Simple One Light Outside Group Photo

Nikon D4, 28-300mm ƒ/3.5-5.6, ISO 100, ƒ/8, 1/125, Off camera Alienbees B1600

The Setup

Simple lighting setups work great outside when you already have the sun as one of the lights.

Before getting the photo above you need to plan and do some test shots.

I recommend putting the Strobe opposite the sun and use the sun as a hair light to help create separation from the background.

Nikon D4, 28-300mm ƒ/3.5-5.6, ISO 100, ƒ/8, 1/125, Off camera Alienbees B1600

When I do test shots I always do some tight photos of the face so I can see how the light looks on the face. Here my daughter, who was also my assistant, stood in the place I would have the bride and bridesmaids stand.

Top View

I metered the scene and then added the strobe at 1 stop less than the scene.

Just be sure no one comes between the strobe and the people and always have someone standing next to the strobe so that a strong gust of wind doesn't blow it over. Also this person can be sure the flash is firing.

Some photos I shot of wedding this weekend and tips

Nikon D4, 14-24mm ƒ/2.8, ISO 500, ƒ/8, 6 seconds, Off camera Alienbees B1600 powered by Vagabond.

These are just some of my favorite photos from this past weekend when I photographed my niece's wedding.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm ƒ/2.8, ISO 1600, ƒ/5.6, 1/200, Off camera with 3 Alienbees B1600 pointed at the ceiling in the corners of the room.

Looking for a different angle. I wanted something a little dramatic, so I am using the ceilings leading lines to help and then I am anchoring the photo just below the couple. For depth I have the head table in the background to give another dimension to the moment.

I kind of like capturing one of the bridesmaids on her smartphone using social media to keep everyone up to date on what is happening.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm ƒ/2.8, ISO 100, ƒ/8, 1/100 seconds, Off camera Alienbees B1600 

Everyone likes doing the jumping shot of the bridal party, so I guess this is a right of passage now days.

Nikon D4, 85mm ƒ/1.4, ISO 100, ƒ/8, 1/200, Off camera Alienbees B1600 

I was thinking I needed the 85mm for the shallow depth of field, but I needed the wedding party so far back for this I could have used just about any lens since the ƒ-stop was ƒ/8.  I didn't want the bride and groom unrecognizable.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm ƒ/2.8, ISO 2500, ƒ/5.6, 1/60, Off camera Alienbees B1600 with umbrella

This is some detail shot to show the flowers and some of the shoes the bridesmaids were wearing.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm ƒ/2.8, ISO 7200, ƒ/9, 1/100, Available Light balanced using ExpoDisc.

While today everyone is shooting the brides dress hanging up, we went one further with all the bridesmaids dresses and the flower girl's dress. This was my wife's idea and who was also one of my lovely assistants. The other assistant was my daughter Chelle who was holding lights and light stands throughout the day.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm ƒ/2.8, ISO 1600, ƒ/8, 1/100, Available Light balanced using ExpoDisc.

Of course I shot the dress as well by itself. Give them what they expect, but try to deliver something new.  That is my motto.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm ƒ/8, ISO 100, ƒ/8, 1/200, Off camera Alienbees B1600 

The sky was so dramatic that even the father of the bride was commenting on it. I knew I needed to capture that in the photos, so I backlit the bride and put her right in front of the sun and then just use a fill-flash with the Alienbees B1600 to act as the main light. The sun became a great rim light for everyone in the photo.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm ƒ/8, ISO 100, ƒ/8, 1/200, Off camera Alienbees B1600

Time is of essence with wedding photos, so rather than coming up with super unique photos in many different locations I just modified them to help us get more photos for the bride and groom.

Nikon D4, 28-300mm ƒ/3.5-5.6, ISO 100, ƒ/8, 1/125, Off camera Alienbees B1600

While at the home of the bride I setup in the backyard after they got their hair and makeup done so I could make a few photos here and save some time later in the day.  Again, I am using the sun as a second light to rim light the people and the Alienbees B1600 as the main light.

