canon – Ming Thein | Photographer

The best value in photography today?

April 22, 2018 by Ming Thein

Fighting words. When your three year old decides she wants to be like daddy and bugs you pretty much every day for a couple of months for a ‘real camera, not a toy one’ – what do you do? It seems a little painful to sacrifice a new camera to what will almost certainly be death by something that makes perfect sense only in the mind of a toddler, but at the same time I’d really rather she not start helping herself to the Hasselblads. Cue every photographer’s favourite activity: gear shopping*. Initially, I considered something shockproof, waterproof and submersible; but the good ones weren’t cheap, the cheap ones were really quite painful to use, and the controls were oddly not very small-finger friendly – requiring a lot of force to press and cryptic icons to decipher. She recognises ‘on’ and ‘play’ icons thanks to iPads and youtube, and that’s about it. Perhaps the big silver button too, since that makes a noise to take a picture. By now you’ve probably seen the header image and figured out my solution…

*To be read with extra sarcasm.

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Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: 300d, article, canon, essay, first camera, ming, mingthein.com, opinion, photography, thein

Review: The Canon G1X Mark III, an impulse buy

February 13, 2018 by Ming Thein

I picked one of these up on a recent trip to Japan (for some reason, none were available locally). Though Japan is one of the few places where the larger stores have virtually all models of camera on demo/display, with batteries and storage and lenses and in essence ready to play with to your heart’s content – that tells you very little about how something will perform in the field, in practice. Motivations? I was seduced on impulse by the spec sheet.

Disclosure note: I currently work for Hasselblad as Chief of Strategy, which means I cannot objectively comment on or review anything that might be competition. But since we don’t make a consumer level APS-C compact, there’s little conflict of interest here: I too am simply looking for the perfect pocket tool as much as the next photographer. As small as the X1D is – for medium format – it’s not exactly pocketable.

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Filed Under: Gearhead: Reviews Tagged With: canon, g1x, g1x mark iii, gearhead, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, powershot, review, thein

Review: the Canon EF-M 22/2 STM

October 22, 2017 by Robin Wong

Just when I thought my temporary flirtation with the Canon EOS-M6 was over, Canon Malaysia came back to me with the EF-M 22mm F2 STM lens which I was very interested to try out. In my recent review of the Canon EOS-M6, I concluded that it performed well, with the only serious downside being the sub-standard kit lens. Therefore, I was hoping that the 22mm F2 pancake would do justice to what the M6 is truly capable of! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Gearhead: Reviews, Robin Wong Tagged With: 22, 22mm, canon, eos m, gearhead, mingthein.com, review, robin, Robin Wong, wong

Review: The 2017 Canon EOS M6

October 2, 2017 by Robin Wong

With the release of the Canon EOS-M5/M6, perception towards Canon’s mirrorless system has changed. Both the M5 and M6 use the same APS-C 24 Megapixels image sensor and dual pixel AF system as Canon’s high-end APS-C DSLR, the 77D, Thanks to Canon Malaysia, I have had the new Canon EOS-M6 to shoot with for the past week. I understand that the M6 is not a new camera and has been on the market since April. Some of you may already have one. I am doing this review purely out of curiosity: to find out where the M6 fits in the almost never-ending choice of mirrorless cameras now. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Gearhead: Reviews, Robin Wong Tagged With: canon, canon m6, eos m6, gearhead, m6, mingthein.com, review, robin, Robin Wong, wong

Photoessay: living Tokyo vignettes

September 17, 2017 by Ming Thein

The choice of title is a deliberate, non static one: the suggestion of motion in each of these images contributes to the feeling that we are viewing something transient, temporal and busy. Despite the density and size of the population, Tokyo somehow can still manage to feel quiet and isolated and times – I put this down to having something to do with the very ordered nature of society and the existence of very formal structures/expectations that mean nobody is in Ginza before about 11am since nothing is open, or Maronouchi is rather dead after 9pm and on weekends as everybody has gone home. It’s possible to make images that make the place feel quite cold and inhuman even though most of the time, this couldn’t be further form the truth. This set looks for a little chaos and humanity. You’ll probably also notice it’s quite cinematic, despite being mostly shot with relatively slow lenses. 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. Travel to Tokyo vicariously with How To See Ep.2: Tokyo, learn to be stealthy with S1: Street Photography and see how to capture the essence of a location with T1: Travel Photography.

