Lanterns. Nikon D2H, 80-200/2.8 N
Last day teaching in Singapore. Returning home tonight to about 30GB of files…MT
Photoessay: Electric trees
April 29, 2012 by
For reasons I can’t fathom, this entirely man-made artificial construct on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur draws huge numbers of visitors – mostly young Malay couples on dates looking for somewhere dark that they can get away with holding hands in a very conservative country – in the evening. During daytime, it looks terrible. But at night, the shadows hide the artifice and provide a counterpoint to the multicolored bulbs. I went more out of curiosity than anything, and to see if the X1 could hold its own in a low light situation. MT
Series shot with a Leica X1.
Suicide bear at the adjoining funfair
POTD: Electoral reforms
April 29, 2012 by
Protest. Leica M9-P, 2.8/28 ASPH
I chose today’s image in light of what’s going on in Malaysia at the moment. If I was in KL, I’d most likely have been there shooting. This is history in the making, or what is probably the beginning stages of it. I have to say upfront that I hate politics, and try not to think about it – let alone pass opinion – because it just makes me angry. Hundreds of thousands of people joined the Bersih 3.0 rally yesterday demanding electoral reform, and got teargassed and fire hosed in return. There were a lot of families in the crowds, too. I’m sure there were the fair share of violent anarchists too, but surely not 10% of the population of greater Kuala Lumpur is trying to raise hell.
This is prime evidence that there’s an extremely strong discomfort amongst the masses with the current leadership.
Yet the rest of the world sees a) the responses epitomizing an oppressive government that’s trying to suppress/ repress the population and b) at some point in the not too distant future, all hell is going to break loose when the number of people completely overwhelms the police. And it’s going to be May 13, 1969 all over again – one of the most embarrassing and bloodiest days in Malaysian history.
I just hope whoever is really in charge wakes up soon enough to realize that continuing along this path – being driven by greed and power – is going to destroy the hand that feeds them first place. Leadership has never been about ruling and controlling people; a good leader always has their people fully supporting them because they feel like they are part of the process, and there is some element of fairness. It’s okay if you’re going to make money out of being a head of state – there is a lot at stake, and plenty of responsibility that lies on your shoulders – just don’t do it at the expense of the people who entrusted you with that responsibility in the first place. MT
Stabilization systems and their limitations
April 28, 2012 by
Image stabilization systems are all meant to do one thing: reduce the effects of camera shake to prevent you from getting blurry images. If you know that, and know their limitations, you’ll find them very useful; if not, you’ll wonder why you can’t get a sharp picture of a racing car even though you’ve got an IS lens.
Rule 1: Stabilization systems are not a replacement for proper technique or support.
If you have good hand-holding technique or a tripod, you can always get a sharp image at shutter speeds below the 1/focal length threshold. No issue. If you don’t, then a stabilizer will help a bit, but it can’t prevent your finger from jerking when you press the button – that’s training. You can’t use a stabilizer for a long exposure, either. There’ll still be camera motion because it’s physically impossible for a person to stand that still. Lean the camera against something or get a tripod. It will help you when you’re shooting from an unstable platform – such as a boat or moving vehicle – but make sure you disable the lens’ panning mode to prevent it from canceling out motion in one direction only, believing it to be panning rather than irregular camera movement.
Rule 2: Stabilization systems will not affect subject motion.
The stabilizer is in the lens, or on the sensor. Either way, it’s attached to your camera. Not the subject. But you’d be surprised how many people think that VR or IS or OSS or SSS or whatever will also keep the bird still for you to get the shot. It won’t. Your subject is still bound by the same minimum shutter speed rules as all other subjects: about 1/30s-1/60s for people, 1/500s for human action sports, 1/1000s for motorsport, and somewhere between the two for animals.
Rule 3: Stabilization systems have an optimal window of shutter speeds.
