In August 2015 I purchased my Sony alpha 7RII. A wonderful camera that outpaced my previous Canon camera at so many points. But when it comes to the build quality, I would advise Sony to improve their work a bit. Read what I am moaning about.
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For more than 20 years we see an orange and teal look in the cinemas. It is a very popular way of color grading movies. Sometimes it is highly overdone and feels surreal, but when used subtle it adds to the atmosphere and appeals to us viewers. I wanted to understand why and digged up an old book from art school about colors.
For more than 15 years, I use Profoto lights. Now, if they asked me, I would have given them this wish list: Make it smaller, lighter, so I can take it on a plane, remove the cable and make it chargeable while using. Oh, and if you could add a display with large numbers, it would be nice, too. Profot hasn't asked me. But they still fulfilled my wishes.
When photographing humans, no matter what you do in the retouching process, the skin tones are the most important colors. While Canon tends to give warm skin tones, Sony's color math leads to cooler images. What is right and what is wrong? I recently heard about the secret skin tone formula.
There are two common color spaces and it is a highly technical topic. One is larger than the other, one is more common, especially when displaying images on screen. So which color space should you use?
When I read discussions on photo gear, it's all about lenses. People keep asking what kind of lens they should take on their trips and which lenses perform better than others. Here's an introduction to what I photograph with.
After a couple of years, you can judge better what gear is useful and what stuff rests in the drawer for years. There's one little camera tripod I am constantly using and that barely anyone knows. So, I thought, I tell you about it.
For a couple of weeks the successor of my Sony camera is out on the market. You could read many opinions in internet forums from people who had only read the technical specs from Sony's press release. Luckily I was invited to get hands-on information through a professional Sony expert at my local dealer. Here are my (rather non-technical) conclusions.
Even though my Sony A7RII has an In Body Image Stabilization (IBIS), I was a bit unhappy with videos I filmed freehand lately. When walking, it's just impossible to keep a shot steady without the use of additional gear. So I decided to search for a suitable gimbal that can hold my Sony steady with ease. With the Zhiyun Crane 3 I found a proper tool.
When I was a kid, my father taught me that a good photograph needs a foreground, middleground and background. It is one of the very basic composition rules. And still valid today. But what if you're not shooting landscapes? And what if there is no foreground on your set?
When it comes to color grading, there are thousands of techniques. You can't say one method is better than the other. And none of them works universal for all images. Probably like all photographers, I try to photograph light and colors in a way I want them, so I have less work in post production. For images that look almost perfect out of cam, color grading using Photoshop's gradient map is a very quick method.
In photography it's all about light. The quality and quantity of light, soft and harsh light. But one of the most important aspects is the direction of light. It's always good to know from where the sun shines at what time.
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