On Photography – Ming Thein

Photoessay: The Singapore Art Science Museum

March 2, 2012 by Ming Thein

The contents of the museum aren’t particularly interesting, but the building itself is quite the architectural curiosity. I particularly like the oculus at the top that admits both light and rain; the latter which happens frequently in a tropical country, leading to some interesting effects in the pool below. I can’t say the building’s design was that clever, though; useable space seems pretty low. The entrance feels very much modeled on the Louvre pyramid. MT

Series shot with a Nikon D3100 and AFS 24/1.4 G.

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Photoessay: The Temples of Japan

February 29, 2012 by Ming Thein

Shinto and Buddhist shrines, from Kyoto, Nikko, Nara and Tokyo. Think of it as a teaser for the upcoming Tokyo workshop with Leica. MT

Series shot at various times with the Nikon D3 and D200

Meiji Shrine, Tokyo

Nikko

Temple in Gion, Kyoto

Fushima-inarii torii, Kyoto

Daibutsu, Nara

Kinkakuji, Kyoto

Nikko

Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: buddhist, japan, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, nikon, photo, photoessay, photography, shinto, street, street photography, temple, thein, tokyo

Photoessay: Tsukiji Market

February 27, 2012 by Ming Thein

Tsukiji Market is the spiritual home of sushi, sashimi and most Japanese cuisines. Every single edible (and sometimes perhaps best not eaten) creature from the deep can be found for sale here; how anybody decides which supplier to go to is baffling, because there are just so many of them. It’s also a chaotic environment where photographers might get taken out by one of those three-wheeler carts if they’re not paying attention. The authorities closed off the early-morning tuna auctions – where fish fetch as much as US$150,000 each – to tourists and photographers because it was distracting business. Having been lucky enough to witness it firsthand, I think it’s safe to say that you wouldn’t have a clue what’s going on there anyway – they don’t even speak to each other in normal Japanese, and bids are conducted by a system of secret handshakes that are hidden behind a glove. One has to be there very early to see any action at all – simply because the food has to reach its destination in time for lunch. And no trip would be complete without a hearty breakfast at one of the many surrounding stalls that support the workers. Here’s an amuse-bouche for the upcoming Tokyo workshop with Leica. MT

Series shot at various times with the Nikon D3 and D200

Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: japan, market, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, nikon, photo, photoessay, photography, street, street photography, thein, tokyo, tsukiji

A word (or ten) on bokeh

February 26, 2012 by Ming Thein

Bokeh. Possibly one of the most misunderstood, yet most bandied-about terms in the world of photography today – right up there with dynamic range, resolution, A-is-noisier-than-B and other such myths.

The term is a derivative of the Japanese word boke, which doesn’t really have a good translation into English. The closest we can get is ‘the nature/ character of blur’. It’s certainly not quantitative in any way – what constitutes good bokeh and what is bad or ugly bokeh is very much up to the viewer. There are some who like ‘busy’ bokeh where out of focus areas take on double images, swirls or other patterns; some like the pentagons and other shapes on highlights. Yet others prefer a uniform wall of gaussian blur foreground-background.

Cigarette. Nikon D700, Zeiss ZF 85/1.4

What factors affect bokeh? Mechanically, the lens design plays a big part. The nature of the optical formula and placement and design of the diaphragm, specifically. In general, round diaphragms produce the best bokeh; though having said that, the Leica 50/1.4 Summilux-M ASPH has some of the nicest bokeh around, but that has a strange multi-pointed star-shaped diaphragm. Telecentric lens designs generally have better bokeh than conventional spherical designs; this is because you’re less likely to get crossing of rays after and before the nodal point within the lens, causing double images and the like. It’s also why most of the new Nikon f1.4 lens designs have beautiful, non-offensive, smooth bokeh; they’re all telecentric designs and optimized for digital sensors.

One important concept to explain up front is depth of field. For a given aperture and focal length, a certain percentage of the focus distance will be in acceptable focus. This percentage doesn’t change with the focus distance; the difference is the longer the focus distance, the wider the actual, physical range that comes into focus.

The beginnings of snow. Ricoh GR-Digital III – yes, a compact!

The rules of optics also play a big part. The degree of blur is related to:
1. Real focal length (not effective 35mm focal length; longer focal lengths have shallower depths of field and thus more pronounced blur)
2. Aperture (wider apertures have shallower depths of field and thus more pronounced blur)
3. Distance between camera and subject (shorter subject distance means shallower depth of field – remember the percentage explained above).
4. Distance between subject and background (the further away your background from your subject, the more the blur).

