Meet Florent Chouffot

Home base: Belfort, France

Florent Chouffot, known in the community as Adynatoon, is fascinated by the relationship between various insects and plants. From delicate flowers to elaborate traps, Florent reveals the unexpected beauty of carnivorous plants. He shares how a Panasonic S1R and vintage lenses help him balance scientific detail with imaginative close-ups.

“I’m a French amateur photographer who’s been into the hobby since the early 2000s. I’ve always been fascinated by weather phenomena, especially thunderstorms. What frustrated me most was how fleeting these moments are, sometimes lasting only minutes… or just milliseconds in the case of a lightning strike. Photography felt like the obvious way to hold onto them.

Around the same time, I started growing carnivorous plants. I think they are the perfect expression of nature’s extreme adaptations, with extraordinary shapes and colors, and so many fine details you can barely see with the naked eye that deserve to be showcased. So from the very beginning, I’ve had these two interests: skyscapes and plant close-ups.”

Our ‘What’s in your bag?’ community spotlight series features readers sharing their favorite gear and photography, including from past DPReview collaborators. See below for what Lester has to share.

What’s in Florent’s bag

Florent Chouffot

Favorite cameras(s): Panasonic DC-S1R

“I’m currently using a Panasonic DC-S1R. It offers the best balance of features for the way I work, and when I bought it, it was a great bargain for what it delivers. I don’t need advanced autofocus – or much autofocus at all – and I don’t need speed. What I value is low ISO noise and very high detail. I also appreciate how many different lenses I can mount on it.”

Favorite lens(s): Pentax K SMC 55mm F4 macro

“For plant macro photography, I use a Pentax K SMC 50mm F4 macro – a lens from 1975! 50mm is an easy focal length to work with, perfectly suited to plants, and the lens, stopped down to F8, is fantastic from center to corner, with near-zero aberrations, no distortion and a punchy rendering. It’s also a real pleasure to use, with its beautifully dampened focusing ring.

I also use a Samyang 135mm F2 for more distant subjects, a very affordable lens that delivers excellent image quality. Unlike the Pentax, I almost always shoot it wide open for that dreamy look while keeping the important parts sharp wherever they sit in the frame. For wide-angle work, I have an old Pentax K SMC 28mm F3.5, though I might actually use it more for macro than for landscapes.”

Favorite bag: “My bag is a Manfrotto Gear Backpack M that I bought in 2014. I’ve changed cameras and lenses far more often than I’ve changed bags…”

Any unusual accessories you carry?

Florent Chouffot

Must-have accessories: “When going out in the field, I usually bring a small Godox flash with a diffuser, a remote controller, a Canon close-up lens and a reverse ring. Of course, a tripod for lightning and any night shooting session.”

“The most unusual camera I’ve used was an Imacon Ixpress 528C medium-format digital back with an integrated fan, mounted on a Mamiya 645DF. It came with a humongous battery-powered dedicated hard drive just to save the photos, so I had to attach it to my trouser belt while shooting. Believe me, I never complained about the size of Compact Flash cards after that. The setup was heavy and clumsy, but I really liked the unique image rendition and later regretted selling it.

The reverse ring has to be one of my favorites, because it turns a wide-angle lens into a high-magnification macro tool for just a few bucks. I use one with the old Pentax 28mm F3.5 lens. There are compromises (image quality isn’t even across the frame, unlike with most dedicated macro lenses), but it’s great fun, and it still amazes my hiking companions a bit like a magic trick.”

What makes carnivorous or insectivorous plants the perfect photo opportunity for you?

Florent Chouffot

“I shoot outdoors for obvious reasons when it comes to weather, and indoors with my plants when the sky isn’t particularly interesting. I have a terrarium filled with carnivorous plants that grow year-round under a horticultural LED panel, so I always have subjects available, even if the best angles can sometimes be tricky to get.

The only carnivorous plant I’ve photographed in its natural habitat so far is the oblong-leaved sundew (Drosera intermedia) in a nearby swamp. I sometimes go out looking for small critters as well, though they tend to be a much bigger source of frustration than plants, for a reason I probably don’t need to explain.”

“Leaves often look more interesting when backlit, because the light reveals the internal structure rather than just the surface. For carnivorous plants, backlighting can also show what’s inside the traps, creating unique, eerie images. When I photograph my own plants, I have all the time I need to find the best angle, the best light, and the exact moment when the plant looks most interesting.

Fully developed traps are an obvious subject, but many plant parts are actually just as interesting at various stages of their development, both from a botanical and an artistic point of view. I also like to show carnivorous plants both as people expect them to look – animal-like, almost aggressive – and in their much less familiar aspects: delicate, subtle or simply through their flowers.”

