essay – Ming Thein | Photographer

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

____________

Visit our Teaching Store to up your photographic game – including Photoshop Workflow DVDs and customized Email School of Photography; or go mobile with the Photography Compendium for iPad. You can also get your gear from B&H and Amazon. Prices are the same as normal, however a small portion of your purchase value is referred back to me. Thanks!

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook and join the reader Flickr group!

Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: article, composition, essay, good, lighting, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, photography, seeing, technical, thein, what makes a good image

What makes an outstanding image? (part 1)

October 6, 2012 by Ming Thein

Apples. Nikon D800E, Zeiss ZF.2 2/100 Makro-Planar

Of the 400 or so posts I’ve published up to this point, I recently realized that the one enormously gaping hole I haven’t yet covered deals with the one of the major fundamentals: how do you actually determine if an image ‘works’ or not? What makes it good? What makes it outstanding? I think it was both a discussion on composition in our reader pool forum on Flickr, as well as the strongly mixed reactions to this photoessay post that did it – context, even a mini-article, sometimes simply isn’t enough if you’re missing a cultural familiarity, or local view. This is obviously not a simple question to answer; despite an extensive search online, I haven’t been able to find any good articles that provided any sort of conclusion. (Clearly, I must be a bit of a masochist in deciding to write this article.) Perhaps it’s because it’s an extremely subjective question to begin with; or perhaps it’s because to come up with an answer that makes sense requires a thoroughly multidisciplinary approach: strong images resonate technical, compositional, cultural, psychological and personal chords. And the final two are of course highly observer-dependant.

Two old men. Olympus OM-D, 75/1.8

In fact, it’s a wonder that we have any images at all that are globally recognized and appreciated. Rather than analyze specific images, I’m going to spend some time looking into some of the more abstract characteristics and their implications for one’s photography. I’d recommend finding a comfortable chair and grabbing a drink because this is a pretty heavy article. So heavy, in fact, I’ve decided to split it into two parts. It’s also turned out to be one of the most difficult articles to write, occupying a good couple of days thanks to the extremely vague and ill-defined nature of the subject matter. Finding the right photos to illustrate the article was just as tough; excuse me if there are some repeats of previously-posted images here.

The diving board, Hong Kong. Leica M9-P, Zeiss ZM 2.8/28

One of the most important things for a photographer to know is specifically why one of their images works, and why another one doesn’t. I was going through my contacts’ uploads on Flickr the other day and noticing that there were three types of photographers:
a) upload everything, no QC or editing whatsoever, mostly poor images;
b) upload most things, has one or two really good images, mostly mediocre;
c) only uploads good stuff, and shows a consistent level of quality.

Type a almost certainly has no idea of what makes a good image, or perhaps they don’t really care; we must remember that social media is also used for indiscriminate sharing. Type b appears to be a more serious amateur, and wants to make good images, and probably knows a good image when they see one, but is unable to deconstruct their successful images into a series of things that they can replicate. The final type, c, knows what works, and either doesn’t bother shooting the rest, or hits the delete key pretty fast when something isn’t quite right. I want to get us all to type c.

*Note that this article contains a lot more links than anything before – it’s because I’ve previously explored a lot of these individual concepts in some depth, but never unified them in a single article – this one.

Omega Speedmaster 9300. Nikon D800E, 85/2.8 PCE

Let’s begin.

1. Subject
There is simply no point to a photograph or image if there is no subject. An image is a representation of something: if there’s nothing to represent, or it isn’t clear what the representation is trying to be, then why bother at all? This doesn’t mean to say that abstract images don’t work; in such cases, the abstraction and entire frame are the subjects themselves. But in the broadest possible sense, if you look at an image and it isn’t fairly obvious what the image is about, then it fails. A photograph without a subject is like a meal with no main course, or a story without a plot – it can fill an immediate transient need, but it will not have any lasting consequence or memorability.

The cloud. Sony RX100

The sole implication for the photographer is that you need to know what the subject of your image is going to be before you take the shot, and how the other elements in the frame relate to it and tell the story. Or maybe they don’t relate to it and create an inverse story of juxtaposition and contrast; it all depends on what you’re trying to say with the image. The subject also needs to stand out and be visually obvious, it should be the (metaphorical and optical) focal point of your image. We’ll deal with that in section three. Bottom line: you need to have a clear picture in your own mind about what the image is about; invariably not everything is executable, so this picture gets increasingly blurred as it comes closer to physical execution – hence ensuring that you start off with as strong an idea as possible is paramount.

Hommage a Claude Monet. Nikon D800E, Zeiss ZF.2 2/100 Makro-Planar

2. Execution and technicalities
Next comes the simplest of the ‘secondary’ criteria. Even this is relative, however. Generally speaking, a good image is properly exposed for the subject, is in focus, and doesn’t take processing to the extremes. The executional characteristics of the image should not be the first thing you notice when you look at the photograph: you can overdo it**. They should support the compositions, but not detract or outweigh it. This is one of the things I don’t like about overdone HDR, Instagram and other photo apps – the processing is so overdone to the point that fundamental compositional structure is overshadowed, and any flaws hidden. You only see the processing, and not the subject.

Seeing the wood from the trees. Leica M9-P, 21/3.4 ASPH

However, there are always exceptions to every rule. And in the case of the technical qualities of an image, if you have an exceedingly strong subject or composition, then no matter how poor your execution, the subject is what you’re going to see first. Nobody remembers Robert Capa’s iconic Normandy landing shots for their technical perfection, but rather the subject matter and how he managed to convey the chaotic, haunting, gritty sensation of actually being there.

Service – with just the right amount of motion blur. Sony RX100

I include processing under technical execution. The biggest fundamental choice you have here is whether to work in color or black and white; some subjects are particularly suited to one or the other; some could go either way. Whether you should use one or the other depends mostly on whether your subject is best isolated by luminance/ brightness or by contrast in color. (This topic is subject to an entirely separate article here.)

**I cover processing workflow in general here, and here for B&W.

After work. Olympus OM-D, 45/1.8

3. Composition
In its simplest definition, composition is how the various elements of an image are located relative to one another, and how this spatial relationship tells the story of the main subject or conveys the desired message. However, there are some restrictions – firstly, we are representing a three-dimensional space in two dimensions, and secondly, there are perspectives imposed by the field of view we choose to employ. The reduction to two dimensions has both strengths and weaknesses: you cannot rely on depth perception to create perspective; instead, we have to artificially impose it through our choice of focal length. However, its removal also means that we can do things that aren’t possible via native human vision, such as have everything in the frame simultaneously in focus. Mastery of composition is knowing when to use the right tool to enhance the presentation of the subject.

Dessert, before and after being enjoyed. Nikon D700, 60/2.8G

That said, for any given subject and situation, there is no one perfect composition – rather, there are probably any number of compositions that can work. However, the big difference is that they will not all tell the same story. Again, there is no right or wrong here: the best story for a given situation will depend very much on what the end objective is for the image.

This article and this article both enter into more detail on compositional theory.

Vanishing point. Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

3.1 Isolation/ separation/ focus
This concept lacks a single defining word – I suppose ‘focus’ would be closest, but the problem is that tends to induce confusion between the subject distance and the concentration around the idea or subject of the image. The ideal qualitative effect is that the eye of the viewer must go straight to the primary subject of the photograph, and then only on to the context that surrounds it, in the order that the photographer desires. This can be accomplished through the use of a number of different tools – leading lines, natural frames, negative space, bokeh etc. The subject itself must stand out from the background or surroundings; in that sense, some sort of natural frame is always required to provide the necessary isolation – it could be a doorway, or a plain color background of a different color to the subject, or a contrast in texture. The sole exception is a whole-frame abstract, where the entire image is the subject. Note that lighting is the other major source of subject separation. (And yes, there is such a thing as too much bokeh.)

Before the take. Nikon D700, Zeiss ZF 1.4/85

3.2 Perspective
There is no right or wrong perspective for any given subject. The sole aim of perspective is to either emphasize or de-emphasize the foreground relative to the background. Does the subject need to be larger than life, or minimized? Does the image require context to understand properly, and how prominent should these contextual elements be relative to the primary focus of the image?

Trees. Ricoh GRDIII

In general, wide-angle perspectives need a clear subject placed in the foreground. This need for a defined foreground decreases as the focal length increases, to a point where it could really go either way at roughly 50mm and above (35 equivalent). Above that, the foreground and background are of similar prominence, and subject separation is no longer achieved through perspective, insofar as depth of field is a consequence of a particular focal length and perspective. Images shot with a wide lens that lack a clear foreground can work, but only under specific circumstances which almost always involve leading lines, or large amounts of context and unusually good subject separation. Similarly, one must also take care with the use of telephotos – you can focus on the subject to the point of exclusion of all context, which can actually weaken an image.

Mt. Yotei. Nikon D700, Zeiss ZF.2 2/100 Makro-Planar

3.3 Balance
I’ve always found this to be one of the more difficult things to define. Instinctively, you know whether something is balanced or not on looking at it – but what it is specifically that creates, or destroys, that sense of balance is much more difficult to quantify. The eye of the viewer needs to linger for about the same amount of time in every portion of the frame; if you have half of the frame that takes a split second to understand but produces no context, against the complex opposite half of the frame where there’s a lot going on and a few moments of deciphering are required, then you generally might as well not bother with the quicker part.

Breguet Tradition. Balanced, but not perfectly symmetric. Nikon D700, 60/2.8G

Doesn’t make sense? Boil it down to opposites. Balance is like symmetry, but not quite; the mirror images do not have to be identical, nor do they have to be symmetric around the dead center of the frame. If the left half of your frame has something in it, then the right half must too, of roughly the same size and level of detail. This is independent of the subject. Now quarters: you can do opposite top-left and bottom-right and leave the other two corners empty, but if you do three corners and omit one, the eye is going to go straight to the empty corner because it’s the odd one out. You might actually want to do that, but make sure it’s a conscious choice. You can keep subdividing your frame and finding opposing points around the middle to balance out, but generally once something gets to be say less than 10% of the frame size in any linear dimension (1% area) then it’s usually inconsequential enough to ignore – so long as it doesn’t intrude into your subject.

This of course also applies to your subject too: don’t make it too small, otherwise no matter how balanced your frame, it won’t stand out!

There are always exceptions to every rule. Nikon D800E, Zeiss ZF.2 2/100 Makro-Planar

3.4 Lighting
I just completed a whole series on lighting here – intro to equipment, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and tips and tricks.

With no light, there can be no photography. The direct meaning of ‘photography’ is ‘writing with light’. Light identifies and isolates your subject; the softness or hardness or uniformity of it determines the amount of definition and contrast, as well as the tonality; the color and hue determine the feeling of the scene. And the absolute amount of it has an impact on the technical quality of the image, too. It’s inescapable that every good image must have good light – you can make an ordinary subject into an arresting photograph if it’s properly lit, but no amount of photoshop or the most unusual object is going to surmount flat or uninteresting light.

Prague. This would not be interesting on a flat, gray day at noon. Olympus E-PM1 Pen Mini, 45/1.8

Photographers must therefore either be able to recognize when the light is right, and seek out subjects to be illuminated by it – or go one step further and learn to control it. In fact, you have to do the former before you can do the latter – understanding the origin of a particular look makes it much, much easier to reverse engineer and replicate. Distilling things further, we’re arrive at the inescapable conclusion that successful lighting hinges on directionality, nothing more and nothing less. The right directionality creates the right kinds of shadows and highlights, which in turn creates contrast, texture and subject definition. And the less common the direction (light), the better – why do you think psychologically, we don’t find images shot in noon sunlight or under common indoor artificial light to be particularly arresting? It’s because that’s what we are conditioned to seeing most of the time. However, golden hours or special lighting effects are much less common. But I’m starting to digress into psychology, which I’ll leave for section 5.

Come back tomorrow for the conclusion in part two.

____________

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook and join the reader Flickr group!

Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: article, composition, essay, good, lighting, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, photography, seeing, technical, thein, what makes a good image

Photokina 2012 commentary and opinions

September 23, 2012 by Ming Thein

The rush of product announcements is over, the collective giddy fanboy-like enthusiasm has died down somewhat, and presumably some serious business is being discussed in the back meeting rooms and dingy service hallways of the exhibition hall in Cologne, or over giant pretzels at the local bierhaus. It’s about the right time for a bit of serious reflection and commentary on some of the more interesting announcements from the last week.

The beginning of full frame for the masses.
The Nikon D600 and Canon 6D are squarely aimed at the space which the Nikon D70 and Canon 300D battled over nearly eight years ago; enthusiast-level cameras with serious image quality and a reasonably good feature set. Granted, the price point is a bit higher, but then again, inflation has moved things along somewhat, too. I actually think both of these cameras are far more capable than the average user needs, but people will buy them anyway. Commendably, Nikon actually had cameras in stock, and for sale at dealers on the day that was announced; this seems to be a rare exception in days of ‘pre-announcements’ months ahead of actual availability. And there weren’t any shortages, either – my dealer (admittedly one of the largest in Malaysia) got 60 bodies, compared to two(!) D800s. The D600 is an extremely refined camera that has no major issues anywhere – and I’m pleased to see that QC is much better this time, too; even though the camera comes from Nikon’s Thailand plant instead of Sendai. I’ll be doing a full review the D600 in the coming days, so stay tuned.

Breaking away from the traditional fixed limitations to camera software.
Nikon’s S800C is the first attempt by a large, traditionally-camera (I don’t count Samsung) manufacturer at doing quasi-open firmware; I think its success will depend on two things – the ecosystem around apps, and the level of integration with normal photographic functions. I don’t think it makes sense to have a camera that’s touch-screen only, which requires you to navigate some menus before you can even take a picture; instead, perhaps the ‘camera app’ could be loaded and running over the base OS by default, with other functional configurations loaded as required. They’ll need to retain buttons, too. And I have no idea how Android handles image processing, especially for very large files.

Wireless, wireless, wireless
Nikon, Canon and Olympus have gone big on wireless file transfer this year, each taking slightly different approaches. Nikon’s is dongle based, and allows ftp of files to any server, which is great for working professionals; Canon’s is built into camera (why aren’t they all like this?) – I haven’t used one, so I can’t comment on functionality. Olympus is card-based and requires an app on a tablet or smartphone to work, but is very well integrated with social media. I think the strategies actually represent their respective companies quite well; Nikon is still conservative and photographic-focused; Canon is a bit gadgety, and Olympus’ target market is very much the blogger and casual user. I hope that at some point the wireless standards will be sufficiently fast and well-defined enough to allow transfer of any file to any other device, or direct upload from the camera itself; Olympus’ implementation seems to work the best of the lot (as far as speed and multiple users go) – unfortunately there’s no way of having it send anything other than a jpeg to a tablet.

