Official Blog of Jason Lanier Photography
Viewing entries tagged
a7riii
Jason Lanier photographs Emily Rinaldo in an abandoned hotel in Kauai, Hawaii using the Sony A7Riii and Godox Ad600 Pro modified by the Westcott Rapidbox XXL. Jason shot this with the Sony Zeiss 50 mm f/ 1.4 lens and Sigma Art 20 mm f/ 1.4 lens. Let us know what you think in the comments below. Thanks for viewing!
For more portraits and wedding photography by Jason Lanier follow the links in the blog and you will be directed to the galleries on Flickr. Thanks so much for checking out the work.
Are you interested in attending a photography workshop? Join Jason Lanier as he hosts photography workshops across the world in 2020. Some locations include but are not limited to: Annapolis, MD; Atlanta, GA; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX; Denver, CO; Laguna Beach, CA; Las Vegas, NV; London, UK; Louisville, KY; Melbourne AU; Nashville, TN; New York, NY: Paris, FR; Phoenix, AZ; Raleigh, NC; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; St. Louis, MO; Sydney, AU; Vancouver, BC; Venice IT - we hope to see you there! www.jasonlanier.com/register
WOW! This was a FUN SHOOT! While I usually spend the vast majority of my time teaching and not shooting at my workshops, I’ve learned to do a demo shoot at every workshop to help my students understand exactly what I’m teaching. I’ve also received feedback over the years that for some of my students who are visual learners, the demo session of the workshop is invaluable to their learning experience.
The other thing that’s so much fun at my workshops is when I have fellow photographers who are attending bring lenses that I haven’t had the chance to use before. At my Houston workshop in December 2018 a photographer named Jose brought the Canon 300mm f/2.8. I was thrilled to be able to borrow it and see how it worked with my Sony A7Riii using the Metabones Mark 5 Adapter.
As an early adopter to the Sony Mirrorless system, I am very accustomed to using Canon lenses on my Sony bodies to be able to supplement the Sony lens lineup that was lacking when I first switched over. I currently own 7 Canon L lenses and have used the 400mm f/2.8 and the Canon 200mm f/1.8 on my Sony bodies….BUT, the 300mm f/2.8 was one I hadn’t gotten my hands on yet.
Until Houston.
Jose was so kind to let me borrow the lens and his Metabones Mark 5 Adapter. In the past I’ve always used the Metabones Mark 4 Adapter or the Sigma MC11 Adapter. To answer the easy question for those reading this and wondering…did I notice a difference using the Metabones Mark 5 over the others? No. So if you’re like me, you don’t need to rush out and spend money on it unless you currently don’t have an adapter.
But, back to the lens.
Yes, it’s heavy.
Yes, it requires an adapter to use.
But yes, it delivers some pretty stellar results. Check out the shots below from the shoot:
As you’ll see when you watch the video I tested this lens in a variety of ways. First I shot with it just doing portraits as most people would use it.
Then I decided to up the ante and added the Westcott Eyelighter to the equation with the Godox AD600 Pro light that I was using inside of the Westcott Rapid Box XXL.
And THEN I decided to add some ambience to the background of the shots by asking the photographers there to throw sand and leaves behind the model (@macanoniii). You’ll also see that I added a rim light to the back of the shot by having a photographer hold the light behind the model to illuminate not just the model, but also all of the particles flying in the air.
Throughout the shoot I used different focusing modes to be able to adequately acquire focus. Did the lens acquire focus as fast and reliably as using the Sony 400mm f/2.8 lens? No. It didn’t.
Is it more than usable in most circumstances if you have the lens and want to use it on a Sony? Yes.
I switched to manual focus and had the lens situated on my model for the last set of shots when a lot of stuff was flying in the air because I didn’t want the lens to hunt for focus and miss the eyes of my subject.
I hope this helps!
If you have any questions about the lens or how it performed make sure to notate it in the comment section below.
Thanks again for being here and if you like what you see, make sure to check out some more of our posts and videos!
If you’d like to join us at a workshop please visit www.jasonlanier.com/register.
We also do a podcast called Jason Lanier Unfiltered that you can find on iTunes, Spotify and more.
Thanks again for stopping by!
Jason
On Halloween 2018 I had the opportunity to do a very special shoot with the Rotolight team at the Fitzrovia Chapel in London, UK. It’s always pretty surreal getting to visit and shoot in some of these exotic locations and we wanted to do something really fun for Halloween. Click below to watch the video of this shoot!
My model Emily and I arrived at the chapel that’s tucked away in the center of London. This is an old chapel surrounded by big modern buildings and can’t be seen from the street. You have to navigate the CRAZY traffic in London (I mean I really HATE London traffic), park in one of the crazy parking lots that charge $60 for a couple of hours and THEN you drag your stuff all the way to the shooting location.
SO, after doing all of that, you certainly hope that the location is WORTH it. Was it?
YES.
TOTALLY WORTH IT.
So I got Emily settled into the chair for hair and make up where she started the transformation into the Corpse Bride with her Corpse Groom Lawrence waiting for her:
The biggest challenge when first walking into the church was trying to figure out how to take the ambient lighting down as it was very warm and convert it into the kind of cold blue tones that you’d want for a corpse bride (day of the dead) kind of shoot. So we killed all of the lighting in there and started lighting it up with blue lighting from all of the lights from the Rotolight Ecosystem. In this shoot we used the Rotolight Anova Pro 2, Aeos, and the Neo 2.
The Motion Blurr teamed based out of London filmed the shoot for me and did a great job. Below are the shots from the shoot. I really wanted to craft this as a story and I believe the shots below show the story unfolding even more than comes across in the video of the shoot.
I can’t thank Emily and Lawrence enough for their hard work in making all of this happen. They both did a terrific job of getting into the characters and going for it.
Below is a list of the gear used in the video:
*Sony 85mm G Master
*Sony 35mm Zeiss
*Westcott Halo- https://www.fjwestcott.com/45-round-halo?acc=1c383cd30b7c298ab50293adfecb7b18
*Westcott Eyelighter- https://www.fjwestcott.com/eyelighter?acc=1c383cd30b7c298ab50293adfecb7b18
ROTOLIGHT GEAR: To receive a 10% discount and FREE shipping on the Rotolights used in this video please visit www.jasonlanier.com/rotolight