What’s changed since the beginning?

Florent Chouffot

“Learning is a permanent process. New techniques, but also a lot of trial and error with gear. I’ve experimented with everything from reverse rings and lens stacking to early digital medium-format equipment, just to explore different looks and understand what various systems are capable of.

What improved my photography most was simply practicing a lot, learning how both my gear and my subjects interact with light, and looking carefully at other people’s work on photography sites and forums like DPReview.”

What unusual environments are there around Belfort?

Florent Chouffot

“The most unusual environment I’ve worked in was a completely dark bunker where I photographed a cave-dwelling spider, Meta menardi, that had not yet been recorded around Belfort. There was no ambient light at all, so I worked entirely with flash.

Another memorable place is the swamp where I found the Drosera. It’s a fragile ecosystem that requires real care just to move around without damaging anything. The visit felt special because I had to move very slowly, almost the way you do when photographing animals, but for reasons of fragility rather than flightiness.

Simply finding the plants in that specific habitat was already rewarding, as they’re very small.”

While you said plants are easier than insects, what strategies still help to capture a great shot?

Florent Chouffot

“Practice as much as you can and don’t hold yourself back. Cameras and lenses are far more versatile than you often read online. People tend to present their own style and preferred gear as a universal truth – “X is better than Y”. For instance, I’m not a film photographer, and I don’t like the usually grainy results, but I think it’s wonderful that the option still exists for those who love the look or want to delve into it.

See what your preferred subjects are and discover how and with what you enjoy shooting them. The results matter, but so does the actual process. With my old Pentax lens, turning the super-smooth focusing ring to find focus is genuinely satisfying and makes me feel more connected to my photography. With so many cameras and lenses available, any of them can serve someone’s creativity if approached with an open mind.

When I photograph carnivorous plants, I always try to balance the scientific and the poetic. I’m interested in both the morphological features and the atmosphere the scene creates as a whole. It’s about celebrating the beauty and uniqueness of these plants, explaining why they look and function the way they do, while also trying to spark the viewer’s imagination.”

Florent really enjoyed participating in this spotlight article and would love to hear what you think of his photography and to answer any of your questions in the comments below.

You can check out Florent’s other work on Instagram.

Editor’s note: This article continues a series, ‘What’s in your bag?’, highlighting DPReview community members, their photography and the gear they depend on. Would you like your photography to be featured in a future installment? Tell us a bit about yourself by filling out this form.

Sometimes the future creeps up on you quicker than you expected. We’ve been thinking about re-starting our Throwback Thursday series for a while, but Sigma’s announcement of a 75-180mm equivalent lens for APS-C rather forced our hand.

This year marks 20 years since Sigma launched the original APO 50-150mm F2.8 EX HSM DC, a fast 75-225mm equivalent zoom for APS-C. A lens that gave APS-C DSLR users the range and utility of a classic 70-200mm but without the cost or weight of one.

DPReview marked the date with a single-paragraph news story along with Sigma’s press release, which was our standard level of lens coverage, back when the site had only a single full-time member of staff. We described it as “very interesting sounding.” Even for Phil’s level of British understatement, this is to significantly under-sell the lens. At a time when full-frame was out of reach for all but the most committed enthusiasts, this gave APS-C users a lens they hadn’t had before: a dedicated, fast 70-200mm equiv.

Richard Butler

A slightly revised Mark II with very similar specs was released in 2008 and a copy made its way to the DPReview offices. It must have been a Nikon version as there are samples in the review gallery of the Nikon D5000 and D300S reviews the next year. There’s one shot by Phil, but the rest seem to be by me. Because I loved that lens.

Sigma

I’d arrived at DPReview as the owner of both an APS-C DSLR and a 70-200mm F2.8 that I barely ever used because it was just too big and heavy to casually carry around. Even having bought it second-hand, it ended up being one of my least cost-effective photographic purchases ever.

The 50-150mm was a revelation: it was less than two-thirds the size of most 70-200mm F2.8s, less than two-thirds of the weight and something like two-thirds the price. Unsurprisingly, it was much more directly comparable with the dimensions of Canon’s popular 70-200mm F4, but offering a range I found more useful and with an extra stop of light capture on the APS-C cameras we tended to be testing.

Richard Butler

Richard Butler

It had the range to let me shoot things like bike racing and also made a pretty handy portrait lens, as it was much easier to handle and much less intimidating than a full-sized, tripod-footed 70-200 F2.8. And its compact size meant I did actually carry it around with me. And got more photos, as a result. The 50-150mm taught me an important lesson about how different formats can shine, if they’re properly supported.