More mirrorless
There were a slew of offerings here: the Fuji X-E1, Panasonic GH3, Sony NEX-6/ NEX-5R, Olympus E-PL5 and E-PM2. It’s clear that smaller sensors are here to stay – remember sufficiency for the masses – and viewfinders are becoming an increasingly rare spec. The X-E1 is probably what the X-Pro should have been in the first place; I honestly found the hybrid finder in the X100 gimmicky after a while, and landed up using the EVF most of the time for more precise framing. If AF is improved as much as they claim, Leica will have competition on its hands, but then again, they probably won’t mind because they’ll just sell more lenses. The GH3 now occupies top spot in the M4/3 pyramid, and appears to be a notch above the OM-D in both spec and price. The asking money – $1299 – isn’t cheap at all. Fortunately, sensor quality in the new M4/3 cameras more than justifies it. Sony is more of the same – a cheaper NEX-7, and an evolution of the NEX-5. The hybrid AF technology with phase detect points in the imaging sensor itself was surprisingly low-key; I would have thought that something this useful would be deserving of more fanfare. Olympus’s lower-end cameras have been updated with the innards of the OM-D (though not the 5-axis gyro stabilizer). The E-P3 remains in the lineup for now, though I don’t see why anybody would buy one given the price and older sensor. I’ve got an E-PL5 here for testing, and it’s a pretty impressive camera – this is what the original E-P1 should have been. It’s fast, responsive, very nicely built, and pocketable with the body cap lens; I’ll have a full review up in the coming days.

Sony A99
Sony’s different approach to mirrorless has meant some unique value propositions at the low and mid range, and a slightly odd product at the high end – the A99 shares a base sensor with the D600, but is positioned at the price point of the D800E. At that level, you get higher fps than either camera, an excellent EVF, but a slightly odd control layout and user interface. General operation is fast enough, but I have no idea whether tracking AF is up to speed with conventional DSLRs or not; this has traditionally been a weak point of Sony cameras. I don’t think the package is compelling enough to attract new photographers to the brand, but videographers might be convinced by the quality of the output; the RX100 is seriously impressive, and that sensor is a fraction of the size of the A99’s. I still don’t think EVF’s are anywhere near good enough for critical applications, though; it’s not so much about resolution as dynamic range. I previously had a hands-on preview here.

Carl Zeiss
It seems that they’ve come back with a vengeance: first the 2/135 APO, and then the 55/1.4 Distagon, not to mention AF lenses for the X-Pro and E mount – a 12/2.8, 32/1.8 and 50/2.8 macro. It seems odd that they would skip over the much larger M4/3 market at first, though the relationship with Sony might have something to do with it. On the SLR front, although most of the lenses are capable of excellent results on even the D800E, the 50/1.4 Planar and 85/1.4 Planar have left much to be desired. It’s interesting to see that the 55/1.4 adopts their wide-angle Distagon formula; I suspect this is going to be an outstandingly good lens – it had better be, given the size (82mm filter!) and likely price. It’s apparently the first in a range of very high resolution DSLR lenses that will sit above the current ZF.2/ ZE line.

More M4/3 lenses
Olympus 60/2.8 Macro, 15/8 body cap lens and 17/1.8 announcement; Schneider’s 14, 30 and 60mm primes and Panasonic’s 35-100/2.8 were all announced. Serious glass is a good sign for system maturity. Whilst I won’t be buying the 17, Schneider 30/ 60 or Panasonic 35-100, the Olympus 60/2.8 macro has proven to be one of, if not the best lens I’ve used on M4/3, and one of the best macro lenses ever, period. I’ve acquired one for myself, along with the 15/8 body cap – it’s a fun toy, makes my E-PM1 an interesting pocket option, and is a very good street shooter thanks to huge DOF and a mechanical focus lever. Being a 28mm lover, the Schneider 14mm is definitely on my list, though the expected price tag is eye-watering. I think they will have to lower prices for this range of optics to be a success; I simply can’t see any quantity of people willing to pay this much for lenses relative to the cost of the rest of the system.

Enthusiast compacts with small sensors are still going strong
There were several announcements in this category: the Olympus XZ-2, Canon S110/ G15, Nikon P7700, Panasonic LX7, and Fuji XF1. All were evolutionary rather than revolutionary; the most exciting thing was the mechanical lens on the rather compact (and surprisingly large 2/3″ sensored) XF1. I think for this category of camera to survive, they’re going to have to get smaller and more versatile with lenses, or cheaper; Sony’s RX100 makes for stiff competition given its much larger sensor and reasonably fast lens – and it’s compact. I see the Canon S110 and Fuji XF1 doing reasonably well because of their size; the LX7 has that f1.4 lens; the rest are probably going to wither.

Leica
Aside from the new, confusing naming, Leica did what we expected them to do (and probably should have done quite some time ago) – brought live view to the M, along with a much improved LCD. Although I’m sure they’ll sell in droves anyway, what will make or break this camera as a professional tool won’t be price – rather, the quality of the sensor from the new Belgian supplier, as well as the reliability of the electronics and other parts. At least we don’t have to worry so much about rangefinder alignment; however the EVF makes things somewhat ungainly and also impossible to use flash or a thumb grip (not that that will work anyway, with the ergonomic modification and extra control dial). The M also loses one of its windows – frame lines are now LED illuminated, which is a big deal because it means much easier viewing under difficult light conditions. The M-E is a stripped down M9; I suppose there were a lot of leftover components to use up. I’m curious about the color, but that’s about it. The S has received a supposedly new sensor, though the pixel count remains the same; let us hope image quality is improved, then.

The wildcards: Sony RX1 and ‘that Hasselblad’
Perhaps this section should have been called ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’; or ‘beauty and the beast’. The RX1 appears to be a masterpiece of innovation, even though the camera isn’t as small as it appears to be, and the price is rather high. I think it’s now only a matter of time before we see great compact full frame cameras in the vein of the older Ricoh GR1v and Olympus Mju II. That can only be a good thing for those of us who don’t always want or need to carry around a D600. The Hasselblad Lunar, on the other hand, is either a masterpiece of capitalistic genius which will make them a boatload of money from the taste-challenged Middle Eastern and Chinese markets, or the beginning of the end for the brand. I suppose this is what happens when a bunch of financiers who don’t understand photography take over a camera company; for shame. Granted, Leica is doing the same thing with its rebranded Panasonics, but at least they look better than the original versions. The Lunar is so hideously ugly that it appears to have been designed by a five-year-old, rendered by a fifth form graphics design student, and then posted on April 1st. Except, it wasn’t, and it seems that nobody within Hasselblad can see that the emperor’s new clothes are missing. Having said that, a technology partnership with Sony makes perfect sense: look at the technical prowess required to create the RX100 and RX1. If anything, they could breathe new life into medium format. However, rebranding the company’s existing cameras is definitely NOT the way to go.

A note on marketing strategy
For whatever reason, companies seem to choose to announce all of their products at the same time – this is stupid. As a result, none of the products individually get the attention they could otherwise have managed if the announcements were spread throughout the year; Photokina should be an industry show where things are on display and the reps are there to answer questions and do business. I’d consider myself a fairly avid follower of the industry in general, and yet I keep finding things that I simply overlooked in the deluge of announcements – the Nikon P7700 was something I wasn’t even aware of until today, for instance. And the Zeiss and Schneider announcements got lost against the noise against the Hasselblad Lunar. Fifteen minutes of fame, yes – it just doesn’t make sense to fight with your competitors for the same fifteen minutes so that everybody at best gets five seconds each. Leica did it right with their May 10 event; I suspect the impact was much stronger than at Photokina, and they certainly got more attention in the blogosphere.

Overall, the theme for this year has been evolution and lenses; there are a lot of solidly interesting products out there, some of which I’ll review, some of those in turn which I’ll buy – but the list isn’t that long, probably just the Schneider 14/2, Zeiss 1.4/55 Distagon and 2/135 APO. I don’t see anything dramatically different or improved over what we’re currently using, but better lenses are always worth lusting after. MT

____________

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook and join the reader Flickr group!

Filed Under: Gearhead: Reviews Tagged With: commentary, equipment, essay, gearhead, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, photokina 2012, thein

Points of sufficiency: do you really know how much is enough?

September 16, 2012 by Ming Thein

The never-ending photographic arms race got me thinking recently about sufficiency: how many pixels, fps, AF points, ISO settings, etc. are enough? The troubling thing is that I thought I used to know the answer: I’m no longer sure it’s quite as clear cut. See, the thing is that if you’re viewing images online, in theory, anything close to your screen resolution (leaving space for UI elements, text, menus etc.) should be sufficient – 1000px wide is more than enough for most purposes. The images on this site are mostly 800px wide, for reference. In theory, that should mean an iPhone is overkill. Yes and no; just because resolution sufficient, it doesn’t mean that we’re going to have enough dynamic range, or color depth (or accuracy).

This raises a hypothetical question: suppose we could have say a ‘perfect’ 3MP – in a compact camera, with a reasonably good zoom lens; if we put those 3MP into a 2/3″ or 1/1.7″ sized sensor, we could probably get a fast-sh 24-120mm f2-4 equivalent into something that would be reasonably pocketable. The relatively low pixel density would mean several things – good acuity, low noise, good color accuracy, and much higher forgiveness of the lens quality. With today’s technology, I don’t see why you couldn’t get a clean ISO 6400 and useable ISO 12800. Even with a lens of moderate speed, that’s a more than sufficient shooting envelope for most photographic purposes. Add a good optical stabilizer, fast AF, 14 bit RAW, responsive buffering and controls, and most people would be set. And with raw files that small, you could probably get 10,000 of them onto a 32GB card.

But, nobody would buy it and it would be a commercial failure. Only 3MP? Really?

That’s the kicker. If you’ve ever had a really high quality, but small-ish file, then you’ll know that you can actually do quite a lot with it; I remember seeing some images from the 2005 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition – prints, at 40×60″ or so – which were shot with a Nikon D1H: that’s right, all of 2.7MP. Did they sing? You bet. Did they look grainy, or pixellated? Not especially so, but I’m sure you’d see the difference if you shot the exact same scene with a D800E. The shot that won would no doubt still be a great capture even twenty years from now. A hundred years from now. Does the equipment matter? Insofar as it didn’t get in the way of the capture, no.

In a more realistic scenario, a proper 300dpi print (actual pixels, not printer ink dots) looks extremely sharp. 200dpi is still acceptable; do you know what most computer screens are? Closer to 110. Sharp images still look sharp, don’t they? And the reason things appear pixellated is because the pixel mask of the screen gives each pixel a hard edge. If the edges of each dot were just a tiny bit fuzzy and overlapped the next dot, like in a print, then things would look just fine. The reality is that short of sticking yourself a few inches away from the display, you’re not really going to see the individual pixels. I have to be honest; the Macbook Pro’s 220dpi ‘retina’ display doesn’t look all that different to my 15″ non-retina from healthy viewing distances. But it requires four times the amount of graphics power to run, because guess what: every graphical element requires four times the pixels.

Most people print no larger than 6×4″, or perhaps out to 8×12″ for special images; survey a group of enthusiasts on the largest print they’ve made, and you’ll probably find 13×19″ a good end point. There are two reasons why: cost, and lack of display space. Enormous prints are great, but you’d also better have enormous walls to hold them.

So what does a 1500×2000 pixel, 3MP file get you? At 110dpi, 13.6×18.2″ – lo and behold, that’s pretty darn close to 13×19″! The one problem with this scenario is that it assumes that all photographers using the ‘sufficient’ camera have the shot discipline to get things perfect at the pixel level, and that they’re really getting the full resolution of the sensor. Sigma/ Foveon shooters will know what I mean by this – the files may be small, but the real resolving power is pretty darned high. Higher than the sensor’s pixel count would lead you to believe (but not as high as Sigma’s marketing department would like you to believe).

Even for use on a next generation ‘retina’ display, you could still get a 7×9″ image out – comfortably fitting the display size. You could probably interpolate it a little too, and not see too much degradation in quality.

Let’s put this all into context. The recently-released Sony RX100 (reviewed here) has 20MP effective – that’s a whopping 5500×3600 or so pixels, or enough for a 50×33″ print – I don’t have enough space in my house to hang more than one or two of those, and at that size, I’d struggle to think what image I wouldn’t mind looking at for hours on end. Yet there are still people crying ‘not enough resolution!’. At that sensor size, pixel density is so high that critical focusing and shooting discipline become very important; I notice that the stabilizer seems a lot less effective than lower-pixel count cameras, but I’m now starting to suspect it’s because it’s got to work quite a lot harder to maintain perfection at the pixel level.

Take the argument a notch further: okay, so there are still reasons to have something with interchangeable lenses. And those things always come with bigger sensors (okay, so not the Nikon 1 cameras, but they haven’t exactly been a commercial success – expensive, small sensor, low pixel count; even if the pixel quality is reasonably high and the cameras are extremely responsive). Bigger sensors mean more expected resolution. I’m going to bypass M4/3 and APS-C for the time being, because they all top out at reasonably similar resolutions; there isn’t that much difference between 16 and 24MP – remember, area scales with the square of length. Let’s go to full frame DSLRs – one of the most common questions I’ve received via email in the last few months is ‘I have a D700. Should I upgrade to the D800/ D800E?’ The fact that that question is even being asked signals that the marketing department has done a good job. They’ve sold you on the lure of the enormous number of pixels; you haven’t bothered to do a bit more reading to find out that a) you’re going to need much better lenses; b) shot discipline once again becomes critical; c) stability is a hot topic; d) your AF system might not be quite as accurate as you thought – especially if you’re using auto-area and letting the camera do the thinking for you.

The answer to this question is simple: how big do you print, and do you need video? If the answer to the latter is yes, go ahead and buy it; video isn’t something the D700 can do. The former is a bit more subtle: if you can’t get a good 45×30″ or so print out of the D700, then your shooting technique needs work. I’ve had images shot under ideal conditions printed to 40×60″ for exhibitions – they still looked great. Granted, the subjects weren’t crammed with fine detail like leaves and grass, but they weren’t high-bokeh content portraits, either. So, if you’re not making say 20×30″ landscapes on a regular basis – do you really need the heartache that comes from having to revaluate all of your lenses, and shunt around 50MB RAW files? Probably not. But, the bragging rights are a different matter altogether.