Nikon D4, 28-300mm ƒ/3.5-5.6, ISO 100, ƒ/8, 1/125, Off camera Alienbees B1600

Before I did the photos of the bride with the bridesmaids, I took a good number of family photos in the same place. It helped me double check the lights and squeeze in a few more photos making everyone happy that they were getting photos of themselves all dressed up for the day.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm ƒ/2.8, ISO 5000, ƒ/5.6, 1/100, Available Light balanced using ExpoDisc.

Now while the lights really help the photos, what distinguishes me from many photographers is my emphasis on capturing moments. Here the bride is with all the women just moments before her dad will see her.

Nikon D4, 28-300mm ƒ/3.5-5.6, ISO 4500, ƒ/9, 1/500

Here I ran behind a gazebo to get the photo of the mother of the bride putting in sand into one jar. This was done instead of a unity candle since it was outside to help represent the coming together of two families.

Nikon D4, 28-300mm ƒ/3.5-5.6, ISO 1600, ƒ/5.6, 1/200, Off camera with 3 Alienbees B1600 pointed at the ceiling in the corners of the room.

Here I capture the twin sister and maid of honor giving her toast and capturing a moment again.



Some tips I would pass along

• Have a sit down meeting with the bride and groom or whoever is paying the bill. 
• Plan a shot list
• Have some parameters to help them with timing. For example I tell the bride for formal line them up photos to allow about 3 minutes per photo, but for the fun photos like jumping in the air, this can be around 5 minutes per photo.
• Encourage to get photos before the wedding of some of the groupings. Help them understand you want them to have as much time with their guests that have come from all over for that day to see them.
• Use off camera strobes for formal and group photos.  
• For outside I recommend the Alienbees B1600 with a Vagabond battery
• Inside or dusk photos you can use something like the Nikon SB-900 and fire them with PocketWizard TT1 and the Flex TT5 giving you TTL control. Also, use the AC3 to control the output of the flash from your camera.
• Use Tripod when possible. This will help immensely in group photos where one person in one photo blinks and in the next photo someone else does. You can then combine the two photos much easier when grabbing head of someone to put in the other photo with PhotoShop CS6.
• Use custom white balance all the time. I use ExpoDisc. This will save you incredible amount of post processing time. 
• Use high ISO to help open up the background. Way too many photographers are obsessed with using the lowest ISO that they end up sacrificing capturing the background that gives depth to the photos.
• Use assistants. They can alert you if a flash isn't working. They can help spot someone's tie or dress is not straight and help adjust it while you stay behind the camera.
• Over shoot. Shoot more than you ever promise a bride. Shoot the shot on your list and as you have time throw in some fun photos. Just do a serious photo and then ask everyone to make a funny face for one. Just doing that will give some variety.
• Plan for an online gallery that they can give the link on their social media. I gave the family a link and a password for them to see the gallery. They can order prints and things like key chains, mouse pads, T-Shirts and coffee mugs for example. They can also just order download for social media size and they can also order a high resolution photo.
• While I didn't do this for this wedding, I might even offer posting the photos during the wedding for an upgraded package. This way all their family and friends who couldn't make it could see it in almost real time. As you saw in the photo of the bridesmaid posting to her Facebook, today's brides are interested in the here and now and not so much long term.  

Learning to monetize from free

Chick-fil-A gave away free cookies at Centennial Park on game day for the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic.

What I am learning from Chick-fil-A

Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A, built his business on sampling and giving away food. At the Chick-fil-A Kickoff the company was giving out their newest dessert the chocolate chip cookie. Let me say from first hand experience that those are quite addicting.

Truett Cathy knew that once you tried his food the odds were pretty good that he could turn you into a customer.

Just to let you know how it is currently going for the Chickf-il-A chain, system-wide sales in 2012 reached $4.6 billion. These figures reflect an 14 percent increase over the chain's 2011 performance and a same-store sales increase of 8 percent.

They have been debt free since 2012 and going forward plan to remain that way. What a position of strength they are in for growing the business today.

