Ming Thein | Photographer

Insect macro photography techniques – an ongoing experimentation (part I)

August 6, 2017 by Robin Wong

1/125sec. F11, ISO200, Wireless Flash fired

When I first ventured into photography, I started with insect macro photography, and it quickly became an activity I indulged in often. Macro photography, I think, is one of the more technically demanding types of photography, and is a good, if masochistic, way to learn and get all your photography basics right. In addition to different techniques to gain magnification, you have to worry about accurate focus, proper hand-holding technique, and the use and control of additional lighting and lighting modifiers.

After a recent attempt at insect macro work (for the OM-D E-M10 Mark II review), I found myself with a renewed itch to hunt for insects to photograph. This in turn lead to me writing this article sharing my techniques for insect macro photography.
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Filed Under: Articles, On Photography, Robin Wong Tagged With: insect macro, macro, macrophotography, mingthein.com, nature, robin, Robin Wong, technique, wong

Field test: the Scarabaeus camera clip

August 5, 2017 by Ming Thein

The Scarabaeus is a German hand-made camera holster system that clips to the waist belt allowing quick access to the camera. Generally, special holster for quick access camera attachment systems can be useful for street shooters. Ming Thein and myself have had one each to try out for the past several weeks. . In this article, I shall share my experience using the Scarabaeus camera clip in street shooting scenario. MT will add his thoughts towards the end, having also road tested it.

Disclaimer: the Scarabaeus was sent to us by photoscarab.de; we agreed to try it out to provide feedback because it seemed like an interesting idea and solution to the problem for those who don’t like neckstraps, but still sometimes need their hands free.

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Filed Under: Gearhead: Reviews Tagged With: gearhead, mingthein.com, review, robin, scarabaeus, wong

Photoessay: Rhythmic geometries

August 3, 2017 by Ming Thein

I see the images in this post as a sort of musical score: the suggestion of an overall harmony (wave) interspersed with little details and textures is too strong to ignore. I don’t know any of the correct musical terminology for this kind of thing, but I do know that I feel the same way about these abstract compositions as I do when I listen to a piece of classical music: there’s a strong underlying structure linking the whole score together, but at the same time also little diversions and explorations into variations that hold your attention and get you thinking. There is a similar change of scale here – not all the instruments play at the same time in every image; you might not have the same range of scale, but you do have the same sensation of layering and interplay of shadow. When the piece shifts into the next movement, not all of the elements may make it through intact, but enough do that you can recognise continuity in style; a sort of design language. MT

These images were shot in Singapore with a Hasselblad X1D-50c and 90mm, and post processed with either PS Workflow III and the Weekly Workflow or The Monochrome Masterclass. See more on your journeys with T1: Travel Photography and the How to See series.

Work in progress

August 2, 2017 by Ming Thein

Whilst both images in this post are themselves work in progress – parenting probably never ends, even if at some point you are less involved in the day to day operation of things and are more of a board member than an executive, and the golf ball building is undergoing renovation – that’s not specifically what’s going on here. To be honest, I’ve not been shooting as much as I would like of late, because the majority of my time has been allocated to five projects this year, some very early results of which are in this post. The Mirrorless Bag and Travel Duffel you’ve seen already. Another project will go live in a couple of weeks or so (and there’ll be a photography related post on that later, though the project itself is not photography related), and the other two you’ll probably see either at the end of this year or early next – those are somewhat moving targets due to the complexity of what’s involved (and yes, they are photography hardware related).

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Filed Under: Articles, hasselblad, On Photography Tagged With: hasselblad, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, R&D, thein, WIP

Seeing and familiarity

July 31, 2017 by Ming Thein

Everything must be evaluated before we have expectations of it

A few months ago, I explained why I believe there is no such thing as an absolute decisive moment; and examined how my own point of reference has shifted over time – both of these posts lead to some discussions in the comments over the whole question of why we seem to shoot better when taken out of our usual environments. I think that answer is fairly simple, and has to do with the same underlying principles of subject isolation: if something looks different, it will stand out, and if we can observe/see it, we can notice, compose for and photograph it. But the first part of that flow – the ‘standing out’ – can only happen if we either train ourselves to continually and consciously evaluate every portion of a scene, or we are thrust into a place where there is no familiar frame of reference so our minds cannot subconsciously pattern recognise and dismiss. The real question for a photographer is: how can we control this to some extent?

