First Impressions of the Neptune Convertible Art Lens: Ian Hobson

Ian Hobson is a UK based photographer who specialises in light painting. He uses a variety of equipment and unusual techniques to create fabulous effects. He talked to us about using the Neptune Convertible art Lens System.

I thoroughly enjoyed using the Neptune Convertible Art Lens System. Apart from the obvious advantages of having 3 top quality prime lenses that require minimal space for transport,the manual aperture ring is a positive boon to someone like myself who primarily shoots long exposure 'light painting' shots.

This is because it confers the ability to change the aperture during the exposure, which is very useful f you want to combine different light sources of varying brightness. It massively increases the creative options available when you're painting with light. I mainly used the 35mm lens and a hacked Pixelstick controller attached to a series of addressable LED arrays of my own devising.

This allowed the brightness of the LEDs to be varied at will, and proved an effective way to test the manual alteration of the aperture whilst the shutter was open. I also found it useful to be able to open the aperture for framing the shot in situations where there was ambient light, then close it down before opening the shutter to make sure the ambient light didn't wreck the background by blowing surfaces out and wiping out the luminosity of the light trails. Another definite plus is that when the aperture is closed down to maximum F-stop, the D.O.F is superb and means that the light trails can fill the 3 dimensional space between background and camera without losing clarity.

Though the shots were taken on a DSLR, all are 100% Maltby Standard SOOC, zero post processing and thus serve as good examples of what this lens is capable of offering the analogue light painter. I could quite happily experiment with this system for a while, as I feel that combinations such as using very low luminosity light sources such as El-wire at wider apertures, then adding to this brighter sources such as steel wool, could be effected in one shot, with potentially fantastic results.

2017-12-12 #news #soho #light-painting #london #uk #ian-hobson #neptune-convertible-art-lens-system