Hey, this is Scott of Photography Banzai.
Gonna go over a simple photo outing with this Super
Takumar 50mm f/1.4 film era lens... with the EF-M system. Of course,
I have the adapter. Used one of my M50s on the photo outing. A few things to keep
in mind with this lens. You do want to use peaking probably. Of course, you can
use the zoom feature, but I didn't use that. And I think maybe the zoom feature
would have helped out getting perfect focus some of the time. But generally the
peaking works pretty well. You definitely want to use the viewfinder because it
just gives you much better view to get that focus with peaking on properly.
To get peaking you can go into tab 1, page 7, MF peaking settings. In my case I had it
on with red and high. I was using full manual mode on the camera. It works
just fine, but in retrospect I think Tv mode, in the specific situation, would
work a little bit better. One other thing I think is important is having the
histogram on. You can go into your settings.. just make sure it's on if it is
not showing up. You can get it in the viewfinder and on the back screen.
To get the histogram on, you want to go into tab 3, page 4.. shooting info display.
And then screen info settings. From there just make sure the page that has the
histogram is checked. There should actually be two for each the viewfinder
and the back screen.
I didn't pay too much attention to the aperture. I was mostly focusing on having
a shutter speed that was fast enough, but with aperture it was generally between
f/2.8 plus or minus a few stops. Of course, I really want to use large
apertures when I can just because it gives an interesting look to the photos.
But in this case it was really bright, really windy, and I just let it go as
is for most part. Considering how bright it was, it was pretty challenging to get
focused properly.. on.. especially on the back screen. I had it set to 50%
brightness, which is the default. The viewfinder was definitely a lot better
for getting focus with the peaking feature. Wind really adds some
challenging aspects to the photos. Especially when I had a tripod and my
b-roll camera running. Wind can make taking photos of flowers pretty
challenging. So in this case I would hold the flower itself if it was a longer
taller one... with one hand and then just take the photo of course with my right hand.
Works pretty well. I would also move
back and forth instead of trying to adjust the focus on the lens itself.
Especially at minimum focus distance. Just works a little bit easier to get
that focus with peaking, because I can see the red shift in the viewfinder.
Plane of focus is important. Definitely want to get as much as you can.. especially at
larger apertures in focus, of the subject. Otherwise if you're just shooting
straight on top you might just get a little sliver of a piece of a flower, and
it doesn't look too interesting in my opinion. I like trying to use the sky in
the photos. It definitely takes some angling and getting down close to the
ground usually. But I think it adds an interesting look to the images. With
flower photography and plant photography, I think it's really good to
take a different perspective when you can. Kind of an insect's perspective was
what I was trying out here. It does work pretty well and it gives the plant more of a
pronounced look. A larger look to it. Especially if you add some of the sky in
there as well. I really like that look. It was pretty challenging doing a manual
focus in that specific situation, especially low to the ground. But I do
think some of the photos turned out pretty decent.
Trying to have different levels of interests in photos... So you have the
background, middle ground, and foreground. Everything has some type of feature in it.
Of course some of it might be blurred out a little bit or a lot but it still
adds some interest to the photo overall.
So that was a look at this quick photo outing. I really love the enjoyable
simple photo outings. Just going out and taking photos. Of course in my case I'm
recording video at the same time, which adds a little bit of extra challenge to
it. But in general I really like just those simple photo outings.
Hope you enjoyed this video.
I'm Scott from Photography Banzai.
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