Ming Thein | Photographer

Technology, art, and pushing the boundaries

October 19, 2012 by Ming Thein

Even from the earliest days of photography, there has been an inextricable link between the medium and the technology used. Classical artists saw it as an abomination: where was the skill required to recreate the form of a subject when the device did everything for you? If anything, the early photographer was more engineer and chemist than artist. Relative unfamiliarity with some properties of the medium – depth of field, perspective, etc. and near complete unpredictability with others – tonal reproduction, exposure, colour, lighting, emulsion quality etc. meant that results were hit and miss, and more often about getting any image at all – rather than one of any longstanding artistic merit*.

*I believe the popular analogy goes ‘what’s amazing is that the horse can talk at all, not so much what it has to say’.

And for this reason, many of the images we see from the early days of the medium – especially portraits – resemble conventional paintings in the posing, light and general composition. Is it any wonder that early photographers weren’t taken seriously by artists? In fact, I think we can argue that photography as an art medium didn’t really come into its own until the second half of the 20th century, coinciding with not one specific event, but a few technological ‘enablers’:

1. Built-in meters.
2. TTL flash.
3. Consistency – both in the cameras themselves, as well as the processing
4. Mass market processing of film.
5. Later on, autofocus.
6. Still later, digital.

Each one of these things has brought its own little impact on the way photographers work; arguably, making executing a technically good photograph a lot easier than it used to be, but also removing the other distractions and freeing the photographer to concentrate solely on the contents of the frame. All things equal, if you don’t have to think too much about exposure, or focusing, or whether you need to remember to adjust the lens a few degrees past the mark to get true infinity, then you should have a bit more spare brain power to spend on composition – which in theory, should make for stronger images.

But on the whole, I’m not sure we’re seeing this. I remember a statistic that said 10% of all images ever taken were shot last year – that’s mind boggling. By simple laws of statistics, more images means more better ones as an absolute number – but perhaps not more as a proportion. I think maybe making things easier has actually resulted in taking a photograph both crossing the threshold of ‘something you do casually without thinking about it’ as well as opening it up to a whole bunch of people who might otherwise have been intimidated by all of those buttons and knobs. Give a random person your Leica M3 to take a photo of you with in the 1950s, and he’d probably do okay. Do the same today, and chances are they’d run off with your camera.

Yet for those of us who are taking the whole photography thing seriously – and I’m not talking about the gearheads and collectors here – it’s a golden era. We photographers have never had such a wide choice of equipment to use; all of which performs well above the sufficiency threshold. Arguably, even the enthusiast compacts of the current era can deliver at a level that was very much cutting edge for anything below medium format not so long ago. Beyond that, the expansion of the overall market has made room for niche equipment makers to survive and thrive; a good example would be a tilt shift bellows for M4/3, made by Novoflex – combine that with the small sensor, and never-ending depth of field, anybody?

And that brings me to the core of this essay: in a creative form that has always been tied to its technological roots, we might as well embrace it and use the technology to open up new creative doors; I think the current generation of photographers is doing that well, but perhaps not taking it as far as they could be. I’m talking about vision, imagination, and the idea; the ability to see in your mind your final frame before you shoot it. And it doesn’t have to come out of the camera that way; there are some things that must be done in post-processing, like compositing or retouching – so what? The only limitation in the results is very much down to how far ahead the photographer can see; how well they can visualize the effect or potential applications of the new tools. At the same time, though, we must be careful not to get caught up in pop culture: a good example would be that not all HDR has to look like a multi-colored psychedelic tone map. What else can we do with HDR that would result in a frame that a) doesn’t look like every other HDR frame, and b) allows you to present a different view on the world? At the same time, it’s important to note that for journalism purposes, a degree of integrity is required in images: changing the tonal presentation is fine, but changing the contents of the image is absolutely not.

I want to talk about some of the emerging and maturing technologies that make me excited because I can see creative applications for them; I’m sure that there are plenty more I’ve not even heard of. So bear with me.

3D/ Lytro.
The presentation aspect of this has some ways to go before it becomes really mainstream; I’m more interested in the ability to fix a ‘near miss’ after capture, or to have perfect focusing all the time, or have control over the depth of field after taking the shot. For this, we wouldn’t need to have an infinite number of light fields to enable focusing at any distance, but just a few before and after the captured focus point to be able to tweak things afterwards. With sufficiently high density sensors, we wouldn’t even have to take much of a hit in resolution – and I’m sure a smart algorithm could make use of the nearby non-image forming pixels to reduce noise or improve dynamic range.

Composite sensors.
It’s a bit surprising that the conventional Bayer array CCD has lasted this long, actually. Although the idea of Foveon – with multiple photosites per pixel – is a good one, there’s no way that vertical stacking is going to be able to deliver the same noise and dynamic range results, because by the time the light hits the lowest layer of the sensor, it’s already been attenuated severely by the filters above it. And if you don’t have much light in the first place, all you get is noise. What would make more sense is some form of pixel binning – especially with the increasingly dense sensors we’re seeing today. The OM-D’s 16MP sensor is a quarter of the size of full frame; that would make a 64MP array at the same pixel density. But what if the pixels were grouped into bunches of four – RGB and luminance – for true color at each photosite? The luminance pixel could be used to further improve dynamic range and noise, too. And I don’t think a real resolution of 16MP is anything to sniff at.

Speed and HDR.
Input dynamic range should not be confused with output or display dynamic range. Even though the display methods we have today are limited to ~8 stops because they can’t all be lightbulbs to replicate the brighter areas – an LCD for instance, or a print – that doesn’t mean we can’t use more input dynamic range. What this lets us do is choose where and how we allocate the output tonal scale, according to our artistic intentions for the scene. The current limitation is that single-capture DR is around 14 stops maximum; whilst this is far ahead of anything we’ve had previously, there are still scenes that exceed this dynamic range, yet remain clearly visible to us in real life without clipping to black or white. At the same time, capture speed is getting faster – why not take two shots very close together with the mirror up, and then merge them in camera to prevent clipping? We’re already nearly there with the back end coding, but the speed (and camera/ subject motion related to it) needs a bit of work. No reason why at say shutter speeds above 1/1000s we couldn’t have a 1/1000s and a 1/2000s exposure…

Extreme perspectives.
Slowly but surely, lenses are getting both wider and longer. They are also quite unwieldy to handle or compose with – how close do you have to be to something with an 8mm lens on FX to make it fill most of the frame? Very, is the answer. But yet there are plenty of creative photographers who are using these tools to create interesting perspectives. On the opposite end, the Phantom HD camera used by the BBC to film Planet Earth comes to mind – it lets us get close, at a surprisingly natural perspective, without having to either endanger the lives of the crew, or scare off whatever it is we’re filming/ photographing. No doubt it’s a bit voyeuristic, but hasn’t that always been the nature of photography?**

**A good example of this is Miroslav Tichy – although pretty much seen as a pervert during his lifetime, he’s now considered an artist. And yes, he made his own cameras out of cardboard and string.

