Ming Thein | Photographer

OT: first anniversary!

August 15, 2018 by Ming Thein 1 Comment

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With some relief and a big exhalation of breath, it seems the horological venture has survived the first year; let me tell you it hasn’t been easy given we’re effectively trying to start something in an industry that doesn’t have any ecosystem in our country, competing directly against much better funded and experienced players. There have been no end of surprises – both good and bad – for the moment culminating in a nomination for a GPHG* prize for our flagship 19.01. We’re celebrating with a watch (of course) or more specifically two (one is good, more is better) variants of the automatic GMT 17.03 – both in the ever popular blue, with revised and refined dial and hands, and an experiment – because experimentation is what keeps us going. I heat blued 25 grade 2 titanium cases with a blowtorch, resulting in something rather special (and something I wanted to do with my own Ochs und Junior some time ago, but we had the wrong alloy). We made 125 of the regular titanium cased blue dial, and 25 of the Ultra Blue – unfortunately the Ultra Blue sold out within about an hour of announcement, and we have a very long wait list**, but the Blue is available right now at www.ming.watch. I leave you with specifications after the jump and the customary images; experimented with some new lighting techniques in this set, too. MT

*Grand Prix de Horologerie de Geneve, which is effectively the Oscars of the watch world.
**I seem to be very good at shooting myself in the foot when it comes to estimating demand and edition sizes.

Postprocessing: Robin’s approach

August 14, 2018 by Robin Wong 18 Comments

I do minimal post-processing and very quick edits for images used in articles published here and on my own blog. Strangely, many readers have asked me for my “secret sauce” that I apply to my images and requested for a video showing my usual post-processing routine. Before making that video, I asked for specific requests from my readers via a post on my own Facebook Page. Taking into consideration the numerous questions, I have made a short video.

A quick disclaimer: I am not associated with Capture One Pro, the only reason I am using this software is the efficiency of handling Olympus RAW files. I still prefer Olympus Viewer 3 to optimize my Olympus RAW files (color balance, sharpness/details, noise reduction, etc) but that software is just unbearably slow for anything practical. I found the Capture One Pro to work significantly faster than Olympus Viewer or Lightroom. You can see how short the previewing and processing time of Capture One software is in the video above.

Disclaimer #2: Let it never be said mingthein.com is not democratic even though one of us works for C1’s competitor 🙂 In all seriousness, workflow is a very personal and goal-oriented thing: depending on the task at hand, I might make one pass through PS, tether/convert in Phocus, use a combination of Autopano Pro and/or Helicon and PS, IG’s filters, LR mobile, or even Olympus SOOC JPEG. Best tool for the job as always… -MT

Photoessay: Stolen moments

August 11, 2018 by Ming Thein 26 Comments

In my mind, this set feels vaguely voyeuristic – stealing snippets of time from my subjects, without any of them noticing. Photographing around corners, street furniture and other foregrounds; taking small glimpses into unguarded moments of an individual – what were they thinking? What were they feeling? Where did they come from? Where are they going next? Perhaps the uncertainty of continuity combined with the strong individual emotions and expressions is what drew me to these scenes; the kind of tensions precipitated by something seemingly trivial to an outsider, yet intensely important to a single person. I didn’t set out to shoot these; they just happened across the course of a week and about seven thousand frames. Sometimes our minds pick up on recurring themes we aren’t consciously aware of. In this case, both photographer and subjects were lost in the moment – they in their lives, me in that intense blink of observation. MT

This set was shot with a Nikon D850, 24-120VR and post processed with Photoshop Workflow III.

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: japan, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, people, photoessay, photography, street, thein

Attempting the blood moon

August 8, 2018 by Robin Wong 31 Comments

The above image of the Blood Moon was shot at the start of a total lunar eclipse phase at 3.45am on 28 July 2018 as seen in Kuala Lumpur. The red moon was not perfectly clear due to slight overcast condition hindering visibility. I only had about 15 minutes of shooting time before heavy clouds completely covered the moon during the eclipse. I have not encountered a lunar eclipse before and this was my first time witnessing an actual “blood moon” phenomena, hence I thought it would be interesting to share my thoughts and shooting process to acquire that one shot, which I have come to love despite its apparent imperfections.

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Filed Under: Articles, On Photography, Robin Wong Tagged With: article, astrophotography, mingthein.com, moon, photography, robin, Robin Wong, wong

Exploring Pak Peng

August 5, 2018 by Robin Wong 16 Comments

I have always been fascinated by old buildings that are still perfectly functional, maintaining decades old interiors and retaining the same overall atmosphere. The Pak Peng Building is a shopping mall that’s nearly half a century old and is now half vacant with a few traditional businesses still occupying the building. Back in the 60s and 70s, the Pak Peng building and surrounding establishments on Madras Lane were one of the hottest spots in town for entertainment. This remnant of the past was intriguing to explore, and I took the opportunity to create a mini photo series documenting scenes inside Pak Peng.

