Scenes Seen / Lucha Libre & a Low Rider Show: Ridiculous portrait lens edit; SIGMA Art 105mm f/1.4.
Subtitle: I snuck in a heck of a Viltrox EVO 85mm f/2 ramble at the end.
The occasion.
Started as a few other scenes seen posts have started. Sitting, minding my business Sunday and Cesar…
…shot me a text.
A quick Google search,…
…a swift yes, and we were off.
The gear.
I recently wrote a post stating that I needed to use this lens more…
…so I took it out of mothballs and slapped it onto this bad boy.
The people.
New section. I must account for something. In the last year and a change, I have had the good fortune to stumble across two villages.
- The Continental Club.
- Low Rider Community.
This post concerns the second.
Tagged along with Cesar. Cesar introduced me around. Took pictures. Shared pictures. Posted pictures. Fast forward a few events, and I am known by name and get greeted warmly when I show up. Treated better than by folks I have known for years, honestly. Several times I was approached and asked to take photos.
Yes. Of course. That is why I am here.
Photography therapy.
Hopefully capture images of folks they can take pride in and feel good about themselves.
The venue.
The pics.
With this set up. I had a couple of other toys.. I mean serious pieces of camera equipment with me.
This is when MJ and I crossed paths. Had taken pictures of her before at a June Lowrider event…
…and more were taken this day.
Around this time, a young lady walked up and asked me to take her picture. My first question was, “Where are your folks?” They were just behind her and wanted the pics to be taken. Ok then. The young lady wanted a picture in front of the pink truck. So we all walked over to the pink truck.
Her sister then asked the same, which was also confirmed by her parents.
Delivered the pics to their folks the next day.
Now for some ‘rasslin.
Having the 105mm hung out front, I put myself back in the crowd.
Thoughts.
About the day?
Flipping awesome.
Great people. Great venue. Great vendors. Great cars. Orangeade so good that I am seriously considering excuses for going back to Winston-Salem just so I can score another. A great village. A great afternoon… followed by getting back to life, where I booked it home so my son and I could mow Mom’s lawn and ours before the sun dropped.
Dear old Dad would be pleased.
About the lens?
Oof. A mixed bag if I am honest. A fantastic portrait lens for a particular use case. But on Sony, there is another much more humbly spec’d lens that has won me over.
Why do I prefer it? I am glad I imagined that you asked.
Welp.
- More flexible focal length.
- The 105mm is not as restrictive as a 135mm lens would be, but it does cause you to get some distance between yourself and the subject in busy environments if you want anything more than their head in the pic.
- <Looks both ways and whispers…> As good or better optically.
- Less expensive.
- Much faster AF.
- It might be the wider aperture or maybe older DSLR era tech, but the SIGMA 105mm lags behind the Viltrox quite a bit. The SIGMA is adequate while the Viltrox is fast. Fast enough for candid pictures.
- Not a bus.
- I really like the pie plate sized front element of the 105mm, but in the real world the rest of the lens is prohibitively large and heavy.
- Despite its humble specs, it creates portraits as compelling as the 105mm in my humble opinion.
That last one surprises me most about the Viltrox EVO. But every time I use it, there it is.
And as mentioned above, courtesy of the more reasonable focal length and faster AF, the Viltrox is more flexible.
So that aperture difference.
Bigger is better, no?
Perhaps. Technically.
I have already shown that I am more than happy with the subject isolation. So that leaves light gathering.
But with the stellar high ISO performance of modern cameras and the amazing denoising software available nowadays, I have used this lens in low light without issue.
So…
I now know consciously why I have not used the 105mm.
I like taking pictures of and being able to say I own the SIGMA 105mm f/1.4 Art.
I like taking pictures with the Viltrox EVO 85mm f/2.
Oof. That was a heck of a gear ramble. Where was I? Right.
Happy capturing.
-ELW
Eric L. Woods 