Generally, if the manufacturer claims an X number of stops improvement, then deduct one and use that as a rule of thumb. So if a lens offers four stops, then your lowest shutter speed is going to be 1/focal length x (1/2)^(X-1). Confused? Example: 100mm lens with 4-stop stabilizer. Don’t expect sharp shots any slower than 1/100s x (1/2)^(4-1) – that’s somewhere between 1/10s and 1/15s.
What they don’t tell you is that there’s an upper limit to stabilizer effectiveness, too. Above a certain shutter speed, the stabilizer mechanism can’t respond fast enough – so you’re actually going to get a bit of smearing or double imaging. In general, I’d turn it off above 1/500s or so.
Rule 4: Not all stabilizers are created equal.
There are three types of stabilization: lens-based, which has a moving element controlled by two or more gyroscopes; sensor-based, which moves the sensor through lateral translation axes, and in the newest generation of cameras, also yaw, pitch and roll axes; and finally, electronic systems that use software-based image subtraction and have no moving parts at all. The least effective are electronic stabilizers – they are effectively useless, and worse still, leave behind odd image artifacts. Lens-based stabilizers are generally more effective than sensor-based stabilizers. This is because the moving lens element is generally at the nodal point of the lens, and only has to tilt in the opposite direction to compensate for relative camera motion; it can compensate for a greater degree of camera shake than a sensor based system, because the sensor has to move through the actual distance the image is displaced by on the focal plane; this means that sensor-shift systems get less and less effective as the focal length increases.
Rule 5: Turn off the stabilizer when using a tripod.
Stabilizers, by definition, use moving parts. The problem here is that when everything is locked down and not moving – i.e. a tripod-based scenario – the moving parts can’t stay perfectly still, unless they’re locked in place – i.e. the stabilizer is turned off. Even the systems which are claimed to be able to detect tripod mode don’t physically lock down unless turned off manually.
Rule 6: Stabilizers always cause some sort of image degradation.
This is unavoidable; to deliver optimal results, the optical formula must be precisely matched by the physical configuration of the lenses. Fine manufacturing tolerances and errors are enough to cause subpar performance; imagine what a moving element does to that mix. Conclusion: turn it off, lock it down, and use a tripod if utmost image quality is your objective.
Beware of the limitations, but also know that stabilization systems can give you a little edge when it comes to unique images – the best example I can think of is when you want static buildings but a little motion blur in the people to convey a sense of activity; throw in a longer focal length and it’s not really something you can produce without a tripod (often inconvenient, or downright disallowed). Another example is where you’re shooting wildlife with a monopod at dawn or dusk; light is marginal and you’re not using a tripod for maximum flexibility, but you need a little more latitude with shutter speed to keep the quality up. It’s situations like this where stabilizers shine. MT
Limited fine art print offer! (and POTD)
April 28, 2012 by
Seeing the wood from the trees. Leica M9-P, 21/3.4 Super Elmar ASPH
Today’s POTD fell out of a test run for the 21/3.4 Super Elmar ASPH, which I’ll be reviewing in the next few weeks. Initial impressions: hugely impressive, especially in the corners. I see almost no optical flaws anywhere, at f4 – which is just half a stop down from wide open.
I’m also happy to announce a new partnership with Giclee Art in Malaysia (a HP print ambassador) and master printmaker Wesley Wong. The work I’ve seen is stunning – he will be printing the images for my upcoming exhibition.
Both of the prints you see in this post will be up for as a limited run. (These things help me keep the site running – creating content takes time I can’t use for anything else, and I really want to keep the site ad-free to maintain the picture viewing experience; also, it helps you decorate your walls 🙂
The print offer will be limited to 20 copies of each image, at 16×24″ (A2) printed on 20×30″ paper. Here’s the kicker: the prints will be done on 380gsm matte fine art paper, printed with 200 year archival grade pigment ink on a HP production class machine. The look of the black on the paper is indescribable – I’ve never seen anything like it before, and I knew I had to make some prints with this. There are no reflections anywhere, which means the image is so much more viewable. The blacks are dense and chalk-pastel like, with fine tonal transitions. All prints will be numbered and signed. (And no, there will be no black borders around the images in the final print).