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Filed Under: On Photography, Robin Wong Tagged With: mingthein.com, pak peng, photoessay, photography, robin, Robin Wong, wong

Repost: What makes a ‘good’ lens? (part II)

August 2, 2018 by Ming Thein 20 Comments

This might seem like a very obvious question, but the moment you try to define a set of criteria to quantify ‘good’, you soon realize there’s quite a lot more to lens performance than immediately meets the eye. So, for those of you without the ability to try a large number of lenses – let alone samples of the same lens – how do you know if the one you’ve got is ‘good’?

Continued from part I.

Repost: What makes a ‘good’ lens? (part I)

July 30, 2018 by Ming Thein 31 Comments

Following an odd resurgence of emails lately about system matching, lens quality (on non-native systems), sample variation, decentering and similar topics – I thought it made sense to revisit this topic from the archives. ‘Which is the best lens for X?’ might seem like a very obvious question, but the moment you try to define a set of criteria to quantify ‘good’, you soon realize there’s quite a lot more to lens performance than immediately meets the eye. And this is before (but really should be much after) creative considerations, perspective etc. In any case: for those of you without the ability to try a large number of lenses – let alone samples of the same lens – how do you know if the one you’ve got is ‘good’?

MT’s scrapbook: Shadow play

July 27, 2018 by Ming Thein 32 Comments

It’s actually very rare to get this kind of hard afternoon sunshine in the tropics – by the time it’s late enough in the day for the shadow angle to be this oblique, the day has usually been so warm that evaporation of ambient moisture has created sufficient clouds to block the sun. Yet you still need just a hint of something in the atmosphere to make the light golden and warm. The quality of shadow actually reminds me a lot of the Atlantic coast of Europe – specifically Portugal – around autumn or spring. Why monochrome though, if the joy is in color? Two reasons: you still see the effects of warmer light when you apply a color pass filter, and secondly – without the distraction of color, the hard definition of form becomes that much more acute. MT

The Scrapbook series is shot on an Olympus PEN F, with unedited JPEGs straight from camera bar resizing (and of course some choice settings).

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Filed Under: MT's scrapbook, On Photography Tagged With: ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, photography, scrapbook, shadows, sooc, thein

Shot discipline revisited by Robin: macrophotography

July 24, 2018 by Robin Wong 6 Comments

One of my favorite posts by MT and an absolute must read is “The Importance of Shot Discipline”. Everything in that article is strongly relevant when it comes to my attempts at insect macro shooting. Each factor plays a significant role in getting the shot: timing the shutter just right, nailing accurate focus, achieving sufficient depth of field, stabilizing the shot, watching out for diffraction and paying attention to the off camera flash. I have to make sure I do not forget any of these variables as any single screw-up means I will have an unusable shot.

A few friends who’ve tagged along for my macro shooting sessions have been impressed by my high hit rate despite shooting at full magnification of the macro lens. To understand my insect macro shooting technique, please read the article I have shared previously here. There is no simplification of the shooting process, and there is no compromise possible if you want to achieve the best results. The only way to efficiently get great results is through persistent practice. Not just practice until you get the shot right, keep practicing until you don’t get it wrong anymore.

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Filed Under: On Photography, Robin Wong Tagged With: macro, mingthein.com, photography, robin, Robin Wong, shot discipline, wong

Seeing the shot – Robin’s view

July 21, 2018 by Robin Wong 35 Comments

In the spirit of sharing more of what I normally do during my shutter therapy sessions, I came up with this idea of showing what happens immediately before and after I shoot an image*. Utilizing the Olympus specific feature “movie + photo” mode, I was able to capture video footage and a full RAW image file simultaneously. I thought it would be fun to see the moments leading up to the press of the shutter button. After all, timing is crucial in street photography and in this video compilation you will see a lot of blink and miss it moments.

*Note: this is somewhat similar to MT’s How To See video series.

I had to work with an older Olympus PEN E-PL7 camera because the movie + photo mode was unfortunately not available in the E-M1 Mark II. I am inviting you to come along with me to my hunting grounds and see what my camera sees. In the video you will also see how I frame my subjects, interact with random street portrait subjects and anticipate moments before they happen. As a bonus, there is also evidence of how cats on the streets love me.

I hope that you will see that street shooting can be super fun, exciting and totally unpredictable. If we show respect and are courteous to people around us, they will respond in kind. A genuine and warm smile can go a long way, and keeping a positive attitude can help make you more approachable and look less like a threat to your street subjects. Things happen so fast and you have to be quick enough to react and execute your shot reflexively. It is perfectly okay to miss some shots but keep that optimism going and soldier on to the next opportunity.

Let me know if you find this video helpful and would like to see similar content in the future. I had a lot of fun doing this and am excited to hear your thoughts.