opinion – Ming Thein | Photographer

Street photography – the ethics of photographing random strangers

July 21, 2012 by Ming Thein

Paris, Leica M8, 21/1.4

Street photography is a genre that every photographer will try at least once in their career. Its broad appeal stems from the fact that you can do it anywhere; there’s a human element to the images that captivate the viewer, and if done well, can make for some extremely arresting images. However, it also requires balls. You have to get close enough to your subjects; and with people, invading personal space is uncomfortable (and possibly hazardous to health) for both photographer and subject. There’s a slight snobbishness about shooting with a longer lens, too – it isn’t seen as being hard core enough. In fact, these days, it seems if you’re not at f8, hyperfocal distance and sticking your camera and flash right up to somebody’s nose, then you’re not really doing street photography.

London, Leica M8, Zeiss 21/2.8

There’s another approach, though. I think it’s much, much harder to shoot wide open with a relatively wide lens – say nothing longer than 35mm – and shoot without your subject knowing you’re there. This is what I like to call the stealth method – you don’t want to draw attention to yourself, and better yet, shoot without even bringing the camera to your eye. It takes a huge amount of skill and practice to nail shots this way, because you must be able to both guess focus correctly (if manually focusing) or know where your AF box is going to go – and at the same time know your lens well enough to visualize the field of view. You also have to be incredibly fast about it, because moments are fleeting and not repeatable. I’m not going to name names, but there are a number of popular ‘street photographers’ who don’t and can’t do this because it’s extremely difficult to do, and the yield rate is quite low for ‘perfect’ shots.

London, Leica M8, Zeiss 21/2.8

*Shameless self plug: all of the images in this post, and all of my street photography, is done using the stealth method. When I was in practice and shooting hundreds of frames daily, I could zone focus accurately with my M8 and 21/1.4 at f2. Not anymore, sadly.

Oxford, Leica M8, 21/1.4

However, the biggest benefit to this approach is the fact that you don’t intimidate or scare your subjects. If you don’t make somebody angry, they’re far less likely to be unhappy or actively object to you taking a photograph. And if people do notice, don’t stare back or give a stern look – though it’s usually human nature – wave and smile, and you’ll be surprised how many people wave and smile back at you. They may even strike up a conversation and let you get a few more interesting images.

Paris, Leica M8, 21/1.4

There’s also the more subtle issue of quantum mechanics**. Basically, you as the observer won’t interfere with the scene – if you become a participant in the image, then the reaction you provoke from your subjects will necessarily disrupt whatever it was you initially wanted to capture. Bottom line: be anonymous, unmemorable, and blend in. If you’re in a touristy area, this might mean pretending to take random photos of everything and anything, whilst actually being very specific about what you’re looking for. Or it may mean using a compact and holding it in your hand, always being aware, and getting a grab frame in whenever you can. It means having to be both anticipative and reactive; you’ve got to be a bit of a psychologist to figure out who’s going to do what when, so you can visualize the scene in advance and be ready to capture it.

Prague, Leica M9-P, 50/1.4 ASPH

**I deal extensively with the Schrodinger paradox and its application to photography here.

This brings me to the real meat of this article: what are the rights and wrongs of street photography? A comment by one of my readers on another post inspired the post; yes, I do shoot a lot of random strangers, especially when traveling, and there are often shots I see but may not take for various reasons. I don’t think it’s so much lack of chutzpah as the feeling that it may not be socially acceptable or ethically appropriate in various situations; photographing beggars and cripples is one of those things. Using people to portray contrasts or as anonymous human-scale elements in a frame is fine, but the one golden rule I stick to is that I’ll never take a shot that’s demeaning or potentially defamatory. You wouldn’t want the somebody to do the same to you, would you?

Prague, Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

Then there’s the issue of where and when – in most countries, you’re allowed to photograph in public effectively without restriction. There may be certain rules on tripod use because of obstruction or perceived ‘commerciality’ of the images, but that varies from place to place; in any case, most of the time I don’t use a tripod because of the weight and inconvenience. However, private property is exactly that: private. So if you’re told not to photograph, then you probably shouldn’t. And never use images for commercial or stock use if you don’t have the agreement of any identifiable individuals in the image. (Editorial use is different; you don’t need releases for people in news stories, but you also can’t really sell the images for anything else other than news.) Finally, I would be careful in politically sensitive countries or around police or other law enforcement agencies – they may have good reason for you not to photograph something, and ignorance isn’t a defense in court.

