garden

Statue in my garden, full series

beauty, erotic, location, Nude

Hi there,

things are calming down a little here, with fall offering less possibilities for shooting outdoors, I have to get back behind the computer to finish some series shot earlier. You might have seen a first image here.

From the series I did with Charisse, early this summer. It was very hot that day, and I decided to play around with some natural plaster (easy and soft on the skin) outdoors.

this is my final series, definitely something I want to explore more when the weather allows for it.

• Statue in my garden •

 

thank you for watching!!

Ludwig

Good news today – Tzipac Eros photography contest

beauty, contests, Personal Pictures

I received confirmation that seven of my thirteen entries in the Tzipac Eros award 2014 have been accepted for stage two judgement.

I have entered images from different shoots in 2 categories: Erotic/provocative and Fine Art.

Garden of Eden, not yet published here, is one of the selected images.

Final results of this contest to be expected end of august, I will certainly keep you informed about it.

More info on the contest organisation here:

http://www.tzipac.com

Justine autumn shoot

beauty, Personal Pictures

Hello there,

I had worked with Justine before, you’ve been able to see these images from my shoot with Justine at the Mansion here.

Justine is from Ronse, so we settled a second shooting moment some weeks later. We wanted to take profit from the beautiful autumn colors that day.

Unfortunately it rained all evening. Days are short already, we met at 16:00 h and a cloudy cover made for even darker shooting conditions. High ISO time it means. All shots between ISO 800 and ISO 1600.

Some images are developed in an even darker style, just to emphasize on the vulnerability of my model of the day.

Justine is really easy to work with. She’s not afraid of rain or cold, and is happy to be able to be part of it.

Thank you Justine.

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Hope you like them, see you back soon.

Ludwig

Salomé on a sunday morning

people, Personal Pictures, photo gear, Uncategorized

>Hi,

some weeks ago I did an impromptu shoot with Salomé.

Salomé is one of my nieces, and she needed some pictures for thank you cards.

She dropped in on a sunday morning and we had about half an hour for making some pictures.

Fortunately the weather was great, and since we have had so much rain these last 6 months, the green was GREEN!

I took my two main portrait lenses, 85mm and 135mm, but all these shots are with the Canon 135mm f2 L.

For me this is the best lens I have, in terms of image quality. It has plenty of contrast, even in strong backlit images, it is very sharp, from the maximum aperture on, and it has creamy soft bokeh.

Main advice in bright sun conditions: shoot with the sun in the back of your model. It will prevent your subject from peeping the eyes, and you get a beautiful hairlight (a bit strong I admit) for free.

Images have only slightly been enhanced in Lightroom. I have an import standard of +20 contrast +15 clarity, and I did nothing else.

The best of the pack (in my opinion 😉 )

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See you soon for the Harley Davidson images (see my facebook page – Ludwig Desmet)

Take care, and come again soon,

Ludwig

Leyla – a long time ago

people, Personal Pictures

Leyla and I have been colleagues when I still worked in Brussels. She was the office secretary in the design bureau I was at that time. I left the design bureau some 8 years ago, and a lot happened since then. Leyla has studied to become a midwife, and she finished her studies last summer. Congratulations to her, for it is not simple to combine studies, a job and a family. Leyla has two kids in the same age as mine. We got in touch again trough Facebook, and Leyla loved the idea of a photoshoot.
She never posed before (seems to become a rule in my shoots) but with a little help she did really really well. We worked in the garden, the glasshouse, and in different rooms of the villa. I think she has very beautiful bambi eyes. Unfortunately she had to leave shortly after the shoot, so we didn’t get time to catch up on a lot of things. Thank you Leyla, for this wonderful morning shoot.

I hope you like the results. Click to see a bigger version.









I hope you come back soon.
Don’t forget, I’m finishing my exhibition today, it will be open on october 20 – 21 – 27 – 28 and then during Pinehouse opening hours till the end of november.