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Filed Under: hasselblad, On Photography Tagged With: canon, hasselblad, japan, ming, mingthein.com, people, photoessay, photography, street, thein, tokyo

Photoessay: On the verge of anonymity

March 16, 2017 by Ming Thein

An experiment of sorts, today: more ‘stream of consciousness’ style photography, but this time shot through my left eye instead of my (usual) right. The idea is to test the hypothesis of left-brain-right-brain influence on structure, order and general perception; personally, I think using the non-dominant eye tends to result in somewhat more organic overall structure and composition. That, and significantly more skew for some reason – I didn’t seem to hold the camera straight in any of these. It’s also been a long time since I’ve had the time to go out on my own for a day or two with no objective other than to wander around and shoot the streets; Tokyo is of course a great place for this with no end of possible material. MT

This series was shot with a Canon 100D, 24STM and 55-250STM lenses, and an X1D-50c and 90mm, and post processed with The Monochrome Masterclass workflow. Travel to Tokyo vicariously with How To See Ep.2: Tokyo, learn to be stealthy with S1: Street Photography and see how to capture the essence of a location with T1: Travel Photography.

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Filed Under: hasselblad, On Photography Tagged With: anonymity, canon, hasselblad, japan, ming, mingthein.com, monochrome, people, photoessay, photography, street, thein, tokyo

Long term review: Canon 5DSR

August 19, 2015 by Ming Thein

When the stars (trees) line up

These will be my closing thoughts on the Canon 5DSR, first reviewed here. It turns out there won’t be a part two for a simple reason – I don’t see the point. My opinions that follow are going to appear initially conflicting and probably be misinterpreted by the fanboys, so I’m going to state this upfront: I really, really liked the camera. But in the end, it just isn’t for me. Allow me to explain why.

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Filed Under: Gearhead: Reviews Tagged With: 5dsr, canon, canon 5dsr, eos, gearhead, long-term, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, review, thein

Review: The Canon 5DSR, part I – solo

July 2, 2015 by Ming Thein

This is both the first extended review I’ve done in some time, and the first one of a Canon product. Regular readers will know that I only review things that are interesting, and to be interesting, they have to expand the envelope somehow. I am curious as to whether the 5DSR will do this –
I sold my 645Z a few months back because I could not justify ow ning a second system against the need for a larger home for my family; but I won’t deny that I missed its resolution and print flexibility, especially for making larger Ultraprints.

I come to this review as primarily a Nikon D810 shooter. I make no secret of the fact that I have not that much experience with Canon other than a serious evaluation period in 2007 where I decided if I should switch (pre D3); I didn’t because local support at the time left a lot to be desired. However, I also come to this review with an open mind: I’ve tried many other systems previously to expand my toolkit including Leica M, Pentax 645, Hasselblad V and M4/3. And I can guarantee you that I have no self-interest either way, since these experiments have come out of my own pocket. The 5DSR was also purchased at retail and is NOT a loaner. I don’t care what the name plate on my camera says: I care only that it lets me make the images I want to make and doesn’t get in the way, and my clients are the same. If anything, I am biased towards image quality. That said, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before some forum keyboard warrior ‘expert’ asserts I’m now on the Canon payroll.

Note: I will present few full-size samples because I simply don’t have the bandwidth, nor do I trust that they won’t be reused without permission – it’s happened before. Given the limitations of web JPEGs, please go according to what I say and not what you see. Any perceived oversharpening is thanks to Flickr’s overzealous resizing algorithms and not blindness on my part. Read on if you have an open mind. Finally, a special thank you must go to my last client for allowing me to share some of the images from that assignment at the Crawick Multiverse and Garden of Cosmic Speculation. I literally collected the camera a few hours before heading to the airport and this was the first time I’d shot with it properly – no pressure…

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Filed Under: Gearhead: Reviews Tagged With: 5ds, 5dsr, canon, canon 5dsr, dslr, gearhead, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, review, thein

Fresh off the boat: Canon 5DSR and some early thoughts

June 20, 2015 by Ming Thein

My Canon 5DSR arrived a couple of days ago. Surprise #1: it’s not a loaner. Surprise #2: I haven’t had time to shoot with it yet. For somebody who’s not known for having any particular interest in ‘the other side’, questions are bound to be asked. And I’m sure somebody will also mention the A7RII. But, there is a method to the madness – it’s not wanton equipment lust that I’ve fallen victim to, though my bank account will certainly need some time to recover from the shock of both a Leica Q and 5DSR within the space of a week. I would love to share images, but – see Surprise #2. Since early June, I’ve been back to back on assignments, the hanging, opening and related activities around my exhibition Connection in Hong Kong – during which we raised $2.4m for two charities in print sales, auctions and sponsorships – and I was back in Kuala Lumpur just long enough to attend the Q launch party, pick up the 5DSR and make sure my family still remembered me. Images will therefore continue to be forthcoming.

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Filed Under: Articles, Gearhead: Reviews Tagged With: 5dsr, canon, canon 5dsr, eos, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, rationale, review, thein, why I bought one

OpEd: resolution, output, collector or photographer?

February 8, 2015 by Ming Thein

5dsr em5ii

The Internets have been alive with the noises of high resolution (if that isn’t a messed up metaphor, I’m not sure what is) cameras. “Finally, my photos will be better!” Let’s pause for a moment here. There are a lot of assumptions being made, and a lot which is not obvious. And I’m writing this article to address the flood of email I’ve been getting asking for an opinion.