This giving away food is done all the time by using a simple Be Our Guest cards that Truett Cathy started. He realized he couldn't have sandwiches with him all the time to give away, so he created a card that has no strings attached that gives the holder a free product like their signature Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich.

Too many companies put up barriers with their promotions where they will give you something if you spend money first.

If anyone did a promotion where you didn't control them you would go bankrupt pretty quickly. These giveaways are strategic.

One of the best books on this concept of giving things away to build a business is by Chris Anderson. The book is Free: How today's smartest businesses profit by giving something for nothing. Many as being the guy that “identified the next big thing” praise Anderson.

This is actually something very old and not new.

Mr. Cathy founded Chick-fil-A, Inc. in the early 1960s and pioneered the establishment of restaurants in shopping malls with the opening of the first Chick-fil-A Restaurant at a mall in suburban Atlanta in 1967. Since then, Chick-fil-A has steadily grown to become the second largest quick-service chicken restaurant chain in the United States, with over 1,700 locations in 39 states and Washington, D.C.

Some of the comments about Chris Anderson's book summarize what I think is happening today with today's marketplace and I feel it first hand happening to photography.

"Chris Anderson's Free unpacks a paradox of the online marketplace—people making money charging nothing. What was once just a marketing gimmick has morphed into the basis of a trillion-dollar economy."

—Newsweek

"Anderson's timing couldn't be better. Free arrives as whole swaths of the economy are having to contend with consumers finding ways—some illegal, many not—to go Free."

—Boston Sunday Globe

The best one that I agree the most with is:

"I'd put Anderson and his work on par with Malcolm Gladwell and Clayton M. Christensen as one of the more important pieces of business philosophy published in the emerging global, digital era."

—Alan T. Saracevic, San Francisco Chronicle

Tips for the Photographer

First you need to give a taste of what your clients will get when they hire you. The mistake made by way too many photographers is that they forget that the client looks for examples of what they need. Most clients are not going to look at a photographer's portfolio which may be studio portraits and assume they can also shoot environmental portraits.

My suggestion is to have an online portfolio and break the portfolio up into different categories and examples. Due to the way search engines like Google work you need to have different pages for those categories. When someone types in "photographer environmental portraits" this will direct them to a list of photographers whose page will give them what they are looking for. They will not see your general portfolio. They are looking for a specific topic and type of image. Again, they are looking a photographer to fulfill their need.

The key is not just to have a page with your specialty; the key is to give this to the client just like Truett Cathy gives out free sandwiches. They need to see your photos to get a taste of what you can do. But you have to get them in front of them, not wait for them to find you.

Second you need a marketing plan. Having images to show that a client needs gives you the samples to now market. Just as Truett Cathy you need to be strategic. Shooting examples that helps a client know you can shoot for their needs should be thought out. Who are you going to approach? What is your market?

Most of us do not have a bank roll that we can just blanket our communities in advertising through a newspaper, television add spots, direct mail and more. We have to target those who are most likely to need our services and have enough need that we can support our lifestyle.

Third you need to continuously market. Too many make a mistake and market until they start getting work and then one day the market changes and they are wondering where did all the business go.   

A good book on this topic is Spencer Johnson's book Who Moved My Cheese? My friend Gary S. Chapman and his wife Vivian exposed me to his book a few years ago.

Fourth you need to change with the market. The key here is understanding your marketplace. If you want to shoot things your way and the way you want to do things, then keep this as a hobby. Professionals must satisfy a client to pay their bills. 

Throughout my career I can see how I have moved into different markets. I started shooting for my college. Even as an independent photographer I am changing jobs just like staff people might have to do when their company goes through layoffs. The market changed and that client no longer is in business or no longer needer your services.

Last should be first, which is know your vocation. Those who are the most successful are those who recognize a calling. This is what vocation means. It is responding to the gifts that you have been given. You may have to move to continue to follow that calling. 

There are two people in history that I think about that had major callings and changed the world.