Miniaturisation.
I think it’s impossible to separate perspective from location – getting the camera into places previously impossible, or inaccessible, is also a big part of this. Aside from the obvious aerial rigs to get us remote unsupported shots in the middle of the action (at the Olympics, for example) – there’s also the whole field of miniaturisation. Perhaps the best example of this is what the GoPro camera started: POV filming from absolutely any point of view. What if we could do that to a decent image quality level with still cameras? In my mind…taken to the extreme, I envision sticking the end of an extremely fine endoscope inside a watch movement to photograph it. I’m sure you all can think of other uses.

Endurability/ survivability.
Taking perspectives and location even further – we’re now sending cameras to places where we physically can’t go, like space, or the deep ocean, for instance. The more advanced our technology gets, the more options we have. Just like in the early days of being wowed at capturing any image at all, eventually there might be some thought given to composition, framing and the artistic merits of the photograph – once we’ve sorted out getting the photograph at all.

Increases in sensitivity and color accuracy.
Since the D3 generation of cameras – I feel we have been able to get a useable image under conditions previously unimaginable, or where we’d just say ‘forget it’. But that kind of flexibility ha, if anything, made me even more aware of the other even more difficult shooting conditions under which I can see a shot, but it remains beyond the ability of my camera to capture. Or we can capture it, but it doesn’t quite come out looking as we saw the scene. The ability to really reproduce what your eyes can see, under all conditions, is something where technology has made great strides but still isn’t quite there yet.

Integration with the photographer
Here’s a crazy idea: what if you could just download the image you saw directly from your eye/ optic nerve/ brain? I wouldn’t be surprised if some research lab somewhere is working on it. We’ve already seen integration of CCDs with the optic nerve to be able to restore sight to some degree, so why not the other way around?

It’s definitely an exciting time to be a photographer. At the end of the day though, it’s important to remember that all of the technology is but an enabler: it’s up to us to push our own creativity to come up with something different, and create your own vision. And although that will always remain the biggest challenge, there will be also always be some people who conquer it and move the medium forward as a whole. MT

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Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: art, article, essay, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, pushing the boundaries, technology, thein

Two new Malaysian workshops: 3 & 4 November 2012

October 19, 2012 by Ming Thein

After the success of the last session in Kuala Lumpur (Making light, and Finding light) I’m pleased to announce another two new workshops for 3 and 4 November 2012:

The streets of Melaka: Saturday, 3 November 2012 (Melaka)
Intermediate street and travel photography techniques; from 10.30am to 7.30pm
All you need is a digital camera. Any camera; even a compact/ point and shoot is fine (bring it if you have one). I’ll show you how to see, how to translate that into an image, and how to make images where the equipment doesn’t matter – you’ll be liberated. The day concludes with an assessment of images and debrief.

Introduction to Photoshop Workflow for Photographers: Sunday, 4 November 2012 (Kuala Lumpur)
With digital photography, shooting is just half of the story: the other half is in both how you shoot to make the most of the output of your camera to maximize image quality, and how you optimize those images afterwards. Photoshop doesn’t have to be intimidating or slow – I spend less than a minute per image on average, but each one is individually optimized. Bring along your problem/ difficult images or images from the day before. I’ll cover the entire basic desk workflow from assessing/ editing and sorting to adjustments and output. You’ll need a laptop with Photoshop CS3 or higher plus an editing tablet – I like the Wacom Intuos series. Note that you can use the trial version of Photoshop for 30 days before deciding if you want to buy it or not. But, once you see what it can do, it’s not a lot of money to spend when you consider that you use it on every image.

Each session is RM1,000 per person, or book both for RM1,800. Please note that payment is due on confirmation to reserve your place.

Please email mingthein2@gmail.com for bookings or information. Places are strictly limited for both sessions (max. 6 for Melaka, and max. 10 for Intro to Photoshop) in order for me to help you get the most out of the session. MT

Filed Under: Teaching Tagged With: malaysia, melaka, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, november 2012, photoshop, teaching, thein, Workshop

Color management for photographers: a primer

October 17, 2012 by Ming Thein

Color spaces, from Wikimedia Commons; reused under a Creative Commons license. Image by Cpesacreta. What is clear here is that none of the common color spaces or reproduction methods can display the entire visible spectrum.

Starting from the start, a colour space defines all of the possible tones and hues that a single pixel may take. The values may take either a RGB value or CMYK value; the set of three numbers represents the amount of each colour present from a scale of 0-255, which gives 256 possible tonal values for each colour (red, green, blue or cyan, magenta, yellow and black). Combining every possible permutation of these gives you 16.7 million possible different colours for RGB. Note that you don’t get 4.3 billion colours for CMYK, because the K (black) value controls the overall brightness and density rather than contributing another possible hue to the mix.

The reason why we have different colour spaces is because they define the limit of reproducible tones for a particular reproduction method – be that screen, web, print, or TV transmission. The most commonly used colour spaces are either a type of sRGB or newsprint CMYK; both of these actually offer very limited reproduction potential. Many of you will notice that most images you see on the web, or in print, are lacking in depth and tonal subtlety; this is simply because the desired tone simply cannot be reproduced, and as a result lands up defaulting to the nearest possible colour value – which is obviously not going to accurately represent the original image. When a colour goes outside the possible range, this is known as gamut clipping. Some of the better proofing software can be configured to display a warning when this occurs; Camera Raw shows a small warning triangle in the upper-right near the histogram.

For photographers, the important colour spaces you need to be aware of for digital display are Adobe RGB, sRGB and ProPhoto RGB. For print, it’s whatever variant of CMYK your printer uses. Let’s start with the former. Adobe RGB is the most common wide-gamut colour space available; almost every camera today – even compacts – has the option to output in this colour space by default – use it. sRGB is a limited, mostly web-safe gamut that varies slightly depending on the standard; one camera maker’s sRGB won’t be the same as another, and the sRGB displayed online will be different yet again – possibly depending on the browser, or your system settings, or any one of many other factors. Avoid this wherever possible. The final RGB – ProPhoto – provides the widest of all gamuts; however, most monitors aren’t capable of displaying the majority of the possible colours, and few web browsers support it. I’m going to leave covering CMYK until the section dealing with print.

Although the tonal limitations of each colour space depend very much on the specific colour space themselves, it’s safe to say that in general, you’ll see the difference between Adobe RGB and sRGB most prominently in the blues and greens. There’s a particular shade of sky blue that seems to be nearly impossible to reproduce in sRGB, for instance. CMYK has similar restrictions to sRGB, but biases towards cyan instead of green and blue; overall, it lacks the vibrance and saturation that RGB can deliver – unsurprising given that the constituent colours are not red, green and blue! CMYK is used only for print proofing and is never found in camera or monitor; this is because the native components of these devices are formed of RGB photosites or pixels.

