ming thein – Ming Thein

4th anniversary sweepstakes at B&H: win a $500 gift card

March 1, 2016 by Ming Thein

I’ve got one last bonus today thanks to the folks at B&H: a competition exclusive to readers of my site only. It’s simple: hit the referral link here (which will take you to the main landing page with your origin site logged), or in the sidebar on the right, spend $1000 on anything at all, and be automatically entered into a sweepstakes for a chance to win a $500 gift card from B&H (see Terms & Conditions for details)”

The competition closes on 1st May. Good luck! MT

Sweepstakes rules apply…

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Visit the Teaching Store to up your photographic game – including workshop and Photoshop Workflow videos and the customized Email School of Photography. You can also support the site by purchasing from B&H and Amazon – thanks!

We are also on Facebook and there is a curated reader Flickr pool.

Filed Under: Off topic Tagged With: anniversary, b&h, bonus, competition, four years, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, thein

Four years, and an anniversary sale (UPDATE: all gone!)

February 28, 2016 by Ming Thein

UPDATE: We’re nearly out of vouchers for the anniversary sale – ~~there are a few more coupons left, so if you would like to take advantage of the birthday sale, now’s the time 🙂 The offer ends once we hit the magic number…~~ All gone now – thank you for your support!

It’s the fourth anniversary of mingthein.com, and I’d like to say a big thank you to my readers and supporters. May we continue for at least another year…

In the interests of the site’s original goal of furthering photographic education – which I think I’ve made inroads into with the 1,150 articles published here – we’re offering a special sale on the core six-vide Making Outstanding Images video series (D: Fundamentals, Ep. 1-5). The normal price for the set is $412; it is now 40% off at $247. Just add the D, E1-5 videos to your cart and use the voucher code 40OFF4YEARS at checkout; there are a small and limited number of vouchers. Proceeds go towards a) educating you photographically; b) keeping the site running and c) making more videos. Please note that this offer is a standalone and not valid with other video bundles.

Thanks for your support! MT

Filed Under: Off topic, Teaching Tagged With: anniversary, four years, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, sale, teaching, thein, videos, Workshop

Photoessay: Tokyo cinematics II

February 26, 2016 by Ming Thein

Continued from part one.

I frequently get asked if it is possible to work in the cinematic style with a wide lens; the answer is of course yes. There are a couple more considerations over the more traditional conception of the genre that is heavily dependent on longer focal lengths to split the scene into planes and blur the unimportant portions; it is true that the latter is much easier with a longer focal length due to simple rules of physics. However, use of the wide perspective is also important for several reasons, with the main one being trying to create a feel of involvement and immediacy for the audience. It can also be used in tight quarters and to create the impression of distance between observer and scene/subject. In all situations, the frame has to perceptually appear level – otherwise a very strong (and distracting) tipping sensation is produced. The wider the lens, the more care you need with levelling and keeping subjects away from the edges of the frame to avoid geometric distortion drawing attention to itself. Lens choice is also fairly critical because any out of focus areas are unlikely to be drastically out of focus; there will be a lot of transition zones. I personally prefer a smooth rendering here rather than a crisp one because it’s very difficult to reduce the prominence of background or foreground distractions after capture. Enjoy! MT

This series was shot with a Leica Q 116, and post processed using the Cinematic workflow in Making Outstanding Images Ep.5. You can also look over my shoulder at the underlying postprocessing in the Weekly Photoshop Workflow series.

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: 28mm, cinematic, japan, life, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, photoessay, photography, thein, tokyo

Photoessay: Tokyo cinematics I

February 24, 2016 by Ming Thein

The lights of Tokyo always form an irresistible backdrop to some interesting characters; for what must be the fourth or fifth year running, I’m back (I’ve honestly lost count) at what I consider to be the best season – autumn, before the weather gets unpleasant, the skies are still blue, and there’s an orange leaf or twenty. An unusually warm summer this year resulted in not much of an autumn – the leaves weren’t anywhere near as extensive as in 2013, and in 2014 I was a week too late – ah well, the vagaries of nature. Nevertheless, Tokyo is so extensive that I feel as though you could live there your entire life and barely scratch the surface photographically. On this trip, I tried out some different hardware for cinematic work compared to my normal 55/85 Otus – I wanted to see if smaller, lighter could also apply to cinematic work albeit with slightly reduced maximum apertures. I used the Zeiss 1.8/85 Batis (Sonnar) and the Zeiss 2.8/85 Sonnar, an older Contax design. What I found was the Sonnar actually produced a more pleasing rendering for this purpose – the Batis is razor sharp but I somehow prefer the softer, more rounded properties of the older lens – especially for out of focus foregrounds and skin. It is stronger at middle and close distances because of this; the Batis excels at longer distances because it differentiates between planes more easily. Neither is as good as differentiating as the 85 Otus, but that’s also a faster and better corrected (apochromatic) lens – the price we pay there is occasionally nervous bokeh and some onion rings under certain conditions. I digress: it is of course about applying the right tool to the right situation to get the desired images…enjoy! MT

This series was shot with a Sony A7RII, Zeiss 1.8/85 Batis, Contax Zeiss 2.8/85 Sonnar MMG and Zeiss 2.8/21 Loxia and post processed using the Cinematic workflow in Making Outstanding Images Ep.5. You can also look over my shoulder at the underlying postprocessing in the Weekly Photoshop Workflow series.

