Photographer: Dave Kai Piper
Assistant: Paul McKelvie
Model & Make Up: OhLa
Hair: Nikki B
Lingerie: Fred & Ginger | London

Sigma SD1M & Fuji X-Pro
Hare & Hounds | Birmingham

A few weeks before this shoot took place I had shot a bridal collection with the D800, and quite happy with the results, I mention this for two reasons.. It was the first time I had used my funky homemade background and raised another question. Do Nikon and Canon still have the major monopoly as camera manufacturers? The D800 was, as most people know, just wonderful to use, but is there another way ?

For this shoot I wanted to try something a little bit different.  Anyone who knows me will know that I also have a Fuji X-Pro1 at my disposal and also I have a Sigma SD1 Merrill.  Many people have been asking if these cameras are a real alternative to Nikon and Canon in a professional world.  A hard question to answer when not in context, however, I would still say that Nikon and Canon have both the Wedding and Sports areas wrapped up, and lets put Hasselblad and such aside for a moment.  In the Fashion + Art worlds, Canon and Nikon no longer have the best cameras, no longer are they safe. People like Sigma & Fuji are quite rightly fighting back.  The New Global Vision range from Sigma is astonishingly different from the glass of old and Fuji, well.. Fuji is just creating a new brand of ‘Billinghamesque’  style and chic with the X-Series of cameras.  I just adore everything about the new range.

This shoot was all shot with a Single Light (sometimes used as a strobe and sometimes constant (400ww head)) Modified using a Westcott Apollo softbox.  But I will leave you to guess which photo was taken on which camera, I don’t really want to go down the pixel peeping route, thus won’t be posting  high res images…

Oh.. I used a whole range of X-Pro glass, and Pocket wizards for all the triggers on both the Sigma & Fuji Cameras.  I used the 50mm F1.4 Sigma lens for the Sigma SD1M