The observant of you will have noted that 256 tonal values represent 8 bits of information per colour channel. So why do we bother with 14 bit raw files, and working in 16 bits? Simple: although our output may always only be 8-bit, the amount of information we have going in affects the amount of work we can do to a file before we start to see posterisation (separation of areas into distinct blocks of colour with no tonal variation or smooth transition between adjacent zones). If we have 256 input values, do some contrast adjustment (effectively, ‘stretching’ the histogram) – we might now make some of the levels cover adjacent levels, resulting in only say 150 truly distinct tonal values for a particular channel. Most of the time, software will cover these ‘steps’ reasonably well; however, the reality is that you will see some posterisation. Working in a 16-bit colour space – with 65,536 tonal values per channel – avoids this problem mainly because we can’t actually achieve this many distinct tonal values through most reproduction methods; everything is effectively down sampled before output. Make sure you have your editing software convert any files in other colour spaces to the working colour space, too.

In-camera, the best option you have for maintaining accurate colour is to shoot RAW, Adobe RGB and whatever the highest bit space your camera offers; for the current batch of Nikons that would be 14-bit NEF, Adobe RGB, lossless compressed or uncompressed. (Lossless compressed only discards information in portions of the tonal register that aren’t being used or are adjacent duplicates, not any of the actual image data). Any time you’re shooting JPEG, you’re limited to 8 bits – and every file is compressed; avoid shooting JPEG unless you absolutely have no choice (A non-compressed JPEG is effectively a TIFF or bitmap). After being used to the tonal elasticity of of manipulating a good RAW file, you’ll be surprised at just how fast a JPEG will clip or posterise when manipulated – it’s one of the reasons that I almost always avoid buying a camera until there’s full RAW support for it through my usual workflow (ACR>PS). And it’s also important to note that RGB channel histograms and overexposure warnings are important: once a channel clips, it’s gone for good, especially with JPEG files. Although most raw converters will allow for some interpolation of surrounding tonal information to recover and reconstruct some highlight data, it won’t be that accurate.

All of this care during capture would be useless if not maintained during the postproduction process – that’s the importance of your screen workflow. Firstly, you need to have a good monitor that’s capable of displaying a wide gamut; the best of today’s bunch (Eizo, some NEC, Apple Cinema Display) are capable of covering almost all of the Adobe RGB gamut; if you’re serious, this is the kind of monitor you want. Secondly, it needs to be calibrated – i.e. ensuring what you see on screen accurately represents the actual data. The Monitor Calibration Utility for Apple (under System Preferences, Displays) is actually pretty good at this if you do all of the steps properly – a handy tip is to have an image which you’re familiar with open in another window while you run the wizard to ensure that the end output looks accurate to you. For Windows users, you’re recommended to invest in a Spyder or something similar – this generates a profile that the monitor then uses create its display output.

The next step along the chain is output: what are you going to use the image for? If it’s print, save as a 16 bit uncompressed TIFF; this will give the printer as much information as possible to work with when performing the RGB to CMYK conversion. I don’t actually recommend performing this conversion yourself unless you have the exact colour profile your printer is going to use, otherwise you might land up with some strange hue shifts. If it’s for screen or web use, then a jpeg is fine – most viewers are not going to have the right equipment to view the full gamut anyway; thus it’s better that you run a test proof under as close to actual viewing conditions as possible. I wouldn’t advocate going to sRGB unless you know that’s the only possible output; your best choices these days are Safari and Firefox – both are available for Windows and Mac. Similarly, ensure that your web hosting service preserves as much of the colour information as possible; the only one I know of that doesn’t convert things to sRGB is Flickr. Facebook et al are absolutely horrible – not only do they compress the hell out of the image, but they also shift everything into a very restricted web-safe sRGB that makes things appear both tonally blocky yet ‘coarse’ at the same time, due to the compression. Do NOT use Facebook to display images unless you have no choice, don’t care, or didn’t have the tonal information to begin with (smartphones, for instance) – everything just looks bad.

Printing is a whole article unto itself, but I’m going to touch on it briefly here: the main disconnect between the print workflow and the capture workflow is colour space; screen viewing involves an additive method where R, G and B are mixed together to make the desired colour; print uses C, M, Y and K inks subtractively to create colour. The reason for this is simple: pixels are backlit, prints aren’t. You’re dealing with reflected light off the print medium as opposed to transmitted light. Although this conversion process keeps improving, the mapping isn’t perfect and there still remain portions of the Adobe RGB gamut that can’t easily be reproduced in print. Part of this is due to the subtractive method; part of it is due to the fact that ink drops are either there or they aren’t – to create the illusion of tonal variation, printers use very, very small drops and dithering or half toning to leave white space between the dots. Note that print DPI is not the same as screen DPI – one pixel may be represented by anywhere up to 12 dots of ink! By far the best option for printing is to ensure your RGB output file is as accurate and full of information as you can manage; then find yourself a competent printer. I’m not going to get into self-printing – suffice to say that I did try, but between the wasted test prints, the clogged heads, the cleaning cycles…it simply wasn’t economically feasible for me to maintain my own printer.

There’s one final thing you have to take into consideration when an output image is being viewed: the effect of ambient light. It’s less important for devices that supply their own light – LCD panels, for instance – but it still matters because ambient brightness might overwhelm the panel and make colours appear dull or washed out. It’s far more critical for print viewing; the colour temperature of ambient light will affect the perceived white point, as well as the light reflected off the print itself. This causes toning or shading of the print; a good print master will adjust the yellow and blue components of an image for the intended display location; for instance, under tungsten light you have to remove some yellow component and/or increase the blues slightly as the light itself will provide that; the opposite is true for LED lighting. This is why all critical print proofing should be done in daylight – or under a daylight (5500-6000K) source. There are special daylight spectrum fluorescent tubes available for this purpose.

You’ll notice that I haven’t said anything about black and white workflow – it still matters, though less so. Assuming your printer can create a pure black and white without any hue shifts, then the important part is to check your grayscale space – this works in a similar manner to colour spaces, but controls the gamma of the image rather than the actual range of possible tonal values. This is critical to ensure that the resulting output image has the right density.