One of the reasons why the photographic industry is still growing despite passing saturation point some time ago is because of the photographers themselves: they don’t know when to stop. Canon will happily sell you a 50/1.2 for three or four times the price of the 50/1.4, which itself is three times the price of the 50/1.8 – simply because there are people who will pay for that extra half a stop. (And it may be an extra half a stop of aperture, but it’s almost certainly less than half a stop of transmission.) Let’s be realistic: the camera’s metering doesn’t gauge scenes that accurately; I routinely make adjustments of +/- 1 stop, and that’s with Nikon’s super-accurate matrix meter in the D700 or Olympus OM-D (I consider both to be more reliable than the D800, which has a tendency to put too much weight to the active focus area). The Sony RX100 is out by so much that I have to constantly use exposure compensation or risk an unsalvageable image. With the degree of adjustment latitude our modern sensors give us, whole stops changes are what you have to be making before you see any appreciable differences in image quality.

Here’s another curious thing: equipment with more conservative specifications often performs better than more extreme gear, even though the extreme gear frequently costs several times more. This is because we’re dealing with known technology, with greater tolerance for error: this is why there are many superb 50/2s or 50/2.8s that perform excellently wide open, but few 50/1.4s and faster that do. It’s also why lenses with higher resolving power – take the macros for instance – have modest apertures. It’s easier to correct for smaller apertures. Same thing with sensors – it’s easier to get good dynamic range and a high signal-to-noise ratio out of a sensor with a larger pixel pitch; the supporting electronics for each photosite has to be of a certain size, and if there isn’t much area to go around in the first place, that circuitry starts to make a significant and noticeable difference to the light-collecting ability of the sensor.

The bottom line is very Socratic: Know thyself. Specifically, think carefully about which pictorial limitations are due to the photographer, and which are because of the camera. Low light performance? It’s probably your gear. Poor composition? More pixels isn’t going to help you. Blurry images? More pixels definitely aren’t going to help you; examine your technique first.

The recent series on inspirations from older cameras was posted specifically to illustrate this point: just because a camera is old, it doesn’t mean that it’s no longer capable of producing good images. If somebody could use it to get the shot when they had no other choice, it means that you can still do that. The important thing to remember is that most of the time, the limitation is in the user, not the equipment. So next time, before buying more gear, think about spending money on improving your skill level first. I guarantee that you’ll see a much bigger improvement in your images. MT

____________

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook and join the reader Flickr group!

Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, equipment, essay, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, requirements, sufficiency, thein

A concise city travel guide for photographers

September 10, 2012 by Ming Thein

I’ve been to a lot of places both in the course of my previous life as a wandering professional, as well as more recently as a photographer and occasionally as a tourist. I’ve visited most as a business traveller first, but with a constantly vigilant eye for photographic opportunities. On the whole, some places are more photo-friendly than others; however, every city has its interesting places. What follows is a very brief photography travel guide to some of the more interesting places I’ve been to. It’s organized by city, in alphabetical order. MT

Auckland. Sony NEX-5, 18-55 OSS

Auckland, New Zealand
Photo friendliness – 8/10
Photo opportunities – 4/10
Most of the activity in Auckland centers around the waterfront; be it related to boats, life, the harbor, watersports, or the sea itself. Kiwis are extremely friendly people, and generally don’t mind having their photo taken; however, note that everything downtown goes dead after about 6pm as businesses close and people retreat to the suburbs, so there isn’t a lot to photograph. There is some interesting architecture and light provided by lots of modern glass buildings around Quay Street and Queen Street. The North Shore is also an interesting area of pavement/ sidewalk cafe life, as well as being a good place to spend a sunny afternoon. Needless to say, one of the biggest events is when the America’s Cup visits the city; great for photographic opportunities, bad for the wallet.

Bangkok. Leica M9-P, 35/1.4 ASPH FLE

Bangkok, Thailand
Photo friendliness – 6/10
Photo opportunities – 8/10
Bangkok is so different to most other places – even within Asia, to some extent – that there’s bound to be something different for the traveller to capture. Within Bangkok there are plenty of districts; avoid the places with multi-lane avenues and low pedestrian-friendliness like Rama V, Sukhumvit and Wireless; it’s difficult to capture anything there. Far more interesting is the temple area by the river, around Wat Arun and Wat Pho; there’s also a warren of small streets and bustling city life around Thanon Yowarat in Chinatown. You could easily spend days walking around there and not manage to see everything. Note that whilst most Thais are friendly, a lot do not like having their photograph taken, so please remember to respect cultural sensitivities. The outskirts of the city are likely to provide more photographic opportunities of the rural sort. Note that Bangkok’s famous floating market is not actually in the city, but around two hours’ drive north.

Barcelona, Spain
Photo friendliness – 8/10
Photo opportunities – 7/10
Architecture, culture and people are the three things that stand out in Barcelona. Visit in spring or summer; winter is depressing and can be cold (I actually got stranded at the top of a hill in a snowstorm once). The Barri Gotic, or Old Quarter, is the best place to go exploring on foot; the seaside promenade near the Hotel Arts is also full of interesting characters and is a great place for street photography. I actually don’t like Parc Guell much; yes, it’s interesting from an art point of view, but for photography the space is too open and full of tourists. You might get some interesting detail shots of Gaudi’s handiwork, but the Sagrada Familia is much, much better for that. There are plenty of tourists roaming the streets, so another photographer mostly goes unnoticed; some Catalonians don’t like being photographed, though. If you have extra time, the monastery of Montserrat is worth visiting for its architecture. Sadly no photography is allowed inside the cathedral, though.

Cambridge, England
Photo friendliness – 8/10
Photo opportunities – 7/10
It’s often said that the difference between Cambridge and Oxford is that the former is a city inside a university, and the latter is a university inside a city – the reason being that Oxford town came before Oxford University, and both came before Cambridge. The difference is felt in size: Cambridge feels much roomier and more spread out than Oxford; a lot of the colleges are far away enough that you need at least a bicycle, and might even want to consider taking the bus. Still, there’s plenty of interesting architecture and mediaeval alleyways to explore, as well as the river Cam; don’t forget to pick up some Fudge at the Fudge Kitchen.

Canterbury. Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

Canterbury, England
Photo friendliness – 7/10
Photo opportunities – 6/10
Most people visit Canterbury for one reason only: the cathedral. A masterpiece of Gothic engineering, it’ll keep any architectural photography fan engaged. Photography inside is allowed. There’s a small network of old streets around the cathedral that can be an interesting backdrop for street photography, but note that most of the old shops have been replaced by modern chains – though some of the frontages etc remain the same. There are some interesting Roman ruins – the city wall – and a Norman castle, though these do not make for particularly arresting photography, unless you bring your own subject – I suppose one could probably do a fashion shoot there.

Geneva. Nikon D800E, 28/1.8

Geneva, Switzerland
Photo friendliness – 5-8/10
Photo opportunities – 5/10
I find the personality of Geneva depends very much on what time of the year you visit: I went once during winter, and it was both miserably weathered and full of surly, unfriendly folk; however, during the summer, everybody seems to be in a good mood the moment the sun shows. The city itself transforms, too; the old quarter, on the opposite side of the lake to the train station and behind the main drag of Rue du Rhone, is full of charming buildings and streets, that create interesting pockets of light as the sun starts to drop. Watch fans will also find the Patek Philippe museum of particular interest. Several years ago, they allowed photography of the exhibits, but I’m not sure if that’s changed in the intervening period. Outside Geneva are plenty of opportunities for landscape photography – the Vallee de Joux and the Alps are obvious choices.

Hanoi. Nikon D3, 70-300VR

Hanoi, Vietnam
Photo friendliness – 8/10
Photo opportunities – 9/10
Hanoi’s photographic friendliness is reduced a couple of notches solely because of personal risk: you really need to watch out for the city’s thousands of motorbikes. Chimping while crossing the street is a sure way to get run over. That aside, the city itself has various quarters that each have a distinct feel; post-Soviet communist concrete block, French, and Asian. And in between those, there’s a temple on an island in the middle of the lake. In the Old Quarter, all of those elements come together (though with much less concrete block) to create a very unique atmosphere – think French cafe, but with the chaos of Asian wiring, street stalls, and just a little bit of decay to add texture. It’s a photographers’ paradise – and the Vietnamese don’t mind being in your frame, either. Cheap and good pho noodles and banh mi are icing on the cake.

Hong Kong. Olympus OM-D, 45/1.8

Hong Kong, China
Photo friendliness – 6/10
Photo opportunities – 8/10
To me, Hong Kong has always been divided up into districts with distinct photographic personalities: Central, for architecture and some light people-watching; the Peak, for that one evening shot across the harbor; Tsim Tsa Shui for neon, glitz and a little bit of transitional Hong Kong; finally, Mong Kok for absolute chaos and the grittier old city. It’s almost as though things get less developed as you head further north and into China proper. If I’m to be honest, the locals aren’t the most friendly bunch, though this is changing with the younger generation. Be careful where you point your camera. Acting like a tourist will usually let you get away with a sneaked-in street shot. Though I’ve been several times on my own, or with non-residents, the best way to see the hidden parts of the city is definitely with a local – there are some hidden photographic gems to be had.

Kamakura, Japan
Photo friendliness – 10/10
Photo opportunities – 8/10
If you can’t take a photograph in Japan, then the chances are if that same situation arose anywhere else in the world, you probably wouldn’t be able to, either. Kamakura is full of more Japanese tourists trying to find their cultural heritage than international ones; everybody has at least one camera. It’s not a very big town, and there are many cultural heritage things of interest here: the big Buddha statue, or daibutsu, multiple temples, including the famous Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū and the seaside portion of the town; many of these places are UNESCO World Heritage sites. Come here on any festival day – if you can find a place on the train – and you’re assured of plenty of photojournalism material.

Kathmandu. Nikon D700, 85/1.4G

Kathmandu, Nepal
Photo friendliness – 8/10
Photo opportunities – 8/10
It’s clear from the moment you step out of the airport that visiting Nepal is going to be completely unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. Not only is there nothing resembling a highway leading into town, the road itself doesn’t really much resemble a road, either. Thanks to fuel shortages, there are long blackouts during the day (make sure your hotel has a generator, and carry plenty of spare batteries) and few streetlights; I’d say that Kathmandu is very much a daytime photography place. Try not to go during a martial law strike, either; you can’t go out on the streets without a permit, and the place is crawling with heavily armed police. That said, the Nepalis are some of the friendliest people around, even if their country is firmly in the ‘developing’ category; like most photographically interesting cities, it has a characterful old quarter – Thamel and plenty of cultural heritage sites (Bodhanarth, Swayambhunath, Patan Durba, Singa Durba, the Narayanthi Museum etc.). It’s also a very cheap place, which explains its popularity with backpackers. Travel a bit outside the city to Nagarkot, and on a clear day, you’ll be rewarded with a magnificent view of the Himalayas.

Kuala Lumpur. Nikon D700, 28-300VR

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Photo friendliness – 8/10?
Photo opportunities – 7/10?
It’s very difficult to be objective about your own home city; I can’t say how inspired a foreigner might find the place because it’s always been familiar territory to me. I know exactly where I’d go to shoot what, what kinds of people probably aren’t a good idea to photograph, and what I can get away with. For a visitor, there are a few things worth seeing – Chinatown/ Petaling Street, before the government tears it down for a mass transit station (ironically, to serve the part of the city which will no longer be there after the station is in place); Bukit Bintang, to shop and people-watch; Brickfields, or little India; the Batu Caves, especially during the Thaipusam Festival in late Jan/ early Feb; Merdeka Square, and some of the more interesting architecture. KLCC and the Petronas Twin Towers. If you’re feeling particularly bored, or want to see a whole load of artificial trees, then there’s i-City in Shah Alam by night. For the most part, the residents are friendly, the food is good, and the beer is cold. Although prices are rising, we’re still not as expensive as say Geneva or Hong Kong (and I really feel it in those cities). What’s not to like?

Old Kyoto. Nikon D200, 17-55/2.8

Kyoto, Japan
Photo friendliness – 9/10
Photo opportunities – 8/10
If you like temples and architecture, then Kyoto is your city. I couldn’t help feel that the atmosphere was a lot colder and more reserved than Tokyo, however; there are also a lot of broad, featureless expanses of urban sprawl between attractions that are pretty much photographic deserts. There are a few must-see places on the list – the big temples like Kinkaku-ji, Kyomizudera and slightly outside, Fushima-Inarii; Gion, the Geisha District; and the portion of the town down by the river, which I believe is called Ponto-Cho. There’s also the Imperial Palace, but aside from some extremely open gardens, there isn’t a lot of interest here. Curiously, Kyoto station itself is a very interesting piece of abstract modern architecture; in some ways it’s at odds to the rest of the historical city. The best way to get around is either by subway, or the tourist buses that run in loops from outside the station.

London. Ricoh GR-Digital III

London, England
Photo friendliness – 5/10
Photo opportunities- 7/10
Thanks to overzealous police, one has to be a bit careful when photographing on the streets of London – sad to say, especially if you look a bit ‘ethnic’. Smaller cameras are definitely the order of the day, and be careful where you choose to set up a tripod. The locals in general aren’t particularly camera-friendly, either. That said, there are a number of good places for people watching – the courtyard of the British Museum is one of my favourites, along with the Piccadilly Circus to St. James and Jermyn Street stretch, Trafalgar Square and the surrounding areas. The City can be interesting but also harried; Canary Wharf was good for some architectural abstracts, though on my last visit security tended to eye every camera with suspicion. The area around City Hall on the south side of London Bridge has a nice open plaza and plenty of human activity, especially if it’s sunny. There are still a number of museums which allow photography inside – this is interesting not so much for the exhibits as the spaces and people – the British Museum is by far the best, though Maritime Greenwich, The Tower of London, the Science Museum’s hangar floor and the Tate Modern are also excellent. Aside from photography, there are plenty of other things to do, so don’t feel as though you have to get postcard shots of all the sights – that’s what postcards are for.

