Autumn Portraits in Tokyo With the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG DN

There are few better feelings than a great lens, a great model, and a great location. In this video, go behind the scenes with Mitch Lally as he roams an autumnal Tokyo taking portraits with a much sought-after Sigma prime.

Tokyo is famed for its cherry blossom in Spring where much of the national parks and gardens are bathed in light pink. It is indeed beautiful, but Japan has other attractive, photogenic seasons too and one of my favorites is autumn. I have been to Tokyo in both seasons and the deep reds and oranges are truly a sight to behold, which means it is also a brilliant location for landscape photography and portraiture.

I was recently in Tokyo myself and caught the tail-end of the autumnal color palette, but I also found an appreciation for wider primes — something I haven't enjoyed for a good few years. The 35mm primes are loved by street photographers and fashion photographers, but it's a versatile focal length that can be applied to many genres. In this video, Mitch Lally uses it for a stunning portrait shoot and shows how powerful it can be for drawing in your surroundings into the frame as opposed to obscuring them with a narrow depth of field and long focal length!

Robert K Baggs's picture

Robert K Baggs is a professional portrait and commercial photographer, educator, and consultant from England. Robert has a First-Class degree in Philosophy and a Master's by Research. In 2015 Robert's work on plagiarism in photography was published as part of several universities' photography degree syllabuses.

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5 Comments

Robert, just fyi...there's no video attached.

Strange. Fixed, thank you.

Strange title for the video. Except for one photo with a tree that was mostly covered up by the model, Tokyo could be dropped from the title. What is the point? Just say Autumn portraits with XYZ lens. What is in the photos say "Tokyo?"

Had fun watching the video, clean shots and a lovely vibe.. intro made me smile ;) keep it up

Great video. Beautiful pro model. Great photos.