I’m going to finish with a final note on my own workflow. I run a 15″ MacBook Pro, calibrated with the Monitor Calibration Utility. I shoot 14-bit lossless compressed RAW in Adobe RGB on my D800E, M9 and OM-D; the RX100 is JPEG-only for the moment (Update: now supported by ACR/ LR as at October 2012). Files are opened in Adobe Camera Raw for initial adjustments (even JPEGs) before conversion to the working file format in Photoshop; I keep everything in 16 bit Adobe RGB until output. My web output is 8-bit JPEG; everything else is 16-bit lossless compressed (LZW) TIFF, or Photoshop (depending on the use or client). I will do some CMYK conversions for clients if they can supply the working CMYK space; otherwise, if it’s print, I leave the conversion to my printer – he knows the output capabilities of his equipment far better than I do, and I’ve yet to be disappointed with any of his output. It’s important to note that although I’ll select the colour space that retains as much of the original tonal information as possible, there’s also no point in bloating files if the information simply wasn’t there to begin with in the first place; I’m not going to save a conversion from a 12-bit RAW file as a 16-bit TIFF because there simply isn’t that much information after manipulation; let alone a JPEG. These will be saved as 8-bit compressed TIFF files instead.

Although the colour management process can be daunting, it’s important to invest time in understanding it and get it right – you’ll find afterwards that your images look a lot more consistent, regardless of the display medium. MT

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: cmyk, color, color management, color spaces, gamut, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, rgb, thein

Quick review: The Olympus 15/8 Body Cap Lens

October 15, 2012 by Ming Thein

At left: body cap. At right: Lens. Not much difference.

Lens mounted on the E-LM5.

Disclaimer: if you came here looking for optical perfection, you should probably stop reading now.

On the other hand, if you came here because you were curious about this little pancake, then read on. I admit that although I’m usually squarely in the former category, for some odd reason, the 15/8 got me intrigued – I suppose it was the size, or the fact that it suits the whole ‘fun’ ethos of the smaller PEN cameras. I think it’s the photojournalist in me that very much likes the idea of having the camera ready to go at all times, even if it’s in storage; the Olympus BCL-15 lets you do just that. It’s effectively the same depth as the supplied standard body cap (maybe a millimetre or two thicker, but nobody’s counting) – making the smaller bodies like the E-PL5 and E-PM1 very pocketable indeed. The lens was launched together with a number of other items at Photokina 2012 – notably the E-PL5, E-PM1 Pens, 60/2.8 Macro and the wireless SD card system.

The mosque by the sea. E-PL5, 15/8

100% crops.

It isn’t anything special in terms of construction: the lens has just three elements (supposedly glass), all-plastic construction, and a clever little lever that both doubles as a shutter to protect the front element, as well as a focusing lever; on the subject of focusing, you can get as close as 30cm to your subject. The lever is light and doesn’t really stay in place if bumped, but then again, precision isn’t that important in a lens that both has an extremely great depth of field – being a 15mm f8 and all – and optics that aren’t exactly highly-corrected. In fact, it’s a wonder that it isn’t just fix-focused.

Book spirals. E-PL5, 15/8

100% crops.

Needless to say, there’s no electronic communication of any sort between camera and lens, so EXIF data is not recorded, and since there’s only one aperture, you’ve effectively got a point and shoot. Curiously though, it appears Olympus has put a small baffle between two of the elements to only use the central portion of the lens in a bid to keep image quality reasonably high; I suspect that if one could somehow separate the elements and remove this, you’d find the lens to be closer to f4 or thereabouts – at the expense of optical quality and depth of field, of course. It might be something I’d be willing to try as a rainy day project…

Staircase. E-PL5, 15/8

100% crops.

So how does it perform optically? Well, it’s surprisingly sharp in the center, even though the 16MP M4/3 sensors are already hitting diffraction limits at f5.6 and smaller; the lens might well be a bit sharper if it was a stop faster due to this. The edges and corners are another story – let’s just say they’re not very sharp anywhere, and rather smeary in places. No doubt this is due to the limited optical correction possible with just three non-aspherical elements. (That said, this lens reminds me of the MS-Optical Perar Triplet 35/3.5 and 28/4 lenses for the Leica M mount; I wonder how they perform optically.) So long as you keep your subjects in the central third or so of the the frame, and take a little time to ensure focus is just about at the right distance, optical results are better than expected.

Although you might think that some of the crops are soft because of the focus distance, let me assure you that at f8 and a 15mm real focal length, the depth of field is more than sufficient to cover where I placed the focal point – and that was verified with live view magnificaiton for the purposes of this test; in real life, I don’t think I’d bother.

Minaret. E-PL5, 15/8

100% crops.

Simple lens designs like this one tend to have very high contrast and transmission because there aren’t a lot of surfaces and air-glass interfaces inside the lens to lose light at; the 15/8 renders with very high macrocontrast indeed; microcontrast is much less impressive, though (and has a lot to do with resolving power – you weren’t surprised about that result, were you?). Color is saturated, brilliant and actually quite pleasing.

Sunset. E-PL5, 15/8

I can see photographers buying this for several reasons – as a fun walk around lens; as an impulse buy when you go to the camera shop with itchy fingers but perhaps not enough money or not finding anything that really catches your eye; the blogging crowd will probably find it fun and conveniently compact. I actually used it a lot while reviewing the E-PL5 (which all of these images were shot on) simply because it made the camera very pocketable and immediately responsive – not having AF and all – and being very close to my preferred 28mm focal length, an interesting street photography option (at least in good light; f8 means that you’re hitting ISO 3200 even in the shade, and forget about using it indoors).

Amusement park dusk. E-PL5, 15/8

Conclusion: At just US$60, it’s a no-brainer recommendation for anybody who owns a M4/3 camera, especially if you’ve got a older or spare one lying around. Mine now lives on my E-PM1 Pen Mini, which has seen little use since the OM-D and Sony RX100 entered the stable. put this on, stick the camera in your pocket, and go for a walk. You’ll be glad you did. MT

The Olympus BCL-15mm f8 Body Cap lens is available here from B&H or Amazon.

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Abandoned, I. E-PL5, 15/8

Filed Under: Gearhead: Reviews Tagged With: 15/8, 15/8 body cap lens, gearhead, micro 4/3, micro four thirds, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, olympus, review, thein

Simple explanations of important camera functions/ settings/ parameters

October 13, 2012 by Ming Thein

A recent email from a beginner/ amateur user on which camera settings to use under what conditions provided the motivation for this post. In addition to there never being a one-size-fits-all answer, it occurred to me that the reason why a lot of users are confused is partially down to poor product and UI design on the part of the camera companies, and overambition on the part of the user.

