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Photography Culture

Greg Watermann on Photographing Cosplay with the Zeiss 135mm f2 Milvus

Chris Gampat
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09/29/2016
2 Mins read
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All images and text by Greg Watermann. Used with permission from Zeiss.

Recently, Zeiss Ambassador Greg Watermann got the chance to shoot with the new Zeiss 135mm f2 Milvus lens. In order to test it, he decided to try his hand at something he hasn’t ever done: cosplay. Here’s where a lot of photographers would sit there flabbergasted because they don’t know where to stat. But Greg took to Instagram and decided to collaborate with actress Tahnee Harrison. It ended up working out and being much more straight forward than one would think.

Be sure to also check out our review!

I’ve always loved the classic Zeiss Apo Sonnar 2/135mm lens so I was very excited to get the brand new Milvus version and decided to try a cosplay shoot for the first time. I started cruising Instagram looking for possible subjects and found LA actress Tahnee Harrison (@tahneeharrison). She does a lot of characters really well, especially Disney princesses, but her Harley Quinn is amazing. And she takes it all very seriously – she makes her costumes from scratch and even hand colored the wig with Sharpies – all of which made it a much more interesting shoot than just using a model. So we headed to downtown Los Angeles to find some cool backgrounds and lights.

To document everything we also made a behind-the-scenes video. For that we used the new Milvus 15mm on a Sony a7Sm2. The 15mm is perfect for BTS work, giving a big beautiful view of every situation. It’s virtually distortion-free and is awesome to use on a Glidecam.

All the photographs were shot with the Milvus 135mm wide open at f/2 on a Sony a7Sm2, and I only used available daylight or just the street lights once it got dark. The lens’ compression and high contrast rendition really make the subject “pop off” the background, giving the images a true sense of depth. The fast aperture and the camera’s IBIS make it possible to handhold this lens in any situation for stills or video.

The Milvus 135 is truly an amazing lens and it’s my favorite for shooting outside. Of course I love my Otus 85mm for portraits. But it’s bokeh is nothing compared to the 135, which does a wonderful job of separating the subject from the background, even when shooting full-length.

And the lens is a dream to shoot with. The manual focus is buttery smooth and so precise you can easily decide exactly where you want your focus point to be. There’s so much clarity that the image simply snaps into focus in the viewfinder. Colors are rich and vibrant and detail is everywhere. The new optical coatings and weather sealing are a big plus. And you get legendary Zeiss build quality and ergonomics.

cosplay Greg Watermann Harley Quinn Zeiss 135mm f2 Milvus
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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