time with the Panasonic GX7. It is the absolute perfect offshore camera due to its native 1/8000 shutter speed for those extra sunny days. In addition, it is small and becomes extra inconspicuous when switched to silent mode. Since I almost always shoot from waist level with the articulating screen up, I'm sure the people I encounter while shooting think, "Wow, he still hasn't figured out how to use that thing". ;) Hope you enjoy this set. -Sam

If you live in, or are traveling to Florida and would like to schedule a photo-shoot, I am currently offering portrait services in and around Central Fl. Check out more of my work at www.samgoldphotography.com

Daily Notes
OM Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 + generic focal reducer

Calm Before the Storm
Lumix 14mm f/2.5

Port Wing
Lumix 14mm f/2.5

Foam System
OM Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 + generic focal reducer

Geometric
Lumix 14mm f/2.5

High Seas
OM Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 + generic focal reducer

Almost Symmetrical
OM Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 + generic focal reducer

Wheelhouse
Sigma 60mm f/2.8

NSDB
OM Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 + generic focal reducer

Vignette
Lumix 14mm f/2.5

Communications
Lumix 14mm f/2.5

Panorama
Lumix 14mm f/2.5

Saltspray
OM Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 + generic focal reducer

Red
Lumix 14mm f/2.5

Western Geco
Lumix 14mm f/2.5

Gasmask
OM Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 + generic focal reducer

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, A, B, Start, Select
Lumix 14mm f/2,5

The View
OM Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 + generic focal reducer

Calm Seas
OM Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 + generic focal reducer

Coffee vs. Coke
OM Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 + generic focal reducer

Typing for Two
OM Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 + generic focal reducer

Purple Sunset
OM Zuiko 50mm f/1.4 + generic focal reducer

The Pod
OM Zuiko 28mm f/2.8 + generic focal reducer

Under the Sea
MZD 45mm f/1.8

After reading about a generic focal reducer (FR/speedbooster) over at Eric Cote's Mirrorless Journey blog I decided to make the "big investment" and purchase one of my own. The unit is made to mount a Canon EF lens to a micro four thirds body however due to the popularity of mounting legacy glass to Canon EOS bodies, there are a multitude of adapters available which can be used in conjunction with the speedbooster. I have a two old Zuiko lenses that I had used occasionally with an OM to M43 adapter and by purchasing an obscenely cheap Canon EF to OM adapter I was able to adapt my Zuiko glass. Since the FR is less than $100 I figured it was a low risk purchase and I was very interested to assess its performance firsthand.

According to the eBay listing, to calculate the focal length of your lens once the speedbooster is attached you multiple its focal length by 0.72. This also applied to the aperture and overall you gain about a stop of light. For example, an OM 50mm f/1.8 renders a field of view similar to a 100mm lens on a full frame camera (50 x 2 <-- crop factor) when mounted to my EM5 using the normal OM to M43 adapter. With the FR the lens becomes a 36mm f/1.3 (50 x 0.72 = 36, 1.8 x 0.72 = 1.296) which has an equivalent focal length of approximately 72 mm on a M43 camera. I used this legacy lens with the adapter for about 99% of my test shots and have really enjoyed this focal length. I like using short telephoto lenses, but the wider angle of view over Olympus' 45mm portrait lens makes this some sort of normal-short telephoto hybrid which is great (especially in tighter settings).

Performance

I saw no degradation in image quality when using the FR and I actually found it was better than using the 50mm f/1.8 alone with the OM to M43 adapter. Throughout heavy use I have found that the legacy 50mm is not the best performer wide open and it is often necessary stop down to at least f/2.8 (especially when faced with high contrast scenes) to get acceptable results. With the speedbooster attached I feel confident using the lens wide open which is great because of the extra stop of light you gain. This is crazy because I thought the speedbooster was going to make things worse. Below is the original RAW (converted to JPEG) and a 100% center crop of the image introducing this paragraph. In addition, I have provided another sharpness example and to my recollection these were both taken wide open. As you can see, the image has low overall contrast, but I think this is a characteristic of the old glass and not necessarily brought on by the FR.

JPEG from unedited RAW file

100% center crop (510 pixels)

JPEG from unedited RAW file

100% center crop (510 pixels) 

Sharpness at this level is definitely enough for my needs and I think that the image quality will be directly proportional to the lens that you mount to the focal reducer. One thing you may (or may not) have noticed is the chromatic aberration in the 100% crop above. Besides the fact that this is easily removed in Lightroom, I would bet money that it would have been worse using the 50mm without the FR. Below is an example of the most extreme CA I saw during my test shots (and another sharpness example for good measure).

100% crop from center top showing CA

100 % crop from center

Flaring (primarily a large blue dot in the center of your frame) with older generic speedboosters was a huge issue I had read about before purchasing this version but I did not encounter much (neither did Eric), and I tried pretty hard. Below are two examples of what I came across in terms of flare.

Extra Image Samples

• Around my home's local nature trail in Hunter's Creek, FL

OM Zuiko 28mm f/3.5

• Trip to Disney's Hollywood Studios:

OM Zuiko 28mm f/3.5

Conclusion

Overall I think this is FR a steal for less than $100, but I do not own the metabones version (which cost significantly more) to do a side by side comparison. Also, my photography workflow includes shooting RAW and then processing the images to taste in Lightroom so I do not see low overall contrast and a bit of chromatic aberration as a problem. Besides, these are likely artifacts of the lens I was using. I do not recommend this adapter if you want to actually mount your Canon EF glass to a micro four thirds camera. There are no electronic contacts and you will not have the ability to change your aperture. Its perfect for widening up your old legacy lenses though and I sure have had a blast with it!

Sam

If you live in, or are traveling to Florida and would like to schedule a photo-shoot, I am currently offering portrait services in and around Central Fl. Check out more of my work at www.samgoldphotography.com