Ming Thein | Photographer

Poll: H2 2014 workshop locations: where would you like me to go?

April 8, 2014 by Ming Thein

Following on from the previous report from the Melbourne Making Outstanding Images workshop and in the interests of determining which locations I should go to in the second half of 2014 – planning begins now – here’s a poll to get your input. Also feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Please note:

Please only answer if you intend to attend
Making Outstanding Images workshops are three days long, and follow this syllabus (Melbourne and London). They are aimed at all photographers of all levels and cover the core toolkit you need to make the images you want.
Masterclass are five days long, and follow this syllabus. They are aimed at intermediate/ advanced photographers who want to take their photography further, develop style and want an intensive feedback cycle to hone their vision. The aim is beyond just making pictures: it’s to turn you into a serious photographer.

Thanks in advance! MT

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Filed Under: Teaching Tagged With: h2 2014, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, poll, teaching, thein, workshops

Workshop report – Making Outstanding Images, Melbourne

April 6, 2014 by Ming Thein

Melbourne threw one enormous challenge at us: the weather. Those who live there weren’t surprised, but personally not having lived there for the better part of 20 years, I forgot just how indecisive and rapidly changeable it could be. If the days start off clear and bright, they landed up stormy. If they started off with rain, by the time 4pm rolled around, you wished you were wearing shorts and a t-shirt because it might be 30 degrees in the sun. Though it provided considerable sartorial confusion, it did also allow a wide variety of shooting conditions to be experienced – everything from what to do when there’s no light, to how to handle extremes of contrast when your camera can’t hold everything.

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Filed Under: Teaching Tagged With: making outstanding images, march 2014, melbourne, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, teaching, thein, Workshop

FD Photoessay: A little casual jazz

April 4, 2014 by Ming Thein

Sometimes, you can’t help but feel that the mood of a particular event or evening fits a particular camera; some time back I was invited out to a casual evening jazz concert/ jam session. There is something about black and white film and jazz; I don’t know what it is exactly, but I think the two compliment each other perfectly. Perhaps it’s the way the smooth richness of the brass instruments is the auditory compliment to the rich 3/4 tones of film*; or perhaps it’s because the whole affair invokes another, earlier, era. That said, the relatively low light was challenging due to the inherent sensitivity limitations of film, traded off against image quality – the tonal look I prefer for film requires mid tones, which tend to be pretty thin with faster emulsions. Not to mention the challenge of focusing under such low light – fortunately, I had the F2 Titan, whose focusing screen is really quite excellent – snappy, and easy to discriminate the focus transition even with very fast lenses. I hadn’t used that camera in so long, I’d forgotten how transparent a photographic experience it was; your view of the world is reduced to what’s inside the large finder, and your fingers are only the three controls – focus, aperture and shutter, with a thumb cocked around the winding lever to help secure the right-sized body, and nothing more. It’s what the Df should have been.

*A discourse on the relationship and similarities between photography and music is something I’ve been meaning to write for some time, but I’m still trying to learn enough about music to have enough descriptive language to adequately convey the concepts. Increasingly I’m starting to feel that the written/ spoken language really is inadequate for the description and explanation of visual ideas; perhaps that too is another article for another time.

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Filed Under: Film Diaries, On Photography Tagged With: fd, film, film diaries, jazz, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, music, photoessay, photography, thein

Rational love: the D800E long term report

April 2, 2014 by Ming Thein

It’s been nearly two years since the D800E was released. In the meantime we’ve dealt with left focusing issues, comparisons with much more expensive cameras (here, and here), the fact that most of the Nikon lens stable doesn’t really match up to the capabilities of the sensor, focusing issues with MF glass – now that we have lenses like the Otus and 2/135 APO, and its use as a scanning device for film – amongst other things. It’s become my go-to camera when an image needs making, under any circumstances, and with any given set of requirements. Yet it’s honestly taken me two years to warm up to it. Here’s why.