I used it regularly over the time we had it and was disappointed when its stabilized replacement used the same housing as the 70-200mm F2.8 launched alongside it: giving up the size and weight benefits that appealed so much in the first place. It’s what perhaps made me a little over-excited when, years later, Fujifilm and Samsung produced similar lenses, even though they weren’t as small or light as I’d hoped.

I think I’ve requested or asked after a 50-150mm successor almost every time I’ve met Sigma’s CEO, Kazuto Yamaki. I thought I was reading too much into his response when he seemed more positive about the idea, last time we met.

But the only thing that excited me more than hearing that Sigma was about to lauch a spiritual successor to the 50-150mm F2.8, was unboxing it for the first time and finding out that the new lens is even smaller and even lighter than its DSLR forbear. And, looking at the images: sharper and better able to focus, too. I wonder if this new lens will inspire the same decades-long appreciation.

Sigma has announced the 50-120mm F2.8 OS DC | Contemporary, a fast telezoom for APS-C mirrorless cameras. The lens delivers a 75-180mm equivalent range for Fujifilm X or Sony E mount cameras and an 80-192mm equiv range for Canon RF users.

The lens is a spiritual successor to the excellent APO 50-150mm F2.8 EX DC HSM from 2006, but manages to add stabilization and downsize considerably.

At just 67mm wide and 99mm long (3.90 x 2.63″) for the E-mount version, the lens is smaller than a standard can of Coke (both the 330ml and 12oz versions). Its length extends by 25% when zoomed to its full extreme but is still only a fraction longer (5mm/0.2″) than Canon’s RF 70-200mm F4 in its retracted form. It weighs 390g (13.8oz), which again is remarkably similar to the weight of a full can of Coke.

Richard Butler

The 50-120mm completes a trio of F2.8 zooms for APS-C mirrorless, alongside the existing 10-18mm F2.8 and 18-50mm F2.8 lenses. Despite its longer range and similarly bright aperture, it shares a 55mm filter thread with the 18-50mm. It’s the only member of the F2.8 DC set to have a dedicated aperture ring and image stabilizaton.

That stabilization is rated at 6.5 stops of correction at 50mm and 4.5 stops at the 120mm long end, per tests conducted to CIPA’s standard methodology.

Richard Butler

The new lens uses a “high response linear actuator” for autofocus and has seemed swift and reliable from our usage so far, though we’ve not been trying sports shooting with it just yet.

The optical design utilizes 18 elements in 13 groups, including one fluorite-like FLD element, three super-low dispersion elements and four aspherics. The company says it’s been designed to exhibit minimal focus breathing, to extend its usefulness to video. It features 11 rounded aperture blades to keep bokeh circular.

Richard Butler

The lens barrel features a zoom ring, focus ring and a dedicated aperture ring (on the Sony and Fujifilm versions, at least) with an ‘A’ position. The Canon RF version will have a smooth-rotating control ring instead of an aperture ring.

As part of the Contemporary series it’s been designed to be dust and splash resistant. Its presence in Sigma’s more affordable line also means it’s priced at a remarkably reasonable $799.

Shooting experience

I’ve been shooting with a Fujifilm mount version of the lens for a week or so and I’m still caught off-guard occasionally that I’m using a 70-180mm equivalent, rather than a standard zoom.

Richard Butler

The aperture ring, the first on one of Sigma’s DC zooms for mirrorless, works nicely with the X-T4 and X-H2 bodies I used it on, though I did wish the lens could be locked in or out of the A position, rather than it simply being spaced a little further beyond F22.

For the size and the price, I was willing to forgive some pretty major image quality issues but didn’t encounter too many.

Close focus isn’t this lens’s strength, with the corners getting extremely soft and swirly if you shoot a flat subject a 50mm. Things are a lot more predictable near minimum focus distance at the long end of the zoom.

The swirliness makes a reappearance in the bokeh at times, but not in a way I found objectionable. In general, I found the bokeh to be soft and attractive, without any fussiness, which isn’t always a given for a fast tele zoom.

Richard Butler

In general, sharpness seems impressive, despite the use of X-Trans sensors, which our standard lens processing doesn’t always show to its best effect. There appears to be a small degree of pincussion distortion being corrected at both ends of the zoom, but nothing dramatic (it doesn’t appear to account for the close-focus strangeness at short focal lengths).

Richard Butler

It’s hard for me to be completely dispassionate about a lens that I’ve been hoping someone would make, for years, but I’m genuinely stunned by how small and easy-to-carry Sigma has managed to make the 50-120mm F2.8 OS. I look forward to shooting it for longer, once RF-mount versions are available, to see how it behaves on the EOS R7, since that’s currently the highest-res Bayer APS-C sensor.