Macau. Olympus OM-D, 45/1.8

Macau, China
Photo friendliness – 7/10
Photo opportunities – 9/10
Thanks to a densely-packed warren of streets, Macau seems a lot larger on foot than it does on a map; the area around the ruins of St. Paul’s Cathedral are especially rich with photographic opportunities. And the locals seem so immune to tourists that it’s also a very safe environment to pratice street photography. The casinos are a different story, however – external photography is fine, but I’m pretty sure if you pull out a camera inside, you’ll have a bunch of armed guards on you in no time. Oh, and don’t forget to try the famous egg custard tarts.

Malacca night market. Sony NEX-5, 18-55 OSS

Malacca, Malaysia
Photo friendliness – 8/10
Photo opportunities – 7/10
There are two areas of interest in Malacca – the stretch leading from St. Paul’s church to the fort ruins on the hill during the day, and the area across the river known as Jonker Street – especially on a Saturday night when the market is in full swing. There are also a number of old clan houses that feature traditional decoration and architecture; some are still inhabited by their respective clans and offer historical tours. Most allow photography. Like the rest of Malaysia, Malacca is fairly photo friendly; unlike the major cities, it’s also fairly pedestrian friendly. Local specialities include the cendol with gula melaka and chicken rice balls; pass on the latter, but the former can be a life saver during a hot afternoon.

Nara. Nikon D3, 24-70/2.8

Nara, Japan
Photo friendliness – 10/10
Photo opportunities – 9/10
A bastion of old Japan, and a daytrip out of Kyoto, Nara is home to a large number of temples – in fact, so much so that one wonders where the residents actually live, and perhaps even if there are any permanent residents to the city at all. There are also a surprising number of inquisitive deer, and stalls lining the avenues between temples serving some of the best takoyaki I’ve eaten. It’s one of the few cities in which I felt I could freely photograph everything I wanted, and I did so; however, once you get tired of temples, there’s not much else and it’s time to get back on the train to head back to base.

New York, USA
Photo friendliness – 5/10?
Photo opportunities – 8/10?
I’m guessing somewhat at these numbers, because it’s been a very, very long time since I was last in New York, and that was in the days before I had a camera surgically attached to me. But I definitely felt like it wasn’t a particularly open or friendly place; it probably didn’t help at all that I was there in the middle of winter. However, it is one of the spiritual homes of street photography, and home to numerous galleries and art collections, plus no end of skyscraper architecture. At least if you feel too intimidated to shoot people, there are buildings, or other inspirations to be had from other artists. I really need to get out here again at some point in the near future.

Nikko. Nikon D3, 24-70/2.8

Nikko, Japan
Photo friendliness – 10/10
Photo opportunities – 8/10
Nikko is a cultural heritage city much in the same vein as Nara and Kamakura; there are lots of temples, plenty of scenic things buried in dark, damp forests, and curiously little life outside that. And once again, like the other two cities, feel free to shoot away at anything and everything; but you will get bored of temples eventually. Once again, a day trip from Tokyo will suffice for most.

Niseko. Nikon D700, Zeiss 2/28 Distagon

Niseko, Japan
Photo friendliness – 10/10
Photo opportunities – 6/10
Niseko is a place for skiiers during the winter and outdoorspeople during the summer; photography is almost entirely of the landscape variety. You’ll probably get bored of views of Mt. Yotei, but there are plenty of other interesting vignettes around – the trouble is, you’ll have to find them, and without a car or bicycle (not recommended because the place is a lot hillier than it looks) it’s difficult because things are fairly spread out. Hokkaido is probably the only place in Japan that actually has space. Personal pick – the onsen at the Hilton Niseko is outdoors and offers a fantastic view of the perfectly-conical Mount Yotei; it’s a great place to relax at the end of the day.

Oxford. Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

Oxford, England
Photo friendliness – 8/10
Photo opportunities – 7/10
Another one of my familiar hunting grounds (I spent several years here as a student). Curiously, I didn’t shoot that much at the time; mostly to do with the fact that film was expensive, and consumer digital was still some years out. Nevertheless, I returned later on, better armed and photographically somewhat wiser. Much like Cambridge, Oxford is about history, architecture, and drunken students. (I would say learning, but the public really doesn’t see much of that going on; it’s behind closed doors). The city’s main attractions are small; you could get off the bus from London at High Street, walk past the Radcliffe Camera, around Radcliffe Square, through Broad Street, and down towards St. Giles and cover most of the interesting bits. There are a number of good museums – the Pitt Rivers is probably the most interesting of the lot – which allow photography, but they’re rather dark to preserve the artefacts. Good high ISO and fast lenses are a must. Note that most colleges allow entry during the day with a fee, or for free if you have somebody on the inside to take you around. The river Cherwell is worth punting down during summer, but beware drunken students in other punts colliding with yours…

Paris. Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

Paris, France
Photo friendliness – 5/10
Photo opportunities – 8/10
Another spiritual home of street photography, Paris’ grand avenues and boulevards provide a fantastic backdrop to the lives of its inhabitants. Sadly, those inhabitants aren’t usually that friendly, and I’ve received my fair share of abuse and rude gestures when trying to photograph them. (Curiously, I’ve also had a guy on a bicycle yell out ‘Nice Leica!’ from about 30 yards away). Aside from the huge number of museums – it’s a great place to see both traditional art masterpieces, for inspiration – there are also a lot of small galleries and bookstores dotted around the city, many of which specialize in Photography. There’s plenty of old architecture, and a concentration of newer stuff at La Defense; the Ille de la Cite during summertime is a particularly nice place to shoot street, as are the artificial beaches along the Seine (Paris Plage). I’m told there’s also an excellent aviation museum out at Le Bourget, but I’ve never gotten around to visiting it. Particularly interesting districts are the left bank, and Montmartre.

Penang. Nikon D3, 24-70

Penang, Malaysia
Photo friendliness – 8/10
Photo opportunities – 5/10
I personally didn’t find that much inspiration in Penang; it’s a pleasant city, but in many ways somewhat provincial and small. There’s some interesting street life – especially along Gurney Drive as the sun sets, near the food stalls – but for the most part, people come here to relax (though curiously not when driving. If you had to choose between Penang and Malacca for a day trip from Kuala Lumpur, there are far more photographic opportunities in the latter city. Penangites are perhaps the most aggressive drivers in the country). There are reasonably nice beaches further north near Batu Ferringhi and beyond. The western side of the island is mostly undeveloped and covered in rainforest. Personal favorite – afternoon tea at the E&O hotel.

Prague. Olympus Pen Mini, 45/1.8

Prague, Czech Republic
Photo friendliness – 7/10
Photo opportunities – 9/10
I came not expecting very much. I left wanting to go back – Prague is perhaps one of the richest cities in Europe for street and urban photography opportunities. The city is divided by the river Vltava; on the western shore, you’ve got the Malostranska, Prague Castle complex, St George’s Basilica and a network of narrow old streets; the other side of the Charles Bridge is the new, commercial center of town, with broad avenues and the old town square, which contains the famous astronomical clock, several churches, a few excellent cafes, the sex machines museum, and a tower which you can climb for excellent sunset views of the city. It’s also one of the cheaper places in Europe to visit; this must have something to do with the fact that the currency isn’t the Euro. In fact, it didn’t feel much more expensive than staying home in Kuala Lumpur. There’s something about the atmosphere here that just makes it an extremely pleasant city to walk around with a camera. We spent four days here, and I feel like I barely scratched the surface. The illuminated buildings and well-lit streets are great for night photography, too.

Sapporo. Nikon D700, Zeiss 2/28 Distagon

Sapporo, Japan
Photo friendliness – 10/10
Photo opportunities – 5/10
Sapporo may be the capital of Hokkaido, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it felt a lot like midtown New York – with its broad, grid-like streets, modern buildings, and odd combination of density and open green spaces. The issue here is that it just doens’t feel very conducive to photography; the place somehow lacks character. However, the food is especially good because a lot of it is locally grown – seafood and corn come highly recommended. But don’t come expecting it to be like Tokyo; it’s a lot more laid back.

Singapore. Panasonic TZ3

Singapore, Singapore
Photo friendliness – 8/10
Photo opportunities – 7/10
Singapore is another city with distinct districts where one can go to shoot certain things; unlike many places in the world, people don’t mind you taking photographs inside shops; I suppose they’re savvy enough to realize that any offshoot internet publicity is good for free PR. I actually like shooting in Singapore because of the rich variety of modern architecture; there’s a few good pickings around Orchard Road, especially Ion; more downtown near Raffles Quay, and even more at Marina Bay. There’s also the new Botanic Gardens building, which promises to be interesting. On the other hand, more traditional scenes can be found around Chinatown, Club Street and the Mustafa complex; there’s a beach out at Sentosa if you like wildlife. Oh, and the Jurong Bird Park has a large and extremely well-stocked aviary – it’s a good place to practice birding. Much like Malaysia, people here think it’s normal to slip an SLR around your neck before heading out of the house. Snap away.

Tokyo. Nikon D3, 24-70

Tokyo, Japan
Photo friendliness – 10/10
Photo opportunities – 10/10
Tokyo remains my number one place for photography. It’s a combination of a few things – the huge cultural differences between Japan and the rest of the world; the sheer size of the city, meaning that there are plenty of districts of distinctly different ages and characters; and the fact that it’s possibly the most photography-friendly city on earth. After all, most of the world’s cameras are designed in Japan…Nikon, Olympus, Ricoh, Canon and Leica all have flagship stores around Ginza, some of the most expensive real estate anywhere. In fact, that portion of Tokyo is so well lit that you can shoot ISO 200 at night and still get enough shutter speed to handhold. Aside from the usual places – Harajuku’s Takeshitadori, the Meiji Shrine, Akihabara, Omotesando, Shinjuku, Shibuya and Tsukiji – there are hidden pockets of photographic opportunity anywhere and everywhere you care to look. And the chances are you’re going to feel more inspired about being here than anywhere else, because everything is so different you feel you have to capture it. The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography out at Ebisu is worth a visit; they often have great exhibitions on. There are also a large number of small, one-room galleries all over the city which offer a good introduction to local Japanese photography. Totem Pole Gallery is a good example. Note that Kamakura, Nikko, Odawara (castle) and Hakone (Fuji) are all day-trippable from Tokyo thanks to their fast train network – though I happened to be there in December 2008 when a computer glitch somehow brought the whole thing grinding to a halt. Tokyo is one of the few places I can go to now and actually feel like I’m in a completely different world; I’m very much looking forward to going back in a couple of months for the October Workshop. (There’s still one place left, if any readers would like to join).

Venice. Nikon D70, 24-120/3.5-5.6

Venice, Italy
Photo friendliness – 7/10
Photo opportunities – 9/10
Like Tokyo, Venice is one of the few cities left on earth that’s a true unique place unto itself – this providing a never-ending series of photographic opportunities, though you might get a bit sick of canals and museums after a while. Murano is worth a visit to see the glassmaking factories, and photograph a slower pace of life; though the Campanile is going to be crowded, ascending at sunset is recommended. Don’t go in winter, it floods and the locals are miserable – spring is probably the best time of year to visit; it isn’t oppresively hot, the locals aren’t sick of the tourists, and the place isn’t as crowded as during the peak travel season. Carnivale is of course another great time to go, from a photographic standpoint – but already expensive accommodation and food (everything comes in by boat) gets even more exorbitant.

Vienna. Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

Vienna, Austria
Photo friendliness – 7/10
Photo opportunities – 7/10
Vienna is a pleasant city. It has its historical landmarks – Stefansdom, for one – and plenty of newer, more modern, post-war concrete blocks. It’s a much smaller city than it appears on the map; everything is walkable. The Stilwerk building (designed by Jean Novel) is quite an interesting piece in its own right, especially the view from the top floor (and its seemingly frameless windows). Vienna’s highlights for the photographer are its museums and galleries: aside from the painters and artists (great permanent collections at the Belvedere and Kunsthaus; Schonnbrunn is worth a visit too), there’s the Westlicht Gallery, which has year-round photographic installations (a Weegee retrospective was on when I was there). It also happens to be neighbours with the Leica Store – the second hand equipment selection there is mind-boggling. Food is also one of Vienna’s strong points: the Nachtmarkt has great fresh produce, and a few simple eateries that make the most of that; there’s also a good selection of high end, with the two-Michelin star Steirereck being one of my favorite restaurants anywhere.

Remember to travel safe – don’t go out of your way to attract attention, and keep copies of important documents back at the hotel. Figure out the bare minimum of equipment and carry no more; the less gear you have, the more you’ll experience the city rather than worry about which lens to use, and in turn, the better images you’ll capture. Oh, and don’t forget a good pair of walking shoes. MT

For travel equipment suggestions for 2012, have a look at this article.

____________

If you enjoyed this post, please consider supporting the site via Paypal ([email protected]); Ming Thein’s Email School of Photography – learn exactly what you want to learn, when you want to learn it or learn how to achieve a similar look with our Photoshop workflow DVDs. You can also get your gear from Amazon.com via this referral link. Prices are the same as normal, however a small portion of your purchase value is referred back to me. Thanks!

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook and join the Flickr group!

Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, countries, essay, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, photography, places, thein, travel guide

Thoughts on modern wedding photography: the wrong way, and the right way

September 8, 2012 by Ming Thein

Disclaimer: I’m not a wedding photography professional, I never have been or claimed to be at any point, nor is it likely that I ever will be in the future. So take this with the intended grain of salt as written from the position of an external observer. The images illustrating this post were shot as a guest at the various weddings I’ve attended in the past.

It seems that in the last twenty or so years – perhaps even less than that – wedding photography has moved from ‘capturing some memories of your (hopefully) once in a lifetime event with family and friends’ to ‘create an overprocessed hollywood epic composed of thousands of pictures with you and your other half in unlikely, impossible and completely out-of-charachter poses in which none of the protagonists at all resemble each other!’. How? When? Why? More importantly, doesn’t anybody who’s actually paying for the images realize that in twenty years, if you look at the images again at all, the first thought entering your mind will probably be ‘ugh, what was I thinking?’

One from my own wedding. I grabbed my friend’s M8.

This opinion piece aims to deconstruct the modern wedding photography genre, and figure out whether there’s still any room for somebody who wants to do it right – the best term I can use is honestly.

I have actually shot my fair share of weddings over the years – once or twice as primary photographer, nowadays under the condition that the couple hires somebody else, I’ll bring a camera along to the events I attend, and I’ll shoot like I normally do. Invariably, their print album and the images they share land up being the ones I shoot, not the ones they paid for. Why is this?