Indian wedding. Nikon D700, 85/1.4 G

With that, let’s look at two examples.

A. Worst case: subject is far away from the camera and close to the background; very short real focal length and moderate aperture. What will happen? Everything will be in focus. This scenario is precisely why compact cameras are incapable of delivering any noticeable blur under most conditions.

B. Best case: subject is close to the camera, with a distant background; long real focal length and fast aperture. This is your typical telephoto shot: beautiful isolation and no hint of foreground or background. It’s why you can shoot through light foliage or fences with a telephoto and not even notice their presence in the final image.

Evening. Leica M9-P, 50/0.95 Noctilux-M ASPH

Good and bad bokeh, generally?

Remembering that it’s down to personal preferences, most individuals prefer:
1. Good gaussian defocus in background areas: uniform blur all over, with no double imaging
2. No color fringing on highlights, either left-right (lateral) or background-foreground (longitudinal).
3. Round highlights with uniform luminance, smooth edges and no internal pattern (those circles you sometimes see in out of focus areas are interference patterns caused by imperfect lens grinding or minute surface imperfections in moulded plastic elements)
4. Similarly smooth uniform blur in foreground out of focus areas. The foreground is something that few people look at or consider when addressing bokeh; it’s important because distracting foreground bokeh means that you can’t shoot through or around things. Nice foreground bokeh dramatically increases your composition options.

Flowers. Nikon D700, Zeiss ZF.2 2/28 Distagon

Which lenses do I think deliver good bokeh?

There may be some surprises in this list.
1. Any of the fast-aperture super telephotos.
2. The new Nikon f1.4 AFS lenses; 24, 35, 85.
3. The Nikon 105/2 DC and 135/2 DC.
4. Most of the Leica M ASPH lenses; specifically the 35/1.4 ASPH FLE, 50/1.4 ASPH, 50/0.95 ASPH, 90/2 APO ASPH. I don’t personally like the swirly bokeh of the older f1.0 Noctiluxes – caused by uncorrected spherical aberration.
5. The Zeiss ZF 85/1.4 Planar, ZF 35/2 Distagon.
6. Special mention to the Zeiss ZF 2/28 ‘hollywood’ Distagon – its curved plane of focus increases the apparent bokeh at the border and edge zones because the plane of focus is brought even closer to the camera than the central zone. It’s a pretty unique optical formula, and delivers spectacular results.
7. The Ricoh GR-Digital III – what, a compact? Yes. Used close up and wide open, the bokeh is up there with the best of them.
8. The Canon 85/1.2 L II
9. The Olympus ZD 45/1.8

Parting shot: Light is much more important than bokeh. You can always isolate a subject by the way it’s lit regardless of your lens and camera; you can’t do it if you’re using a telephoto lens as a crutch. What happens when you can’t get far away enough to get the whole subject in the frame? MT

Apple. Olympus E-PM1, ZD 45/1.8

Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: bokeh, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, photography, thein

Photoessay: Ginza

February 25, 2012 by Ming Thein

This article is the first in a new series of photoessays – a short series of 5-10 images, a small amount of words, and a return to putting the focus on the pictures rather than just the how-tos and equipment masturbations. After all, the final image is what it’s all about.

Ginza, Tokyo is known for two things: being a temple to the height of luxury consumerism, and having the most expensive real estate on earth. Here’s an amuse-bouche for the upcoming Tokyo workshop with Leica. MT

Series shot at various times with the Nikon D3 and D200

Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: ginza, japan, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, nikon, photo, photoessay, photography, street, street photography, thein, tokyo

The importance of shot discipline

February 24, 2012 by Ming Thein

I’m going to start by defining shot discipline. There are two aspects: timing and technique.

Miss it, and the moment is gone. Procession, Nepal. Nikon D700, 24/1.4

Part one: Timing

Imagine having a revolver, and say four enemies that are going to come towards you in a short space of time – too short for you to reload. You’ve got six shots. If you’re good, you’ll only need four; if you miss three times, you’re screwed. How is this relevant to photography? What part of the workflow is limited to just a few shots? Your buffer, especially during fast paced action. (Why do you think pro cameras have huge buffers? Insurance.) Anticipation and waiting for the critical moment – that peak in action when everything comes together – is very important; more so if your camera doesn’t have a motor drive or a huge buffer.

The revolver analogy is a good one. I’d compare a D3/D4 class camera to a machine gun with a telescopic sight: it’s complicated, but you can spray and pray indefinitely and probably get something good – even if you have no skill or experience whatsoever, simply by the sheer weight of statistics. (If you take a thousand photographs, one or two will probably be okay – similarly, aim in the right general direction and you’ll probably hit the target once or twice). In experienced hands, it’s impossible NOT to get the shot.