Cameras tend to come in one of two flavors: firstly, fully automated, dumbing down, hiding or completely eliminating all photographic functions/ controls or obfuscating them to the user behind language or parameters that doesn’t necessarily make sense intuitively, such as ‘blur control’. The second type of camera lets it all hang out: it’s so manually intimidating and complex, offering control over everything from critical exposure functions to the color of the LCD backlight or number of images taken when using the self timer, and at what interval – that the new or even slightly unfamiliar user has no idea where to begin. And to compound things, camera makers often make inexplicably baffling changes to the UI between each generation – for instance, the +/- indicators on the exposure compensation scale for the D700/D3 generation runs in the opposite direction to the D800/D4. Why? Nobody knows. Maybe the person designing the silk screen stencil for the top panel LCD didn’t refer to the previous model, or think that there might be photographers out there still using both generations of camera. (Sure, you can make the rotation direction of the dials match, but it doesn’t help the fact that either way, one of the cameras is going to have the display move in an unintuitive direction in use – which may slow you down enough to miss a shot, or you ignore it and land up drastically over- or under- exposed.)

Human nature forms the other barrier: whilst most of us have a decent idea of the limits of their own ability, we might not be so willing to admit it to others. And like it or not, in today’s consumer society, the size and complexity of your camera is a subtle, or perhaps not-so-subtle, telegraph to the rest of the world about both your spending power and your photographic prowess. (Of course, whether either is accurate or not is a completely different topic.) It seems to be especially true where I live, where you see almost everybody carrying a DSLR – yet using it in the green mode and looking surprised when the flash pops up by itself. The upshot of this is that almost every consumer will buy more camera than they need, either convinced by the marketing mantra of ‘more better’, the smooth-talking salesperson, wanting to outdo their friends, or thinking they can ‘grow into it’.

A casual survey of my non-serious-photographer friends reveals that most of them don’t know how to do anything more than turn the camera on, zoom, press the shutter to take a picture; and perhaps turn the flash on and off. It also makes me wonder why ‘simple’ compacts are still so darn complicated to operate. The disconnect is that there are also a good number of them using prosumer DSLRs – think D7000s or 60Ds and the like. It’s both a shame for them that due to the intimidating nature of the cameras, they may never progress any further; yet be frustrated that the camera doesn’t behave quite as expected. Why is the shot dark? Why is it always focusing on the background? Etc.

Important photographic controls boil down to two things: one set that controls the look of the image, and one set that controls the behaviour of the camera.

Image parameters, in order of importance

Focal length – The perspective and field of view of your frame. Note that this comes before all other considerations, because if you misuse your perspective or select the wrong field of view for a given subject, then no matter how technically perfect the image, it won’t save you from poor composition.

Aperture – The size of the lens opening; controls both the amount of light entering the camera, as well as the depth of field or the range that is in focus. Smaller f-numbers indicate a larger opening, which equals more light and higher shutter speeds, but also shallower depth of field. Isolate subjects with out-of-focus backgrounds by using a larger aperture. Using a small aperture in low light will yield insufficient shutter speed to produce a sharp image unless you’re using a tripod or very high ISO.

Shutter speed – The amount of time for which the shutter stays open. The longer this duration, the higher the chance of you, or the subject moving, and subsequently producing a blurred image. This can be desirable if there are clearly static elements in the scene to serve as a visual anchor point, such as rocks and blurred water, etc. The faster the subject, the higher the shutter speed you need to freeze its motion. To handhold a reasonably high-resolution camera safely and produce an image that is crisp at the 100% actual-pixel level (assuming the subject is in focus), you need 1/[focal length in 35mm equivalent]s, or half that (1/2x) to be safe.

Sensitivity/ ISO – The ‘gain’ or amplification on the signal from the sensor. Doubling the ISO doubles the gain, which in turn doubles the shutter speed. However, you’re also doubling both the information part of the signal as well as the noise, so every increase in ISO necessarily comes with an associated penalty in image noise. However, most cameras have a decent usable range that makes it possible to set auto-ISO within this range, and let the camera automatically boost sensitivity when the shutter speed falls below the set threshold (usually 1/focal length or faster) – this way you both never miss a shot due to insufficient shutter speed, and cameras can frequently set finer increments than is possible manually, minimizing noise.

White balance – The neutral color point of the image, or the RGB gain mix required to achieve white under a particular ambient lighting situation. For the most part, you can leave this in automatic and tweak the RAW file afterwards; however for extremely warm or cold ambient light (tungsten, shade) you may want to manually choose the respective presets to prevent overexposure of a single channel – once a channel is blown, you can’t recover it afterwards.

Note that the simple way to reduce your workload is to run the camera in aperture priority, auto-ISO and auto-white balance; just make sure that your selected shutter speed thresholds for auto-ISO fall within your desired range – slower if you want to blur motion or are using a wider lens, and vice versa. I normally have my cameras configured this way, unless I’m doing work that requires me to balance flash and ambient, or color-critical work; in which case I’ll go manual for everything.

Camera control parameters, in order of importance

Focus point/area – The shallower the depth of field, the more important it is to have some control over exactly what the camera is focusing on. Without this, you will find your subject out of focus – especially if off center. The camera can’t read your mind (or at least not yet). This said, put your camera in either center point and do the focus-half press to lock-then recompose technique, or choose your focus point manually. Make sure your subject is the most contrasty thing under the selected point, and large enough to be picked up by the AF system.

Focus mode – Single (AF-S), continuous (AF-C), or manual (MF)? Single means that the camera stops focusing once focus has been achieved for the first time. This is good for static subjects. Continuous means that the camera will continue to adjust focus until you release the shutter, which is desirable for moving subjects or very shallow depth of field lenses (a situation that may appear static – a portrait, say – may actually have motion of a few millimetres in either direction by the subject or photographer, and that’s enough to cause noticeable softness when using a very shallow depth of field lens). And finally, manual focus of course means DIY. I always have my phase detect AF cameras (DSLRs) set in AF-C, and the contrast detect cameras in AF-S; the reason for the latter choice is simple: the hit rate is much higher, and contrast detect cameras all have smaller sensors, which makes them more tolerant of minor focus errors.

And to be honest, the rest you really don’t need to worry about. For years, we’ve managed with nothing but these controls – in fact, in the early film days, you couldn’t even change your ISO easily from shot to shot, there was no such thing as colour, and there was no such thing as AF-Tracking – so really, you should be able to make a strong image focusing only on three of the parameters.

Master these, and you’ll find that you now feel in control of your camera and the images it produces, instead of vice-versa. Shooting fully manual is a good way to both learn to control your camera instinctively, as well as build an intuitive understanding for how changing a given parameter affects the look of the image; eventually you’ll build a sense for what the right parameters should be for a given shooting situation. Even if you’re an experienced photographer, sometimes a little reminder to reprioritize the important things can be helpful – the fewer things you have to think about when shooting, the better. Note that we haven’t touched on composition – that was the subject of extensive analysis in this article. MT

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: controls, exposure parameters, how to, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, settings, thein

Announcing a much-asked for change to the site

October 11, 2012 by Ming Thein

Recognizing that WordPress’ search feature and tag clouds are pretty much useless, I’ve finally finished creating a proper archive to all the major posts on the site (to date). They’re sorted by category and date, with the most recent first. No more scrolling through to find stuff in the hundreds of posts and hundreds of thousands of words. It’s all here in one page. And to think I could be out eating sushi now instead…

You can find it here. It’s also got a permanent place on the header nav bar. MT

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Turning pro: Six months in

October 11, 2012 by Ming Thein

Well, give or take a week or so, at any rate. As those of you who’ve been reading this site from the beginning know, I’d made the decision to be a full time photography/ creative professional sometime back in 2005; I subsequently spent the next seven years building up the courage to do it. In addition to sharing my knowledge, creating something a serious thinking photographer might like to read, and connecting with the global photographic community in general, a good portion of the objective of this site was to chronicle my journey as a photographer for others thinking of following the same path, or those who might like to live a little vicariously. This is where things like the On Assignment series of posts come into play.

