Rio's Sunday portrait with A 85mm 1.4 plus single flash

I used the K-1 II + A series 85mm 1.4 * lens. Taken outside with manual diffused flash.


IMGP0628 by Peter Schluter, on Flickr

Beautiful lens too !!!

Thank you all for the kind comments. I can assure you all that Rio gets well paid for his modelling work. Extra gravy bones and cuddles from his daddy (I think he prefers the former).

From a technical perspective it may be of interest to note that I did not use a black background for this shot. It was taken outside at around 4.00 pm. The back garden was the backdrop, and although dull weather, was certainly not night time. At 1/180s ISO 100 and f8 however the ambient light was low enough to almost create a completely black background, which I only needed to darken slightly in Photoshop to remove any detail.

Rio himself was lit by a single flash fitted with a bulb-style diffuser. I used Manual exposure on the camera and manually set the flash to almost 1/2 power. The dim ambient light was just enough to add a tiny amount of fill-light to him.

This is not the set-up I would use in a studio environment where I would typically use two or three flash units, all off-camera, but for an outdoor shoot where both subject and photographer are on the move this can be very effective.