The holiday season is a great time to make photos with gorgeously softened backgrounds and shallow depth of field for painterly, creative, and festive results. Indoors and out, the Christmas trees bedecked with tiny lights, Menorahs, and decidedly secular seasonal displays that brighten the world each December present the perfect opportunity to experiment, explore and create. While we’ll obviously be featuring a number of Sigma lenses in this how-to, much of the information here is universal.
First Look: SIGMA 35mm F1.4 DG HSM | Art Hands-On
Photographers have been excited about the possibilities of the new Sigma 35mm F1.4 DG HSM lens since it was announced at Photokina. The first of the Art line in the new Sigma Global Vision, this lens is finally here. And being one of the first photographers in North America to shoot with this lens, I can tell you, it is flat-out amazing.
A1 MTF Testing for New Sigma Lenses
On the Sigma Global Vision site, you may read and learn about every aspect of the evolution of Sigma. In this occasional blog series, we discuss aspects of the Global Vision in greater depth.
Sigma’s Holiday Season Gift Guide
Gift ideas for photographers from Sigma. Tips for buying lenses and cameras for new parents, teenagers, snowboarders, wildlife photographers, grandparents, and everything in between from budget-minded ideas to extravagant gifts for milestone occasions.
Treat Yourself to Cool Halloween Shots With These Tricks and Tips
Halloween can be an amazing time to make all sorts of cool photos. Between the Jack O’Lanterns, people of all ages in silly or scary costumes, and haunted houses, there’s something great to shoot pretty much everywhere you turn.It’s also a great time of year to throw so many of the hard and fast guidelines of photography aside and have some fun by breaking some rules, and employing some cool photo tricks to make Halloween photos that’ll turn some heads. In this blog posting, we’re going to have some fun and give you some ideas on how to capture the spirit of the season.
Chasing Birds with the Sigma 120-400mm F4.5-5.6
This past month, I was lucky enough to visit two amazing birding hotspots with the Sigma 120-400mm F4.5-5.6. Now, after shooting with this compact, long-reach tele zoom, I’ve got to say that is has quickly become one of my favorite lenses in the Sigma lineup for its fantastic combination of reach, range and amazing sharpness in a very compact package–under four pounds and just eight inches long.
Fireworks and Bright Lights in the Night For the Fourth of July and Beyond by Jack Howard
The fourth of July means many things, and for photographers, one of the most exciting and challenging aspects of this holiday is capturing amazing photos of fireworks. The bright lights in the night paint the sky with multi-colored flames in a way that can be spectacular to witness and capture with your camera. And while it may seem that fireworks–and articles about how to capture fireworks with your DSLR–only appear for a few nights in early July, there are actually tons of nights from coast to coast all summer long when the skies are illuminated with fireworks.
Beachscapes
Spots where sand, sea, and sky come together offer certain challenges to photographers, but the results can be so amazingly rewarding. Conditions can change quickly as the sun hides behind a cloud, and conditions most certainly change slowly as the tides sink and rise and the sun and moon dance across the sky. The same patch of sea may be mirror calm and reflecting golden light, or it may be a churn of furious waves. Fogs, mists, and wind-whipped sand can make for gorgeous images even as they fool camera meters. There’s a world of possibilities waiting to be captured along these edges, whenever you visit, and with whatever Sigma lens you’ve got in your bag.
A Tale of Two Time Lapse Videos
Here’s the takeaway in one sentence: Sigma Ultrawide zoom lenses and Dynamic Perception’s Stage Zero Dolly kit are a potent combination for making killer time lapse videos, whatever your visions happen to be.
Sigma Launches DN Lens Line With Two F2.8 Primes
Sigma has just announced the Digital Neo line of lenses for compact interchangeable lens cameras with a worldwide announcement launching as CES 2012 gets underway out in Las Vegas. The relatively small physical size of the 19mm F2.8 EX DN and 30mm mm F2.8 EX DN notwithstanding, this is is big news for us!