Kuala Lumpur, Leica M9-P, 50/0.95

Finally, remember that in an increasingly connected world, we aren’t anonymous. It’s entirely possible for somebody to see themselves on another site somewhere; in fact, it’s happened to me a few times. It may be because I just look at more images than the average person and thus have a higher chance of seeing myself somewhere, but I’ve also had people message or email and say they were the person in the shot. I usually just send the person a copy of the image by way of thank you; in any case, you can’t do anything commercially with it, so there’s no harm in releasing a copy.

Prague, Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

I think if you stick to what your gut tells you about common sense and public etiquette, then you should be safe. Unless you’re a photojournalist, it isn’t worth getting the shot and then getting in trouble for it – there are exceptions, but they’re far and few between. Practice being fast and stealthy, but also courteous and friendly; and you’ll find that street photography isn’t so difficult after all. MT

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London, Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

Filed Under: Articles, Leica, On Photography Tagged With: article, ethics, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, shooting people, thein

Thoughts on Instagram and similar apps

July 14, 2012 by Ming Thein

No instagram, just careful exposure. iPhone 4

It seems that there are several distinctive ‘looks’ that amateur photographers recognize and try to replicate:

– High contrast black and white, sometimes with extra grain, usually all in focus
– Solarized/ retina-searing color, usually all in focus
– Partial bleach-bypass cross-processed color, usually with uneven depth of field or obvious lens flaws (Holga-with-expired-film)
– Very shallow depth of field of any sort
– The ‘miniature effect’ – pseudo tilt-shift

Originally, these styles were either conscious artistic decisions, or the consequences of not enough money and using expired film. They were chosen precisely because they looked unique – either because it was a difficult thing to execute well (using tilt-shift lenses, for instance) or because nobody else did it (cross-processing). The only exception to this is the high contrast black and white style, which was more a consequence of the limitations of the film chemistry at the time, and the requirements a picture of any recognizable description under difficult lighting conditions over fine grain.

However, now that we have a choice of how we process our images – and there’s sufficient latitude even in files from point and shoot cameras – a proliferation of either in-camera modes, filters or apps has taken hold of the photography industry, each claiming to be all you need produce one or all of the above styles.

I’ve got mixed feelings about this. On one hand, it takes the skill out of actually having to do any of these things (learn to process B&W properly, either chemically or in Photoshop, for instance); on the other, it does make crappy camera phone shots a lot more pleasant to look at. Until you’ve seen perhaps five, after which they’re all the same anyway – you might as well just have say five or ten random images that come out of the filter, regardless of what you actually shot – after all, you want your grab shot to look like a HC-B, right?

Yes and no. While filters and apps are great for improving the ease of getting the look you want and promoting the general democratization of photography, it’s also sad to see that the vast majority of people can’t tell the difference between a sloppily applied filter, an Instagram shot, and something that was actually done intentionally with full control. It’s even sadder to see that there are a lot of internet ‘photographers’ and bloggers who claim to be the best thing since sliced bread, but would be completely lost without Silver Efex or similar. Strip the artifice away, and what are you left with? A shot with extremely weak composition.

This isn’t so say that mobile phones are useless as capture devices; far from it. My previous article on using the iPhone as a camera is very much in support of it. If you learn the limitations of your device, you don’t need to resort to overcooked processing to mask its inherent limitations – blown highlights or blocked up shadows, for example. There are definitely undoubted advantages – instant connectivity, the ability to share and abundant abundant processing power all come to mind. Apps that come close to replicating the functionality and control of Photoshop – PhotoForge is a good example – make a very good argument for what an intelligent camera can do.

I’ve long maintained that all of these post-capture applications – be they photoshop or filters – cannot materially add to or take away from the composition of the image, because that’s the one thing that’s baked in at the time of capture. No matter how badly you botch the processing, if it’s a strong shot, it will always remain a strong shot whether in B&W, or color, or run through the Holgarize filter on your iPhone. However, the reverse of course applies: garbage in, garbage out. Composition aside, everything else is merely distraction. The problem is when the distraction portion is so great that the viewer can’t tell the difference, or worse, is drawn in at first by the distraction then disappointed by the lack of substance – I admit it happens to me a lot when browsing through images on flickr.

Put it this way: putting effort into learning how to compose properly will pay off in a much bigger way than putting effort into figuring out which button does what on the app. Or if you want to do both, then at least your image will have some substance to it.