In the bible Saul was the guy who was torturing and killing the early Christians. You can find Saul's moment when he understood what his vocation would be for the rest of his life in Acts 9. Here is a link if you have never heard this story here. 

Saul changed his name to Paul and became the leader of the missionary movement for Christians. What I want to point out that from the time he knew what he was called to do until the time he went out as a missionary was three years. Think of this as his college time to hone his craft.

The other person I want to point to is Jesus Christ. From his birth until his ministry began was 30 years. 

Too many photographers buy a camera and announce they are photographers. It takes time to hone your craft to do this professionally.  

Your goal is to create Raving Fans. To learn more about what a Raving Fan is read Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles book Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service.

Once people have a taste of your work and they like it, then they will hire you to fulfill their needs for images.

After you get those clients do everything you can to keep them. It is far easier work to keep a client than the amount of work needed to find a client.

Robots are taking over photography

Sunday Night 60 Minutes did the story Are robots hurting job growth?

If you are interested in watching the story you can see it here.

Using the 60 Minutes definition of a Robot as a machine that can perform the job of a human, I now see this is what happened and happening to photography.

Why should you read this?

I want to outline the way to avoid obsolescence of today's photographer, but I need you to understand why this is happening.

Many people understand how many people lost their jobs to outsourcing, but this is also happening due to a machine that performs a job of a human.

I think many newspaper photographer for example are now "Technologically Unemployed" due to things like smarter cameras and smarter phones.

Early 35mm film cameras didn't even have a light meter in them and today there is a computer in the camera doing much of the computations that a professional photographer would do in the past. 

Today's camera is a robot that took over the job of the human: getting a good exposure and even focusing. This applies to all the clients that were hiring photographers for jobs that they knew what they wanted, but just didn't know how to technologically make it happen.  That is no longer a problem for those clients.

How to avoid obsolescence

Evaluate everything you are doing for clients. If any part of what you do can be automated assume this doesn't give clients reason to hire you.

This doesn't mean get rid of this service, but know that this is more of a commodity.  

Evaluate all the resources your clients have and see what they have already designated to a machine. 

Selfies

Selfies are a good example where the machine has replace the photographer. In Wikipedia it says:

A selfie is a type of self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a hand-held digital camera or camera phone. The appeal of selfies comes from how easy they are to create and share, and the control they give self-photographers over how they present themselves. Many selfies are intended to present a flattering image of the person, especially to friends whom the photographer expects to be supportive. However, a 2013 study of Facebook users found that posting photos of oneself correlates with lower levels of social support from and intimacy with Facebook friends (except for those marked as Close Friends).

While self portraits go back to the brownie camera and using a mirror to take ones on photo, it was the advent of the camera phone and social media that these began to go viral.

I am sure this has hurt the portrait market.  What I thought was interesting that these Selfies are viewed as narcissistic if people are not close friends. This means that Selfies on Linkedin are probably not a good idea.

Be remarkable

Look to personalize your business model. Look for things you can do that are not easily automated. These personal touches are what clients will come back to you for over and over.

Too many photographers are looking to technology to separate them from the crowd, this is what makes them so easy to copy. Concentrate on your ideas, personality and creativity to separate yourself from the pack.

Look for the new technology and be an early adapter, because if you are the first in your community to offer something you can ride that for a while till the others start to copy you. Sometimes you can build your brand on always being the first to offer things in your market. You can charge a premium if this is your approach. If you are the late adopter to a fad you are entering a commodity market.

Here is a good exercise to help you think of ways to distinguish yourself. Think of those people you know that everyone enjoys. Now describe them on paper. After you do this with a few people you will see that their brand isn't a machine, so why do so many photographers try and identify themselves by the camera they shoot? 

Be innovative. Be creative. Be yourself.   

Why do you take photos and who cares?

If you enjoy the process of taking photos and are the primary recipient of all your work, then read no further. You are all that matters for your photos.

However, if the reason you make photographs is to share with others and help them to connect to your experiences, then I am writing this for you.

Who and Where is your audience?

I grew up where we all gathered around the slide projector or movie projector and watched family slide shows and movies. Usually it was of someone's latest trip.