Honestly, I found shooting with the D3 too easy. Same goes for the D700. The M9-P, on the other hand, is a completely different beast. It’s like a Magnum .44 or a Desert Eagle 50 Cal; utterly useless to a beginner, but a fantastic tool if you know how to use it. But, you pretty much only get six RAW shots when the barrel is hot. See why timing is important while shooting action?

Do I find it limiting? Yes, but only if I’m not paying attention. And guess what: that was the simple part to shot discipline.

Spot the Himalayas. Would more resolution be better? Actually no, it wouldn’t have made a difference. The scene itself was resolution-limited by atmospheric mist. Nikon D700, 85/1.4 G

Part two: Technique

The higher the pixel density of your camera, the more technique matters. For a fixed sensor size, small movement on a low-resolution camera matters less than on a high resolution one. Let’s say camera A has 4MP, and camera B has 16MP – that’s double the resolution, not quadruple (2x in each linear axis). If you move by a factor of half a pixel on camera A, the image is still pretty much aligned with the original pixel it was focused on; your edges might be a bit blur, but you could probably use unsharp masking to fix the perceived acuity. If you move by the same factor on camera B, you’re going to be out by a whole pixel. And that’s not fixable by unsharp masking. Increase the resolution further, and the effect is compounded. Those original 2.7MP APSC cameras were pretty forgiving, actually. The 24MP APSC ones will not be.

Technique actually covers several things.

1. Stability. This is the biggest one. If you don’t move, then your edges will stay where you focused them on the sensor plane. All will be sharp. So how do we achieve this? Several ways – the easiest is a sturdy tripod. Good shutter tripping technique – roll gently, don’t jab. And the last way is to reduce apparent movement by maintaining a high shutter speed, either by cranking the ISO, using faster lenses, or using a flash.

mmm, lenses.

2. Lenses. Good lenses have better resolving power, right? Yes, but these days, the difference is mostly visible only when shot at maximum aperture. By f8 or f11, most lenses are capable of resolving identically to near as enough makes no difference at the sensor plane. And certainly not enough to be noticed in a moderately-sized print. Having said that, test your lenses carefully to determine what the optimal aperture is, and by what point resolution is ‘acceptable’. Look at the corners. It’s pretty important to do this before buying too, to avoid any issues or inconvenience later on. Just one of the reasons I’m still happy to go to a real retail store to buy stuff; I want to make sure the lens I’m going to use is going to perform the way I expect it.

Speake-Marin Immortal Dragon. The eternal fight between more DoF and diffraction limits. I cheated a little by using a wider focal length, which has more DOF for a given aperture. Nikon D700, Zeiss ZM 2.8/28 Biogon

3. Watch out for diffraction. Although all lenses have an optimal aperture, the smaller the pixels, the closer the diffraction limit will be to wide open. Most compact cameras – especially the 1/2.33″ kind – will resolve optimally wide open, and be noticeably softer if set to f5.6 or f8. (This is one reason most manufacturers use a switchable ND filter rather than a real aperture; also on a sensor that small, everything is in focus all the time.) For instance: I can use f45 to shoot macros on the 4.1MP D2H without noticing any diffraction softening; however, by f27 on the D700, I’m seeing a noticeable reduction in acuity. That limit becomes f16 on the 16MP APS-C cameras, and I suspect as low as f11 on 24MP APS-C. F8 is as far as I’d go with any lens on Micro Four Thirds.

Missed focus in either direction would turn this from a keeper into junk. Nikon D700, Zeiss ZF 1.4/85 Planar – manual focus

4. Focusing. If you’re shooting a rangefinder, make sure the RF is properly calibrated for the lenses you normally use. Be aware of focus shift with aperture stop down. If you’re shooting an SLR, make sure your AF system is properly calibrated, especially for wide open lenses; use the AF fine tune function if you’ve got one. Shoot live view, wide open, manual focus and magnified to determine what the absolute best result you can obtain is, and then adjust your AF system until you achieve that consistently. AF accuracy matters most when shooting wide open – sadly these days SLR focus screens are optimized for brightness rather than focusing snap, which means it’s much harder to see when something is in focus or not. (Camera makers want to sell you the latest AF lenses, so they discourage you from focusing yourself.) It isn’t helped either by tiny viewfinders. If you’re going to use your SLR manual-focus, it’s worth adjusting your mirror zero position and focus screen shimming to ensure that what you see in the finder does in fact match what the sensor sees. And a coarser matte split prism or micro prism screen helps immensely, too. Don’t try to do this yourself, however – it’s difficult and there are a lot of fragile, easily scratched components inside the finder which can be irreparably damaged if you don’t know what you’re doing.

