Most people know that the 5D Mark III is great for portraiture, full-frame photography, but I wanted to show what this camera could do with a 40mm Canon pancake lens and the Canon REALiS WUX6000 projector in our Learning Studio. The 40mm pancake lens is perfect for street photography and those wanting a lightweight, sharp quality lens with a f/2.8 aperture. Shooting in studio, I figured I’d switch up my normal set up (a Canon 1D-X and 24-70mm lens or 85mm portrait lens) for the purpose of this blog and to experiment and use products from Canon I haven’t worked with in the past in order to see the ease of use.
I was happy using the 40mm pancake lens. I still had to crop in a few of the images in order to get what I wanted, but the overall sharpness and quality really made the projector colors pop and the 5D Mark III shine! I know with some lenses and camera combinations I’ve used focusing in darker settings can be difficult but this combo did an overall great job auto-focusing. Its lightweight, compact design made shooting effortless in a tight shooting space. With an affordable price point, this lens is ideal for the traveling photographer or street photographer. For more dramatic and unnatural effects, it might have been an interesting idea to use a wide angle lens such as a 24mm lens to get some interesting, artistic distortion to my shots.
Our company recently got the Canon REALiS WUX6000 projector system in our Learning Studio. This was the perfect tool to get creative with and get sharp image quality, far superior to other projectors I’ve worked with in the past. What makes this projector so great compared to the others? It projects 6000 lumens and a contrast ratio of 2000:1, which is incredible for bringing out the richness in blacks and brightness in whites. Having used many projectors in my life, whether at school or at work in the Learning Studio, this projector has impressed me the most. If you’re looking for deep, true colors with amazing sharp quality, this is the projector for you. If you’re not completely sold on it yet, check out what it did for me in the photos below.
I’ve seen a few photographers use projectors to project images on their subjects such as Jeremy Cowart, and I wanted to produce my own images using different patterns and textures. Projection photography can be done in several different ways including the two types I used: projecting directly straight onto the subject and the background and projecting at an angle to get a projection on the subject and a black background. I focused mainly on projecting directly on the subject and background because I wanted the viewer to see the subject almost popping out of the background. Projection photography is more successful when using a good projector, so I was lucky to have the REALiS WUX6000 with me!
To the left, is one of my favorite shots from the shoot. I put my subject, Jacob, close to the gray backdrop so that the shadows would be minimized. This created an illusion of him popping out of the wall. I found it challenging to minimize the shadow of the subject in my other pictures without putting Jacob as close as possible to the backdrop. The angle of this shot was achieved by shooting upwards from the ground and having Jake press up against the backdrop.
To the right, is a hexagon pattern projected on Jake that I found interesting because of the black and white tones. The shadows worked well with what I was trying to achieve with this picture. This image is a good representation of the contrast the Canon WUX6000 can achieve.
To get a black background and a projected image on Jake, I needed to angle the projector slightly back and to the right of me. I promised Jake that we could do some fun shots in thanks for him coming along with me so he picked this Spiderman pattern. We took this shot along with some other shots of Power Rangers and Pokemon projected on him, but this one turned out the best. The black of the spider contrasts well on the rich red pattern. The circular pattern wrapped around Jake well creating a 3D effect on a black background.
I was able to get enough bright light out of the projector so that I only needed an ISO of 500 and I didn’t have to compromise my shutter speed or aperture. I occasionally used a small aperture because I wanted Jake to be in focus more than the background. For the self-portraits I took, because I had the camera propped and not moving, I was able to achieve smaller shutter speeds (see some in the gallery below).
Want to experiment with projection photography? Come check out the projector in our rentals department to change up your next shoot!
Here’s some more images from the shoot!