It was pretty clear to me that to make things work – i.e. be able to pay the bills – I’d have to spread myself around a bit, and work on the logic of ‘a bit from many places’. Despite what it might appear, this site has not been my primary focus, and can never be; it’s simply impossible for me to write from the perspective I do if I’m not a photographer first and a blogger second. This means that whilst I’ll try to accommodate requests for gear reviews, particular topics etc – it might be a while before they hit the internet because I have to find time to do them, and find a slot in the posting schedule to put them up. Reviews of equipment are limited to what I can get loaned to me (if I think it’s worthwhile evaluating, i.e. I may consider buying it because as a tool, it does something my current gear does not) or what I buy in the course of my work. I’m not going to start reviewing Canon gear, for instance, because it simply does not make sense from a workflow point of view. By the time I get up to speed with it, I’ll have invested a huge amount of time, effort and money, and still not be as good as the established users out there.

I also don’t write daily, though thanks to the wonders of scheduled posting, you do get new content every day. That’s because I don’t have a fixed chunk of time every day, and writing – like any other creative pursuit – comes in fits and starts. I might do six articles in one particularly productive day, then nothing for a week. And yes, like a magazine, I have an editorial schedule and I also make sure I don’t repeat myself or cover something from the same angle somebody else has already done. (When you actually read this, I’ll be in Japan doing the pre-workshop reccie before I start teaching tomorrow.)

On the whole though, it’s been pretty exciting. And time has flown by. Yes, there have been boring moments, slightly bleak moments where the pipeline looks empty and the crystal ball cloudy – I’ve since come to realize that’s normal for every creative – on the whole, I’ve had a ball of a time. Even the people around me say I’m much smilier than when I worked for the man. Right now I’m just grateful that I can wake up in the morning, do something I enjoy, and make a living in the process. I don’t know how long this will continue, given the current state of the creative industry – especially in Malaysia – but I suppose it makes one appreciate it all the more.

I also want to say a big thank you to my supporters and readers; without you, I wouldn’t have written, or continue to write, and in the process push my thinking, understanding and experimentation even further; so in a way, giving back has helped me to grow creatively. Thank you also to my students of the Email School, workshop participants, DVD supporters and downloaders – what you contribute in reality isn’t money, but the freedom of time to enable me to create.

In true post-consulting style, I’ve also prepared a little dissection and analysis. MT

Things that worked out like I planned

Commercial work around my areas of specialization – watches, food, architecture.
Teaching and teaching-related activities have formed a nontrivial chunk of my income.
People like to read gear reviews.
I’m happier.
…and that’s about it.

Things that didn’t

The local market here for photography is tough: both very price sensitive, and quality-indifferent.
I’m not doing as much architecture, food and watch work as I thought; the commercial-type stuff has been getting more and more prevalent.
Payment collection is absolutely terrible, and difficult. The larger the company, the slower and more difficult.
I miss photojournalism.
The traffic volumes I have now. That said, I think I’ve reached a natural barrier: my audience is pretty specific, and definitely your more serious sort of photographer; I don’t know how many of them are out there worldwide, speak English, and would be interested in reading what I’ve written.
A lot of the smaller companies in the US and Europe who make interesting specialist gear have no interest in having their stuff reviewed, even if you are pushing a serious amount of traffic through their target markets (about 60% of my readers). I didn’t even get a reply from a lot of the companies I emailed – this is both rather disappointing and shortsighted on their part.

Things I completely didn’t expect

The friendliness, openness and civility of the international photo community. I’ve made a lot of great friends in the course of both working professionally and running the site, and it’s completely different to what the DPReview forums might have you expecting.
I’m working far longer hours than when I had an office – and I thought that was bad. These days, 14-16 hour days are normal. 7 days a week. But you know what, it doesn’t feel like work half the time.
Sometimes saying no to a bad client is the right thing to do. It feels odd at first to walk away from a job you have the capacity to do, but avoiding pain and having that veto power and control was one of the things I wanted over corporate. So I’d better learnt to make the most of it, I suppose. Happiness is now achievable.
Shooting full time for work doesn’t make you more creative. When there are clients on the line, unless they’re very, very good clients, you tend to be more conservative, if anything. This tends to limit the quality of your output somewhat. It’s tough to be creative on demand. And to make things worse, you don’t always feel like going out to do your own personal work afterwards – I almost have to force myself on some days. It’s not always easy to find inspiration for articles, or material for reviews. I think I’ve exhausted all of the places to shoot in Kuala Lumpur.
I didn’t think there’d be that many people interested in my Photoshop workflow…

Where to next?

I think the biggest change will be for me professionally: I need to differentiate myself from other offerings by going beyond photography into other creative spaces like video, design, copywriting, branding, layout etc – these are things I already do, but not in a widely publicized way. And I think having a consistent feel to all of your creative work is definitely a big value add for any potential client. Plus, it of course diversifies my income streams.
There’s an iPad app in the works. Not only will it feature some brand new content specific to the platform, but it will also let you read your favorite blog daily and search the archives in a much more meaningful way. And to go with it, there will be small video tutorial segments along with ‘request an answer’ type functionality – no more waiting for DVDs in the mail!
At the first year anniversary of this site, I plan to collate and publish the more interesting and time-independent posts into an ebook. I notice that a lot of questions asked have already been answered in detail in other posts, which says to me either people are lazy, or my indexing is rubbish – probably the latter. Plus it’s a shame to go to all that effort and just have things lost in the ether. According to WordPress, there’s over 400 posts and 600,000 words of content on the site – that’s the equivalent of three or four thick paperback books. I might even print a few if the demand is there.
I will continue to remain brand agnostic – using the best tool for the job – but in the interests of full disclosure, I have and will continue to work with Leica, Olympus, Shriro (Carl Zeiss, Profoto and Gitzo) and several other local partners.
Trying to figure out a better search/ indexing feature for the site.
More workshops! This time, I’ll go where you want me to, not where I think might be interesting. Big difference.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: article, essay, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, six months, thein, Turn, turning pro

On Assignment: concert photojournalism

October 9, 2012 by Ming Thein

Tompi. Olympus OM-D, 100-300

I recently played the role of official photographer for a producer friend’s concert – it was a moderately large affair featuring a good number of famous local musicians. The nice thing about this event was that it was large enough to have professional acts, decent lighting and good organization, but not so large that I didn’t have access to everything – and I mean everything, including the stage itself during the performance*.