5. Maintenance. This also covers several things: make sure your lenses and mounts are clean, for one. Clean lenses are obvious. Clean mounts, less so: a little bit of misalignment between the lens/ mount/ sensor combination can cause noticeable softness on one side of the image. It mattered less in the days of film because the ‘sensor’ plane had some thickness to it; you could be off by a bit and the image would still be focused on the emulsion. A digital sensor is a perfectly flat single plane, with no forgiveness in the front-back direction.

A good example of condition-induced limits. Paris. Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

Bottom line: if you don’t think you can handle that many pixels, shoot in a binned and downsized raw mode, or get a camera with fewer pixels. You’ll save yourself the hassle of handling enormous files, too. I know that under certain conditions – photojournalism and street, for example – it’s extremely unlikely that I’ll be able to fully achieve more than 12MP of resolution on a full frame camera. This isn’t because I’ve got poor technique, but simply because there are restrictions put on you by the shooting conditions – for instance, being jostled by people; having to shoot in extremely dark environments at high ISO; using a MF rangefinder with wide open shallow-DOF lenses on a moving subject. The list of excuses goes on. Bottom line: I know I’m the weak link in the imaging process here; I’ll try to improve, but I also recognize my limits and won’t fall into the trap of thinking more MP will make for a better image. It won’t. In the studio however, that’s a totally different matter. MT

Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, bokeh, how to, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, thein

10X10: 100 ways to improve your photography: Processing and Editing

February 23, 2012 by Ming Thein

Today’s post is the final one of 10 in the 10×10 series. While the previous posts have dealt with the during-shooting part, today’s post is appropriately going to deal with the last thing you do after shooting: processing and editing.

Photoshop is a fix all for everything, right? It’s also come to represent a dirty word; when something has been ‘Photoshopped’ it’s no longer authentic or original, and the skill of the photographer has been severely diminished. Wrong, think again. Photoshop is the equivalent of the darkroom from the film days: sure, you can add things to the scene, but they look odd and unnatural. The main thing you did in the darkroom was finalize the exposure: adjust the density and brightness, and fiddle with the contrast. Maybe some dodge and burn. How? Chemical mixes, timing and cutout masks. We do the same now – except the chemicals are your raw converter and curves layer, the fixer is your save button, and dodge and burn is a brush tool.

So what is editing exactly? The process of removing unwanted material – in this case photographs – to leave a more coherent story or narrative; being selective about what you show is just as important as having something to show in the first place. There’s no point in having technically brilliant but boring images – but you can make a story out of perfectly timed moments, even if they’re a little noisy or blurred.

Disclaimer: As with every other article in this series, I’m assuming you know the basics already.

The flying Vianney Halter for Goldpfeil. Nikon D700, 60/2.8 G

10: Keep all of your raw files. You never know when somebody might ask for a color version of a B&W image; don’t lose that sale because you were trying to be cheap on storage. Storage IS cheap.

Sinister chitty chitty bang bang. Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

9: Sharpening should be the last step. If you sharpen too early on, you’re to end up with extra noise and less tonal information, especially for images with a lot of fine detail. Why? Because of the way sharpening works. It increases apparent acuity between adjacent areas of different luminance by increasing the difference in luminosity between them. Making something brighter or darker – with images containing a lot of fine detail, this means a change to a large area of the image – will inevitably destroy some tonal information, especially at the extreme ends of the tonal range.

If the G-P F1-047 was titanium and on a blue strap…it’s really aluminum and on a tan strap. Nikon D700, 60/2.8 G

8: Let your images mature before deleting. Look at your images immediately after a shoot and pick out your favorites. Then do this exercise again two weeks later. You’ll probably find that there’s been a big change. Why? Immediately after the shoot, you remember how difficult it was to get one shot; that effort put in affects your artistic judgment. Two weeks later, you’ll probably not remember as clearly, and you’re more likely to go with your first instincts. Go with the latter selection.

