Commercial Potentials: the Petzval 85 Art Lens and Malaysia's All Is Amazing

Malaysia-based photography collective All Is Amazing is composed of photographers and visual artists from all kinds of cultural backgrounds. With an amazing talent pool, the All Is Amazing team does business everywhere — be it concerts, editorials, fashion, bands and many more.

The Petzval 85 Art Lens found its way to the All Is Amazing team where they used it for some commercial projects. Read on as Paulius Staniunas of the collective share with us some tips on turning artistic pursuits into life-long careers.

Please introduce yourself to the Lomography Online Magazine.

Paulius: We are a creative photography collective from Malaysia, called All Is Amazing. We’ve been in the industry for the past 5 years and are focusing on creative photography in nightlife, music, concert and lifestyle fields. Having photographed music concerts of 35,000 people to presidents, we have covered it all and keep on growing further!

How did the All is Amazing team start?

Paulius: I wanted to share my knowledge and achievements with the photography industry. The goal was to elevate the nightlife and music photography culture in terms of creativity and business mind in Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia itself. So I’ve gathered like-minded folks around me and so far we’ve been working together ever since. Some photographers leave, some join. It’s always changing and organic. Which, to be honest, I love it. It always keeps me inspired and fresh.

What is your team’s process in conceptualizing commercial shoots?

Paulius: I don’t think it’s much different from, other teams. First, we look for inspiration whether it’s online or offline, then scout for locations, pitch the idea to the client and make sure it’s approved and executed in the most creative way possible (so we can inspire others.)

Any tips for those aiming to be successful in their photography business ventures?

Paulius: Yes! First of all, develop your own style if you wanna go big. If you’re okay with doing simple jobs here and there, imitation is your friend. But if you want to dictate the rules, always be on top of your game - be original. Easier said than done, to be honest. Secondly - be reliable. Nobody wants to work with people who cannot be trusted and don’t deliver what they’ve promised. Third and final - share the knowledge. The more people you inspire, the better it will be for you and the industry.

Please tell us more about your experience with the Petzval 85 Art Lens. Any notable experiences?

Paulius: The Petzval 85 Art Lens was mostly used by my colleague Dedy Andrianto and he is a huge fan of it! Here are his remarks on the lens:

Dedy: First of all, the build quality. Despite some of the missing screws on the focusing dial, the lens material is solid and the optics are clear. It's not as heavy as I thought it would be, I guess it's because there's no electronic, just pure glass and brass. For the first few days, the lens focus was stuck between 1 meter - 1.2 meter. It stays that way until when the focusing rail fell off completely. We managed to focus by pushing the drop-in aperture back and forth. So that's a draw back.

Dedy: Having been pampered with modern lenses, this lens seems clunky and slow. It's rather difficult to focus using the view finder, I ended up using magnified live view to make sure the focus is spot on. Even then, just a slight movement will render the object out of focus because of the shallow depth of field. Stopped down to f5.6, images produced by this lens is sharp in the center frame and slightly hazy on the corner. I don’t recall getting a sharp image when the lens is wide open, at f.2. It's a unique lens for a very controlled environment shoot. It’ll be very difficult to use this lens for run and gun style shooting, where speed and accuracy is crucial.

The All Is Amazing team used Nikon D750 with the Petzval 85 Art Lens. For more of their work, check out their website and Instagram.

written by crissyrobles on 2018-05-10 #gear #people #malaysia #petzval-85 #allisamazing #apac