MOVING to a new home

Hi everyone , Happy new year!!!

I'm slowly moving to roger-marc.squarespace.com  which will be my "new home" from now on.
Blogspot was cool, but its time to move on.
I think it will give a better display of my work and I really like the blog pages on squarespace.
I've started migrating stuffs already, The new site is already running.
Hope you like it.

Cool n warm

I shot this at a iso 6400 with the A7 in a random café, still testing out the camera and the SONY ZA 55mm 1.8. I think I like that shot somehow. I might post a before and after of this in the next post, hmm yes I will...

Cool n warm

Sony A7 impressions with Zeiss 55mm 1.8 test shots

• It was hard to make a choice at first between this and the Olympus OMD EM1 but I do not regret this at all, this camera blows things away. The EM1 is an awesome camera,but I prefer the A7.
• This sensor, whew, it's gigantic, and there is no mirror, so it stays naked, starring at you as soon as you remove the lens.

• It definitely feels heavier than any of the NEX cameras
• I love the look of it.
• At lower ISO's its crazy how you do not see digital noises in the raw files. the images are neat.
• I don't like the position of the shutter button, but it's something Ill get used to.

• The Electronic viewfinder is superb, It's big, bright, and really feels like a Optical viewfinder! Sometimes I even forget that it's electronic.
• I also love the plethora of customizable button. of course there is  C1, C2 and C3 which I personally set to ..... but there's also the AF/MF and the AEL button that you can customize at will.

• The FN button too. I rarely have to go to the menu with this camera. That was not the case with my beloved Nex F3
• Speaking of menu, there is no NEX menu here, SONY finally listened and redesigned the whole thing, the menu is pretty straightforward.
• That shutter is kinda loud, but guess what!? I luv it, sounds like a camera to me, a good camera, and I aint doing no James Bond shit, so I dont need it to be silent.

• The dynamic range on this camera is insane. Seriously I used to shoot a lot of HDR when I was using an APSC sensor. With this sensor, I'll still shoot HDR's but not as many, because its so easy to boost up the shadows in post processing and get a negligeable amount of noise in those areas.
• Speaking of HDR,I like the bracketing option on the camera (more on that later or on another post) 
• The screen is tiltable to some extent, and I cant complain about its resolution.
• I've also noticed that the camera tend to give warm colors on auto white balance! I'm primarily a raw shooter so I dont mind that, plus warm images are always easier on the eyes.
• Eyes!!! Speaking of eyes, there's this feature called EYE AF where the camera focuses on the subject eyes when shooting portrait! It's crazy, I absolutely love that feature and uses very often
• The Autofocus is hybrid (contrast with some phase points) and is fast enough for me. Provided I dont shoot sport, actions with very fast moving objects. I think if you really want the fastest AF on a mirrorless body, you should look elsewhere (the sony A6000 is acclaimed for that, the Olympus OMD EM1 too). 
• It's a joy to use manual focus with the A7; come on, you got focus peaking; and manual focus assist where the camera zooms in on a the image, you can change the position of that point.
• I with it had IBIS, as I'm typing this I know that the A7m2 has been announced with a 5 axis stabilization...well thats great. I wish the A7 had it, but... 
• Coming from an APSC sensor, I'm amazed by the low light capability of this camera. Even at high ISOs, the noise aren't like random digital noise patterns, it looks like film grain and it's gorgeous. For instance, I shot the photo below at ISO 6400, converted the raw to a JPEG, with no noise reduction applied.

Sony A7/ ZA 55 1.8/ISO 6400/ No noise reduction/no post processing

You can't feel the power of such a camera unless you put some great glass on it. I do own a couple e mount lens, but I choose to buy the rather expensive zeiss 55mm  1.8. once you mount it on the A7, you forget about eveything else. Shots (all at 1.8):

More shots coming, along with a full review of that marvelous lens.