Later I would help produce slide shows about missionaries around the world for a missions agency. These slide shows were more scripted and storytelling than the random photos from vacation trips. We would sync two or more projectors and record audio that would then run with the show.

My suggestion is to think of someone in this group that is a good representation of that audience.  I know one photographer who grandmother had never been 50 miles from her home. She had never dipped her toes in the ocean at age 80 and only lived about five hours from the ocean.

Maybe the person you are thinking about is well traveled and has been in more places than you have been. Hopefully you can see that these two different audiences would impact how you tell the story.

Where will they see your work? If most of your audience is at one location, then maybe a presentation where everyone comes to a location is the best way to reach them. This could be something like a civic organizations meeting or company staff meeting.

Maybe your audience is a company but they are worldwide and use an intranet as a way to disseminate messages.

Again you can see this can impact the packaging of your story for the audience.

My first trip to Taos, New Mexico around 1986.

What is your goal?

After everyone sees your package what do you want them to do?  Come up and just tell you how wonderful of a photographer you are?  Maybe you went with your Lions Club to distribute glasses in another country. While there you decided to put together a package.

There are basically two types of presentations you can give. First is a vacation package. Here is what you saw while you were there. The second is the story of a typical person you were helping. This is where you go deeper and even give a call to action at the end of the presentation. Encouraging them to continue to help with the raising of funds for glasses and also volunteer next year to go and help people with fitting them with the glasses.

Pre-Planning

Once you have a goal and purpose in mind then based on what you know before doing the story sketch out a storyline.

Gather all the information you can and then put together your shot list of what you need to tell the story visually. If you plan to write text for a story and put photos with it, plan time for your interviews. The same if you choose to use audio or video.

You are now planning for a total package.

I know I need some audio to drive the package and the best audio I prefer is the testimony. The first person narrative telling their story. With this I can then lay still images over it to tell the story. This is a much better story than just putting a bunch of photos in a gallery for people to see.

The Shot List

In the picture above I have the shot list we worked from to cover the Chick-fil-A kickoff. I was shooting for multiple outlets.

Here are some of the places the images were to be used:

• Slideshow/Video to show internally to the company. The storyline here was to show moments that people would be talking about for days to come.
• PowerPoint presentations. The organizers use these images to help plan for the next big event like the end of the college football year Chick-fil-A Bowl. 
• Videos. Often these images are part of other projects where some of the photos will show something that a department was apart of and need that one image.

There were more places than this for usage, but you get the point--I know the audiences we had to keep in mind.

What you determine with the shot list is what is happening when and how can you capture all you want to do in the limited time space. By pre-planning we are now aware of two things happening simultaneously and making a decision earlier what takes priority.

Shooting the assignment

Now as you work your shot list things may fall apart, but now you have your list to go to. Each bullet needs some good storytelling moments to help make the overall package work.

Post Production

After ingesting toss out all the bad images using PhotoMechanic, I process them in Adobe Lightroom.  I will narrow down those images to "Selects" which will be considered for my multimedia package.

Next I am editing the video/audio which will be the foundation of the package in Final Cut Pro X.

Do you remember the old text books where they had the human body. Each page was a different parts of the body. One page maybe the skeleton the next the organs and then the skin. All were on clear pages so you could see down through them as you peeled away the layers.

This is how the Final Cut Pro X Time Line is working. Whatever is on the top layer is visible and if some parts are clear then you can see through them. Good example is the text that lays on top for titles.

Here you can see my music in green the next level is the video interviews and then on top of this are individual still images or titles that when exported become a movie which I either post on YouTube, Vimeo or another server for people to watch. Occasionally I make a DVD for someone to show to a group at a meeting.

Take Ownership of Distribution

Today photographers need to be a hybrid photographer. Mixing, text, audio, stills and video to tell the story.

If you are just using still images and text for a blog. Then put the whole package together and post it. If you are doing this for a client offer to handle it all the way to the end. The odds of it getting used are increased so much.