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: atmosphere, cinematic, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, people, photoessay, photography, style, thein, tokyo

The Switch

February 22, 2016 by Ming Thein

Advance warning: this post contains nothing but gear p***, since it is an equipment-centric post after all…and I make no apologies whatsoever for that. And that thing isn’t a carrying handle, it’s the HTS.

I suppose many of you will have seen this coming: I have switched primary camera systems from Nikon to Hasselblad. And you’ll also probably know I’ve got extremely good reasons for doing so, even more so since this is a significant commitment by any standards. I’ve also had several conversations with various people in the organisation that have convinced me that their future is also going to be pretty exciting indeed. Judging by the number of people who commented and emailed me after the previous recent posts on medium format (here, here) – there’s quite a lot of curiosity and more medium format shooters here than I previously thought. Today’s post is an explanation of that rationale, and the comments will be an attempt to answer any questions from the curious.

Photographing babies

February 20, 2016 by Ming Thein

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Today’s article is both somewhat off topic and an indication of how things have changed for me in the last seven months. It certainly isn’t something I’d have done or even considered previously, but when your shooting hours are severely curtailed by parental responsibility, a photographer has little choice. I’m sure we’ll be updating this post with a ‘photographing toddlers’ amendment in a year or two, but for now, I’d like to share some of the useful things I’ve learned – I’m sure there are probably a considerable number of people in the audience who might find them useful. Feel free to wait for the next article or dig in the archives for today’s entertainment if it isn’t applicable to you. And I do promise not to turn into one of those people who does nothing but post photographs of their kids…

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Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, babies, children, essay, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, people, photography, thein

Photoessay: the towers, Chicago

February 18, 2016 by Ming Thein

After the previous verticality projects, I wanted to try to find a different but still coherent approach to photographing large buildings from the human perspective at street level – this is harder than it sounds, given you have little room to back up in most cases. At the same time, overt geometric distortion from the use of a wide lens is not always acceptable. With the exception of two images, the rest were shot from fairly close to the base of the buildings with minimal or no perspective correction and the intention of preserving just enough of the uniquely identifiable aspects of the architecture. Locals or architecture fans should be able to identify the edifices, or I should go back to the drawing board. Enjoy! MT

This series was shot with a Leica Q 116, D810/ Zeiss Otus 28, A7RII and Zeiss Batis 85 and post processed with PS Workflow II. You can also look over my shoulder at the underlying postprocessing in the Weekly Photoshop Workflow series.

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: architecture, building, chicago, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, photoessay, photography, thein, towers, urban

Social media and photography: how to get it wrong

February 16, 2016 by Ming Thein

It never fails to surprise me at the – let’s be blunt – stupidity of some companies in the age of social media. Let’s say you operate a number of malls in the centre of a large city, in prominent locations with moderately interesting facades. Your objective as a mall operator is obviously to increase traffic through your property so that you can increase rental to your tenants and your own underlying return on capital. You want to encourage people to visit and spend money in every way possible. More than a few studies have shown that people who are happy are more likely to spend money than people who are not. Similarly, people are more likely to spend money in a popular environment than one that is not – part of that is herd mentality, part of that is fear of missing out. You spend money on advertising, promotion and the like. You sponsor photo competitions and go out of your way to be seen as a ‘patron of the arts’. Yet why do you program your guards to a) prevent people from taking photographs anywhere near your property when the subject isn’t even your property but the opposite direction; b) be rude about it, and c) act over real estate and public thoroughfares over which they have no jurisdiction?

Photoessay: Chicago stories

February 14, 2016 by Ming Thein

You will pay…or the Don will make you pay

I’m going to try something a bit polarising today: a set of images with an imagined narrative, and knowing how many of you dislike titles, I’m almost certain that my read of the narrative is going to be completely different to yours. This may be down to cultural context, personal context/ biases, or my subconscious including ambient elements that were in the scene but not captured. Feel free to offer an alternative interpretation. MT

This series was shot with a Leica Q, D810/ Zeiss 28 Otus, A7RII/ Zeiss 85 Batis and processed with Photoshop Workflow II. You can also look over my shoulder at the underlying postprocessing in the Weekly Photoshop Workflow series.

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: chicago, life, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, people, photoessay, photography, stories, thein

A question of value, accessibility and medium format…

February 12, 2016 by Ming Thein

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Let’s say you’re in the market for a new camera – which face it, most of us find ourselves in frequently, often for reasons of our own doing. It has to be something reasonably exciting, and having played this game and gone through this cycle many times, for argument’s sake, it’s probably going to be at the higher end of the spectrum. We have a lot of choices. What I’ve shown above represents the full spectrum of choices, from the best of conventional high performance DSLR, to the top end of mirrorless, to entry level medium format, to something a bit more unconventional. Figure on spending say ~$12k by the time you’re done – body, a lens or two, and the usual plethora of system-specific accessories.