*One thing a good concert photographer should never do is interfere with the act; so even though the stage might be open to you, one should never get between the performers and the audience unless it’s absolutely necessary, and even then only for the shortest possible period of time. Oh, and remember that the shutter sound carries quite clearly through any microphones that have been placed near equipment.

Through the legs. Nikon D700, 28/1.8G

Although I’m not normally a huge fan of the types of music being played, I have to say this was one of the more enjoyable events I’ve attended and shot; I guess I’d be the restless type of concertgoer who’s only happy with a camera in hand and backstage pass – not so much to meet the artists, but to shoot. Although it’s the first photojournalism assignment I’ve done in quite some time – and the first concert assignment in many years. (In 2005/6 I was the house photographer at one of the jazz clubs in Kuala Lumpur, but I eventually stopped because I wasn’t getting enough sleep after gigs and before work the next day.) This job made me realize just how much I missed photojournalism.

Nikon D700, 28/1.8 G

There were a number of photographers there from other local/ national media and international agencies; the locals were mostly using midrange APS-C bodies, kit lenses and off-brand flashes; you could tell the major agencies by their standard issue pro bodies and f2.8 zooms. Interestingly, the proliferation of lower end cameras amongst media/ newsmen – at least in Malaysia – has been getting increasingly common as these organizations seek to cut cots. I can understand the bodies passing the threshold of sufficiency and being capable of producing great results in the hands of any competent photographer, but the use of slow kit zooms just hamstrings the ability to create a picture that preserves the ambient light and feel of the scene without resorting to a flash.

In the moment. Olympus OM-D, 100-300

From experience, I know that when wearing my photojournalism hat, the lighter you can go, the better. I was carrying my D700/ MB-D10, 28/1.8 G and 85/1.8 G for close distance coverage; the OM-D and 100-300 rode shotgun for more reach. (I was also carrying the 12/2 and 45/1.8 as backup in case the D700 developed a problem, plus an SB900 for balanced fill which I didn’t land up using. My motto is go light, but not so light that you have no insurance when it comes to equipment failure.) Many of you will know that the new Nikon 28/1.8 G has proven itself to be a very capable lens even on the demanding sensor of the D800E; I’m pleased to report that both the 28 and 85 f1.8 G lenses performed flawlessly on the D700, both in terms of focusing accuracy and optical performance. The 85/1.8 G does exhibit some moderate flare with strongly backlit point sources (the hood makes almost no difference here), but I personally don’t mind it as I feel that it adds to that atmosphere and pictorial value of the image somewhat.

Keyboards. Nikon D700, 28/1.8 G

The big surprise of the night was the OM-D and 100-300 combination, however. I didn’t use AF-C; most of the time careful timing, a short burst and the extended depth of field for a given FOV due to the smaller sensor was enough. It’s rather counterintuitive for DSLR shooters, but I find that with the OM-D, just depressing the shutter all the way down and trusting the camera’s AF system yields a considerably higher hit rate than using AF-C, or worse, AF-Tracking. The 100-300 delivered excellent optical performance, even out to the 300mm limit; due to the lighting conditions I was working wide open the whole time. The lens did hunt somewhat above 200mm, but so long as I was in the ballpark, focusing was reasonably fast.

Blue note. Olympus OM-D, 100-300

So far, no surprises – I’d shot with the 100-300 in good light conditions, and been pleased with the results. The OM-D, on the other hand, seems to excel under tricky mixed-light or strong-color situations; to get a sufficiently high shutter speed – I was in the 1/45-1/60s region most of the time, at 300-400mm equivalent – I was solidly in the ISO 3200 to ISO 6400 band. In all honesty, I don’t feel the files were noticeably more noisy than the D700 for a given ISO; the only place where the smaller sensor made itself known was in dynamic range – the D700 had probably two stops extra on the OM-D. I can definitely see where the 75/1.8 would be useful though – 100mm was a bit long at times, and the extra 2 1/3 stops (probably more in transmission) would have pushed image quality even higher still.

Strumming out. Nikon D700, 28/1.8 G

All in all, a very satisfying nights’ work. Come work delivery time, the litmus test is always the client; I’m happy to say that this one passed with flying colors. “I can’t stop looking at the pictures, they’re amazing!” was the text message I got a few days after delivery. So, anybody else need a concert photographer? MT

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One – Ramli Sarip. Nikon D700, 85/1.8 G

This is what rockers do. Nikon D700, 28/1.8 G

The loud pedal. Olympus OM-D, 100-300

Thank you to my band. Nikon D700, 28/1.8 G

The hair. Nikon D700, 85/1.8 G

Olympus OM-D, 100-300

Backstage with the fans. Nikon D700, 28/1.8 G

Filed Under: On Assignment Tagged With: concert, johor, m4/3, micro four thirds, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, nikon, nikon d800e, olympus, om-d, on assignment, photojournalism, pj, thein

Podcast of my interview today on BFM is now up…

October 8, 2012 by Ming Thein

…click here to listen. MT

Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: bfm, interview, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, photokina, podcast, radio, thein

What makes an outstanding image? (part 2)

October 7, 2012 by Ming Thein

Continued from part one.

Cinematic light. Nikon D90, 18-200VR

3.5 Context
Context is the way the viewer of the image creates the story of the primary subject, using the secondary elements in the frame as mental markers. The secondary elements help to place the subject in terms of time, location, culture, era, mood, as well as giving countless other psychological clues such as wealth, poverty, uncertainty, danger, unasked questions, etc. A subject in isolation is fine for a commercial product shoot, but it lacks the emotion and narrative richness that well-framed surroundings can add. The photographer also has to ensure that the elements in the frame have the correct relative prominence, which is to say the framing should direct the eye of the viewer to the primary subject first, and then the secondary subjects in order of importance. If this is not the case, then the message of the photograph can land up being quite different to the intention of the photographer at the time of capture. Properties of a subject that affect relative prominence include size, position in the frame, relative brightness, and contrast/ color vis-a-vis the background.

The importance of context. Leica M9-P, 35/1.4 ASPH FLE

Perhaps the concept of context is best illustrated by an example: let’s take the classic photojournalism shot. Wide angle, strongly directional lighting, some atmospheric haze, angry person waving a gun front and centre standing in a shaft of sunlight, close to the camera. The background scene contains other people grimacing (we think – they’re too small and far from the camera to tell) and greatly reduced in prominence to the primary subject, some destroyed/ burned objects, and a fire, all set to an destroyed building in the background. First thing we think when we see an image like this: war. But what if the angry person wasn’t highlighted in a shaft of sunlight, the camera was closer to the other people, who now turn out to be laughing, and we see that the destroyed background building is actually abandoned and the only one in a relatively prosperous-appearing urban area? Would these two images not have a very different story?