Firstly, I make sure I don’t get in the way of the proceedings; in doing so, I’m forced to find unusual angles or work from the point of view of the guest as observer – so the documentary takes place from a slightly different viewpoint. I shoot as a photojournalist, not an event photographer; I look for emotion and context. Finally, I don’t shoot weddings commercially. I recognize that isn’t one of my strengths, and it wouldn’t be fair to any potential clients to do anything less than a perfect job on an occasion which simply isn’t repeatable. (“Excuse me, could you walk down the aisle again please? My flash didn’t fire” doesn’t quite cut it, does it?). I do them for very close friends and family; instead of buying a gift that might well be your fifth toaster, I might as well give you something unique and which actually requires some effort and thought to produce – and I know will be appreciated later. But I digress.

The reason why I don’t shoot weddings is threefold: one, they scare the crap out of me: I can’t be in twenty places at once, capturing each and every single little emotional moment – there are bound to be many – but at the same time, I can’t hire secondary photographers because I can’t guarantee quality. And having assistants in itself brings up a whole new set of issues, which I’ll get into later. Secondly, the market is dire. Either you compete on price – a thousand shots for just US$200! Or you compete on extravagance – pre-wedding shoots in a hot air balloon at dawn shot from a helicopter over the Himalayas! And neither market is sustainable, for obvious reasons.

However, the most important missing element for the hired gun is almost always the emotional connection: as a friend of the couple, or family, you probably know most of the other guests – that being the case, they feel comfortable around you (and know you’re a photographer); this means that what you get to capture are genuine, unguarded emotions. This is the ideal of the serious wedding photographer, and something that almost none of them manage – because they’re looking for the significant action, or the interesting perspective, or some technical showcase, not the emotion. And I know that it’s nearly impossible to do this when you don’t know the guests personally – they just don’t open up to you.

I can understand the desire for a couple, and their families, to have the big day properly documented for posterity. I went through the same issue of trying to figure out who would shoot my own wedding several years ago – in the end, a photojournalist friend and my brother did the bulk of the work, and I provided first-person filler thanks to a compact in my suit jacket and a borrowed camera. I edited the 8,000+ raw files down into a storyline of about 150, and did the processing myself. The result was a remarkably consistent look and feel; most of it was processed in a traditional B&W photojournalism style (which I may later come to regret, but at least I have the raw files) which fit the way the images were shot, and the style of the photographers.

But it seems that today’s trend is to go for the most over the top production you can find – the output shown (usually on a slideshow at the wedding banquet) is often so ridiculous that if you know the couple, you also realize that the photos are in no way representative of their personality, or even physical appearance, most of the time. Perhaps this is only a trend in Asia; I don’t know. But I’ve seen enough ultra-wide-from-the-tail-of-the-gown-in-forest-ruins-with-studio-strobes shots to suggest that this may be an international thing.

I think what bothers me the most is the lack of integrity about it all – I do know that a lot of couples select options like this because it’s either what’s socially acceptable, or because they don’t know any better (and it most certainly isn’t in the interests of the photographers to educate them otherwise). What has become a relatively minor expense in the whole scheme of things has now turned into something that can consume 10% or more of the entire wedding budget. What I don’t know is how many of these couples are actually happy with the output – Asians tend not to complain unless something is vomitoriously bad – but I do know that a lot of the wedding photographers don’t actually care, because repeat customers usually aren’t an issue – there’s always somebody else going to get married.

One of the biggest sins that almost all wedding photographers commit is getting in the way. At a recent family wedding I attended, the photographer and his two assistants continuously hovered in front of the couple, machine-gunning away with flashes. The problem here is that a) quarters were pretty tight, as with Asian weddings a portion of the ceremony is traditionally at home, and most homes can’t easily accommodate the hundred or more invited guests; b) as a family member or guest, you can’t see anything. For starters, this pisses off your family; not to mention feeling like you’re being mobbed by paparazzi. As a couple, ask yourself: is this wedding for us, for the family, or for the photographers? Because as an external observer, it sure as hell feels like the latter.

And that’s not the only trespass. Over the top airbrushing, or use of hideous filters – think applying the entire Instapop or Hipstagram or whatever repertoire to every image – to hide fundamental compositional sloppiness or focusing errors at critical moments – is de rigeur. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen a single wedding banquet slideshow which contained anything approaching a natural looking image – and I’ve attended dozens of weddings in the last couple of years. Do you really need thousands of crappy photos instead of perhaps fifty, or a hundred, perfectly-timed, natural, emotional ones?

Of course not! But that’s difficult to produce, and thus makes for a very poor business model, so nobody does it. Which is a shame: the ideal wedding photographer could exist, and with some customer education, do pretty well. What attributes should such a mythical creature have?

1. Don’t get in the way. The wedding is for the couple and the family, not the photographer and his assistants.
2. Don’t miss critical moments – you don’t need twenty cake cutting shots, you just need one or two well-timed ones.
3. Look for emotion, and capture only emotion. Preserve the atmosphere and the feeling. We are human. Your audience is human. Your clients are human. They’ll look at the images and instantly feel that connection to the subject when looking at the images afterwards.
4. Less is more: spend some time curating, and you’ll find that you now have time to process each image individually instead of running them all through the SuperSoft-Crayolamatic-HDR filter.
5. Know who the key players are: you don’t have to get headshots of everybody, but if you miss the tearful mother of the bride hugging her daughter because you thought it was her kindergarten teacher, your clients probably aren’t going to be happy.

6. Be prepared! Don’t miss a shot because something wasn’t set right or malfunctioning or you weren’t paying attention. Get the program beforehand. If in doubt, shadow the bride. Doing otherwise is a cardinal sin.
7. Images don’t take a month to deliver, especially if you’re running them through filters or delivering JPEGs. There is NO EXCUSE! If a guest can find time to process each shot individually and deliver in a couple of days, and it isn’t even his job, then as a ‘professional’, it’s just embarrassing.
8. Break out of your stylistic silo occasionally – there are a lot of big-name society wedding photographers here who have a compositional repertoire that can be counted on less than the fingers of one hand.
9. Don’t overdo the output.
10. Be reasonable about what you charge – this goes in both directions. If you’re good, don’t kill the market for everybody (and yourself) by undercharging. Similarly, if you’re crap, don’t rip clients off. Steer them towards quality instead of quantity and location productions if they can’t afford it – ultimately, they’ll be happier, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this will in turn be good for your business.

Most importantly, as a photographer, make sure you have integrity in what you do. It might just be work to you, but it is a once-in-a-lifetime day for somebody – you’ve been hired to do a job, don’t mess it up. This is the number one reason why I probably won’t ever shoot weddings – playing it safe doesn’t deliver that something extra; but at the same time, taking risks is also a no-no in case you miss the shot. And I wouldn’t want to fall short on either count for the client.

As a consumer, be educated: know what you want in terms of style, deliverable, and how much it should roughly cost – see the work of many people and get quotes before you make a decision. Ask a photographer friend for an opinion if in doubt. The more informed you are, the better a product you’re going to get. Don’t be bridezilla, either. MT

____________

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook and join the reader Flickr group!

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

My thought process when shooting

August 29, 2012 by Ming Thein

One of the more common questions I’ve been asked recently (aside from what my Photoshop workflow looks like) is what my thought process is when shooting. This basically breaks down into two streams – am I in control of the situation photographically, or not?

By that I don’t mean whether I’m out of my depth or not; it’s about whether I have the ability to direct exactly the elements in my frame. The order doesn’t mean that one item is hugely prioritized over another; it isn’t. It’s more a case of if I have no choice,then which comes first?

In a controlled setting – studio, tripod, portrait, macro, landscape etc
Lighting
Perspective
Framing/ composition
Subject positioning
Reflections/ specular highlights
Edges
Exposure
Focus

The first things you’ll notice is that the subject doesn’t even enter into the equation – why? Well, it might as well be taken as given the there will be a clear subject to the image if I’m going to bother setting up lights to photograph it! This too, is the main reason why one would work in a controlled setting – the ability to perfectly light your subject, as well as control the composition precisely. You’ve got all the time in the world to perfect focus, and the exposure you select falls out of your lighting choices; this is why some minutae like reflections and subject positioning take precedence: simply because they can.

Perspective comes before framing, because you’re working in a situation where you have the luxury of choosing and fine tuning your perspective for every shot – no matter if that requires a ladder and telephoto. Your subject and light will wait for you.

It’s also worthwhile nothing that the processing I do in Photoshop for controlled images is very different to uncontrolled ones; I don’t have to use gradients to even out light; I don’t have to do shadow/ highlight recovery to control my dynamic range; I don’t have to spend time getting the color balance perfect. It simply isn’t necessary, because if you know what you’re doing, you should have gotten it right in camera in the first place.

In a non-controlled setting – photojournalism, street, travel
Lighting
Subject (interchangeable with lighting)
Framing/ composition/ perspective
Edges
Secondary subject
Exposure
Focus
Shoot a burst
Reset camera settings to a neutral position

Without light, your subject is invisible. And without a subject, framing is pointless; if your composition is poor, then the edges don’t matter; if you don’t have a clearly defined primary subject that’s supported by strong framing and well lit, then secondary subjects are meaningless.

There will be situations in which you’ll see the shot, and have not much time to react; this is where having a strong working process helps. I shoot aperture priority; I’m always adjusting aperture, exposure compensation and focus distance on the fly (if I’m using a manual focus camera) depending on the lighting conditions. When it gets dark, I frequently kick over to manual mode, take the camera out of auto-ISO and rely on my internal light meter. It’s not that difficult to get a consistent exposure when shooting manual; do it enough and you can usually judge the right exposure by eye – more often than not getting within 1/2 stop or so of the ideal exposure, which is well within the post-capture adjustment latitude of digital. This continual ‘fiddling of the dials’ does have the downside of making it look as though I’ve got some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but it does result in my camera always being ready to shoot – and this makes me pretty quick on the draw.

This is why I place the technical execution – exposure and focus – last, because a strong composition will always be a strong composition, regardless of whether it’s tack sharp or somewhat grainy. If you capture something amazing, nobody will care what it was shot with because a) they’ll be too busy looking at the subject, and b) it’ll probably make the rounds via the internet, which as we all know, isn’t exactly a high-fidelity reproduction medium. When photographing under conditions where you are continually responding rather than being proactive, it’s better to get a shot with a strong idea rather than one with strong technical qualities but no idea. Nobody ever criticized Robert Capa for camera shake; but by the same token, I don’t think Annie Leibowitz was ever rushed on a shoot, either.

I want to add a note on the framing/ composition/ perspective portion – I do the majority of my work with just one or two focal lengths – 28/85mm; especially when it comes to travel and reportage. The simple reason is because I’m so familiar with the perspective and field of view of these lenses that I can frame without having to bring the camera to my eye; it’s as though I’m always walking around with the frame lines suspended in my field of vision. Sticking to one or two lenses and training yourself to see this way can also hugely improve your response time – being able to previsualize/ precompose the shot hugely improves your reaction time, and avoids having to waste time in framing. I then usually take a burst of a few images both to alleviate camera shake (the middle one is usually sharp because your shutter finger isn’t moving) and to perfect composition, especially around the edges.

In summary, controlled situations are all about getting the picture perfect – because you have the control and ability to do so. Reactive situations are about being always prepared and ready to get the shot – some things can be done in advance, such as setting exposure and anticipated subject distance, some things can be done in parallel, like looking for light, subject and framing; others you have to adjust for afterwards, for example, uneven exposure across the frame – there are gradients in Photoshop to take care of that.

How you choose to take care of the details is up to you; but the general advice is to make sure you take control of the things which have the biggest impact on the audience of your image first. MT

____________

Enter the August 2012 competition: Compact Challenge – here!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider supporting the site via Paypal ([email protected]); Ming Thein’s Email School of Photography – learn exactly what you want to learn, when you want to learn it or our Photoshop workflow DVDs. You can also get your gear from Amazon.com via this referral link. Prices are the same as normal, however a small portion of your purchase value is referred back to me. Thanks!

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook and join the Flickr group!

Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, essay, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, photography, thein, thought process, when I'm shooting

10×10: 100 ways to improve your photography

August 26, 2012 by Ming Thein

This article was originally posted in a series of 10 mini-exerpts back in the very early days of the site; Google Analytics tells me that it was hardly viewed, which is probably a shame – so I’ve re-packaged, updated and re-presented it again here as a monster all-in-one reference. Enjoy. MT

Disclaimer: I’m assuming you already know the basics.

Part one: Compact cameras

Pretty much everybody has a compact, even if it’s only the one built into your phone. It’s no good for serious photography. Or is it? You might find yourself using it more if you try some of these ideas…

10: Carry spare batteries. One in the camera, one in your pocket or one charging. This lets you keep going – especially important since compact battery life is often terrible.

Crossing thoughts. Ricoh GRDIII

9: Use the hand strap. It seems obvious, doesn’t it? But you’d be surprised how many people don’t, and then land up having to buy new cameras.

Car reflection. Ricoh GRDIII

8: Shoot bursts, if you have a useable buffer. Without the buffer, you’ll just have to rely on timing and counting shots – think of it as a revolver rather than a machine gun. The same rules about the middle shot being stable and sharp in a burst also apply to compacts.

Zoom. Ricoh GRDIII

7: Keep ISO as low as possible, and make use of the stabilizer. Most good compacts have stabilizers; this is because even with the 1/focal length rule, there’ll be enough camera shake to blur things – you’re holding a light object at arms’ length and trying to keep it still. Granted, there’s no mirror slap, but there’s also nothing to brace against, either. Keeping the ISO as low as possible lets you maximize image quality. There’s usually a big difference between even base ISO and one stop up; know the limits of usability and don’t exceed them.

Crossing, London. Ricoh GRDIII

6: Look at the whole frame. I’m not sure how to say this more succinctly: there are things compacts can do that larger sensor cameras can’t – think of telephoto/ compressed perspective shots where everything is in focus, for example – and vice versa (shallow depth of field, wide FoV). Look at the whole scene, and see how you can use these strengths to your advantage. Images shot with compacts that work actually force you to have a much stronger composition, because you cannot rely on the crutch of bokeh or let the lens do the talking.