Schonbrunn Fog, Vienna. Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH
The price for either print is US$550 net to me including shipping worldwide via courier in a sturdy tube. To keep things simple, payment can be made via Paypal to [email protected], which means you can either use your Paypal balance or a credit card.
Please include in the message field which image you’d like, plus your shipping address, contact email address and telephone number. I’ll email a confirmation as soon as I a payment from you. If you’d like multiple copies or multiple images, that’s great too – you just make one payment.
I’ll be closing the print offer at the end of May, and shipping shortly thereafter. First come first served! Remember, these images will not be offered for sale again at this size. Thanks for your support everybody! MT
Photoessay: Boudhanath Stupa
April 27, 2012 by
Bodhanarth, Boudha, Boudhanath, Bodhnath…or any one of a dozen different spellings is a large stupa on the outskirts of Kathmandu, Nepal. One of the holiest sites in Buddhism, supposedly built over the grave of the remains of the enlightened person Kasyapa, who predated Buddha. It is a UNESCO world heritage site, and one is supposed to negotiate the stupa in an anti clockwise direction only to avoid bad luck. The stupa itself is surrounded by a mix of tourist traps and other temples, and kept fastidiously maintained by monks. MT
Series shot with a Nikon D700, 24/1.4 and 85/1.4 G.
POTD: Nucleation
April 27, 2012 by
Everything needs a catalyst. Olympus E-PM1 Pen Mini, Panasonic 20/1.7 G.
In case you’re wondering what it is you’re looking at, it’s boiling water at moderately high magnification, frozen by off-camera flash. High enough that my knuckles were gently steaming after about ten seconds or so. Experimentation is the source of all art…but yes, you can go too far. I’m pretty sure I got a sizable blister on one of my fingers after this. MT
Review: A controversial lens: the Nikon AFS 28-300/3.5-5.6 VR G
April 26, 2012 by
Image from Nikon USA.
This lens is the full-frame equivalent of the very popular 18-200/3.5-5.6 DX VR; and like the DX equivalent, it’s an optic that seems to breed two kinds of people: blind fanboys who think it’s the one and only lens you need to own, and others who think it’s a horrible compromise that does nothing well, and is best avoided.
Dayabumi. The first marble-facaded skyscraper in Kuala Lumpur. Nikon D700, 28-300VR
I picked up this lens together with the new (at the time) AFS 85/1.4 G at the latter end of 2010; I never intended to use it as a one-size fits all, but rather as as more flexible replacement for the AFS 70-300/4.5-5.6 VR – itself which was great up to about 200mm, but required much smaller apertures to be useable at 300mm, and it never got as sharp as it was at shorter focal lengths – despite stopping down.
Bottom line: the 28-300VR does the job. My sample, at least, matches the 70-300VR optically in the 70-200mm range; neither one is really great at 300mm, but I’d give a slight edge to the 28-300VR. Never mind the fact that it isn’t 300mm all the time – I’ll talk more about this later.
Honda HSV-010 detail. Super Japan GT, Sepang International Circuit. Nikon D700, 28-300VR
Let’s start with the physical stuff. It isn’t a small lens – in fact, it’s similar in size and heft to the 24-70/2.8 without the hood – but it’s made entirely of textured polycarbonate. It also extends considerably when zoomed out, which shifts the weight in the hand quite noticeably. Fortunately, the extensions are quite robust. The lens is gasketed, and I’ve shot with it in light rain; I probably wouldn’t do this under more adverse weather conditions, because the water will naturally go inside the lens as you zoom in and out – you can see evidence of this as water streaks are left behind. There’s a narrow, very short-throw focus ring with rudimentary distance scale, no DOF markings, and very little feel. Clearly, this lens wasn’t mean to be manually focused – good luck doing it precisely. In front of that is a wide rubberized zoom ring. Zoom spacing is nice and linear, though a little stiff – you can feel the plastic-on-plastic action inside the lens. The remaining controls are switches for AF/MF, VR ON/OFF, and VR ACTIVE/ NORMAL mode. There’s also a lock switch to prevent the lens extending past 28mm – clearly Nikon learned something from the self-tromboning 18-200VR, though the zoom action is actually stiff enough not to require it.