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Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, essay, familiarity, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, seeing, thein

Photoessay: Beyond human scale

July 28, 2017 by Ming Thein

I’ve always thought of Tokyo as a city of extremes: the insanely vast urban sprawl vs minuscule personal spaces; the pursuit of the ultimate food-art vs the ubiquitous convenience stores and vending machines; incredibly opulent wealth and luxury beyond imagination, and more homeless people than you might think. The futuristic abuts horrible 1970s square-concrete; indecipherable quipu of power lines knot the tops of poles, yet streets are laid so precisely that there’s material used in the middle of intersections for better grip. At larger distances, this devolves into something both more homogeneous and at the same time, distinctive – as neighbourhoods are somewhat cohesive. Even somewhere like Omotesando, where architects compete for the most unusual structure, it seems that such very competition creates a different kind of uniformity: what would be exceptional somewhere else isn’t when taken in multiples. It’s this very dichotomy I’ve tried to capture here – and with as few visual cues to scale as possible. MT

This series was shot with a Canon 100D, 24STM and 55-250STM lenses, an X1D-50c and 90mm, and a H6D-100c and 100mm. Post processing was completed using the techniques in the weekly workflow and PS Workflow III.

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

Street Photography Workflow

July 25, 2017 by Robin Wong

Apparently infographics and flowcharts are all the rage these day, so I thought it might be cool to produce a workflow chart to show you my street photograph process. The chart is quite self-explanatory I think. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, On Photography, Robin Wong Tagged With: mingthein.com, robin, Robin Wong, street photography, street photography workflow, technique, wong, workflow

Drama in Street Photography

July 23, 2017 by Robin Wong

If you look at the pool of street photographs online (one that seems to be growing exponentially each day), the images that stand out tend to have some drama in them. Drama, as I define it here, can be the split-second when something interesting happens, the creatively incorporating visually stunning lines and perspectives or something completely unpredictable and random yet beautifully captured in a photograph. The presence of drama in a street photograph elevates its status to something standout and noticeable, compared to the otherwise ordinary, uninteresting and cliché shots which have been done to death. To define the characteristics of these “dramatic traits”, is not easy and there’s enough room for experimentation to let each photographer inject his or her own style/perspective.

As a follow up to the article on street portraits, today, I’m going to share my usual process in looking for and adding the elusive element of drama to my street photography. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, On Photography, Robin Wong Tagged With: drama, how to, mingthein.com, philosophy, robin, Robin Wong, street, street photography, wong

Street Portraits

July 20, 2017 by Robin Wong

Today’s article makes a for a nice continuum from my thoughts on Shutter Therapy. A browse through that article and previous ones (on robinwong.blogspot.com) will show that there is inevitably a portrait or two, usually of strangers. In this article, I share my thoughts on shooting street portraits and also share some of my favourite photographs.

NEW: The Mirrorless Bag, and the Travel Duffel

July 17, 2017 by Ming Thein

L-R, for relative size: Mirrorless Bag, a very well used Ultimate Daybag Mark I prototype, Travel duffel (folded)

Today is my birthday, and in the tradition of this site – I’ve got an announcement to make. We’ve teamed up with bespoke UK bag makers Frankie Falcon for a second round: firstly, by popular demand, there’s the Mirrorless Bag, which is an improved and smaller version of the Ultimate Daybag Mark I. Next, a little surprise: the folding Travel Duffel. We have both bags in stock, and they will be ongoing stock items for the time being. Future additions will go up here, on the Bag Store. We have also resolved prior shipping issues – back to good old Royal Mail. Click on after the jump for more details on each bag.

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