We Are f-stop: Last Tango at Zagarolo with Luca Parisse

Words and images by Luca Parisse

Many weeks ago I went to Grotti (Ri, Italy) to shoot the strong climber Elias Iagnemma in action on the hardest climbing route in Lazio region: “Last Tango at Zagarolo” 9a/9a+

To carry the equipment I used the f-stop Tilopa, with a Large Pro ICU. This was the equipment that I had inside:

Canon 1DX MKII body, three lenses (canon 16-35mm f2,8L II, sigma 35mm f1,4 Art and canon 24-105 f4 L) and the Elinchrom ELB500 Flash with the action head and the Skyport Pro Transmitter. In the front and laterals pockets I had: harness, carabiners, handle ascender and a belay device. Outside the bag, I had the rope.

Firstly, I shot the first section of the route that was inside a dark cave with a very bright sun outside. For this reason, I used the flash with a big umbrella as a diffuser in order to achieve both the proper light on the climber and the correct exposure on the background.

I got the background exposure first and then I turned the flash power to light up the cave and the climber.

I shot with a wide-angle lens to capture most of the cave but without getting the poetic bokeh effect in the background.

So I also used one of my favorite lenses: the Sigma 35mm f1,4 Art Series. Thanks to the hypersinc function of my flash I was able to exploit the full lens aperture without ND filters. This way I obtained very cool painting-like pictures.

To shot the second part of the route I climbed about 20 meters using a fixed rope, a handle ascender, and a belay device.

I carried the camera with Canon 24-105L lens in the small f-stop Navin secured to the harness.

I hope you found these tips interesting!

Be creative and have fun!