GT500 at Sepang International Circuit. Nikon D700, 28-300VR
It’s a proper AF-S lens, which means that you have full time manual override. Focusing is midrange-fast, even at the long end of the zoom. It isn’t as fast as the pro lenses, obviously. Fast enough.
The stabilizer uses Nikon’s second generation technology – denoted by the gold VR plaque, rather than red as on the first versions. It’s quite effective – with good technique, critically sharp shots at 1/15s 300mm on FX or 1/50s 450mm equivalent on DX are possible. It has automatic panning detection, and an ACTIVE mode that cancels out all subject motion – i.e. panning off. However, you should be turning the stabilizer off if your shutter speed is above the safe speed required – the time required for the stabilizer to move into position can actually create a weird double-image effect if left on at very high shutter speeds. VR is much more effective if you give it a couple of seconds to ‘lock in’ before shooting. Curiously, it also works much better if the camera is held horizontal – extreme up or down shooting tends to render it mostly ineffective.
Polo. Cue panning mode. Nikon D700, 28-300VR
Let’s talk about optics: I strongly suspect with a lens this complex, there’s some sample variation going on. And this might well be the source of the strong polarization between user camps. Mine isn’t so hot at 28mm – in fact, it’s downright crappy (flare, aberrations, lack of sharpness and contrast) at 28mm until f5.6; curiously, you can manual focus it to a sharper image – however, using that AF-fine tune calibration throws out every other focal length. From 35mm to 200mm or so, this lens is right up there with the rest of them – it’s sharp, contrasty, and has plenty of bite. It’s lacking micro contrast though, which I suspect is a consequence of having a huge number of elements and air-glass interfaces: a little bit of contrast is lost at each one, no matter how good your coating is. Above 200mm, things soften to the point that 300mm isn’t that good wide open, and requires f8 to be useable.
A swimmer’s portrait. Nikon D700, 28-300VR
That was for FX. Curiously, the lens seems a little sharper on DX (16MP D5100); this might be because it’s using only the central portion of the image, though that doesn’t explain the much improved results at the extreme ends of the range. Curiously, it works much better on the D800 than it did on the D700 – it could be my sample – in fact, it’s much the same as on the D5100 which has similar pixel density. On the 12MP FX cameras, I’d use it from 28-100 at f5.6, and 100-200 at f8 or lower. On the 36Mp D800, 28-300 at maximum aperture is useable but a little soft; improves greatly one stop down, and is actually pretty good by two stops down from maximum. There’s always vignetting, at pretty much every aperture; however it’s an easy fix in Photoshop. Weakest performance is actually at 28mm on all formats and sensors – on the high density sensors, it’s sharp but hazy; on the D700, it’s just hazy.
It seems that slightly better results may be obtained at 28mm on the D700 if live view is used, which points to an AF calibration error – however, if one calibrates for 28mm, every other point in the focal range becomes soft. I think this is very much a design or batch QC issue as all of the samples of the lens I’ve tested have exhibited the same issue.
Rear fuselage. Every rivet is sharp in the full size version, despite being shot at 28mm. Nikon D5100, 28-300VR
Sharpness is about the only optical thing that the lens has going for it. It flares in a dramatic, cinematic way; distortion is horrible and complex; (as you’d expect from an optical design that has to correct for wide-angle and telephoto aberrations) and high contrast edges exhibit lateral chromatic aberration, though not as bad as you’d expect from a lens of this complexity. Bokeh is actually neutral to good.
