Ethiopia photo essay

At the end of 2018 I had my first real visit to Ethiopia, traveling to three areas in the northern region; Mekelle, Bahir Dar and Injibara.

I’ve come back with a large workload and the video edits of three different projects will take some time. In the meantime, here are a collection of (unedited) pictures, which are still images taken from the video files.

Being with people that lived in-country and spoke the language did open doors to get a glimpse of every day life in each region I visited. But being a tourist is OK too.

We visited family homes, saw coffee and injera being made (and enjoyed the end results!), got a real look into the Orthodox church, agricultural practices and started to get a picture of the people through their own eyes. Attending a funeral in Injibara was truly memorable - the Awi people have such intriguing tradition at such a time.

Right now I am in the hard slog phase of video editing and I would love to be out shooting again. But, I believe the videos will be something that offers insight to what is a wonderful, communal culture.

2019 Calendar available: Tembea Kenya

2018 was the first year for a while that I did not make a calendar. Plenty of folks asked about it which felt kinda nice and made me determined to make a calendar for the following year.

Well, it’s that time and I have received delivery of the 2019 Calendar!

Tembea Kenya 2019 is an A3 wall calendar (when open) and features stunning pictures of Kenya’s landscapes, wildlife and people - all taken this year.

Back Cover, showing all the pictures that are included in the calendar

Calendar 2019 is bigger and better than ever, but the price remains at £10 plus p&p. You read that right :-)

What's better is that all proceeds go towards supporting our family as we continue to volunteer with SIM in Kenya.

So go ahead, reach out to me and we can organise getting a calendar to you!

Rotolight AEOS review

When new photographic technologies establish themselves, we often see supporting accessories emerge. The Rotolight AEOS is a case in point, being a portable and professional-grade bi-colour LED light that also operates as a HSS flash unit. 

It makes total sense to create lights that perform both continuous and flash lighting, what with more and more cameras and therefore image makers shooting both professional photos and videos. 

The British LED lighting specialist Rotolight now has a well-established range of circular LED lights that aim to cater for both video and photography, with three models available. 

In the range is the recently launched Rotolight Anova Pro 2, which is the largest and most powerful. The Rotolight Neo 2 is the smallest with most modest output, while the Rotolight AEOS sits in the middle. 

The LED lights provide professional-grade colour accuracy with flicker-free output and an easily adjustable colour temperature to match the ambient light. 

Typically the flash feature provides a 250% boost in output of the maximum continuous LED output, with a 1/8000sec max sync speed and no recycle time.

So, the Rotolight AEOS makes for great reading, but what is the reality? I found out when shooting portraits of a band that a couple of my friends are in. 

Rotolight AEOS: Ease of Use

Rotolight supplied me with the AEOS kit, which contains two AEOS light panels, light stands, 4-piece filter set and a carry case, plus an additional Elinchrom Skyport HSS wireless transmitter, barn doors, yokes and V-mount batteries.

I'd say that the V-mount batteries are an essential optional extra in order to make the most out of these lights for location work. 

It takes but a few of minutes to remove the panels from the case, mount them to stands and have them ready to go. Whether you are familiar with LED light panels or not, it doesn’t get much simpler.  

Each light panel weighs approximately 1.4kg. They can be mounted to a light stand or held by hand using the aluminium brackets. It is really easy to hold the light by hand and position it at all angles. Add the optional V-Mount battery and things get a little heavier. The battery is half the weight of the panel again, meaning the combination is above 2kg.  

On the back of the light one is faced with a basic control layout, including a small backlit LCD screen that by default displays the output of the light. It switches to display whatever control is being operated.  

Then there are two red knobs that control the power output and colour temperature. The dials are sensitive to rotation speed, so you can make quick and severe adjustments through to slow and precise. You get manual control over output, plus a colour temperature range of 3,150 to 6,300 kelvin. 