If I sound a bit cynical and bitter about the whole thing, it’s not because I see people doing things with ease that I do the manual way – far from it; if there is an easier, faster workflow I’m usually the first to adopt it. What bothers me is that there are plenty of these ‘photographers’ who are not only ignorant about what they’re doing – ‘oh, I’ll use the Velvia filter’ – without actually knowing what Velvia is, or how it’s actually meant to look. Worse still, they get preachy about it and suddenly become an authority on slide film because they have an app or a button that says so. Never mind the fact that some of us shot commercial product jobs with multiple lights on slide, back in the day when you had to calculate guide numbers manually…man, I sound old.

Remember: it’s a tool, not a religion, and before you spout opinions, make sure you can back them up – it’s quite possible the other person you’re talking to has forgotten more than most people ever learn about the particular topic you’re talking about, but is just too polite to say anything about it. With that, I stand ready to be corrected. MT

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

Everybody’s a critic

June 26, 2012 by Ming Thein

In the internet age, anybody who has an opinion is free to express it. They’re even free to promote it in whatever way they choose, to whoever they choose. And inevitably it’s the loudest people that get heard – though not necessarily are they the ones with the most valid or interesting things to say.

/rant on: Something has been bothering me, for the past few weeks. And I’ve just put my finger on it. Every time I post a camera or lens review, something odd happens. Traffic spikes, but so do the very polarized emails and comments: everything from outright praise that I find undeserved (though extremely flattering) to derision and people attempting to poke holes in every single portion of my methodology or opinions. I want to make several things clear, both for reviews going forwards and retroactively for things I’ve already written:

1. Everything is relative. If you don’t like my images, fine – nobody is forcing you to look at them. Same for my opinions. But one of the great things about the internet is that there’s so much free content out there that you’re at liberty to choose what you see and read. (What you believe is up to you). And even better, is that there’s always an opportunity to learn something because everybody has a different point of view. I strive to approach every comment and question with an open mind, because it’s entirely possible (in fact, likely) that somebody has thought of something I’ve overlooked. But at the same time, questions are fine, but if you’re going to be a critic, then at least have a clear logical support case for your argument.

2. I will never claim that X image is better than Y image on anything but a subjective, personal level. Remember, cinematographers like flare, but still photographers don’t. Same with certain soft lenses. Photography is subjective, and that subjectivity means that nobody is right or wrong for the most part.

3. For the other parts that are quantifiable – noise, resolution, color accuracy (but not ‘pleasingness’) etc – then scientific tests are always the best way to get a relative idea of whether A is better than B. But the observer must always remember that there are a lot of variables involved – some of which cannot be decoupled from the equation (like lens choice) and some of which are also not relevant to the question (lens choice does not affect noise performance!).

4. I run tests and reviews as practical exercises. The reviews and tests I write are basically a documentation of my own evaluation process to determine if a particular camera makes sense for me or not as a tool, and if so, what incremental advantage does it offer over what I’ve already got. It’s possible to always say ‘but you should have use the 50/1.4 Aspherical Super-Nonagon-Reproductar ED instead of the 50/2.8 XYZ Noname’ – yes, but that isn’t a real world choice for me. I don’t think about the equipment I don’t have, because I’m not going to make photos with it. And I’m certainly not going to go out and buy it solely for the sake of a test. It seems a lot of people get hung up over this and fail to realize that a) a huge amount of work is required to document these tests and b) I’m not paid for it. Worse still, it takes away from the time I have available to do work that does pay. If I compare two things it’s because it’s a real world choice I’ll have to face when looking into the equipment cabinet.

5. My conclusions are not drawn solely from the images you see. The images are there as examples and illustrations. There is no validity to base a conclusion off shrunken web-size jpegs that have both been compressed and color-converted down to 8bit SRGB. I don’t share full size raw files because a) they’re proprietary and b) it would be ridiculously impractical due to bandwidth and hosting considerations. I won’t write something unless I’ve seen it enough times to warrant mention – a single odd image could be down to any number of factors, including sample variation. If something however performs consistently better or worse than expected based on other pieces of equipment of similar specifications, then it’s worth noting. And I suspect that’s what makes a lot of people uncomfortable, because they may have put their money in the wrong camp.

6. Equipment is nothing but a tool. If one tool gives you more flexibility or capability than another, then use it; if it doesn’t, don’t. Grow up and stop wasting your time defending your equipment choices online as though they’re religious beliefs or life and death. If you like it, use it. If that makes you produce better images with camera A even though camera B has more resolution, then camera A is better for you. This is why we have literally hundreds of choices on the market – the camera companies are smart enough to realize that, and let the diehard fans fight to the death over it on the internet. Any publicity is good publicity, right? As a photographer, I only care about the usefulness of a tool. I will buy what works and be vocal about what doesn’t, because if we’re not, then nothing will improve or be fixed. Remember: by far the most important ingredient in a successful photograph is the photographer.

