opinion – Ming Thein | Photographer

FD Shooting with the legends: The Hasselblad 501CM

July 27, 2013 by Ming Thein

There are two cameras that are synonymous with 6×6 medium format film: the Rolleiflex TLR, and the Hasselblad V series. (I may well do a piece on the former in the future). Today’s subject, however, is one of the final incarnations of the V line – the 501CM. I suppose you could think of it as the distilled essence of the V series – unlike the 503s, it lacks TTL flash metering; unlike the 200-series, it still relies on a lens-based leaf shutter and remains completely mechanical. But at the same time, the camera has interchangeable focusing screens and the gliding mirror geometry of the 503CW to prevent vignetting with longer lenses. (I have a brief intro to the Hasselblad V series here.) It’s my pick of the bunch because a) I have no intention of using it with TTL flash, and b) I’d rather not have to rely on electronics in any way – there are modern digitals for that…

FD Shooting with the legends: The Nikon F6

July 25, 2013 by Ming Thein

Many thought this camera would never see the light of day, or it would do so as some strange film-digital hybrid with interchangeable backs. In 2004, however, Nikon gave the world one last hurrah in its long lineup of film cameras – the F6. The camera differs from its predecessors in many ways – firstly, it’s the only single-digit (pro) F body to lack interchangeable prisms; apparently this feature was so seldom used on the F5 that it was dropped. (Too bad, because the super-high eyepoint sports finder for that camera was a thing of beauty; easily the largest and brightest finder I’ve ever seen on a 35mm SLR.) It also revered to the F4 and previous designs that made the vertical grip a detachable unit, as opposed to the built-in on the F5. One can only suppose the F5 required a built in because of its insatiable hunger for AA batteries. The F6 uses a pair of CR123A lithiums; it lasts a bit longer, but two of those things still costs quite a bit more than a whole set of AAs for the F5.

FD Shooting with the legends: The Nikon F2 Titan

July 23, 2013 by Ming Thein

The F2 was introduced in 1971 off the back of the hugely successful F. Though external resemblances are similar, the camera was completely redesigned internally to improve reliability and ergonomics – firstly, the backs became hinged, and the shutter button moved forward to a more comfortable position at the front of the body and the wind stroke became shorter. The camera’s internal construction became modular, improving ease of repair. Batteries for powered finders migrated to a small cavity in the base of the body, with mirror lockup now standard. The titanium horizontal-travel FP curtains were improved and speeded up to offer 1/2000s and a 1/80s x-sync, up from 1/1000s and 1/60s in the F.

Film diaries: Shooting with the legends

July 21, 2013 by Ming Thein

Warning: what follows is an unashamed post about gear. Yes, Ming is writing a gear-centric post. There will be no photography in this article beyond the obligatory camera p***.

Imagine, for a moment, this is an automotive blog. In fact, the precise segment that comes to mind is Richard Hammond’s recent series in Top Gear on driving the classics; every month we see him wrestling his boyhood poster fantasies with a silly grin on his face. After re-reading that sentence, I realize that sounded very, very wrong. I can’t claim to be anywhere near as popular as Hammond or the rest of the Top Gear trio, nor does my enthusiasm for photography extend that far so far back as for me to have boyhood fantasies about it, but I do distinctly remember lusting after a lot of (then) out of reach gear in the early days of my obsession. I admit that one of the high points of this job has been having the opportunity to fulfill those desires. I may never get the opportunity to drive a BMW 3.0 CSL, let alone a 250 GTO SWB or a Bugatti Veyron Supersport, but a 903 SWC is still feasibly within reach…

What follows today’s article is a little mini-series; I wouldn’t really call them reviews, because the context is very different and they’re not really that relevant as current products.

The importance of printing, from a photographer’s standpoint

July 11, 2013 by Ming Thein

From the print session at the end of last year’s Making Light workshop – these were a bit of a revelation to the participants, most of whom had never made large prints before. And we were doing straight out of camera printing with no real postprocessing or optimization…

If all of you, dear readers, were sitting in a room, and I asked “How many of you print?” I think not every hand would be raised. “Regularly?” Even fewer. “Large?” Fewer still. And you’ve all proven yourselves to be a pretty exceptional bunch of people, if the comment threads are anything to go by. If anything, the average photographer – taking both amateurs and pros into consideration – these days prints very little, if at all. Yet a concern that seems to dominate a lot of photographers’ thoughts is over resolution; my question is why?

Choice, compromise and creativity

July 9, 2013 by Ming Thein

What do these two things have in common, other than they’re from (very, very loosely, give or take a decade) the same era?

Spheres of influence – or, the butterfly effect

July 3, 2013 by Ming Thein

Moonrise, redux. How many times have we seen a scene like this in a movie? For me, enough that it was in my subconscious when I shot the watch.

Following on from yesterday’s reposted article on influences, I wanted to delve a bit deeper into the topic. Influences go both ways – as in we are as much receptive as we are conductive – and this can be both conscious and subconscious. I don’t claim to be anything more than a casual interested observer when it comes to the field of human psychology, but I do notice after a while, big groups of people tend to act and think the same if they spend enough time together; I suppose it’s some form of subconscious normalization that happens in order to maintain the peace. And those who don’t fit will feel sufficiently uncomfortable to leave or be ejected – or if they’re strong influencers themselves, land up as leaders.

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Repost: What influences your photography?

July 1, 2013 by Ming Thein

Hanoi. Nikon D700, 85/1.4G

What follows is a repost of an original article from early 2012: it’s a necessary prelude to what comes tomorrow, so for those who’ve read it – bear with me; for those who haven’t, enjoy.

A random thought struck me while driving today (it seems to happen often, but then again with Malaysian traffic, I do spend a lot of time in the car): what are my conscious and unconscious photographic influences, and how do they affect my images look?

I think this is a topic worth exploring because it’s useful to analyze how you think as a photographer, because it will both consciously help you to identify potential shots sooner, as well as tap into other sources of influence you might not have previously considered. As sacrificial guinea pig, I’ll go first.

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

The proverbial desert island camera

June 27, 2013 by Ming Thein

One question you tend to see publicly discussed ad nauseam on forums is the one that goes something along the lines of “If you could only bring one camera/lens to a desert island, what would that be, and why?” I’m sure it’s something even we more serious photographers give some consideration to from time to time; if only because one day we might find ourselves facing such an eventuality. In the greater interests of this site’s readership, I put myself in precisely that situation a couple of weeks ago.

Photographic aspirations, part three: a manifesto

June 23, 2013 by Ming Thein

Take your beliefs to the streets.

I actually wrote something like this quite some time ago – it’s still on my flickr ‘about’ page, I believe. It’s actually interesting from a strange self-analysis point of view to see how my views of photography have morphed in the last few years, partially as a consequence of experience, and partially due to the shift towards commercial work. So, perhaps I’ll revisit this post again in another few years and see how things have changed again…