On set in the afternoon. Ricoh GRDIII

5: Spot meter. Dynamic range on all compacts is limited because the pixels are small. This means losing the shadows or the highlights is inevitable under most situations; you need to decide which one is important. The spot meter (and a half press to lock exposure) helps you to do that. High key = keep the shadows and lose the highlights; low key = keep the highlights and lose the shadows; most important however is making sure the subject is properly exposed – use the spot meter over faces, for instance. The other alternative is to use the spot meter on highlights and add a stop of exposure compensation – the meter will try to average a middle gray exposure out of whatever you place the box over; you know the camera has a little more tonal range in it if the highlights are at middle gray, so you can safely add some positive exposure compensation. This generally makes the rest of the image a little dark – especially under harsh light – but it also has the side benefit of making the colors richer.

The fountain of capitalism. Ricoh GRDIII

4: Use P mode. I’d say leave it in full auto, except most of the time that doesn’t let you control exposure compensation and metering – those are important. Why not use aperture priority, as I’d recommend with a larger sensor camera? Simple: there’s no point. The real focal length is so wide and the lenses usually so slow that DoF is enormous, and changing the aperture isn’t going to do anything other than reduce the amount of light reaching the sensor. Great if it’s bright, but if you stop down too much, you’re going to to induce diffraction and just land up with soft images.

Affection waiting for the bus. Ricoh GRDIII

3: Keep the lens clean. I’m constantly surprised by how many people have dirty lenses on their cameras and then complain that the images aren’t sharp, or that they can’t see anything in the finder – but there’s fingerprints all over it. It’s especially important on a compact as the small sensor and high pixel density are very demanding of lenses; the more aberrations you have on yours, the lower resolving power is going to be.

After prayers. Canon SD780IS

2: Prefocus. Although focusing speeds have improved dramatically, what’s really nice about most point and shoots is the half press to full press lag is actually quite low – but you need to be prefocused first. In any case, the huge DoF will cover any minor focus errors. Most fleeing moments can be captured with a compact and a little anticipation.

Break. Ricoh GRDIII

1: Set up your camera to either shoot raw, or output as neutral a jpeg as possible. If you can’t get a raw file, there’s still a lot that can be done with a good jpeg – what I usually do is reduce contrast to minimum to preserve the highlights and shadows; turn saturation down, and lower (but not zero) sharpening. Reason being that if you zero sharpening, you do generally lose some detail on compacts as this step is applied to the raw data in the imaging engine before being saved as a jpeg. You’ll be surprised how much you can do with one of these files afterwards in photoshop. Similarly, avoid those fake HDR or extended dynamic range modes; they might appear to help but what they actually do is make highlights look very unnatural because the tonal values overlap with other parts of the luminance range.

Vehicular architecture. Apple iPhone 4

See more of my small-sensor compact camera work here on flickr: click here

Part two: DSLRs

Disclaimer: I’m assuming you know the basics already, but want to get serious.

10: Control your view. Use the viewfinder when you can; there’s less lag, you can brace the camera against your face to increase stability, the dynamic range and resolution are higher, it’s a more direct connection to your subject and it saves power to boot. But why not use live view if you’ve got it, especially coupled with a swiveling screen? For critical focus, odd angles, and video, it’s actually pretty handy. Though I personally avoid it like the plague unless i have no choice.

The big brass band. Not strictly an SLR shot, but live view did help me to get this angle without sticking my face on the floor. Leica X1

9: Shutter button technique matters. You’d be surprised how many people just jab the button and wonder why the camera isn’t responding. Firstly, don’t jab. Roll your finger gently to reduce camera shake. Secondly, prefocus; the shutter button has two stages – the first activating autofocus, the second, shutter release. If you have focus already going, then your lag is going to be much, much shorter than if the camera has to do all the work when you press the button – even on the fastest cameras. Finally, you’d be surprised how many people use the horizontal release in portrait orientation even if they have a vertical one – don’t. It’s less stable, and frankly you just look silly.

Night party. It looks bright, but the EXIF will tell you otherwise. I needed every single trick in the book to get this shot: stratospheric ISOs, low shutter speeds, and a fast f1.4 lens wide open. Nikon D700, 24/1.4.

8: Turn the in-camera sharpening and contrast up to maximum. What? Why? There’ll be haloes! I can hear the cries of incomprehension and derision already. First caveat: you must shoot raw. Second caveat: use a raw processor that ignores the camera’s proprietary processing tags, e.g. Adobe Camera Raw. The reason why you want to crank both of these things up is that the camera’s preview engine generates a jpeg based on these settings; if your exposure is okay with the contrast at maximum, then you know you’ll have more shadow and highlight latitude. And high sharpening accentuates the differences between in focus and out of focus.And it also accentuates noise; basically, the combination of these settings makes it easier for you to tell if you’ve nailed it or not.

Work that perspective. Nikon D3, 70-300VR

7: Don’t let zoom lenses make you lazy. Select a focal length based on perspective, not angle of view: in other words, don’t use a wide lens because you want to get more of the scenery in, or a telephoto because you want to get closer. Instead, wide is for accentuating perspective, telephoto is for compressing it.

Action. An interpretation of the famous first series of motor drive images that showed a galloping horse’s legs do in fact leave the ground simultaneously. Nikon D700, 28-300VR

6: Shoot in bursts. Events evolve. The first shot may not be the best, or you or your subject may move. A burst is insurance, and if they’re all perfectly focused and exposed, then it lets you select the best image – say for minor variations in facial expression of a portrait. Note that I don’t mean machine gunning the shutter until your buffer is full; three or four shots is usually plenty.

Fire. The balloon was firing on and off unpredictably. It would be a lot more difficult to get this shot without auto ISO. Nikon D3100, 85/1.4 G

5: Use auto-ISO, but only if it’s configurable. If the minimum shutter speed is not configurable, you don’t know at what shutter speed the camera is going to start bumping the sensitivity; if it’s too early, your images will be grainer than they need to be. If it’s too late, then you may not have enough shutter speed for a sharp shot.

Cheers. Tough lighting; how do you know what your camera is going to expose for if you haven’t tried it out? Nikon D700, 85/1.4 G

4: Know what your camera is doing: AF, metering, auto-ISO. This is actually very, very important. If you don’t know how your camera responds under a given situation, how do you know if you can get the image or not? There’s no shortcut to this other than a lot of practice and experimentation.

Alien. I prefocused on the spot where the man would be when the light was exactly behind and over him, then waited. Nikon D3, 24-70/2.8 G

3: Have some way to control your AF: either use AF-ON or AF-L, together with continuous focusing. Autofocus is an aid, not a crutch. Auto-select point systems will seldom select the point you want; they’re useful, but only in an environment where you have a lot of randomly moving subjects and need to pick the closest one. When you have something a bit more sedate, tell the camera what to focus on. Use continuous autofocus, because everything moves, if only slightly; the larger your aperture, the more this will matter because depth of field is shallower and probably won’t be sufficient to cover subject movement. I prefer to have AF activation on the shutter button and an AF-Lock button configured under my right thumb – this is so I know I can just press one button and have a high chance of getting the shot – but I also know of plenty (most sports shooters?) who configure AF-ON under the thumb, and the shutter button to capture the image only. AF Lock for that configuration is of course done by releasing the AF-ON button. Try both and see which works for you.

This was actually shot in a well lit carpark, but with a stopped down lens and fast shutter speed to eliminate ambient and have nearly 100% of the exposure provided by the flash. If I’d shot aperture priority, I’d still be able to see the surroundings. Nikon D700, 28-300VR and three SB900s.

2: Shoot aperture priority, except for flash. This is the easiest way to maximize control of your camera: aperture priority to control depth of field, manual mode if you need to balance flash and ambient lighting.

Watching the world pass by. Imagine this frame without the edge intrusions: it’d feel pretty different, wouldn’t it? Nikon D700, 85/1.4 G

1: Watch the edges of your frame. I’ll say it time and again: what usually makes or breaks a photo, or the difference between an excellent image and an outstanding one, is how well the subject stands out. This is both a function of subject lighting, positioning and focus, as well as the inverse: what other things are there in the frame that take attention away from the subject? Intrusions into edges are one of the main ones. Conversely, there are also compositions where edge intrusions are welcome, or even make the image: they suggest things that might not be there, or leave things to the imagination of the reader. Use with care!

Part three: Mirrorless cameras

Mirrorless: the middle child? Maybe. But even a diehard sceptic like me has discovered that these things have their uses –just be clear about your expectations.

10: Spare batteries are an absolute must. Due to the large sensor, LCD and high demands from lens focusing motors, stabilizers and the like, mirrorless cameras have the highest power draw of any type of camera (other than medium format digital, it seems). Make sure you have at least two to get you through a day, maybe with an additional spare.

Moon over Prague Castle tower. Olympus E-PM1, 45/1.8

9: When selecting a camera, look at two things: useability (including lens choices) and raw sensor quality. I’ve tried the Panasonics, Sonys, Fuji and Olympus systems; of all of these, only the Olympus E-PM1 Pen Mini stayed more than a month. Why? Because it’s the most responsive and configurable of them all. The Panasonics are very configurable but not very user friendly. The Fuji X100 has the best image quality, but the firmware is a disaster and it’s slow as molasses. The Sony is reasonably responsive, but not so easily configurable and the lens choices are pretty limited. And the NEX-5 I owned had a strange color palette. And don’t pick one so big that you might as well take your DSLR.

Lange Datograph. Olympus E-PM1, Panasonic 20/1.7

8: Use a hand strap instead of a neck strap. If it’s in your hand, you’ll be ready faster. And more likely to use it. And the weight/ size aren’t so bad you need to hang it around your neck or shoulder for relief. It also takes up less space in your bag when you have to store it.

Reflections. Olympus E-PM1, 14-42 kit lens

7: Adaptors are useless. Although they seem like a good idea, mirrorless systems are optimized for telecentric lenses with very short back flange distances; conventional SLR or RF lenses aren’t designed like this and thus don’t work well on mirrorless cameras. It’s quite well known that RF wides have numerous issues like cyan/magenta shifted corners, increased CA and vignetting. Adapted lenses are also bulky and lacking in automation – no AF, no aperture control, no stabilizer. And accurately manually focusing something held at arms’ length is near impossible.

Burlesque. Olympus E-PM1, Panasonic 20/1.7

6: Remember the lag. Even though release lag may be in the 30-40ms range, you’re going to have another lag induced by the LCD itself – the best models refresh at 60hz, which means you’re looking at least another 15-20ms (or more) of additional lag as the screen refreshes to show the current scene. Practice to get a feel for the rhythm of the camera.

Garage classic. Fuji X100

5: Avoid continuous AF. Contrast detect AF systems still aren’t good enough to track moving subjects – with the exception of the hybrid system in the Nikon V1 that also has phase detect photosites built into the sensor – so either prefocus and anticipate, or cover with DOF.

After school in Kathmandu. Fuji X100

4: Carry it everywhere. No point sacrificing image quality if you’re going to leave it at home like the full size camera. This is also why I’m drawn to the smaller, more pocketable mirrorless cameras like the Olympus Pen Mini. I’ve put it on a hand strap and use a pancake lens most of the time; it’s not a lot bigger than a compact but produces vastly better image quality.

Mosque architecture. Sony NEX-5, 18-55 kit lens.

3: Use the EVF if you’ve got one. Like any optical finder, bracing the camera against your face helps stability immensely. I’m not recommending going out and buying an add-on finder; these are usually flimsy, unwieldy and dramatically increase the size of the camera – defeating the point of mirrorless in the first place.

Before prayers. Sony NEX-5, 18-55 kit lens.

2: 1/focal length rule doesn’t apply anymore. Why not, aside from crop factor? Because most of the time you’ll be using live view and holding the camera at arms’ length – this means increased propensity towards camera shake. Double, or even triple that for critical shots or action. Or use a flash. And while stabilizers help, they probably bring the safe speed into the 1/fl rule or maybe very slightly better.

Arch. Sony NEX-5, 18-55 kit lens.

1: Compose like an SLR, shoot like a compact. They’re hybrids, right? Treat them as such. You get the DOF of an SLR – which means you have to watch your focus point, and take care in choosing perspectives. But you also have the limitations of a compact – so remember to watch your exposure/ highlights/ shadows; prefocus; don’t expect it to be able to track moving objects. Remember the limitations of both, and that should give you a good idea of how to get the most out of your mirrorless camera.

Hitchcock scene, Vienna. Olympus E-PM1, 45/1.8

See more of my work from the various large-sensor mirrorless cameras here on flickr: Olympus Pen Mini E-PM1; Sony NEX-5; Fuji X100; Leica X1

Part four: Rangefinders

10: Timing, timing, timing: shoot lots and get to know the lag rhythm of your camera. It might feel instant, but it isn’t. That split second can make or break the difference in a critical shot, especially during a fast-paced situation – that fleeting expression, or arrangement of people.

Entranced. Leica M9-P, 35/1.4 ASPH FLE

9: Get to know your lenses: There is no such thing as the perfect lens. All of them have idiosyncrasies, be it focus breathing, focus shift, curved focus planes, flare under certain conditions, or maybe the ability to produce brilliant 14-pointed stars from point light sources at f16. (Don’t laugh, the Leica 21 Summilux ASPH does this.) The better you know your lenses and the way they draw, the more you can exploit their properties to help your pictorial rendition of a given situation. It’s also why I’ve got eight ways to get to 28mm – there’s a huge difference between the Zeiss ZF.2 2/28 ‘Hollywood’ Distagon and the Ricoh GR-Digital III, for instance.

Gluhwein time, Vienna. Leica M9-P, 50/1.4 ASPH

8: Use a soft release and thumb grip (and maybe front grip). Anything that can make your grip more secure or comfortable, and your shutter release action more gentle, is your friend. I like the Thumbs Up, personally.

Seeing the wood from the trees. Leica M9-P, 21/3.4 Super Elmar ASPH

7: Don’t limit your subjects to the center focus point. You can focus and then recompose. But remember that most lenses aren’t flat field (especially rangefinder designs, which are usually non-retrofocus and spherical) so a little tweak to the focus ring is required for edge subjects – usually to make the focus point slightly closer, as the focal plane will be curved slightly around you. Experience is required to determine exactly how much and when to shift – this is why I also highly recommend using fewer lenses but knowing them well.

Morning mass, Stefansdom. Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

6: Use the DoF scales to prefocus. Especially useful with wide lenses, whose large DoF means that you might even be able to shoot hyper focal and not have to focus at all: especially great for being fast and reducing time between seeing the shot and capturing it. Very important skill for street photography and photojournalism. You can practice this by estimating distances and setting your lens with the camera at waist level, then checking in the finder.