7. The litmus test is the image you get out of it. If the viewer spends most of their time looking for noise rather than at the subject, then I’ve failed as a photographer. Delivering a good image – something that pleases myself and my clients – is the end goal, not to produce an incredibly boring photography that’s technically perfect. That is not what I’m hired for.

8. Finally, my site is about photography, not equipment. If you are looking for community validation of your expensive purchases and expect to see results that show the most expensive is always the best by a clear margin, then criticize my testing methodology with no proof or credibility if I find otherwise, please go and find a suitable forum for that – there are plenty of them out there. But if you want to learn about how understanding the various elements of composition will make you a better photographer, or how human psychology influences our perception of color, then keep reading. /rant off. MT

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Filed Under: Off topic Tagged With: critic, essay, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, testing methodology, thein

Some thoughts on digital camera lifespan

June 22, 2012 by Ming Thein

Some of my 2012 gear. Missing is the D800E, PCE 85/2.8 Micro, AI 45/2.8P, 35/1.4 ASPH FLE, Pen Mini, OM-D, Panasonic 20/1.7, Panasonic Leica 45/2.8, D-Lux 5 Titanium,a couple more SB900s, light panels…

This small mountain of gear leads to two very frightening thoughts. Firstly, there’s no ending in sight; one keeps accumulating more and more equipment in order to keep pushing the edge of what’s possible both from a compositional and artistic standpoint, as well as from an image quality standpoint. You’ve either got to have a great day job and very deep pockets, or some good recurring clients.

The second thought is around obsolescence. In the film days, the camera body and lenses lasted a long time; you invested in glass, got a decent body – one that fulfilled your personal needs as a photographer – and then picked the right film for the job. In that sense, image quality differences between brands were down to the lenses and the photographer. This is to say that if you put the same film in every camera, the difference in sharpness or acuity or color or whatever would be down to the lens only. If you wanted more image quality, you went for a bigger format – and thus a larger sensor. The digital equivalent to this would be having only one photo site design of a fixed pixel pitch; say around 4.9 microns, which would get you 16MP at APS-C, 36MP at FX, about 60MP on 645, and something silly on large format. For an equivalent size print, the larger format would definitely outdo the smaller format by an amount proportional to the difference in resolution.

A Parisian cliche. 2006 vintage Leica M8, Voigtlander 50/1.1

Except, that’s not quite the case, because there are technological tricks employed on some sensors that land up yielding image quality that isn’t quite where you’d expect along the size-quality curve. Bottom line: the camera body now plays a much more critical role in the imaging chain because it also contains the ‘film’, and this isn’t something you can change when the equivalent of a new emulsion is released.

Cameras from the 1950s and 1960s are still alive and well today – and in some cases, quite plentiful. Yes, some may have sticky shutters or mechanical issues due to neglect or lack of servicing, but the reality is that they were a) built to last and b) will continue to do a fine job so long as one can find film for them. The chemical process for film processing hasn’t changed much in the last forty or so years. Negatives can (probably) last hundreds of years with proper archival and storage conditions – how long, exactly, is anybody’s guess.

Minute repeater works. 2005 vintage Nikon D2Hs, 85/2.8 PC Micro

However, we’re facing some very real issues with digital, and ones that matter to all digital photographers. Let’s examine these individually.

Camera life. In the film days, shutters may have been rated to 50,000 or so exposures for a professional body – the reality is that nobody but a professional would shoot this many frames; film always has a per-shot cost and effort cost associated with it. You think a bit harder before letting off a frame, and this generally results in fewer frames but more keepers. Since digital is free, photographers experiment a lot more (and learn a lot faster) – but this means that you’re probably going to wear out a shutter if you are a dedicated shooter and keep a camera more than a few years. Even the professional grade cameras have shutters rated to around 300,000 or so exposures; I know of many sport photographers whose cameras are well over the million-frame mark. I’ve had to replace shutters a couple of times on my own cameras. This in itself isn’t a big deal, so long as parts are available. However, if something goes wrong with the electronics, your camera becomes a brick the minute the manufacturer runs out of spare circuit boards – the chips are not something you can repair with an experienced hand, unlike mechanical shutters for instance.

Shipyard worker. 2007 vintage Panasonic TZ3

Lenses. Even modern lenses are not immune to this – yes, they all still use glass and helicoids, but they also rely on a lot of electronics to control autofocus and aperture functions. Let’s not even talk about those with magnetically-activated gyroscopes for stabilization. Even the coreless ring-shaped motors used to achieve fast focusing aren’t infallible; early Nikon AFS lenses are notorious for requiring that expensive repair once the lenses start making squeaking noises. Again: you’re up one of those brown creeks with no paddle if something electronic gives way. The sole exception to this is the entirely mechanical glass by Leica and Zeiss; those will probably survive the apocalypse.

