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Dusk at Cape Zanpa

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Cape Zanpa (also spelt, or arguably misspelt, Cape Zampa) at dusk. This was the first time out shooting with a new shift setup for the 645D. I used a Pentax 67 45mm lens with a Zörk ProSA-P67 adapter. This adapter not only allows you to use 67 lenses on the 645 camera but also allows you to raise or lower the lens to correct converging verticals when shooting landscapes or architecture. More details and images should follow over the next few weeks.

A Swift Adventure – Iheya Island, Okinawa

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Last weekend, I went over to Iheya Island with fellow photographers David and Jose. It’s a 90 minute ferry ride from Unten Port on the Motobu peninsular. Rather than rent a car when we got there, we all bundled into my little Swift. One of the advantages of a small car is that it makes the ferry ride cheaper. The weather wasn’t great while we there, thick clouds at dawn and dusk meant there were no spectacular sunrises or sunsets. It was, however, a decent opportunity to explore one of the islands I’d never been to before. And because I didn’t get all the shots I wanted I have a good reason to go back again. One of the island’s attractions is Kumaya-gama a large cave beside the ocean that holds a small shinto shrine. I think the plastic buckets you can see on the floor to the right of the shrine are to collect droplets of water dripping from the rock. At other religious sites in Okinawa such as Sefa Utaki, this water is …

In the Studio – Catron

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A fun studio shoot with Catron, makeup by Summer Johnson. Lighting setup was the same as in the recent shoot with Yuki. To give the final image a little movement, I brought in a desk fan from my office and asked Summer to point is at Catron’s face. I  shot several frames as the exact result is unpredictable, but  was really pleased with the image we created.

In the Studio – Adriesa

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Another couple of images from the studio. Thanks to both the model Adriesa Kane and makeup artist Summer Johnson. Of interest to photographers is that I used an extra light in this setup. As well as the beauty dish above my right shoulder and the rim lights behind each shoulder of the model I also added a medium softbox as fill at my feet. This gives a flatter, less moody look to the shots when you don’t want such intense shadows on the model’s face. It also adds light to the lower part of the body reducing the spotlight effect of a gridded beauty dish. The catchlights in the eyes also change, with reflections from both the beauty dish (donut shape) and softbox (rectangle shape).

Pentax K-01 Mirrorless Camera

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While in Tokyo I stopped by the Pentax Forum in Shinjuku to have a chat about a possible solo exhibition there in autumn. I also had the chance to check out the new Pentax K-01 camera. It’s a mirrorless camera which allows the designers to make it more compact, but they have kept the same APS size sensor used in the K5, and the standard pentax lens mount. The result is a relatively compact camera that produces high quality images and has access to a wide range of Pentax lenses. A new pancake lens, as show in the photographs, makes this a system you could keep in your pocket. Another great feature of the camera is its aesthetics. Pentax hired designer Marc Newson and allowed him to break free of the standard utilitarian mold that is used for most digital SLRs. Overall a very cool product. The camera is now available for preorder at Amazon Japan, Amazon U.S., Amazon U.K. and B&H.

Pentax 645 FA 150mm F2.8 v Pentax 67 SMCP 165/2.8

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Introduction One of the benefits of shooting with Pentax is the ability to use lenses from a larger format on smaller cameras. With an adapter, you can use Pentax 67 lenses on the Pentax 645 or Pentax 35mm cameras. You can read more about this in previous blog posts here and here. The crucial question is would the old school lenses stand up to the high resolution images created by the 645D. I was really pleased with the results I was getting when using the 67 105mm lens, but unsure about the telephoto 165mm. I’d tried it once or twice but found the images soft. As I recently acquired a 150mm 645 lens I could compare lenses of similar focal lengths and see what the differences were. Method I taped a page from a catalogue to a concrete post about 3 meters away, then took a shot of the page using both the 645 150mm lens and the 67 165mm lens with 67 to 645 adapter. I also photographed the page at three different f …