Self portraits. Leica M9, 35/1.4 ASPH FLE

5: Pay attention to the edges. The frame lines are a suggestion: there will be more included. With experience, you can push the composition a bit and still get everything in.

Color wall. Leica M9-P, 50/2 APO

4: Shoot with both eyes open. The nice, bright, high-magnification finders are great for letting you a) see what’s outside your frame and might make composition better or worse if included or excluded; and b) you can keep both eyes open to enhance your peripheral vision. It’ll also stop you from getting run over.

Tea time. Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

3: Know the limitations of the system. By their nature, your finder will probably only cover 28-135, and not be very accurate for 90 and 135. So really, the strengths of the system lie in the 28-75mm range; don’t try and do birding with one of these things and wonder why your results aren’t up to par. (Note: I do use my M9-P for macro work, but that’s a different story entirely.)

Bangkok. Leica M9-P, 35/1.4 ASPH FLE

2: Less is more. Rangefinders are small and light: why burden yourself and turn photography into endurance sherpa-ing? Try reducing your regular kit to two, or better yet, one lens. Either something which provides to distinctly different perspectives, or perhaps something in-between. I choose 28/50, after a long time trying to make the single 35 work for me. It just didn’t agree with the way my eyes worked, which is a shame because the 35/1.4 ASPH FLE I had was easily one of the best lenses I’d ever used, period.

As above, so below. Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

1: Check your rangefinder calibration. There’s nothing worse than shooting an entire series at f1.4 and thinking you nailed focus – or at least remembered doing so in the finder while shooting – then being horrified as you open up the set only to find your subjects’ noses in focus and their eyes a distant plane away. If you know how to calibrate your rangefinder, great; if not, it might be the subject of a future post here (but I take no responsibility if you damage something or void your warranty). If you don’t dare, send it in to your dealer. The best thing you can do is have your body calibrated to match all of your lenses – so send them all in at the same time. The next best thing is to have it calibrated for the lens with the shallowest DoF; the one exception is if the lens suffers from focus shift. Then you’ve got no choice but to calibrate for your most frequently used lens and remember which direction to adjust for later. Check calibration often and if you get a new, shallower DoF lens. One last related point: make sure all of your viewfinder windows (VF, RF patch, frame lines, front VF) are clean – you’ll be surprised how much easier it is to focus!

Bonus for Leica M8/9 users: The meter is center weighted and very heavily biased towards protecting highlights. So, for backlit subjects there are a few ways of compensating. a) Lock exposure with the camera aimed at something of roughly equal luminance but not backlit; this works on the shutter half-press position (with a little dot displayed at the top between the leftmost digits in the finder) if you’ve got the release mode set to standard. b) For M9 users, use the rear dial to activate exposure compensation. I personally don’t like this, because I have no idea if I have it set or not, and if so, how much. c) If you’re shooting with fixed and not auto-ISO, then note the shutter reading in the finder, and move the shutter dial to something appropriate. I use a slightly more complicated method, with auto-ISO: if the shutter speed displayed is over the minimum you set, then you know the camera is in base ISO. I just manually set it to something lower; the camera can’t lower the ISO any more, so it overexposes as desired. If the situation is dark and you’re above base ISO, this doesn’t work. In very dark situations, I usually just leave the camera at ISO 1250 and go manual with the exposure.

See more of my work with the Leica M9-P here on Flickr: click here And for earlier work with the M8, click here

Part five: Photojournalism and street

Photojournalism (hereafter PJ) and street photography go hand in hand: they’re about capturing a moment of life. PJ goes a bit further by adding a story to that moment; street can just be an aesthetically pleasing moment in and of itself. Both though require the photographer to be observant and ready. This is what works for me.

Protest Kabila, Prague. Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

10: Watch your shutter speeds. You’re going to need more than 1/focal length – maybe 1/2x to be safe, or even 1/3x if you’re running and gunning. You’re moving, your subject is moving, and nothing is steady. Remember also that the higher the resolution your camera, the less forgiving it is of focus errors and camera shake.

Rain, London. Ricoh GRDIII

9: Small, nondescript cameras are best. They don’t draw attention to you – especially in the current day and age of everybody carrying a camera, nobody is going to take you seriously if you have a small black compact. You’d be surprised how much I get away with using the iPhone or Ricoh GR-Digital III. People simply don’t perceive it as threatening in the same way a pro DSLR and 70-200 might be. Compacts also give you more depth of field for a given aperture.

Morning paper, London. Ricoh GRDIII

8: Shoot wide and close. The perspective produces a stronger image; wide lenses are also more forgiving to focus errors and camera shake. And as a bonus, you get context in the frame as par for the course.

Learning English. London. Leica M8, 21/1.4

7: Anticipate and observe. To quote the Cartier-Bresson: pick the decisive moment. To do so, you need to be aware of everything around you; really look. Pay attention to the details. People are fairly predictable; it should be easy to spot if something out of the ordinary is about to happen. Anticipation of the action gives you a vital few seconds more to prepare and be in position, or have the camera out.

Bicycle, Kathmandu. Nikon D700, 24/1.4

6: Blend in. Act like you belong, dress nondescript, and nobody will pay you a second glance. It will make your job a lot easier. If you draw attention to yourself – be it by being uncertain or provocative – then people of course notice.

Oblivious. I was standing 3 feet in front of them. Canon IXUS 220HS

5: Always have the camera to hand. How are you going to get a quick shot off if the camera is in your bag? You should be able to get a shot in less than 5 seconds – sometimes your window is even shorter than that.

Trekking office, Kathmandu. Nikon D700, 85/1.4 G

4: In a real emergency, help. Yes, our duty as a PJ is to record, document, communicate and raise awareness about the events around you; you help by telling a story. But you don’t have to shoot all the time. Get your shot and then help out the people. Remember that at the end of the day, we’re all human.

Street party. They would need help the following morning. I didn’t stay that long. Nikon D700, 85/1.4 G

3: Practice, practice, practice. Use your camera until you’re fast and proficient; you should be able to visualize the frame and field of view without having to raise the camera to your eye. You should be able to set things by muscle memory and have a group of settings (if your camera supports this) that configures the camera to be ready to go.

Reflections. Leica X1

2: If spotted, acknowledge your subject. A friendly smile, a sincere nod – all of these things make people feel comfortable with your presence and make your life easy. You don’t have to stop and talk or explain what you’re doing if nobody is asking. Smile and move on. Done.

Smoking break. Olympus E-PM1, 45/1.8

1: Be confident. It is better to say sorry rather than ask permission and miss the shot. With that, go out and be productive.

Martial law, Kathmandu. Nikon D700, 24/1.4

See more of my photojournalism work here on flickr: click here

Part six: Lighting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alfabeti. Nikon D700, 60/2.8 G 2xSB900s

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

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

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

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

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

Note the eyes. Leica X1, SB900.

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

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

Part seven: Postproduction and editing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Intentional color. Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

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

Sunset shadow. Nikon D90, 18-200VR.

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

The Beach. Leica M8, 50/1.4 ASPH

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

Turning it up to 11. Nikon D90, 105VR

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

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

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

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

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

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

Part Eight: General tips for all photographers

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

Prague. Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But surely it will make me a better photographer!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Part nine: Birding and wildlife

The focus of this post is on birding and wildlife: it’s something that every aspiring serious amateur photographer will probably try at least once, usually right after they purchase an enormous telephoto lens. Bragging rights are only good if you have the images to go along with the lens.

Cattle egret. Nikon D3, 400/2.8 VRII

10: Dress right, bring mosquito/ insect repellant, and carry a bottle of water and a hat. The environment where some animals live can be harsh and remote. You’re not going to be concentrating on the photography if you’re not comfortable.

Scarlet ibises. Nikon D3, 70-300VR

9: Pay attention to the time of day. There’s no wrong or right time to shoot, but there is good light and bad light. Bad light is flat and uninteresting, and doesn’t flatter your subject. Good light is always tangential and thus creates contrasts; better still, it can isolate your subject from the background. And if there’s plenty of it, that’s a bonus because you can use a higher shutter speed.

Eagle. Nikon D3, 300/2.8 VR + 1.4x

8: A sharp but noisy image is better than a noise-free but blur one. Unless your intention is to be artistic or atmospheric, it’s better to have grain than none but also no idea what the subject actually is. This goes for all subjects, and types of photography: if your subject and composition are strong enough, nobody is going to care that the shot is grainy – look at Robert Capa’s Normandy Beach landing photos.

Albino peacock. Nikon D3, 300/2.8 VR + 1.4x TC

7: Use single point continuous AF. Avoid the temptation to let the camera decide the AF point; it will almost never focus on the eyes, and certainly won’t be able to recognize animal faces (except perhaps some chimpanzees.) Continuous AF is necessary because your depth of field is razor thin; a little movement to and fro either by you or your subject can move focus dramatically.

A thoughtful scratch. Nikon D200, 300/2.8 VR + 1.4x TC

6: Shoot in bursts. Two reasons for this: action usually unfolds in a sequence, and the first image may not be the most interesting; secondly, if you’re using a borderline shutter speed, then the burst helps to negate the effects of your finger pushing the shutter (and also camera). The first and last shots will usually be blur, but the middle group will be sharp because you didn’t have to move your finger in between.

Stealth duck. Nikon D200, 300/2.8 VR + 1.4x TC

5: Focus on the eyes. With all living things, the eyes are the key to the soul. I can’t explain why, but everybody knows that a portrait with the subject looking at the camera is a lot more powerful than one where you just see the back of the person’s head. The same goes for wildlife. Better yet if you can get a catchlight in the pupil, be it the sun or a very small fill flash.

Caught in the act of lunch. Nikon D200, AI 500/4 P

4: Have support. I don’t mean a sherpa team or an agony aunt. The longer the lens, the more support you’re going to need. A 0.1 degree camera movement with a wide lens covering 100 degrees horizontally is going to produce 0.1% blur, which you can probably get away with on a small print; but an 0.1 degree camera movement with a 5 degree field of view – corresponding to a 500mm lens – is equivalent to a whopping 2% blur. That shot will be so bad it might as well be completely out of focus. A gimbal head and solid tripod legs are great, but not very mobile. What I prefer to do is use a stout carbon-fiber monopod and rest my arm on the top of the lens to tension the system; if I’ve got something convenient to lean on, then I’ll use a bean bag to support the lens. This gets worse as your lenses get longer – I normally used an old manual focus 500/4 with 1.4x converter on DX, meaning 1,050mm equivalent. Handheld, this is an impossible combination to aim and hold, let alone get a steady shot with. With the monopod technique, 1/50s was routinely possible.

Angry cassowary. Olympus E-410, Nikon AI 500/4 P + 1.4x TC

3: Know our subject. Do your research, learn behavioral patterns, feeding patterns and anything else such as favorite watering spots or trees; the more you know about your subject, the easier it will be to find it and go unnoticed. Also, identify rare or unusual behavior – further adding something unique to your image.

The bird with the sun hat. Canon 1D Mark III, 500/4 L IS

2: Patience, patience, patience. The rarer your subject, the longer it’s going to take for you to a) find it and b) get into a position where you can shoot it, or where it stays still for long enough for you to get a good image. Give up and call it a day only when you absolutely can’t stand waiting any longer; some of the most stunning wildlife images – think of the BBC Planet Earth series – were only captured after years of waiting.

Dancing flamingoes. Nikon D2H, 55-200/4-5.6 DX

1: Be ready and stay alert. Usually most interesting action happens in a split second; if you’re not ready with your settings fixed and your finger on the shutter, you’re going to miss it. This one seems to conflict with #2, but it really doesn’t; it’s what makes wildlife photography so difficult. Endless waiting, but the need to be vigilant. In the end though, the results pay off.

More of my nature and wildlife work can be seen here on flickr

Part 10: Macrophotography

Lange Datograph. Nikon D700, 60/2.8 G

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More of my watch work can be seen here on flickr

____________

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook and join the reader Flickr group!

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

Understanding lens-related descriptive terms

August 24, 2012 by Ming Thein

I realize that in almost all of my past lens reviews, I use terms whose meanings may not be immediately obvious to everybody – allow me firstly to apologize for that, and remedy the situation by explaining some of the more comment terms I use. Note: This is not a technical lexicon (that’s in the works) but rather an attempt to help readers get an understanding of what I mean by ‘luminous transparency’, for instance. I know a lot of you are going to ask for images; I’ll add them in the future once I can find suitable examples. In the meantime, read the text and see if you can spot what I’m seeing in review images, or alternatively, make a small donation via Paypal to contribute towards a straightjacket if you think I’ve gone completely insane. MT

Aberration
Any sort of limitation in the optics that causes distortions in the final image, i.e. straight lines not rendered straight, curved planes of focus, incomplete spectra resulting in inaccurate colors etc – it’s a catchall term for imperfections.

Astigmatism
An effect where the left and right sides of the lens do not render symmetrically, e.g. left edge softer than right edge. Usually the product of misaligned elements. Note that most lenses are capable of theoretically much better results than in reality; the limitation is due to manufacturing tolerances and the impossibility of aligning everything perfectly. Such optical limitations are far more obvious on high resolution sensors, which means that you should really test the specific lens sample you’re going to buy before you actually pay for it…
Note that astigmatism can also be a design flaw where sagittal and tangential rays come into focus at different planes; it looks quite similar to coma. (Thank you Oskar O for pointing this out.)

Bokeh
A general reference to the out of focus areas in an image. Smooth bokeh has no uneven luminance values across the out of focus areas, or hard/ sharp edges, and renders even complex out-of-focus subjects in a uniformly blurred manner. Nervous bokeh is mostly smooth, but can be provoked into double images with the wrong kind of out of focus subject. Bad bokeh is full of oddities like double images, hard edges, artificial highlights, texture in blur areas etc – in other words, it distracts the eye from the primary subject and outweighs it visually. Swirly bokeh is where the background areas are rendered in a spiral pattern as though rotated; this is a trait of many fast lenses – especially the Leica 50/1 Noctilux.

Chromatic aberration
Light is made up of different wavelengths; uncorrected, these focus at different distances away from the lens, resulting in a lateral spread of color across the focal plane. Well corrected lenses use pairs of chromatic doublet elements that bend all of the wavelengths of light by the same amount at every doublet; this ensures that all wavelengths of light focuses in the same plane. Chromatic aberration, or CA, manifests as red-blue fringing on high contrast areas – this is the image separating out into its constituent spectra. Red and blue are usually the most obvious because they have the greatest difference in wavelengths – between 450 and 750nm or thereabouts.