Batteries and cables. Anybody who’s got an older camera that uses Ni-MH or Ni-Cd cells is going to relate to this one instantly: once the batteries are no longer available, you’ve got a brick. And the inherent nature of the chemistry means that this can be as short as five years, or perhaps ten if you’re lucky. I’m glad I don’t have any that fall into this category, but I do have some lithium cells that were so heavily used that they’re pretty much useless now; I’d be worried about not being able to get replacements for these in the future. (Fortunately, I’m paranoid about spare batteries, so I have at least two for each camera I use.) Once supplies dry up off ebay, that’s probably the end of the line – and who even knows how old or new those stockpiles are. One thing I really hate about some cameras is the necessity to use proprietary connectors for things like video out or even USB – if you lose or damage that little adaptor or cable that came in the box with the camera, you’re probably out of luck getting a replacement unless there’s a huge ecosystem for the camera – but so far, no camera connector has reached that kind of popularity. At least some makers see sense and use standard mini-USB cables or 3.5mm minijacks. And putting the two together, the same of course goes for battery chargers…

A quiet moment. 2004 vintage D2H, with a 1960s vintage 55/1.2 SC pre-AI converted Nikkor

Storage media. This one concerns me quite a lot: we’ve already seen big shifts from one type of digital media to another, with almost zero support once a type of card or drive or storage goes out of fashion. Self-burned CDs from just a few years ago seem to be hit and miss when it comes to readability; early DVDs are a tossup because of the format used; and has anybody tried to mount an old drive recently? They don’t always work. I’ve found the best way to keep your files and backups accessible is to use external hard drives, limit the amount of uptime they have (if you’re not using them, don’t turn them on) and change them every couple of years. This serves several purposes: firstly, maximizing forward compatibility; secondly, giving you more space; thirdly, hopefully more reliability as technology matures; and finally, the old drives can be kept somewhere as an incremental backup. And drives fail, too – you might want to take a look at my article on storage and backups.

Online. If you’re storing files online, make sure you have an offline backup. I’m sure Kodakgallery had a lot of users at one point – at least until they shut down this month. I dread to think what’s going to happen to their servers when everybody’s aunt and uncle suddenly realize that all of their photos are there and must be downloaded immediately, or worse still, forgets completely they’re there at all. The problematic thing is that there is usually no automated backup for these things – you have to download the images one by one. If say Flickr went down, I’d lose the 13,800 or so images I’ve got there – at least the small, web-sized archives – and that wouldn’t be so critical, except that all of the images from this site are hosted there. Still, it would be recoverable – but not great. And problematically, there’s no way of executing a backup to this, either.

File compatibility. Of all the future proofing problems faced by us digital users, this is by far the biggest. I’m no so worried about JPEGs, because it seems that as a format it’s here to stay; even the improved JPEG 2000 format introduced by the same group that created JPEG compression originally didn’t really make much of a dent in the photography world. What worries me more is the ability to open all of those RAW files in future; so far, Adobe Camera Raw is doing a great job of maintaining full compatibility with older cameras (which explains why the update files are now enormous), but I wonder what will happen if that platform shifts in future. We can only hope the size of the demand for such support is large enough to support a continuing market for such products. A second set of DNG files may be an option for increased future proofing. However, it’s well-known that ACR isn’t the best converter for all files, and better image quality can be obtained via other converters for specific cameras – so I’d be concerned about what information isn’t being fully captured and transferred over. I don’t have a solution for this other than keeping a full set of uncompressed TIFF files, whose encoding is relatively simple and shouldn’t be too difficult to retain support for in future.

End of the line. 2007 vintage Panasonic TZ3

There’s one final issue I’d like to touch on in this article, and that’s the ecosystem. I’m not about to go greenpeace; I’m referring specifically to the support tech that’s required to maintain a full digital workflow; this includes everything from the memory cards to cables to batteries to the computer involved. Image quality competitiveness aside (more on sufficiency in another article), I think you’re going to have to think about a full upgrade cycle for your support gear every three to five years. It’s no longer your camera body you’ve got to cost in, but also a new computer to handle the larger files, Photoshop upgrades to get the most out of those RAW files, bigger memory cards and hard drives to store everything on, maybe even a higher resolution, more accurate monitor. And all of this of course costs money.