How many times did I take photos for a non profit and they sat in a drawer of some staff person I cannot even tell you.

Don't think of posting when you are all done either. Take advantage of social media like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. As you shoot send an image up and keep it short with the idea that there is more to come. Grow your audience by posting throughout, this will help the potential viral message to take off.

Blurb book on our oldest son Nelson. 

The Family Historian

Maybe you are just doing this for your own family. I have many friends who have scanned all of their relatives recipes and then put this into a book with short stories surrounding those recipes. Most of them include a photo of the person who is known for originating it with the family.Maybe you document your children and then when they graduate from High School make a coffee book for them of their growing up years. Imagine what that will mean to the generations to come in your family. I know I would have really loved a book like that on my grandparents.

Remember the key is having a plan before you start and then this will help guide you.

The Courage to Create

Nikon D4, 28-300mm ƒ/3.5-5.6, 300mm, ƒ/5.6, ISO 1250, 1/2000

The first step into the creative process according to Rollo May is the encounter. I think a good example of this would be something similar to this eight point deer that was in our backyard.

Seeing the buck out our back window was engaging to say the least for me.

For me these are not all that creative in the photography, but the encounter is what ignited the creative process of me. I went got my camera and was out the door shortly for a more close encounter of my own.

To be creative one must be intense. Just as the intensity of the encounter of the deer with me gave it "flight-fight" response so too must I be where my heart too is pumping and I feel the intensity of the encounter.

The more absorbed you become on the subject then the more you are able to think of ways to portray the subject. Now instead of you feeling anxiety and fear light the deer and have a "flight-fight" response Rollo May says the creative finds the "joy." Robert Maslow would say we are self actualized.

For me this creativity comes when I have truly emersed myself into a subject to where all this information is firing the synapsis in my brain making correlations that were not given to me but by my thoughts on the subject.

I believe before the truly creative act can be performed one must have engaged all their being to the point that now the unconscious is as much at work as the conscious which allows for those eureka moments.

However, when you start thinking like this you then must be courageous enough to start acting on these thoughts. They are new thoughts and by just acting on them you are prone to failure. You may try something only to find out that your thoughts were not complete.

One of the main reasons for tenure for professors is for them to be creative they must be allowed to try crazy thoughts and be allowed to fail occasionally for the possibility of the scientific break throughs.

World-renowned viola player Pam Goldsmith works with my daughter helping her fine tune her playing skills.

You may get help along the way to help you engage more on a subject. My daughter spent most of the day with world-renowned viola player Pam Goldsmith and picked up a few pointers to improve her viola skills.

Stages of the Creativity

1. Encounter
2. Emersion into the subject
3. Incubation
4. Eureka moments
5. Execution
6. Verification

Some people never move all the way through the stages. They may just get excited about taking photos for example. They are in love with the process more than the results. These people have a hard time understanding why no one hires them for jobs.  They lack creativity. The creativity can be in the form of ideas or new ways of thinking, but they are not bringing anything new to the table.

Malcolm Gladwell says that from his research it is about 10,000 hours before the artist has masted the craft enough to be creative.  While this maybe true for a bell curve I believe for many folks it comes much later.

The best way to know if you are getting close is your time commitment. Do you have the courage and fortitude to commit yourself to what is needed. How much do you know about the subject you want to photograph. 

Become an expert on the topics you want to photograph and I can pretty much guarantee that you are very close to seeing new possibilities and ideas on how to photograph this subject in a way others cannot.

Some people are amazed out how some photographers are just always getting incredible photos. What I notice is these people are able to anticipate where they need to be to get the best possible moment with the best possible light and composition. 

Sigma 120-300mm ƒ/2.8 DG OS HSM S lens Review

Nikon D4, Sigma 120-300mm ƒ/2.8 DG OS HSM S, ISO 12,800 @ 420mm, 1/2000, ƒ/4

As promised and after shooting with the Sigma 120-300mm ƒ/2.8 at the Chick-fil-A Kickoff game this is my opinion of the lens.