New Olympus E-M1 firmware

April 1, 2014 by Ming Thein

I don’t normally post about firmware updates, but this is a) quite a major one, and b) there are a lot of E-M1 users amongst the reader pool. Amongst other fixes to audio recording, the shutter mechanism is affected. Some cameras – mine included – are affected by a resonant shutter vibration specifically at 1/180s that causes a slight double image; higher and lower speeds are fine. The new firmware adds an option that switches “the first shutter curtain from mechanical to electronic to reduce blur caused by shutter impact”. In our initial testing, it appears to make a significant difference on two of the three cameras we have here (all of the workshop videos are filmed with them, we have a spare, and I shoot one myself).

I first raised this issue to Olympus back in December; it’s highly commendable that they’ve listened, been in regular contact, and given us not only a solution, but a highly innovative one that doesn’t require sending the camera in. Kudos.

The firmware update can be downloaded here. You will need the original (proprietary) USB cable that came with the camera to upload it, though. MT

Filed Under: Off topic Tagged With: e-m1, firmware update 1.3, micro four thirds, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, olympus, thein

Photoessay: Trees in monochrome

March 31, 2014 by Ming Thein

Today, we’re taking a little break from the travel-themed images I’ve been posting of late, and return to nature somewhat. I’ve always found something compelling about trees; I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s some deep-rooted part of our subconscious that calls for an occasional visual break from the uniformly geometric concrete we live in, and an embracing of the naturally fractal and chaotic world for a change instead. Judging from the feedback on previous images and photoessays, I’ve also found this to be the case with a lot of other people, too.

Last day for Autumn in Tokyo Ultraprints

March 30, 2014 by Ming Thein

A gentle reminder that today is the last day for the Autumn in Tokyo Ultraprint sale. As usual, the edition size is very limited and these images will not be printed again at this size. For more details and to order, please click here. Thanks! MT

Filed Under: Prints Tagged With: autumn, autumn in tokyo print portfolio, march 2014 print run, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, print, print sale, prints, thein

Objectivity, subjectivity, time and deleting images

March 29, 2014 by Ming Thein

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How many of you have given serious thought to how you evaluate and delete images? From repeat experience, I find that it matters more than you might think. Today’s article examines this in a bit more detail: surprisingly, this is one of the very few times when producing better final images has nothing at all to do with the actual image capture…

Repost: Defining style, and finding your own

March 27, 2014 by Ming Thein

I think of this image as being very characteristic of the way I shoot these days – and you can probably guess that it was one of mine, even without the frame. But what does that mean? Why and what is it that makes it so – and more importantly, how do you consciously add your own visual signature to an image?

Introduction: This was an earlier essay written on a tough topic: something that is fundamentally important for all serious photographers, yet is extremely difficult to define in a strict technical sense due to its very nature.

In hindsight, I realized that it might not be something that a lot of photographers consciously consider at the time of capture; it might come up come post processing time, but you really need to have it in mind before you even hit the shutter. There is of course far more detail than I can possibly cover in a single post – we tried to put everything into a single 2h video, but we landed up needing 6 hours in total to be comprehensive. I probably should have reposted this as an introduction to the latest two videos, but better late than never! Think of it as context, preface and explanation for Making Outstanding Images series: Exploring and Processing for Style.

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Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, essay, finding style, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, photography, style, thein

FD Photoessay: Early large format landscapes

March 25, 2014 by Ming Thein

These photoessays will have far fewer images than the usual variety, simply because the number of images taken is necessarily lower. I’ll shoot perhaps 12 frames in a productive day. To confess, I’ve actually been hesitating a little over whether to post these at all, because even though the loss from print to screen is enormous, there’s an even bigger loss between full digital files to web. There is simply no way to represent them in such a way that doesn’t throw away most of the tonal subtlety and immersive detail. I’ll do it anyway, for the curious. But upfront I will say that something is definitely missing…there’s a ‘digitalness’ to the images at this size that isn’t present in the full size images; I suspect it’s because once you shrink an image this much a lot of the subtle tonal and microcontrast cues that say ‘film’ are downsized into oblivion. Just so you know: you’re looking at an image that’s been reduced to about 0.5% of the original size. MT