hasselblad – Ming Thein

Photoessay: Minimalist Lisboan architecture

April 11, 2016 by Ming Thein

Clean and colourful – this is modern Lisboan architecture in a nutshell, I think. There’s an element of brutalism to it; perhaps that’s the result of minimalism when scaled up. Still, on a sunny day the bright/ light colours go a long way to softening things, and the simple forms are relatively unthreatening. A few traditional references remained, too – the new cobblestones, the tiled walls; I suspect the more ornate ironwork and mouldings were simply too expensive to replicate. Can’t help but wonder whether the whole mood changes in winter, though – there were already hints of it at the Calatrava-designed Oriente station, which has perhaps not fared as well as expected – elegant from a distance, but overly massive at anything other than platform level, and with rusting pillars and a leaky roof above. MT

This series was shot mostly with a Hasselblad H5D-50c, with some from the Leica Q 116. Postprocessing with Photoshop Workflow II. For a more in-depth architectural photography experience, there’s also the Singapore Architectural Photography Masterclass from 1-7 July.

Announcing the Hasselblad H6D, in 50 and 100MP flavours

April 7, 2016 by Ming Thein

Out of idle curiosity, I wondered what they shot the product images with: EXIF data reveals a H5D-200c MS.

It turns out those April 7 rumours were true after all: there’s a new H in town. The H5 I’ve been using for the last couple of months was announced in 2012, with the CMOS version arriving mid 2014. Given the long product cycle times in medium format land, four years is not too bad between iterations. In any case, following Phase One’s XF-100MP announcement and innovative suite of features, Hasselblad would have to do something not to get left behind. The important features are here: 50MP on 44x33mm, 100MP on 54x40mm, leaf shutter up to 1/2000s with new/updated lenses, a new 3″ VGA touch panel, improved live view, RAW video out (Apple ProRes) at 1080P30 on the 50MP version and 4K30 on the 100MP version. Firewire is now USB3.0, along with HDMI out and audio IO. Oh, and no more CompactFlash – it’s now SD and CFast. Lastly, there’s a new version of the tethering and workflow software – Phocus 3.0.

Today’s post is going to be a bit more than just a spec sheet: it’s also a little analysis of the state of medium format at the moment.

On Assignment: Film noir

March 13, 2016 by Ming Thein

Today’s images are from a recent shoot – and shakedown test – of my recently acquired Hasselblad H5D-50C and some other bits of new lighting equipment. The brief: film noir. The model is a local actress. Those of you who frequent my site will know that portraiture – especially of the posed and lit kind – is not something I do often (but at the same time, I do more of it than you might think) mainly because it’s somewhat outside my usual focus of corporate documentary and architecture/ interiors. That said, when everything comes together it can be rather satisfying; I’ve always viewed portraiture as a conversation during which you might just happen to have the lights set up and a camera handy – very few people are aware of the way they look, body position etc. to a degree that they can control it to produce a desired result. It’s much easier to talk to your subject and try to elicit the desired responses without them quite being fully aware of it – that way, the results turn out natural, too.

Images in this series were shot with the H5D-50c, 50/3.5 II and 100/2.2 lenses, and post processed with the Monochrome Masterclass workflow. Lighting with six speedlights in two Lastolite Ezybox IIs.

The Switch

February 22, 2016 by Ming Thein

Advance warning: this post contains nothing but gear p***, since it is an equipment-centric post after all…and I make no apologies whatsoever for that. And that thing isn’t a carrying handle, it’s the HTS.

I suppose many of you will have seen this coming: I have switched primary camera systems from Nikon to Hasselblad. And you’ll also probably know I’ve got extremely good reasons for doing so, even more so since this is a significant commitment by any standards. I’ve also had several conversations with various people in the organisation that have convinced me that their future is also going to be pretty exciting indeed. Judging by the number of people who commented and emailed me after the previous recent posts on medium format (here, here) – there’s quite a lot of curiosity and more medium format shooters here than I previously thought. Today’s post is an explanation of that rationale, and the comments will be an attempt to answer any questions from the curious.

A question of value, accessibility and medium format…

February 12, 2016 by Ming Thein

1557_D5_front _4D08997 copy
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Let’s say you’re in the market for a new camera – which face it, most of us find ourselves in frequently, often for reasons of our own doing. It has to be something reasonably exciting, and having played this game and gone through this cycle many times, for argument’s sake, it’s probably going to be at the higher end of the spectrum. We have a lot of choices. What I’ve shown above represents the full spectrum of choices, from the best of conventional high performance DSLR, to the top end of mirrorless, to entry level medium format, to something a bit more unconventional. Figure on spending say ~$12k by the time you’re done – body, a lens or two, and the usual plethora of system-specific accessories.

Alternate presentations: cinematic Thaipusam 2016 photoessay

January 31, 2016 by Ming Thein

As a follow on to the article a few days ago about my experiences shooting medium format for low light reportage work, I’m presenting the promised cinematic set from Thaipusam 2016. I deliberately left a few articles’ gap between them rather than presenting them back to back; this allows a bit of settling time and objectivity between the two sets of images. It also brings up the question of stylistic choices: how do you decide?

Reportage and medium format: Thaipusam 2016 with a Hasselblad H5D-50C

January 25, 2016 by Ming Thein

Thaipusam is a Big Deal for those involved religiously* – but also quite an amazing experience as an observer. One of, if not the largest of these festivals takes place in a cave temple about 15km outside of Kuala Lumpur every year at the Batu Caves. I’ve photographed the event previously in 2008, 2011 and 2012. This year’s festival happened just a couple of days ago on the 23rd-24th of January, and I went back for the fourth time. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a very special experience even as a non-participant and not really understanding the significance of the ceremony to the believers. There really is some energy there from the sheer number of participants and general positive and hopeful thoughts that are going around at the time.

*Wikipedia does a much better job of explaining it than I can.

OpEd: The camera as a luxury item – or, a tale of two cameras

October 26, 2015 by Ming Thein

Here’s a question I’ve been pondering for some time: how is it possible that these cameras (and others) are so similar in some ways, yet wildly different in terms of commercial success? And moreover, what can we deign from our crystal balls about the state of the camera industry? Read on for a little analysis from a photographer and a businessperson’s point of view.

Photoessay: Isolation in Tokyo

July 26, 2014 by Ming Thein

Reflections

The more time I spend in places like Tokyo – big cities, specifically – the more I get the impression that people fight harder and harder to maintain their own personal space; it’s almost as though there’s some strange inverse law that dictates the smaller the available physical space for each individual, the greater the social gulf between them. Cities seem to have become a collection of people who mostly happen to live together for reasons of convenience rather than community; this is visible in the lack of any sort of pride or loyalty in its inhabitants; it’s every man and woman for themselves. Perhaps the internet is partially to blame; we no longer have to actually know our neighbours and live with them; if we don’t like the people who immediately surround us, there are plenty of online communities full of others who are closer in interest – hell, this site is one of them. [Read more…]

Filed Under: hasselblad, On Photography Tagged With: cfv-39, hasselblad, isolation, medium format, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, people, photoessay, photography, thein, tokyo

Too little, too late – or, rebirth?

July 23, 2014 by Ming Thein

CFV-50c, image courtesy Hasselblad.

It’s no secret that Hasselblad has been in much financial trouble lately. And it’s also no secret that the company appears to have lost its direction following a large number of private equity CEOs, who frankly, appear not to understand the photography market at all. So it was with some surprise that I opened my email getting off the plane home from London to find that not only had they made an interesting product, but one that hinted at a return to common sense and a somewhat brighter future, too.