The maximum continuous light output is quoted at 5,750 lux at 3 feet. However, this is true when the light is set to a middle colour temperature of approximately 4,400 kelvin, where both bi-colour LEDs are at their brightest. Go to either extreme; 3,150k or 6,300k and the light output is notably reduced.  

Press both red knobs on the rear simultaneously and a menu is opened up where the flash feature can be accessed. Again there is manual control over output, but I expect most users will choose the flash to gain the 250% boosted output.  

Also, in that additional menu is the CinemaSFX effects, where the light panel can recreate lighting effects such as a flickering fire. These novel features may grab the interest of aspiring filmmakers.  

The V-mount batteries that were used for this test are claimed to provide up to 3 hours of shooting time, which is plenty of time for a full shoot. Certainly, I didn’t come close to draining those batteries during any of the shoots that I used the batteries for. If these lights are going to be used on location, then the v-mount batteries are an essential optional extra.  

Of course the advantages to LED lights over tungsten bulb lights is that LEDs do not overheat in the same way. If you’re in a cramped environment, it’s a godsend. With the lights often positioned close to my subjects, I had no concern for them becoming uncomfortable by any heat emission. 

Rotolight AEOS: Performance

During the main shoot of the band I most regularly used the AEOS lights at the tungsten end of 3,150k in order to match the ambient light. As this setting the output is still reasonable with the panel positioned close to my subjects. 

To give you a small idea of the level of output, with the light set to 3,150k the camera exposure settings for the group shot of four people positioned around 5 feet from the light read as f/4, 1/200sec at ISO 800.  

This level of output is respectale for such a compact light panel. Also, the CRI 96 and TLCI 91 ratings are professional-grade, so no worries about off-colours there within the colour temeprature range of 3,150 to 6,300 kelvin.  

As for the flash feature, its output does not come close to a dedicated flashgun. On paper a 250% boost in output sounds great, but this is of the maximum continuous output of 5750 lux, which is a mere fraction of a studio flash.  

However, to its advantage, the flash does not have a recycle time so you can fire it repeatedly with no delay with a max flash sync speed is 1/8000sec. Take that, dedicated flash gun.

To me, the flash is a nice added feature rather than a genuinely useful tool. I would usually use the lights in their continuous mode to illuminate my subjects. 

An AEOS light is best suited to image making when the ambient light is quite low, like a cloudy day, at nighttime or indoors. On a sunny day, the light is less useful.  

Over the course of the band shoot, a couple of the guys complained about the brightness of the light panel - it being too bright for them to look at. Indeed, they did get a little red-eyed. 

I could have added diffusers or reduced the light output. Also, I could have used the flash feature more, because when using flash the continuous output is dimmed between flashes.  

A final note on the lights. They are circular in shape which means you get a lovely circular catch light, that is not too dissimilar to a ring flash. 

Rotolight AEOS pricing

Each Rotolight panel costs £749.99 ex VAT, plus there are plenty of optional extras such as V-mount batteries (£241.66 ex VAT each).

Once you add up all these extras the setup is very expensive, but hey most LED lighting is. For more information about the Rotolight AEOS, which is also available as a two light kit with case and stands (£1583.33 ex VAT), please visit the Rotolight website.  

Rotolight AEOS: Conclusion

It’s a wonderful concept; a portable light that is at home in both the studio and on location, for both videos and photography. And to a large extent, the Rotolight AEOS works. 

In the hand, the unit is portable and light. You can take the light with you wherever you go and set it up really quickly and power them by mains supply or optional batteries.  

Where the Rotolight AEOS shines is as a continuous LED light. The colour reproduction is flawless, the cinemaSFX effects are a nice touch and the output is nice and bright for closeup subjects.  

The lights really come into their own in slightly dimmer conditions like indoors or outside during an overcast day. The 250% brighter flash output is a bonus feature, but is no way near the output of a dedicated flash unit. If the ambient light is already bright, you may struggle to see the benefit of the Rotolight AEOS.  

With three lights in the range at three different size/ output points, I think the AEOS strikes a good balance. It’s portable and for the best part, powerful.   