"A new frame of mind"

Well well.
Finally got the Sony A7, which is my first full frame camera.
I don't think I'll do a review of it, because the camera has been out for a year now, and there are so many reviews of it already. What I'm gonna do is give my impressions of it in an upcoming blog post.
It was a dilemma for me because it was either the Olympus OMD EM1 or the sony A7; I chose the A7 and guess what, IM PRETTY DARN HAPPY ABOUT MY CHOICE.

I'll only give my impression on this bad boy however I'll do a full review of the amazing Sony Zeiss 55mm 1.8 which is according to DXOMark the best autofocus lens ever. I've to fully test it out first, but I can already claim that this is the best 50mm in the business. (even though it's not a 50); You get me right!? maybe on par with the Zeiss Otus.

For now I'll just share this shot of Lau acting a fool (taken with the zeiss 55 1.8 and the sony A7. More shots on the way).
If you're wondering why my watermark has changed, check out this blog post.
Holla'

Transition

It's been a wonderful journey.
To be honest,I got into photography because I simply wanted to know how a camera
This amazing process on pressing the shutter and immediately recording, an image, a piece of tme, a piece of life is one of the most amazing thing man ever created.

Of course when I bought my first camera, I wanted to do everything, I shot some macro, landscapes, portraits, still life, babies... well I tested everything. I shot events, seminars, wedding, concert everything you can imagine.

Yeah I was making money with these events, then I slowly realised that those events didn't move me emotionally, deep inside I didn't want it, but I was doing it...

All this time, I was going with that HnRM (those are my initials by the way) watermark, which was kinda like my photography name.
I was hiding under this "name" trying to take photos to please people, showing them I was the man.
I 'm not gonna lie, it was good for a minute. I remember feeling really proud and cocky in some ways when so called "professional" photographers were asking me what camera I was shooting with because they were blown away by the images I was creating. Proud because I was the new kid on the block with his small mirrorless sony camera.

I shoot thousands of pictures, then I began naming a few of them, the few that had life, the few that had soul. At that point I realised those few photos were the one that I really cared for, the one that moved me. Whenever I got praises for those images (mostly on social medias) from those that i consider great photographers, I felt good! There are some things money can't buy...it's one of those.

I stopped shooting events. And I feel free. There is so many great things to shoot out there so many ideas to convert into photos, so much art.

I shoot for myself now, the name will change, the watermark too, I'll go for something more intimate, more personal. 

Today, I know how a camera works, literally;
Trust me, when you know how those beautiful devices work, how a button press becomes an image that goes straight to your film or memory card, you become a better photographer! Nobody ever taught me that, I learned this Sh*t by myself , and that's my biggest accomplishment.


I shoot for myself, for my soul, with that in mind the result can only be great.
I shoot for myself,
I make art.

Eco Lau

Eco Lau

You thought I was gonna stop!?
I do composite images, but dont get it twisted, my portrait game is serious.
Anyway this is a portrait of my lovely niece, all natural light.
I had to wait for the cloud to soften that harsh light from the sun. It came out great IMO.
I shot this with the SEL 55-210 mounted on the NEX F3 if you wanna know.

Gravity Tunnel

Gravity Tunnel

Long time.
I just enjoy making these composite images. I said it before they are exxageration of whatever is going on in my life.
I basically got the idea for this image from my niece, when she was talking about flying with an umbrella.
I went for the flying umbrella then realised that I wanted something more complex while keeping the idea of flying or floating.
I spent 3 weeks on this image; literally. I was adding something to it every other day.

This has probably been my most challenging image to date. Indeed, I always try to make the images look real by painting shadows on the ground, creating contact points with the background and all; but for this image, there is no contact point since everything is supposed to be floating in that tunnel.
The contact points had to be the walls (walls that they are not even touching-get it?-)/ That's why I had to paint some types of shadows on these walls.

The process of making something fake look real and cartoonish is really ambiguous. And I'm always trying to tell a story with these images.

Anyway I think I wrote too much here today, just enjoy the image.
I might post a video on how I made this. Just like I did here.
Got the background from devian art. I'll link it as soon as I find it.

Thanks to my models dayly peace and Lauryn...The best models in the world.
Wouldn't it  be awesome if we had those gravity tunnels somewhere?