Sunday Mornings are for Fashion Shoots

Sunday saw a quick fashion shoot in the very beautiful spa town of Leamington, When your model suggests an early start you dont expect it to be 7am…..unfortunately the frost was not present but it was cold, so all credit to our very brave model.

For this shoot we were using the Sony A7rii and the Canon 70-200 and the Sigma MC-11 adaptor to enable everything to talk to each other.

Focus was pretty fast and face recognition worked really well, it didn’t focus as fast as the lens would on a canon body – but we never expected that it would.

Assistance on this shoot was provided by Ken Witherow – master of lighting



Locations around Leamington Spa included Jephson Gardens amongst others – the beauty of Leamington being that all parks seems to inter connect. Model is the lovely Kelly ‘Tinks’.

a lens, a lens, my camera for a lens….

Once many years ago I had a lens and it’s name was 50. It was a very groovy guy and cost me £50 for a 50mm lens. It was made of plastic but had an aperture of f1.8. It was known as the nifty fifty.
Then one day as it sat on its shelf it looked longingly at the world beyond and stepped hesitantly into the abyss betwixt shelf and floor….fleetingly it caressed my hand before landing with a sickening thud onto the carpet. Its front and rear elements went in separate directions and alas it was a lens no more…
Recently I decided that perhaps it was time to replace that little workhorse and had a look at the various offerings. Canon were now selling the 1.8 for around £90 which for such a sharp lens is pretty affordable.
Sigma also sold a contender but a little voice in the back of my head whispered f1.4….
Canon sold this for around £350 and researching it told me that it was a very good lens for the money, however Sigma also offered the same lens but around £370 or so…decisions decisions…
I was able to sweet talk Sigma into lending me the lens for a few days and so spent this lunch time wandering the arctic temperatures of Birmingham.
This was to be a scientific test so I ensured that I didn’t have a tripod with me and had made no forward plans.
I wasnt interested in how good it was in a controlled enviroment, I wanted to know how good it would be in the real world.
floozy in the jacuzzi
I also tried shooting buildings with lots of hidden detail, for example on this picture I saw the vapour trail from the plane but only when editing did I see the bird flying high over the roofline.

So far the little Sigma lens is performing remarkably well. It also comes with a little petal hood, not sure how much use this would be in reality as it is quite small – but it is not offered with the Canon version…

As a totally unscientific test I wanted to catch some lens flare, I was interested in the way it presented itself across the lens. I think you will agree that it is quite pleasant?
So after a couple of hours play what did I think?
Beautifully sharp lens, cute lens hood AND has a 77mm front element – which matches the filters I already own…
Its about £30 more than the Canon equivalent but I would probably spend that on a new filter for it….it also has the lens hood…
Dear Sigma I appear to have misplaced your lens……I think I may be raiding the piggy bank!!!