Portrait Shoot
With restrictions lifting after the lockdown period and photographers being able to return into their studios to work. I booked in an actors headshot session that had unfortunately been postponed due to the pandemic situation months ago.
Clive is an actor I have worked with several times at a theatre called East Riding Theatre in Beverley, a great character and a fabulous actor. Clive and I met at the studio and after a brew and a catch-up, we worked our way through his headshots.
At the end of the shoot, I asked if he would mind if I tried a few experimental images for myself just to test a few things out to which he gladly agreed.
I have been wanting to test a lens out I’ve had for some time the Sigma Art 105mm F1.4. I’ve never used this lens in the studio and this seemed a great opportunity to do so.
Shooting it fitted to a Sony A7R4 we fired off a few frames under the lighting I had already set up previously.
The reason I wanted to test this lens is not just for its optical sharpness as to be honest it is as sharp as you would ever want a lens to be, but for how it would feel in a working portrait situation. One thing that is very important to me when shooting portraits is the working distance from my subject. This is because I need a comfortable distance to be able to communicate without being too close or too far away. I have shot in the past with an 85mm F1.4 Sigma art and have been happy with the results but found I was cropping my images to get the correct framing to the distance I personally like to work. I have also shot with the sigma Art 135mm F1.8 and this too is a fabulous bit of glass but put me too far away from my subject to be usable portrait lens in my current studio.
The lighting was fairly simple with the key light being a Rice Bowl 65cm softbox to camera right, the rim light was a 60cm strip box to camera left and the background light also a 60cm strip box just to add a little separation and this was placed just behind Clive.
The images were then edited in Lightroom using one of my current presets and the result is the image you see attached to this blog. I have also edited this image in colour as I am currently working on a set of colour portrait presets and this I will share with you in a future blog.
So what do I think of the Sigma 105mm F1.4 lens? I will have to say it has become my favourite piece of glass and in my opinion the best portrait lens I’ve ever used. I will also do a review of this in a future Youtube Video and not one of me taking it out of a box but one from a photographers working viewpoint.
I’d like to say a big thank you to Clive for agreeing to let me test this out and for me to share this image with you.