As always, we’ve included Raws for download in our gallery, including some close-focus examples and a couple of aperture comparisons, so you can make your own assessment.

Sigma has announced that it’s bringing its 16-300mm F3.5-6.7 DC OS (24-450mm equiv.) APS-C lens to Z-mount. While it may not be the most exciting addition to the lineup – Nikon APS-C shooters have already had access to a very similar option from Tamron – it’s representative of what may be an important shift: it’s the first zoom lens the company has been allowed to release for the mount.

The 16-300mm F3.5-6.7 has been around for a bit over a year for Sony E, Canon RF, Fujifilm X and even L-mount cameras, and this new version uses the same optical formula. It comprises 20 elements in 14 groups, with one FLD element, four SLD elements, one piece of high refractive index glass and four aspherical lenses.

It can focus on objects as close as 17cm (6.7″) at 24mm equiv., and 105cm (41.4″) at 450mm equiv. At 70mm, it can achieve 0.5x (1:2) magnification.

It uses linear motors for focusing, and Sigma says the optical stabilization is good for up to 6EV of correction at the wide end and 4.5EV at the long end. For Z-mount users, that’s definitely a nice-to-have, given that Nikon hasn’t made any APS-C cameras with in-body stabilization.

As you’d hope given that it’s made for a smaller sensor, the lens is relatively compact and lightweight, at around 125mm (4.9″) long and 630g (22oz). It can accept 67mm filters.

All of these specs make the lens an extremely close competitor to the Tamron 18-300mm F3.5-6.3 Di III-A VC VXD, which, beyond not being able to go quite as wide as the Sigma, offers essentially the same set of features in a body that’s within a few millimeters and grams. (The Tamron happens to be the first third-party autofocus zoom lens released for Nikon’s APS-C system.)

While there will certainly be those excited to have another all-in-one zoom option, perhaps more exciting is what this announcement may potentially mean. Sigma has offered Z-mount versions of a few of its APS-C prime lenses for a while now, though, notably, not the one that directly competes with one of Nikon’s offerings. However, none of its quite good zoom lenses were available for the mount. While the 16-300mm arriving for Nikon systems doesn’t come close to guaranteeing that we’ll get more exciting options like the 17-40mm F1.8 DC Art, the just-announced 50-120mm F2.8 DC Contemporary or the 10-18mm F2.8 DC DN, it does seem like a bit more of a possibility today than it did yesterday.

Like the other versions of the lens, the 16-300mm F3.5-6.7 DC OS for Z-mount will cost $769.

Tamron has announced that it will be bringing its full-frame 20-40mm F2.8 Di III VXD lens to Z-mount. The lens originally launched in 2022 for E-mount, but now it’ll be available for Nikon shooters.

Optically, the lens is unchanged, featuring a 12-element, 11-group construction with four low dispersion elements, two molded glass aspherics and one hybrid aspheric. It has a minimum focusing distance of 0.17m (6.7″), and allows for a maximum reproduction of 1:3.8 (around 0.26x) at its wide end. It has 9 aperture blades.

Tamron

One of the appeals of a zoom lens with a relatively limited focal range is its size and weight. The Z-mount version of the 20-40mm is 89mm (3.5″) long, and is 380g (13.4oz). There are very few lenses that you could consider direct competitors to this; other Z-mount ultrawide zooms will either start wider, and not go as tight, or start a bit tighter, and go further. Perhaps the closest analog is Sigma’s 20-60mm F2.8-4, which is around the same weight, but isn’t available for Z-mount and can only achieve F2.8 at its very widest setting.

Odd focal lengths have always been a staple of Tamron’s lineup though, and the company has lenses that you could use alongside it to go wider (the 12-20mm F2.8) or further (35-100mm F2.8 or 35-150mm F2-2.8) without leaving any gaps in coverage.

As the VXD in its name indicates, the lens uses linear motors for autofocus, which should make for smooth and fast focusing. That could be especially useful for video, as the lens’s focal range seems like a natural fit for vlogging. It’s threaded for 67mm filters, as are many other Tamron lenses, and the company says it’s sealed for dust and moisture resistance.

The Z-mount 20-40mm F2.8 Di III VXD costs a bit of a premium over the $699 E-mount version, retailing for $729. That is, however, still less than you’d pay to buy the version made for Sony cameras and an adapter, and may offer a more consistent experience. The lens will be available starting October 22nd.

Tamron 20-40mm F2.8 Di III VXD specifications