There are two ways of dealing with this – as a hobbyist, I’d recommend buying one complete (and compatible) set, then using it until one critical component dies or absolutely has to be replaced. This should get you at least five years of use, probably more. The upside is lower money out, but also close to zero residual value. As a professional, you probably have to consider the other extreme – upgrade as soon as an improvement is available. Your used gear still has resale value, and this can be used to offset the upgrade costs. Incremental upgrades to the supporting equipment can be made with relatively small spending. (I don’t like to use the word ‘investment’ when it comes to equipment, because it is really a losing proposition.) It also keeps you competitive. I’m a masochistic early adopter, so I’ve always taken the latter route. I think it’s very important to pick one approach and stick to it (or buy film, then consider owning only one camera and lens for the rest of your life) – otherwise you’re going to be stuck in the expensive no-mans’ land inn the middle. MT

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Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, camera lifespan, equipment, gear head, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, photography, thein

2012 Equipment picks for travel photography

June 20, 2012 by Ming Thein

This is an article that will probably go out of currency about six months after it’s published, but no matter; just because new cameras are released, it doesn’t reduce the usefulness or image-making ability of older ones. Travel is something I do for both work and pleasure; in my previous corporate life I used to travel heavily (think anywhere up to 100+ sectors per year) for work. My love for photography inevitably led me to carry a camera of some sort wherever i went – both to document my experiences as well as for use as stress release during my limited free time. Shooting is cathartic to me – I’m probably the only person I know who relaxes after a day of commercial shooting by taking pictures.

Traveling for meetings and other corporate reasons really takes most of the fun out of it; the TSA and other forms of airport security and administration do the rest. Much to my wife’s consternation, it’s taking me a little while to start enjoying it again.

The thought of going on a trip actually presents me with much anxiety: what the hell do I bring in the way of equipment? Early on in my photographic career, the choice was simple: everything that would fit into the bag, which at that point, was pretty much everything. Later, I’d take just new gear, or once again, if undecided, pretty much everything. However, my first trip with a significant other – Paris – showed me that hefting around all of that gear was both pointless when the primary purpose of your trip isn’t photography, as well as that it’s a sure way of annoying the hell out of your partner.

This considered, equipment choices changed from ‘how do I use X piece of gear?’ to ‘what is the minimum I can get away with and not feel like I’m missing anything?’ (My article on minimalism deals with this handily).

As a general rule of thumb, I don’t like to bring untried or untested gear with me unless I have absolutely no choice (my Vienna/ Prague trip at the end of 2011 was to get some images for Leica; that was the first time I was shooting the M9-P and 28/2.8 ASPH properly, and I paid for it occasionally with missed shots and questionable focus); there’s too much at stake if it breaks or doesn’t perform as expected. You’re probably not going to be able to repeat that trip to the Himalayas, so it’s probably a good idea to bring both a spare camera and a primary that you know can handle a bit of abuse.

What I do like a lot at the moment are both the raw shooting compacts – think the Ricoh GR-Digital III/ IV, Leica D-Lux 5/ Panasonic LX5; and the most compact of the system cameras. My current choice for travel is the Olympus OM-D, because of its image quality, huge responsiveness, small size – and more importantly, small system size – and ability to work well with longer lenses.

The Leica M9-P ranks pretty high up that list too – however, using anything over 50mm isn’t so easy without a magnifier, and if you’ve got one of those on, then you can kiss goodbye to your 28mm. It also isn’t so flexible when it comes to shooting food, for instance – another thing I enjoy. I do admit, it looks and feels nicer, though – but I’m shallow that way. (Why not travel in style if you can?) However, the biggest gotcha with the Leica is the liability – I don’t know how it is in other parts of the world, but to get insurance for cameras in Malaysia is near impossible, especially if you’re going to be taking them out of the country. And the premiums to fully cover an M system would probably cost a goodly portion of the trip itself.

I like to go with a two-lens kit these days – 24/28 and 85/90. This gives me two distinct perspectives, prime lens quality, fast apertures (with the low light ability and depth of field control that also implies) and (mostly) reduced size. This means the 24/1.4 AFS and 85/1.4 AFS on the D700; the Olympus 12/2 and 45/1.8 on the OM-D and Pen Mini; or some mixture of the Zeiss 28/2.8 Biogon, 50/2 Planar, Leica 28/2.8 ASPH and 50/1.4 ASPH on the M9 (anything longer being impractical). Where possible, I’ll generally also bring a spare body in the same mount, and perhaps also a highly capable compact – the Pen Mini and 20/1.7 pancake or Ricoh GR-Digital III usually fill this niche. I also like the Leica D-Lux 5, because its lens conveniently happens to go from 24 to 90mm…

The one hypothetical situation – which so far has not yet happened – where I’d make an unconventional equipment choice would be if I went skiing. The landscape opportunities are fantastic, but one generally needs more millimeters to make it work; however, there’s a lot of light, so they don’t have to be fast millimeters. I’d probably use the D800E and 28-300VR in a chest pouch, with a 45/2.8 P pancake in the front pocket for when the light gets low and I want something smaller for social evening activities.

