A fashion, beauty and portrait photographer based in Malaysia, Raisa Azzam is best known for her conceptual portrait photography. With a background in graphic design, Raisa is drawn to the beauty of rich, bold colours in fashion and makeup, which she applies to most of her portrait photography. Her eye-catching portraits have caught the attention of major brands such as Nike and Urban Decay and have been featured in prominent fashion magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar and Marie Claire.

Apart from her love for all things vibrant and colourful, Raisa has a keen eye for detail. She believes that the most exciting aspect of portrait photography is putting together elaborate set designs and dressing up her models with colourful makeup, clothes and accessories. Sometimes, she will incorporate poses and movements in order to create a mood that she wants to capture. Complementing her eye for detail is the newly-released Alpha 7R V. With its newly developed AI processing unit, the latest addition to Raisa’s camera arsenal proves itself worthy as a camera that is capable of keeping up with Raisa’s pace, accurately capturing her creative vision and easing her workflow.

To demonstrate the Alpha 7R V’s AI performance, Raisa decided to execute two portrait photography concepts for her photoshoot – Tarot Cards and Colour Study with strong, contrasting colours. For her Tarot Cards concept, Raisa sought to capture visually stunning portraits of characters based on the major arcana with a strong message behind every shot, while the Colour Study concept involved dressing her models in vividly-coloured outfits paired with different accessories and bold makeup.

Not a single moment missed

In portrait photography, models are often asked to change their poses and postures in order to bring out a different look and feel. These action shots breathe life into a portrait as the model would be shown interacting with props and their environment; and sometimes their postures do not allow them to look at the camera directly. In Raisa’s case, she used to struggle with shots where her model is not looking directly at the camera, making it harder to keep them in focus. In addition, her models are often dressed in heavily-accessorised outfits with heavy makeup, which obstructs their faces from the camera’s view.

With enhanced Subject-tracking Recognition, the Alpha 7R V helped to track Raisa’s models more tenaciously than ever before, even when their pose does not allow them to face the camera. This is made possible with AI recognition, which identifies and tracks subjects via human pose estimation. As the model moves, the Alpha 7R V intelligently tracks their body and head, keeping them in tack-sharp focus no matter what.  

“The subject recognition was consistent and sharp,” Raisa said. “This was something new to me as it has always been challenging to keep my subjects in focus when my camera cannot locate the eyes, which might cause me to lose focus in achieving the final look. The Alpha 7R V’s highly accurate subject recognition enables me to work on different poses and movements to realise the creative ideas that I have in mind.”

Refined image quality

Apart from the AI-enhanced AF and Subject Recognition, the Alpha 7R V’s wide and high-density AF coverage allowed her to capture every single detail in full clarity. In the portrait of ‘Temperance’ in the Tarot Cards concept, every crystal bead was suspended in mid-air as they were poured from one cup to another without taking away the focus on the model’s eye and her heavily accessorised outfit. Even with her model’s eye composed at the edge or corner of the photo, the camera’s AF coverage detects the position of the eye and nails its focus with high precision.

The Alpha 7R V’s high-density AF coverage also came in especially handy for the Colour Study concept, where Raisa’s model took a little leap. Not only was the main subject captured in crisp focus, but the floating balls in the background were also frozen in time. Not to mention, the Alpha 7R V’s 61MP resolution allowed Raisa to crop her portraits closely without losing any detail.

Colours reproduced with vivid accuracy and detail

One major challenge in portrait photography is reproducing accurate skin tones that appear natural under varying ends of the studio lighting spectrum. From dim light for the Tarot Cards concept to the harsh lighting of the Colour Study concept, the Alpha 7R V intelligently detected the skin area of the model’s face and allowed Raisa to control her camera’s exposure to capture more natural skin tones and reproduce colours with vivid accuracy and consistency. This proved to be extremely crucial for the execution of the Colour Study concept, which involved a lot of contrasting, vibrant hues.

With a softer, more natural-looking skin tone, the model was able to pop out against a vibrant-coloured background and her colourful outfit, which could have easily taken the attention away from her partially-hidden features.
 

Setting a new standard

In portrait photography, prime lenses are preferred for their wide apertures and sharp detail reproduction. For the entirety of her concept execution, Raisa relied on the FE 50mm F1.2 GM lens for its fast and wide F1.2 aperture for shooting in dim settings. With only one lens, Raisa was able to capture every detail in maximum sharpness, down to the slightest dusting of eyeshadow on her models’ eyelids. Furthermore, the FE 50mm F1.2 GM’s fast and precise AF performance is able to keep up with the Alpha 7R V’s speed without a hitch, providing seamless autofocus control throughout the photoshoot.

A cut above the rest

With an evolutionary imaging experience made possible by AI, the Alpha 7R V helped Raisa to accurately capture the ideas she has by ensuring consistent focus, allowing her to concentrate on the execution of her creative vision.

“The Alpha 7R V makes my job as a photographer much smoother as I’m constantly on the move to get the perfect shots,” said the portrait photographer. “The new AI processing unit-enhanced features in the Alpha 7R V have elevated the standard of my photography, taking it to even higher levels while allowing me to explore concepts that could be a real challenge in the past.”