The price of progress. Leica M8, 35/2 ASPH

4. Cultural background and history
There are some images which will never mean anything to any observers outside a closed group of people; this is because the compositional elements and subjects make reference to things that are culturally unique or specific to a historical time period. The trick to making images like this work is that they must have enough context for the viewer to be able to make a reasonably accurate guess at the context, even if they have no idea of the specific references invoked. Good examples would include any sort of cultural or religious ceremonies; historical events that were not publicised outside a particular country; or ethnic differences between different racial groups. (I doubt most viewers would be able to tell the difference between Dinka and Masaai tribespeople, for instance. But there would be enough visual cues in the frame to correctly think ‘Africa’.)

It just has to be Paris. Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

I’d probably widen this to include any technical sort of photography where a good portion of the visual impact comes from the subject – fully conscious of the fact that this also covers a good portion of my own work. I could take images with identical lighting and camera/ subject positioning of say a Lange Datograph and a Lange Double Split, but only the horological afficionados are going to display any meaningful difference in excitement for one image over the other.

Seeking understanding. Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

5. Human psychology
Something related to cultural background – think of it as a collective culture for the human race. There are things that universally invoke a reaction amongst the vast majority of people; for subject matter, this includes anything taboo such as death; anything universally celebrated such as birth or marriage, smiles, tears, tension, anger and anything other strong emotional cues (feel free to add to the comments if I’ve missed anything). The ability to include such cues in a very obvious way in an image further increases the overall impact of the shot – seasoned photojournalists such as those who produce reportage for National Geographic, Time, Life etc are very good at this.

Does this scene make you feel warm? Why? Nikon D700, 85/1.4 G

There’s also a second set of elements related to the human psyche that can form useful toolkit – these include use of color (or B&W); directionality of lighting, and particular hues or shades to provoke a reaction. It can be as simple an image of a place with predominantly warm hues (reds, yellows) feels cosy and inviting; the same place with shifted white balance or cooler lighting resulting in blues and whites can be made to feel clinical and sterile. Part of our response to color is down to conditioning imposed by lifestyle – incandescent light, hearth fires, sci-fi culture, medical clinics etc.# – and part of it is probably a physiological thing from our time in the jungle. It’s well known that in the natural world, brightly colored animals and plants are either that way to attract the attention of mates or other members of their species, or to warn potential predators of toxicity.

No missing the subject here. Nikon D700, 60/2.8G

#I’m sure you all had an image in your mind at every single one of these examples – now think, what was the predominant tone, color or white balance in each of those images? This article goes into the psychology of color in more detail, and this one deals with how to achieve control over color.

Finally, there are compositional rules that most people react to, to varying degrees. These include a preference for balance and symmetry; responding to leading lines, and singling out things inside natural frames. There’s also the expectation of the top of the frame being lighter than the bottom; I’m not sure where this emerges from, but I’m fairly confident it has something to do with the sky being brighter than the ground in real life.

This shot probably means more to me than it does to you, because I’m married to the subject. Leica M8, 35/2 ASPH

6. The personal connection
The one element that the photographer has almost no control over for the majority of his audience – assuming that the image is to be viewed by more than those who commissioned it or who have direct involvement in it – is to do with the personal response of the viewer. A good example would be pictures of a wedding – they’d mean something to me if it was my wedding, and I might even be able to overlook compositional shortcomings because of the moment they capture (though I suspect my wife might disagree) – but to somebody with a detached and critical eye, the images may hold very little merit. Or perhaps a well-executed still life of bananas; I might love fruit and therefore be more inclined to like the image over somebody who’s allergic to them, or perhaps suffered from one too many banana peel pranks as a kid – they, on the other hand, might be made very uncomfortable by the image indeed – and possibly not even know why.

Moral of the story: take some time to understand your audience, and you’ll be surprised at the difference in the response. It’s one of the first questions I always ask a client: is it for you, or your customers? And what would your customers want to see?

Blink and you’ll wonder if you really saw it. Nepal, Nikon D700, 24/1.4G

7. Timing.
This concept is best encapsulated in HC-B’s decisive moment philosophy: unlike with a video, you’ve only got one frame to tell the entire story. This means that everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen in the future must be captured in that one frame; it’s the relationship between the events clearly occurring in the frame, and the cues given from which the viewer’s mind interpolates what’s on both sides of the timeline. Although each of the other factors almost always have multiple possibilities that ‘work’ as an image (albeit with different stories) – there is only ever one decisive moment for each message or story. If you miss it, there are other moments, but they each have a different story. Time is a continuum and an artificial human construct, but at the same time the flow of causality is one-way. (This is getting a bit more metaphysical than intended; for more have a look at this article on the relationship between quantum mechanics and photography.)

City Hall, London. Leica M8, Voigtlander 50/1.1

8. The X factor.
Truly outstanding images have something that goes beyond items 1-6; it’s an unquantifiable something that is perhaps almost born out of luck and chance, and never to be repeated. You have to have the right subject, at the right moment, in the right light, with just enough context to tell the story but not so much as to overwhelm, and some sort of personal or emotional connection created with the viewer. (And if you’re a commercial photographer, you’ll have to create all of this from scratch on demand on a repeatable basis.) I actually think the final part of what makes an image work is a degree of controlled imperfection; this appeals at a subconscious level to the humanity of the viewer; it’s almost as though it says ‘what I saw affected me as much as it should affect you’. (Of course, there is a time and place for this, and in commercial shoots, camera shake is just sloppy.) Finally, never underestimate the importance of luck: being in exactly the right place, at the right time.

Sometimes, the patient are rewarded. Schonbrunn, Vienna. Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

9. Conclusion
I want to finish on a high note. Even though there are a lot of elements that one has to manipulate – and a couple that you can’t control – to make an outstanding image, it’s clearly possible, because outstanding images happen all the time. And probably more frequently than we think, too – not all of them are shared with the world; Vivian Maier’s work is a great example of that. The single most important element of all isn’t covered in any of the sections above, and that’s practice and preparation. It’s also the best advice I can give to any photographer at any skill level. No matter how deep one’s understanding of the concepts is, if you don’t have a camera with you, or can’t figure out how to get the effect you want, or find the spot metering button, or accidentally shoot in a thumbnail-sized jpeg or something similar, you’re going to miss the shot. If your eye isn’t trained to passively seek out compositions all the time, then you’re going to miss something. The best thing, however, is that the element of preparedness is 100% under the control of the photographer. MT

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