The light in itself is on the expensive side. When you factor in optional extras that are quite necessary to make the most out of the light for location work, then things get very expensive. V-Lock batteries, charger units, barn doors, yokes and so on all add up to a system that costs in the thousands.  

Price aside, the Rotolight AEOS is a user-friendly and versatile light with perfectly accurate output.  

Laowa 105mm f/2 STF lens review: It's sharp...in the right hands

Laowa is a dab hand at creating unusual lenses and the Laowa 105mm f/2 STF lens is a case in point. It's one of the very few lenses that features an apodisation element.

The weighty metal lens features two diaphragms, one your regular f/stop aperture and another a T stop aperture (apodisation element) halfway up the barrel. In this case, the element is labelled Smooth Transition Focus (STF).

STF creates images with extra smooth out-of-focus areas while keeping the area in focus particularly sharp. It is THE selling point of the lens and the results are wonderful. When using the T Stop aperture wide open, you get perfectly circular bokeh with next to no chromatic aberrations (fringing). 

It's impressive stuff and for the quality of images possible out of this lens, its RRP of £750 is very reasonable.

But, and it's a big but, this is a manual focus lens only. 

I don't mind manual focus lenses, in fact I rather like taking manual control. But there are lens focal lengths and subjects that really benefit from autofocus and this is one of them.

Throughout testing the lens my hit ratio of sharp shots was much lower than I would like. Even with the large Nikon D850 viewfinder at my disposal and live view focus magnification, it's exceptionally difficult to obtain pin sharp focusing on the eyes at f/2.

In the end, I resorted to manual focus bracketing. Taking the same shot around 5 times in quick succession while making micro adjustments to focusing. That way I could ensure one of the shots was pin sharp on the eyes and discard the rest. 

One other downside is that lens flare is a bit of a problem. I like to shoot towards the light for backlit portraits. Yet, when doing this the chances of substantial lens flare are higher than normal - I got a few shots that were totally unusable.

Otherwise, the image quality and control over lens distortion is top notch.

All being said, I enjoyed the precision required of me to get images that I am happy with. I may have numerous slightly blurry images in the review gallery, but this lens has sharpened me up.

Check out Photography Blog for the full review. 

Nikon D850 for portraits

Last week I shared my review of the Nikon D850, which I said may well be the only DSLR camera you ever need. As a follow up I have used the D850 in various scenarios to check its prowess in popular photography disciplines.

First up is portraits. Here are my five top reasons as to why the Nikon D850 is so good for portraits:

• Resolution & Detail
• Dynamic range
• Colour & Metering
• Lenses
• Composition

Resolution & Detail

45.4-million-pixels gives you a heck of a lot of detail and massive prints sizes of 874x583mm at 240dpi. Of all DSLRs, only the Canon EOS 5DS out-resolves the D850. Detail is clean from ISO 32 to ISO 1600

Dynamic Range

From my experience with the D850, its dynamic range is quite exceptional. At its true base ISO 64 setting, the breadth of tonal detail from highlights to shadows has been likened to medium format cameras. Less detail lost in those bright highlights like shine on skin. More detail recovered from dark areas too.

Colour & Metering

Perhaps one of the bigger surprises is just how well the D850 renders colour. Nikon’s latest 3D colour matrix metering III system and 180,000-pixel RGB metering sensor gives accurate exposures right off-the-bat and skin tones are lovely when using the Neutral picture setting.

Lenses

You'll want dreamy out of focus areas in most portraits. Well, there are plenty of fast-aperture f/1.4, Nikon-fit prime lenses that give the control over depth of field akin to medium format cameras.

Composition

Getting the right composition is key too. With Nikon's largest through-the-eye viewfinder yet and vibrant 3.2in tilt-touchscreen, you can clearly see the composition even when it's dark or the camera angle is awkward. 

For a little more detail on my experience using the Nikon D850 for portraits, including how it compares to the Nikon D800, please read my feature on Photography Blog.