If I’m going to an advanced country where spares are easily available, I’ll probably go with just one body; Japan would be a good example of this (though for some odd reason, I’ve always had two bodies whenever I’ve been there). This reduces weight drastically, and I know that I can still use my Nikon lenses if I have to pick up a used D700 or something to replace it. The other nice thing is worldwide support via NPS, which I’ve had to use in the past when the lens release button on my D3 fell off on the second day of my trip(!).

There are reasons for having two bodies, however – instant readiness is one of them – but it’s also important to consider how much of the trip you plan to spend shooting, and how much you plan to spend enjoying and experiencing being in a different place. It would be a shame to miss out on or have an incomplete experience because you’re too busy trying to get the shot. (I’m one of those strange people who experiences things by shooting them, so you may not necessarily want to follow exactly what I do here, either.)

So, distilling all that into a paragraph, my current camera choice would be the Olympus OM-D, 12/2 and 45/1.8 lenses. Either with a second OM-D body, or a Pen Mini as backup.

What about other equipment?

Well, batteries and chargers are a no-brainer. Figure out what you need for a full day of shooting, and bring one more so you can be charging and shooting at the same time. This number should be at least two. Ideally, you’d want your cameras to share batteries and chargers to improve backup, but this isn’t always possible. It seems that all camera makers want us to buy their horribly overpriced accessories all over again every time a new camera is released. Shame on you.

Spare cards are also a no-brainer. I generally bring three to four times what I think I’ll need; these days it’s usually 32 GB cards in the cameras, another two spares each, and some older 16GB spares.

Depending on how long you’re going to be on the road, you might want to consider bringing some sort of editing device or at least something to give you web access; I like the 11″ Apple MacBook Air because it’s both a proper computer, and light enough that you don’t notice you’ve got it. I don’t do any processing on it because of screen color accuracy issues, but I could if I had to. In fact, almost all of this blog is written from that machine. It also gives me somewhere to backup my files to at the end of the day. (Although I won’t do any photoshop work, I can do some light editing after seeing what works on a larger screen and what doesn’t.) After a two week trip, the last thing you want is for one of your cards to get corrupted and take all of your images with it. Backups are important: I’ve learned that the hard way in the past. Fitted into the USB ports are a pair of 32GB Sandisk Cruzer Fit USB drives, which are extremely small – they stick out about 5mm – but add another 64GB of solid state storage, which works as another backup. I’ve also got one of my portable drives with me, which holds a complete backup of my work at home – just in case something happens while I’m not there.

A comfortable bag is a must for moving from location to location, but when you’re there and shooting, you might want to consider a waist pouch or shooting jacket instead (depending of course on the climate). If I’m going with two bodies, I’d put a lens on each, spare cards and batteries in a cargo pants pocket, and off we go. It’s much, much more pleasant to shoot unencumbered without any bags or things that you might have to watch out for or remember to zip up and guard against thieves; you’ll be surprised how much of a difference it makes to your travel photography experience. I went with a shooting jacket last time, a couple of lenses in my pockets and one camera around my neck, and it was a hugely liberating experience.

Other things that are useful, but people seldom think of:
– Chewing gum.
– A permanent CD marker.
– Business cards, if you’re a pro photographer.
– Press passes – you’d be surprised how many times this has gotten me into places to get shots where the public wouldn’t normally be allowed.
– Duct tape, and cloth tape – it’s the magical stuff that holds the universe together. Both of them together, wrapped around that original particle, could probably have prevent the big bang from happening. Good thing they were inside the particle.
– Plastic ziploc bags, big enough to hold your cameras. This is my emergency rain cover, in case it gets really bad; however, you can take care of this to some extent by having a weather sealed camera. The lightest, smallest one in this class is the OM-D.
– A small flash, if you haven’t got one built into the camera; fill at night is useful.
– A tabletop tripod for long exposures; you can also rotate it through 90 degrees and brace it up against a window. I like the Manfrotto 345 set, which comes with some incredibly sturdy cast magnesium legs, a small ballhead, and an aluminum extension (which can be useful for small cameras, but absolutely too weak for larger ones).
– If you’re going to a hostile environment like the sea, then UV filters to fit all lenses.
– Spare lens caps and back caps**.
– Lens hoods. They’re good bumpers against impact protection.
– A small multitool. You might have to check this one in. Those little screwdrivers are extremely handy; actually, make sure you check your mount screws for tightness before leaving home – they have a curious proclivity to work themselves loose over time.
– Copies of your critical travel documents on a USB memory stick or memory card.
– Memory card reader; the compact direct-plug-in USB types are the most handy.
– A local sim card and cheap phone to put it in might be useful for extended trips.