A tale of two frames. I initially preferred the first frame; but a month later, I think there’s more of a story and more contrasts in the second one. M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

7: Calibrate your monitor. Whether you use one of the Spyders or the built in utility in OS X, it’s important to adjust your monitor to produce as accurate color as possible – this is important for both print and screen; you want to make sure that other people see the same thing you put in so much effort to create. For print, you can attach the color profile to the file; a good printer will be able to match the print to what you see on screen. It’s also important to know the gamut of your monitor; I’ll never do any serious editing on my 11” MacBook Air because the screen has terrible color. On the other hand, the 27” iMac/ Cinema Displays are fantastic, as are the 15” and 17” MacBook Pros.

Intentional color. Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

6: Do most of your adjustments in the raw converter. This is important, because the data is in its highest bitrate form – which means making large changes to the file at this stage has the least impact on image quality. If you do highlight recovery on a 16 bit raw file, you’ll probably have a decent stop or two (assuming a good sensor) before you get posterization or false color. Now try doing the same to a jpeg and you’ll see what I mean. By the same token, keep your files in the highest bitrate form until you’re absolutely sure you’re not going to change anything again – and that might be a Photoshop file in 16 bit with all layers, or it might be a quality 12 jpeg. I generally don’t edit again, so I save my finished files as a maximum quality jpeg. Remember that print doesn’t have as much dynamic range as a computer screen, so if it looks fine on a calibrated monitor, it’ll probably look fine in print.

Sunset shadow. Nikon D90, 18-200VR.

5: Buy a good tablet. I like the Wacom Intuos 4. It will help you immensely to lay precise masks and control your dodge and burn; the tip is pressure and tilt sensitive to control brush size and density. It’s much faster than doing things with the mouse, too – once you get used to how the entire tablet area maps to your screen. Get one that suits your screen size. The medium 6×9” is perfect for my 15” MacBook Pro.

The Beach. Leica M8, 50/1.4 ASPH

4: Don’t overdo anything. Turning it up to 11 works for some shots, but not most. Too much sharpening leaves haloes. Too much contrast loses tonal detail. Too much saturation makes it feel unnatural and cartoonish. Etc. And don’t even get me started on overuse of HDR; overlapping tonal values are jarring to the eyes.

Turning it up to 11. Nikon D90, 105VR

3: Always have backups of your backups. I’ve had a situation where a new OS caused some serious issues with my primary computer; the upshot was that none of the files were readable. My primary backup drive – a Maxtor; I’ll never buy one of those again, just too many have failed – started making the click of death when I connected it, and I was able to get most of my data off in time before the drive crashed and died. Good thing there was one more backup copy. My current management strategy is to keep all finished jpegs on my editing computer; there are two duplicate backups with all the raw files (in the same file structure) on external drives, one of which lives in my bag and goes with me everywhere; I also time machine the primary drive whenever I do a backup to the externals. Generally I’ll do a backup once I finish editing a batch, which might be 50 or 100 images or thereabouts. Storage is cheap. Lost files are priceless.

Blue water. Nikon D3, 24-70/2.8 G

2: Integrity matters, especially for photojournalists. Whilst I’ll have no compulsion removing dust from a watch product shot or litter from fine art street photography, I absolutely will NOT touch the content of the image for photojournalism. This is because once you do, and if you get caught, your credibility is instantly nonexistent.

Panerai Mare Nostrum, on a GuB Marine Chronometer. Clean well, because even at this relatively low magnification, it’s very visible. Nikon D700, 60/2.8 G

1: You can’t polish a turd. Don’t think that you can rescue a compositionally weak image ‘in Photoshop’. You can’t. You can’t change the lighting. If you didn’t get it mostly right in-camera, you’re not going to be able to fix it in Photoshop. You can fix exposure, color, contrast and the way the image appears; you can’t change the content. If an image is good, however, you can make it extraordinary. MT

Color palette and tonality hugely affects the feel of an image. But the content must be there to tone in the first place. Nikon D700, 28-300VR

Note: Observant readers will have noticed different frames/ watermarks on my images. They date to different eras in my photography career. The very latest set (Feb 2012 onwards) has a black frame and watermark at the top left – because I found that the Facebook buttons obscure it if placed at the bottom. Slightly earlier images have black frames and ‘Ming Thein | mingthein.com’ in the bottom left. Those date from early 2010-Feb 2012. Mid to late 2009/ early 2010 have ‘Ming Thein | AGENCIA VM’ and black frames; anything before that is frameless and ‘Ming Thein / *photohorologer MING’. I stopped using that last tagline after numerous people copied it. Just in case any of you were curious.

Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: 10x10, editing, how to, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, photoshop, processing, thein, tips

10X10: 100 ways to improve your photography: Lighting

February 22, 2012 by Ming Thein

This post deals with the light you create. You can’t always find what you need, so it’s important to know the dos and don’ts of off camera lighting. My tips apply to speedlight users; I’ve never been a huge fan of monoblocks, nor have I used them very much since Nikon launched their CLS system. Sure, sometimes you wish for more power, but then again you remember that you can go for hundreds, if not nearly thousands, of shots on a set or two of AAs – instead of carrying a 50kg lead acid lump around. Read on.

Disclaimer: As with every other article in this series, I’m assuming you know the basics already.

My current array of lighting: three SB900s, one SB700, two 120-LED daylight balanced continuous panels.

10: Always shoot in manual mode. Otherwise, there’s no way you can balance your flash and ambient exposure; if you want all flash, then you can dial in the highest sync speed possible – this will help you avoid camera shake. If you let the camera decide, it will usually only get it right for the center portion of the frame when the flash exposure is much greater than the ambient exposure. This is to say, most camera systems are useless at daylight fill, especially under very bright conditions.

Inspector. Note how inside/ outside luminance is balanced. Nikon D3, 24-70, one SB900 in a soft box.

9: Imperfect diffusers and softboxes add character to portraits, but not product shots. Uneven lighting for most product shots just makes the object look odd. For people, it can be strangely flattering. Consider making some shoddy homemade internal baffles for your portrait soft boxes.

Shoddy baffling adds character! D200, 17-55/2.8, 2xSB600s in homemade soft boxes.

8: If you’re controlling lighting, you shouldn’t have blown highlights or blocked up shadows – unless you want them. Self-explanatory. Your lighting isn’t balanced properly. Try again.

Intentional outline. Nikon D3, 105VR, one SB900 off camera.

7: Those clip on diffusers are pointless. A small light source can never replicate a big light source unless you expand (and diffuse) it – be it bouncing off the ceiling, or a softbox. A little clip on diffuser is just going to make a small, diffuse source – which at any distance, looks like a small intense source except weaker. You’ll get the same reflections and general lighting feel. All you’ll have done is a) look stupid b) wasted your money and c) lost at least two stops of light. I’ve never even used the diffuser domes supplied with any of my flashes; they’re still in the plastic bags they came in.

Unrelated shot. Speake-Marin perpetual calendar. Nikon D700, 60/2.8 G, one SB900 and diffuser.

6: Duct tape is your friend. Use it to tape flashes in odd positions to whatever supports might be handy; sometimes you just can’t erect a flash stand in the place you want it. But you could tape the flash to the ceiling. I’ve done it before.

The Hollywood shot. Flashes duct taped to curtain poles. Seriously. D3, 24-70/2.8 and three SB900s

5: More flashes are better. I’ve got four; two primary units, one spare, and one more unit to use as a commander on cameras without a built in (Leica M9-P, I’m looking at you). Legend has it that Joe McNally travels with an entire suitcase of SB800s. I dread to think how many batteries he goes through every year.

Alfabeti. Nikon D700, 60/2.8 G 2xSB900s

4: If you’re short of lights, consider a reflector. Positioning one light directly opposite the reflector gives you another pseudo-light – depending on the reflector, it could be as little as 1 stop light loss – think of a mirror, for instance. A more diffuse reflector can provide gentle fill.

Leaf shutter benefits. Leica X1, SB900, 1/2000s.

3: Higher sync speeds are better. Pro DSLRs top out at 1/250s for full power, or less power and faster – but these are not true ‘flash speeds’, because the flash has to fire for longer but at reduced power – note how the flash no longer freezes motion at 1/8000s as much as it did at 1/250s. Leaf shutter compacts like the Ricoh GRDIII and Leica X1 both sync to 1/2000s; they’re great for capturing motion or providing balanced daylight fill, where your ambient shutter speed might be very high. You won’t lose the highlights, and you also won’t lose the shadows – thanks to your high sync speed.

Dessert. Balanced with ambient daylight in restaurant. Nikon D700, Zeiss 2/28 Distagon, 2xSB900

2: Remember the eyes. For living subjects, a little catch light reflected in the eye can make all the difference between a flat, boring shot and a portrait that looks alive. Use a reflector, or if you’re using Nikon CLS, the trigger flash on your camera works fine too.

Note the eyes. Leica X1, SB900.

1: Spare batteries are important. Never get caught short. I avoid NiMH as they tend to exhibit the memory effect, especially if not used frequently – as would be typical for your second or third spare set. The Sanyo Eneloop batteries are fantastic – they really do hold charge like alkalines, but have the reuseability and current draw properties of NiMH. I’ve got eight sets of these for my flashes, and only charge them when depleted. MT

Macro lighting is quite a different game entirely. There isn’t a lot of working distance, and you need a lot of diffusion to create the same apparent perceived light source size.

Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: 10x10, flash, how to, lighting, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, speedlight, thein, tips

10X10: 100 ways to improve your photography: General tips for all photographers

February 21, 2012 by Ming Thein

Here are some suggestions that apply to everybody, regardless of what or how you shoot.

Disclaimer: As with every other article in this series, I’m assuming you know the basics already.

Prague. Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

10: Shoot raw and expose a little bit hot. There’s always a bit of potential to recover highlights in your raw files; some cameras more than others. Know how much yours can tolerate before blowing highlights completely. It’s not just a way to expand dynamic range; exposing hot and bringing down the exposure later actually reduces shadow noise, too. For those of you using a third party RAW converter that doesn’t read proprietary image settings, crank your sharpening in camera up to maximum – it won’t affect the raw file (only the jpeg preview), but you will be able to more easily see if things are in focus or not when using the image review screen.

But we all have favorites. Billingham Hadley Pro. Leica M8, 50/1.4 ASPH

9: There is no perfect bag. Just accept it, and move on. Buy a new one if it takes your fancy but don’t expect it to solve all of your problems. Most of the time I only use a bag if I have other non-photographic items to transport. If it’s camera-only then it just goes over my shoulder.

At the station. Note clean edges and overall feel of the image. Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

8: Watch the edges of your frame. Your subject is identified by a) light; b) position in the composition; c) context. The edges add or remove context – and with it, distractions. Use them carefully.

Spotlight. I’d have missed this if I was fiddling with my settings. Olympus E-PM1, Panasonic 20/1.7

7: Learn your equipment. You should be able to operate your cameras like it’s second nature. Muscle memory is your friend, and can make the difference between responding instinctively and getting the shot, or missing it altogether. Practice is the only way to do this.

The ephemeral sushi. Nothing is in focus, the saturation is all over the place, there are hot spots, the color isn’t accurate…but somehow, it works. Olympus E-PM1, Panasonic 20/1.7

6: Look at lots of images. Famous works. Not so famous works. Flickr. It’s a good source of both inspiration and way of helping you to hone your sense of composition.

But surely it will make me a better photographer!

5: Don’t buy new gear unless you’re sure you’re not the limitation. Make sure you know exactly what it is that your current gear isn’t doing for you and how the new gear will solve it.

Hommage a Rene Magritte. Prague. Olympus E-PM1, 45/1.8

4: Look at other mediums of art for inspiration. It could be painting, design, architecture; for instance I love the way Magritte renders clouds, and I look for that kind of light when shooting skies.

Gorilla in the shadows, Prague. Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

3: Look for interesting light, not just interesting subjects. But of course it’s best to have both. The best photos present an unusual subject in an extraordinary way.

Precision. I waited for both the sun and the bird. Nikon D700, 24/1.4

2: Be very, very selective with your keepers. Keep only the best. I throw away 99% of what I shoot. Not because it’s bad, but because if you shoot good pictures, then keeping only excellent will make you excellent after a while; if you shoot excellent on average and keep only outstanding, then you’ll be outstanding. And so on. Continually push and challenge yourself – set assignments, practice, tasks. Go outside of your comfort zone, and the persistence will yield results.

Serendipity. Interesting things happen when you stick a compact inside a marine chronometer then do wide-angle macrophotography with it; this was my first time trying it. Ricoh GR-Digital III

1: Shoot lots. Practice, practice, practice. Experiment. If it doesn’t work, at least you’ve learned not to do it. If it does, great – another technique to add to the arsenal. I always get asked ‘how do I pick it up? How did you pick it up?’ and my answer is the same: I experimented and shot a lot. But I also made sure I made a note of what I did, so I learned something from the experience. When I started, I was probably doing a thousand frames a day – 99.9% were crap, of course – but slowly that ratio swung. Always carry a camera – even if it’s just your phone – and don’t be afraid to use it. MT

Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: 10x10, general, how to, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, photography, thein, tips

10X10: 100 ways to improve your photography: Macro tips

February 20, 2012 by Ming Thein

Presenting a quick summary of all the non-obvious things I’ve learned in my years of shooting up close and personal.

Disclaimer: As with every other article in this series, I’m assuming you know the basics already.

Lange Datograph. Nikon D700, 60/2.8 G

10: Watch your reflections! Every time I shoot something polished and reflective, I keep thinking of this viral internet meme called reflectoporn. Don’t google it. You have been warned.