Remember to read my earlier post about calibrating this lens HERE. If you don't calibrate you will not see how incredibly sharp this lens can be.

Build

I need to agree with almost all other reviews of the lens when it comes to your first impression of the lens. It is well built and I love the new black matte finish as compared to the earlier finishes that Sigma used on their lenses.

Unlike the predecessors this lens comes with a lens cap, which I prefer over the fabric one.

The lens hood is longer and better built with ridges inside, which help, keep light from bouncing around and giving you lens flair.  The attachment to the lens seems much more sturdy.

The good news is you do not need to buy another 1.4 or 2x converter if have one of the Sigma ones already. My earlier 1.4 converter worked just great with the lens.

The tripod mount is larger and more substantial than earlier model.

This is really about comparing a tank to a truck if you compare the current model to earlier Sigma 120-300mm lenses.

Bokeh

The Bokeh on this lens is much silkier than what I had with the early version. When shooting wide open and close the background of clutter goes to a smooth silky tone.

Nikon D4, Sigma 120-300mm ƒ/2.8 DG OS HSM S, ISO 11,400 @ 420mm, 1/2000, ƒ/4

Color/Contrast

I think the color and contrast is also an improvement over the previous model.

Focus

The four photos above are all part of a series I shot of a long touchdown run. There were more than 30 images and all of them were in focus. So the lens and the camera combination kept up with the play. Not always possible with lenses.

I know this is quicker than the earlier version and faster than the first Nikon 200-400mm ƒ/4 lens. Due to it being one stop brighter than the Nikon 200-400mm it may actually perform a little better with the Nikon D4 in low light, which was the case at the Georgia Dome.

Nikon D4, Sigma 120-300mm ƒ/2.8 DG OS HSM S, ISO 12,800 @ 570mm, 1/1000, ƒ/4

Sharpness

Since photographers tend to talk about how sharp a lens is by something like you can see the sweat bead on the face, I chose to show you can count the threads in the patch on the end zone for my comparison.

Cropped version of the photo above.

I think this is extremely sharp and especially so after calibrating the lens with the USB docking station that Sigma sells.

This lens also has Optical Stabilization, which helps keep those images sharp when the action is way down the field and I am using a 1.4 converter and using the 2X crop mode on the Nikon D4. I was optically shooting at 840mm ƒ/4 during much of the game. At that distance just small vibrations affect the sharpness of the photo. The OS helped me get sharper images than I have in the past.

Bottom Line

For my Pixel Peeping skills this lens rocks. For $3,599.00 this is a no brainer for me to buy over the Nikon 200-400mm, which sells for $6,500.00. I am not even going to consider the pain for the Canon shooters looking to the new Canon 200-400mm ƒ/4 for $11,799.00. Anyone putting out $8,200.00 more for the Canon lens had better be selling a lot of photos for that price.

This is not really comparing apples at all and for this reason it has it over the Nikon for me.

With a 120-300mm ƒ/2.8 starting point I can easily just put on the Sigma 1.4 and now have a 168-420 ƒ/4 lens. Instead of the 1.4 I could stick on the 2x converter and have a 240-600mm ƒ/5.6.

This makes the lens really three lenses that are practical for different venues. I have used my Sigma 120-300mm in the past for meetings where the 70-200mm ƒ/2.8 was just not enough reach. Actually I put my 70-200mm on the shelf for the past 10 years due to owning the Sigma 120-300mm.  On a rare occasion did I think the 70-200 was more warranted than the 120-300mm and that was more due to weight issue.

My recommendation is if you are in the market for a lens in this range, then this would be a great lens even if it was the same price at the Nikon 200-400mm, because it is more versatile and making it more useful. Being $3,000 less in price makes this a no brainer decision for me.

For the Prime Lens Lover

Rumor has it that Sigma is coming out with a new 300mm, 400mm and 600mm to be announced shortly. So if you like primes then one is on the way that will be custom calibrate-able with the USB Dock.

Photo by Dorie Griggs

Last shot is made by my wife when I was in the press box shooting some shots with the lens of the field.