That shot of Kate... (PIC)
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John TF wrote:
Another splendid post! Like many of your other posts, it has much to teach us.
It's still a learning experience for me... and always will be. So any observations I've made are hopefully for the collective good of others. I see a lot of people post questions about which lens to use and what lens they need to be able to travel with. I had to think before deciding to leave my other lenses and cameras at home... because i wanted to take some photographs of these paintings. But since the 32mm lens is still relatively new, I thought I should try to see what it might achieve. It helps to have some examples on hand and of course the Pre-Raphaelites are very famous works of art (even the not-so-good paintings) so it was nice to be able to photograph them with this lens. Even if just to see how the lens performed in the challenging light. The shot directly below was taken on my last visit to the same gallery and I struggled to capture much using the 11-22mm lens in the dim light (which you can see in the shot is really quite limited). Shadow recovery with high contrast lenses with narrow apertures is often quite difficult and in the case of some of these indoor shots in low light, I didn't want a repeat from 2017 when I brought the 11-22mm lens with me and it failed to perform in the low lighting environment of the Art Gallery. it's a great lens but even with Image Stabilization (which allowed me 1/30 sec exposures) I could not rescue some of the images taken with ISO 3200. They were just too dark for that lens. But that same lens later excelled when I was outdoors at dusk, taking wide shots of a NASA deep-space dish. So each lens definitely has its use.
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M6 + 11-22mm lens - taken the last time I visited this gallery.
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M6 + 11-22mm lens back in 2017 - (same Gallery) A clear demonstration of how even ISO 3200 at 1/30 sec with f/4 (wide) was unable to achieve much in the way of useful images. Note that this image has even been edited & corrected !
Same Art Gallery - King Louie's chair (from the Versailles Exhibit). Taken with the EOS 6D + EF 85mm f/1.4L II USM lens, you can clearly see how dark the venue is here.
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What I like about using any camera in low available light is the way it performs and how reliable it is. Out of all the pictures I took, only ONE was slightly blurred and that was one that was taken at 1/80 second... which ought to have been sharper... and the reason it blurred was because I was rushing to snap a shot before someone moved into my way and eclipsed the painting. Fortunately I captured the image of that painting in a second shot. The photograph of our friend Kate (below) was the one that surprised me because I wasn't expecting to capture as much detail as I did. I could (should!) have used different exposures or removed my CPL filter from the lens. I guess this is what happens when you're just messing around with your camera without paying much attention to what you're supposed to be doing.
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M6 + 32mm lens - ISO 100 | f/5.6 | 1/800 sec } -0.33 ev.
The unfiltered JPEG (the one posted in the OP was edited).
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I haven't had a chance to use the EF-M 32mm f/1.4 STM lens for any serious portrait work just yet... aside from snapshots. And this picture of Kate (above) was no exception because I took it in passing... and was not set up (nor did I have any decent flash or lighting)... plus it was just starting to rain. But I was very surprised to see how much detail was captured from this distance. I'm not sure but I think my Polarizing filter was still on the lens because I'd used it earlier to photograph an outdoor sculpture just moments before. I think Kate's pole-dancing classes helped her recline backwards just long enough over the pond. But the images I took showed details like pores in the skin and individual hairs that caught me by surprised. The other lenses I've used for this sort of thing seemed to smear those details in many instances.
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Detail captured at 100% - Sharpening is turned off & was not applied later in PP.
This is how she looked when I came across her. Her boyfriend was just out of frame to the right taking a picture with her phone.
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In retrospect, the strong contrast and saturated colors indicate that my Circular Polarizing filter was certainly on the lens. The overcast conditions are what made this an issue. I'm certainly encouraged to consider using this lens again for similar photography. As more people come to obtain this lens, I'll be curious to see what results they get with their own portrait shots. There's a member here who posted some proper dedicate portraits with this lens just the other day and the results were very good.
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I think that the shutter speed was too high in my shot. I almost certainly used M-Mode and the Manual setting is always going to be reliant of the correct settings by the user. Alternatively it's possible that I used P-Mode because f/5.6 isn't on my list of typical aperture settings... I tend to gravitate towards f/7+ when aiming for sharp images. Either way, I didn't have to do much to salvage the image beyond some cosmetic touch-ups to skin and raising the levels and mid-tones.
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Regards,
Marco Nero.