Ludwig

Battle of the 50’s

Personal Pictures, tests

Hi,
last week I bought a new 50mm lens from Canon. I had the 50mm f1.8 II before, but sold it last week, and I bought the 50mm f1.4 USM. Did I make the right decision? Time to find out.
So after my excellent, quick’n dirty test for the 85mm lenses, time to have the 50mm’s compared.
The images are rather big for your convenience, sorry about the download time.

On the left the 50mm f1.8 II selling for 90 Euros, on the right the 50mm f1.4 USM, selling for 299 Euros. (prices Art&Craft – Ghent jan. 2012)

Just before I shipped my old 450D and the nifty fifty (or fantastic plastic) I took some comparison shots with both of them.
All images are taken on tripod, with a Canon 5D II, with Live view magnification for focusing (manual mode). White balance set to 5600 (flash). The images have not been processed, except for my standard processing settings at Lightroom import, so they all present in the same way. All images are saved jpg compressed, quality setting 11, from Photoshop, with sRGB IEC61966-2.1 profile attached, I don’t know what happens to the profile when publishing to WP.
I have chosen my subjects in a way to provide some real-life hard time situations for the lenses. Any comments welcome, suggestions, or if someone, or some big company wants me to do some tests on other lenses, please give me a sign. All images are done in my backyard, no exotic things going on here.

Now for the results, I will post some personal ideas, but you don’t have to agree on them, just my opinion.

Vignetting test


Some heavy vignetting on both of them, in my opinion a bit better for the 1.4 at 1.8. Note the color difference between the two lenses.

Sharpness test Same setup as vignetting pictures, 100% crops, click on the image to view full size.
Center:

Edge:

To me the 1.4 seems sharper on the entire line. I know a lot of tests seem to give opposite results and quote the 1.8 higher than the 1.4. A lot gets lost in the corners due to vignetting, but the center crop looks crisper on the 1.4.

Sharpness test2
Entire scene:

100% crops, click on the image to view full size.
Center:

Edge:

Here too I think the 1.4 is a tad sharper. This can be due to better contrast too. Same in the edge as in the center, although it is hard to see some difference at bigger apertures.

Flare test I forgot to do a test at 1.8 for the 1.4. So both of them are wide open shots.

The 1.4 clearly has more flare here, but also keeps a little more contrast in the center of the image. The cheap 1.8 does very well. I will take a shot at 1.8 with the 1.4 as soon as we get some sun in the morning.

Bokeh test Two different scenes, each time I show background and foreground bokeh. Sorry about the leaf that moved. These crops are at 50%, because in a 100% crop I couldn’t present enough image. You can see the entire shot in the top-righ corner.


To me there’s really very little difference, except that on the 1.4 you have a little softer when wide open, seems normal to me. On the other hand, when you look at the second sample you start seeing one of the biggest problems with the 1.4, purple fringing on the highlight edges.

Chromatic aberration and purple fringing center and edge crops at 100%. Note that the second image for the 1.4 is at f2.2

Entire scene:

Center crops:

Edge crops:

Ouch, that really really hurts! Never seen it soooo bad! Here the cheap nifty fifty clearly wins hands down. I made a little mistake, taking my second shot at 2.2 in stead of 1.8 for the 1.4, and it still is worse than the 1.8.
Also remark that both lenses loose contrast when stopping down too far. The branches are softer at f14 than at f7.1. I didn’t really got the image perfectly sharp with the 1.8 but I think the message is clear enough here. With the 1.4, CA on the edges never completely disappears until f14, and then contrast is gone already.

Personal conclusion
Am I happy with my new purchase, I don’t know yet. Practical use will need to prove.
– – – –
It has some serious problems with the purple fringing and Chromatic aberration, as well as with flare, compared to the nifty fifty.
It’s more expensive than the 50mm 1.8 (which really is a cheap lens for the image quality offered)
+ + + +
The sharpness results please me though, although I had read not so good reviews before, for me it is sharper than my copy of 50mm 1.8, and a little more contrasty.
It has USM autofocus, which is way faster and more accurate than the micro motor in the 1.8
It is more solidly built than the 1.8, which even has a plastic bayonet.
It is 2/3’s of a stop faster.
It is still quite cheap for a fast prime, at less than 300 euros.

Thank you for reading!

Ludwig.