Aeroplanescape. Nikon D700, 28-300VR
By far the worst thing about this lens is the focal length shortening. You didn’t think you were really going to get 300mm at the near limit of 0.45m, did you? If so, that would be one hell of a macro lens. The reality is that up close, it’s probably giving you no more than 135mm, no matter what the position of the zoom ring. This is an optical trick that allows for less movement of the focusing group to deliver the same minimum focus distance. Out to infinity, the lens delivers around 290mm.
Fountain. Nikon D700, 28-300VR
Curiously, Canon also makes a 28-300mm lens – but it’s a heavy duty, L-series weather sealed push-pull zoom monster, costing at least four times as much as the Nikon. I used one briefly with a 1D Mark III, which has similar pixel density to the D700 – the Nikon is much, much better. There’s a general softness and slight edge flare to the Canon that makes images feel ill-defined. I hear a replacement is in the works, however. There’s also a Tamron version, which I can’t comment on as I haven’t used it – other than it’s f6.3 on the long end. I think though then physical aperture of the Nikon or Tamron may be f5.6 or f6.3, the T stop is much, much lower – possibly as bad as f8 or higher.
Morning mountains. Would have been better with a little more micro contrast; the original file was very, very felt indeed. Nikon D700, 28-300VR
Practically, what is this lens good for? What do I use it for? Basically, two things: it’s a Swiss army knife, for times when I know there’ll be plenty of light out, and I’m not aperture-limited; when I don’t know what I’m shooting or know that I’ll require a lot of perspectives; and finally, when I need telephoto reach. I shoot most of my work below 85mm, so this is a kind of emergency tool for when I need to go longer. It works, and having said all of the above, it is capable of delivering pretty good images – if you use it within its limitations. Just don’t try and shoot architecture in the dark hand-held with it. MT
Sky hole. Nikon D700, 28-300VR
The Nikon AFS 28-300/3.5-5.6 VR G is available here from B&H and Amazon.
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POTD: Singapore reader meetup
April 26, 2012 by
What I thought was going to be dinner turned into a 5 hour sharing session with new friends – thank you all for coming, and I hope you had fun. We covered a bit of everything from critiques to color to gear fondling to web sharpening (three Leica M users) to our inaugural photography sweepstakes competition – I think the latter should become a tradition! I’ll definitely do the same for the KL meet up.
In hindsight, what I should have done is take a shot of your phone screens with the entered photos instead – or your cameras, perhaps – but that can be for next time!
Facebook
I’ve also set up a Facebook page for the fans to informally gather around the virtual water cooler – it’s at www.facebook.com/blog.mingthein. The main reason is that whilst I can see all of you if you add me as a friend, there’s no easy way for my blog readers to find each other – especially after meet ups, for instance. This is the solution. Future updates to the blog will be posted here, too – not because I’m divorcing my personal page from the site, but because WordPress just won’t let me. Don’t forget to stop by and like the page! 🙂
Great to meet you all, and I’m looking forward to the KL meetup in a week or so. MT
Photoessay: The urban scenery of Auckland, New Zealand
April 25, 2012 by
Some urban scenery captured during downtime on another work assignment at the end of 2010 – often, this is all the time I get to shoot personal work. It’s a rather pleasant city by the bay that’s really quite nice when the sun is out – when the sun isn’t out and it’s cold and windy, it’s downright miserable. Especially when you find out everything closes by 5.30pm and there’s precious little in the way of dinner options. It’s also a popular cruise ship destination/ stopover en route to the outer Pacific islands or Hawaii. MT
Series shot with a mishmash of equipment – Apple iPhone 4, Nikon D700, AFS 28-300/3.5-5.6 VR and Sony NEX-5 and 18-55 kit lens.
Bonus points to anybody who can tell me which shot this is in homage to.
You could be in California.
The America’s cup legacy is everywhere.
The taxi driver I had on the return trip to the airport told me he just bought a new SUV to tow his 50ft yacht. I ran out of words, thinking solely that I was both in the wrong job, and living in the wrong country.