Cinematic
This is one of the tougher properties to describe, and very personal. For me, a lens is cinematic if it has a few properties – smooth background bokeh, and transparency in foreground bokeh; slightly biased but accurate color transmission – usually warm; minimal to zero chromatic aberration; gentle flare; a well-defined plane of focus. These properties usually require at least a short telephoto to achieve, but there are some shorter lenses that do admirably well – the Zeiss ZF 21/2.8, ZF 28/2, Nikon AFS 24/1.4, Leica 35/1.4 ASPH FLE, 50/1.4 ASPH and 50/0.95 ASPH come to mind.

Cold
A lens whose color transmission is biased in favor of the shorter wavelengths, i.e. blues; it attenuates reds.

Coma
The spreading of point light sources; usually at the edge of the frame. Points will not be rendered as points, but instead somewhat egg shaped – a corona of white with a bright ‘yolk’ at the center.

Contrast
The way a lens renders luminance differences in a scene – high contrast means that these are exaggerated; low contrast means that they are minimized. Low contrast lenses are good for high-contrast scenes, because they help to limit the dynamic range of the transmitted image – and thus leave it within the sensor’s capabilities.

Dark
A lens with high saturation and very low flare or internal reflection; ‘darkness’ in a lens mean that colors are rendered in a rich, saturated manner; low flare and internal reflection reduces the overall key of the image and eliminates bright but low-contrast areas.

Distortion
A flaw in the image where straight lines in the subject are not rendered as such. Perspective distortion is when verticals or horizontals that are not perfectly parallel to the imaging plane converge or diverge; lens-induced distortion (barrel or pincushion) is when straight lines are rendered as curving.

Field curvature
An ideal lens projects a flat subject plane onto a flat image plane; most lenses suffer from a mild degree of curvature in both, which is to say that the projected surfaces of subject and image are the opposite sides of a sphere – curving away from the sensor plane and towards the optical center of the lens at the edges. In real terms, this means that the plane of focus in the subject isn’t always the same distance away from the camera.

Flare
A bright spot in an image caused by internal reflections off surfaces within a lens; usually caused by stray non-image forming light coming in at an oblique angle and reflecting off elements; this kind of flare is well-defined and usually lens-shaped. Flare can also take the form of a general lowering of contrast that appears as a white haziness across the image; this is caused by light scattered off the internal surfaces within a lens assembly – including but not limited to edges of individual elements, helicoids, etc.

Flat field
A lens that does not have perceptible field curvature. Most macro lenses and super telephotos are flat field.

Gentle
A rather abstract concept that is used to describe tonal gradations and contrast; shallow output gradation for a given input gradation would be shallow; the opposite would be strong.

Latitudinal chromatic aberration
Colored fringes (multiple images) on a solid edge caused by different wavelengths of light not focusing in the same place.

Longitudinal chromatic aberration
Colored fringing in the foreground and background areas outside the plane of focus, caused by prismatic separation of different wavelengths of light by the lens elements.

Luminosity
Another useful but slightly vague term; my idea of a luminous lens is one which has some minor degree of flare and moderate to low contrast, resulting in a bright or high-key image. Blacks are not always rendered as true black, and images shot with the lens at the correct exposure turn out somewhat brighter than expected. Not necessarily representative of low microcontrast.

Macrocontrast
The projected difference in tonality in the image, relative to the perceived difference between bright and dark areas of substantial actual luminosity differences in a subject. In short: how black are the blacks, and how white are the whites?

Microcontrast
Not quite the opposite of macro contrast – microcontrast is the lens’ ability to maintain small luminance differences in a subject and transfer them to the imaging plane. Note that lenses which have low CA are typically high microcontrast, as there is little ‘averaging out’ of fine detail structures when all of the light from the subject lands up at the same spot.

Neutral
A neutral lens is one without tonal or hue biases in any direction (warm or cold, light or dark). It reproduces exactly what it sees.

Purple fringing
Any portion of the image, usually high contrast, that has a purple glow around it; this is often confused with a lens effect but is actually a sensor effect; it’s due to minor internal reflections off the coatings of the microlens array covering the individual photosites. The color is uniform around the high contrast area, and does not shift left-right as chromatic aberrations would.

Resolution/ resolving power
The ability of a lens to reproduce fine detail structures. Related very intimately to microcontrast – a lens that can resolve high amounts of detail must necessarily be able to resolve small luminosity differences in adjacent areas.

Sharpness
A perceptual effect rather than an actual, measurable property; not to be confused with resolution. Something can be sharp with little resolution – i.e. able to project large differences in macro contrast with little chromatic aberration, creating a sharp edge; but have poor microcontrast resulting in low resolution, but high perceived sharpness. Rather, sharpness is a subjective measure for how much difference we perceive between adjacent areas of different tonal values.

Spherochromatism
The presence of chromatic aberration in bokeh – out of focus highlights separating into distinct red-green portions.

Tonality
The lens’ ability to reproduce luminance and color differences in a scene, and the nature of how it renders these differences in the image.

Transition zone
The plane represented by the distance from the camera where things just start to lose critical focus; a bit in front of and a bit behind the actual focal plane.

Transmission
The lens’ ability to capture light and transfer it to the image plane, limited only by the physical aperture/ iris of the lens. Applies to both the overall amount of light – T stop vs f stop – and the spectral transmission of the lens,i.e. which light spectra the actual types of glass allow through. See also this article on T stops and F stops

Transparency
The ability of a lens not to impart any of its own distinguishing characteristics on the image; it renders the scene as-seen, without any distracting properties or aberrations. My idea of a transparent lens is one with high microcontrast, moderate macrocontrast, natural spectral transmission with good saturation, and a T stop that’s close to its F stop. Bokeh is simply blurred and does not exhibit nervousness or swirliness; foregrounds and backgrounds are equally smooth. Such a beast is a rare piece of optics indeed.

Warm
A lens whose color transmission is biased in favor of the longer wavelengths, i.e. reds; it attenuates blues.

____________

Enter the August 2012 competition: Compact Challenge – here!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider supporting the site via Paypal ([email protected]); Ming Thein’s Email School of Photography – learn exactly what you want to learn, when you want to learn it or our Photoshop workflow DVDs. You can also get your gear from Amazon.com via this referral link. Prices are the same as normal, however a small portion of your purchase value is referred back to me. Thanks!

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook and join the Flickr group!

Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, descriptions, essay, explanations, lens, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, on photography, optics, thein

Thoughts on copyright, intellectual property, images and Section 114A

August 14, 2012 by Ming Thein

Here’s a question of moral fiber for you: if you were moderately hungry, for a let’s say a piece of fruit; you happened to walk past an apple on a table. Would you take it, if:
a) A sign said ‘please help yourself’
b) There was no sign, and no obvious owner
c) There was a tag on the apple saying ‘this belongs to’
d) The table with the apple on it was in a grocery store.

Most people would take it in situation a); some might take it in situation b); and almost nobody in c) and d) because it would be outright theft. Simple, right?

Let’s look at this situation again. Suppose you needed an image of an object. You find one on the internet that suits your purposes. Would you download and use it, without asking, if:
a) The image was under a creative commons license
b) The image was a sample for royalty-free or licensed stock
c) The image was on somebody else’s gallery site, say Flickr
d) The image was on somebody else’s site with a watermark and ‘all rights reserved’ in the fine print.

Not such a straightforward answer now, is it? For one, people tend to behave with much less regard and decency in the anonymity of the internet than in the real world. Images are intellectual property. This has monetary value, especially if you are a photographer; taking them without permission if you are not allowed to do so is plainly theft. The answer to the above dilemma is that only in situation a) would you be able to use the image without obtaining the image owner’s permission. b), c) and d) are all theft. However, most of the time asking nicely and offering credit is usually enough for the image owner to agree. After all, everybody knows that anything and everything put on the internet is fair game for viewing and public consumption.

Returning to the fruit analogy, the problem comes when there’s nobody doing any policing; how many of you would still follow the law to the letter if you were almost certain you’d never get caught? The reality is that it’s impossible for a photographer to police their own IP on the internet; there’s simply no way to prove that an image hasn’t been used other than by seeing every single image on the web and coming to the conclusion that none of those images are yours.

It gets even more complicated: although use of an image for any sort of use other than the license granted – and creative commons is the only license that lets you use an image without attribution (usually) for non-commercial purposes – is theoretically theft, there’s no point in following legal recourse if there’s no value to be gained. In such situations, the only people who win are the lawyers. Thus we are left with a perceptive difference – even amongst photographers – that ripping an image that’s not yours for editorial or blogging purposes isn’t as ‘bad’ as commercial use.

True, but theft is theft – would it matter if somebody stole the apple to eat themselves or to sell on to somebody else? No.

It doesn’t help that the majority of photographers are completely unaware of their own rights, and don’t bother issuing licenses or clear terms of engagement and usage conditions to clients or recipients of images; the problem here is that there’s now no way of proving whether the user of the image is a rightful licensee or not – such claims will be extremely weak in a court of law, because of the precedent that the photographer himself/ herself does not value their own images or intellectual property.

There’s an obvious cascade here: If the photographer isn’t aware of their rights, and doesn’t stand up for them, how can they communicate that to clients or persons infringing? The answer is, they can’t. And you can be sure that nobody else is going to, because it simply isn’t in their best interests to do so. This results in a wide base of consumers of media who simply expect it to be free, and pout and lose their temper when they’re told it isn’t.

I’ve recently had several cases of unauthorized image use – some on blogs, some editorial, and some commercial – not one single person bothered to have the simple courtesy to ask if they could use the images in question. I would have given permission for editorial use with attribution; for commercial use with licensing (if you’re using it to make money, it’s only fair that I should receive a license fee for helping you to do so). The most ignoble part of it was that in all cases, images were stripped from the server or screen capped, most of the time with the watermarks cropped out, and in some cases, manipulated to form horrible collages or crops – with the watermarks in. There’s another obvious problem with this: not only does it clearly demonstrate that all of the offenders knew what they were doing, but they also didn’t care. Do you think they would feel happy if somebody did the same to their content? Would they sit back and do nothing? I don’t think so, somehow. I put a lot of time and effort into creating content for this site – images, text, graphics etc – and it angers me when I see somebody else profiting off it without even the courtesy to ask permission. Only one apologized when confronted. The rest didn’t even respond, and will be the recipients of legal documents in short order.

It gets worse: what if one of the images used without permission is used in a defamatory or negative way? Or even displayed badly, but with the photographer’s watermark in place? The reputation of the photographer is on the line here – both professionally (what if influential people/ potential clients see the poor crops or presentations and make conclusions unfairly, leading to loss of business?) and legally – if used for defamatory purposes, the photographer can be liable – the onus of proof is on them to demonstrate that that was not the intention, and use was without permission. As with all demonstrations of negative proof, it’s extremely difficult to do and highly time consuming. You as a photographer have a responsibility to your own work and image to ensure that they are not used in a negative manner.

This problem isn’t just limited to images – music, articles, writing, artwork – anything creative that can be easily replicated and distributed – is also fair game. The more effort required to produce something, the more likely the creator is to defend their rights – you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be almost no court cases involving camera phone images, but no end of those for piracy of big-budget movies. Simple rule: the more effort you have to put into creating something, the more value it should have – else economics simply don’t make sense.

Speaking of economics, there’s a concerning trend here, too: free markets are dictated by willing buyer/ willing seller; prices fluctuate proportional to demand. If there are no or few willing payers for photography in today’s marketplace, what does that mean for the industry as a whole? Aside from the big budget productions that still require commissions, you can be sure that will translate not only into falling photographer rates, but also increasing image theft or copyright infringement. It’s happening already, and looking rather grim.

So as a photographer, what can you do to prevent this? What can you do to safeguard your rights and preserve the value of your images? Several very simple things:
1. Do not use anybody else’s images without permission, except if the images are available under a creative commons license, and even then, only for non-commercial use. If you have used images in the past or are still using them, either remove them or seek permission from the owner of the image. Don’t forget to give credits.
2. Issue licenses to all users of your own images, that clearly state the parameters of use (consideration, applicable images/ file names, date and region of validity, permitted media) and some form of signed agreement.
3. If you see images being used which clearly do not belong to the photographer, please make the photographer aware if you can – often this is the only way we will find out (and thank you to those readers who’ve drawn such situations to my attention in the past)
4. Support photographers who are exercising their rights. If there is enough social pressure not to do something, it will reduce in prevalence and hopefully eventually cease.

I want to finish this article by talking about a new act that’s coming into force affecting all Malaysians: Section 114A of the Evidence Act 1950, amendment passed April 2012. It’s the complete opposite of intellectual property rights: the implication is that we are now legally liable for every single distributed piece of information via whatever networked means we are deemed to control or have administration rights over, whether we posted it or not. If somebody hacks your site and posts a defamatory, libelious comment or something similar, you are responsible. If somebody leaks confidential information, you are responsible. If somebody uses your site, your devices, or even your internet connection, you are responsible – regardless of whether you did it or not, or whether you were a willing participant or not. Yes, that means if your laptop was stolen at gunpoint, then used to rob a bank, you are legally liable to be prosecuted for the bank robbery. The onus of negative proof is now on you, the site owner – and every good scientist will tell you, that’s impossible to do. Notably, the act does not cover copyright infringement – so that means you have no additional legal recourse if somebody decided to steal one of your images.

If this seems a bit stupid, it is. At the moment it is unclear how the act will be enforced, but you can be sure that if it’s anything like ISA, it probably won’t be fairly applied. The troubling thing is just how much power this gives to criminals and would-be hackers – if you’re webmaster of a popular site, it’s probably time to change your passwords and increase the security around your servers. Sad to say this, but between poor recognition of legitimate intellectual property rights and enforcement of liability against something you didn’t do, Malaysia has taken one enormous step backwards for creativity and e-commerce. I’m not shutting down this site yet, but I’m also not ruling it out if enforcement of the law becomes unreasonable. For more information or to support the opposition to 114A, visit www.Stop114A.wordpress.com

Apologies for the very serious, heavy article, but I feel that I must use my little soapbox as well as I can to raise awareness and defend the fort for all fellow photographers. Let’s keep this business viable for all of us. MT

____________

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook and join the reader Flickr group!