Jaeger Le-Coultre Gyrotourbillon 2 tourbillon. Nikon D700, 60/2.8 G with 72mm extension.

9: Use bellows or extension tubes to get more magnification. I’ve got both; remember you need to compensate exposure for light loss as your magnification increases. The Nikons do this automatically, but most other cameras don’t. Macro lenses and extension tubes/ bellows work great; make sure they’re high quality items because cheap ones will have non-planar mounts, and result in odd distortion. Note that some lenses won’t work with bellows or tubes because they either bring the focal point inside the rear element of the lens, or the lens design isn’t compatible because the focusing elements are internal.

There’s no way you’re getting the entire dragonfly in focus without focus stacking. And they don’t stay still for that long. Nikon D3, 105/2.8 VR + 1.4x TC

8: Diffraction vs. DoF: a tradeoff. Pick one. As you stop down more, your DoF increases; but go too far and you also start to lose resolution because of diffraction. Exactly when this kicks in depends on your focal length and the pixel pitch of your camera; on the D700 with a 60mm lens, it starts around f22 and becomes very noticeable by f32. There are a couple of solutions: use a shorter focal length – the 35 ASPH FLE gives me more DoF by f16; or use a tilt shift lens.

Ants are skittish. Don’t get too close. I’ve had bugs jump on my lens before. Nikon D200, 105/2.8 VR

7: Working distance is your friend. There’s more room for lighting, and less chance of disturbing the subject (especially for those of you who shoot small bugs or insects). For product shoots, since you’re further away, reflections are smaller – and thus require less retouching.

Speake-Marin Immortal Dragon. Nikon D700, Zeiss ZM 2.8/28 Biogon

6: Macro lenses are used for macro work for a reason. That’s because they’re optimized for near subject distances; the plane of focus is flat and they have correction for common aberrations (spherical, lateral CA, LoCA) especially close up. With a normal lens, as you get closer, the aberrations and distortions get more and more obvious – which is why you don’t want to use a normal lens and extension tubes. There are two exceptions: when you have no choice, and when using certain particular lenses. A good example is the Leica 35/1.4 Summilux-M ASPH FLE; who’d have thought a documentary/ reportage lens with a 70cm near focus limit performs spectacularly on a D700 with extension tubes?

Jaeger Le-Coultre Gyrotourbillon I. Nikon D700, Leica 35/1.4 Summilux-M ASPH FLE

5: Continuous light sources are good. Not for primary lighting, but for helping focus and composition. Better yet if you mirror your lighting position with the secondary lights. I use a pair of 120 LED video light panels.

Critical focus plane. Roger Dubuis MuchMore. Nikon D700, 60/2.8 G + 36mm extension tube.

4: Use DOF preview to check your composition. DOF preview? Composition? How are there related? Simple: as you stop down, your composition changes again. And there’s a big difference between f2.8 and f22 at macro distances.

Sinn 556. This looked very different in the finder because almost nothing was in the plane of focus. Nikon D700, 60/2.8 G

3: Clean your subject well! The better the lighting, the more uniform the subject texture, and the higher the magnification, the more dust you’re going to see. It’s much easier to clean the real object than try to do it in photoshop.

Lange Datograph. Nikon D700, 60/2.8 G. Focus stack of 20 images with bellows and extension tubes. Magnification set, then camera moved on a rail. If I didn’t, the images wouldn’t align properly because they’d all be at different magnifications. The blue screws at left are about 0.5mm across.

2: Set magnification, not focus. What’s the difference? Each lens gives a certain magnification ratio for a particular focus distance; if you focus first (or only focus) then you’ll find the composition changing – especially at the borders – as the image snaps into focus. I decide how much of the subject I want to cover, and then move the camera to focus. This is especially important at high magnifications – I work all the way up to 6:1.

Speake-Marin SM2. A short exposure time stops the balance dead – and this thing rotates through 270 degrees eight times per second. Nikon D700, 60/2.8 G + 72mm of extension tubes.

1: Keep your exposure times short. You’re going to be wondering how. I use a flash and the highest sync speed the camera supports; because you’re stopped down and at base ISO, 99.9% or more of the light comes from the flash. And flash times – even at maximum power – are less than 1/1000s usually. Lower power ratings are even faster – this is more than enough to stop camera shake even at very high magnifications. The upshot? I don’t use tripods; they’ve been relegated to holding my flashes! I value the freedom of composition given by handholding the rig. The one exception to this rule is when I need to do focus stacking. MT

Be creative. Girard Perregaux F1-047. Nikon D700, 60/2.8 G

More of my watch work can be seen here on flickr