**I usually tape two together, back-to-back, to make lens changing easier. Take the lens off the camera, put it onto your double-ended special, then take the other lens off and put it onto the camera. No fumbling with caps or leaving things unnecessarily uncovered. The alternative – aside from having two bodies – is to use a waist pouch or drop-in and forgo the caps entirely. Just make sure there isn’t anything else inside the pouch that could damage your lenses.

One last thing: don’t forget to have fun. It’s infinitely better to go with less gear and get creative to make do with what you did bring, rather than carry 30kg with you because you’re worried about the security of your hotel room and can’t bring yourself to leave anything behind, but at the same time don’t really want to walk around all day with it either. MT

Update, August 2012: I want to add the Sony RX100 to the list of recommended cameras. If you’re traveling in a group or with a partner, or doing any sort of travel at all where photography is not your primary objective, then consider taking along the RX100 instead of something larger. It’s barely noticeable until you need to get the shot, then it does it with a minimum of fuss and hides until it’s called upon again. It’s the very definition of the concept of photographic sufficiency.

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Filed Under: Gearhead: Reviews, On Photography Tagged With: equipment, gear, ming, mingthein.com, opinion, recommendations, thein, travel

Travel minimalism: one lens to go

June 16, 2012 by Ming Thein

Canterbury in autumn. Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

Every time I travel for personal purposes, I’m always torn between experiencing the place, and photographing the place. Photography is such a part of me that sometimes I feel that I experience and understand things more through trying to capture the essence of them. Or perhaps it’s because doing so forces you into conscientious observer mode, and this in turn makes one’s mind more receptive to things, and more willing to question what you see and find juxtapositions or contrasts.

Canterbury Cathedral crypt. Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

That aside one of the things which inevitably keeps me up the night before departure is trying to figure out what to bring equipment-wise. If it’s on assignment, then I bring everything I might possibly need, plus spares – to hell with overweight baggage, if you don’t have it, it could mean a lost job – on the other hand, if I’m traveling for myself, I’d rather carry as little gear as possible. Well, little enough that I don’t notice it after walking around for hours on end, but with sufficient coverage that I don’t get frustrated and feel like I missed a rare photographic opportunity because I didn’t bring along a wide angle. Or something along those lines.

A Parisian in her natural habitat. Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

My last personal vacation saw me bringing an Olympus Pen Mini, the 14-42 kit lens and a Panasonic 20/1.7 pancake. We went to the beach. Frankly this made the choice easy as I didn’t really want to expose any of the more expensive gear to moisture, salt and sand; the M9-P definitely would not have been suitable, and the D800 might have produced great landscapes, but it would also have worked fine as a boat anchor.

Three conversations, Paris. Leica M8, 21/1.4 ASPH

I’ve been trying to fine-tune this over the years. I’ve been on trips where I did carry coverage from 14-450mm and a spare body; whilst I got some great images, I also had a sore back, and landed up leaving everything but one body and the 24-70 zoom in the hotel room for the last week. More crucially, I felt the images produced from that trip lacked focus; I brought everything, so subconsciously I was actually trying to capture everything. The upshot is a set of images that isn’t as strong as it could have been, and worse still, experiencing that slightly chaotic panicky feeling that you just might have missed a shot opportunity somewhere.

Tate Modern yard, London. Ricoh GR Digital III

My preferred travel kit is a moderate wide, and a moderate telephoto – both fast – and one body. I might carry a spare compact or something similar as a backup, just in case. I’ve gone with the D700, 24/1.4 and 85/1.4 – this is an absolutely fantastic and hugely flexible combination – plus a spare compact, either the Fuji X100, Leica D-Lux 5, or my favorite, the Ricoh GR-Digital III. Most recently, I spent two weeks in Europe with an M9-P, 28 and 50mm lenses, plus the Pen Mini and 45/1.8 (giving me 90mm in a pocket). This was also an excellent combination, and in some ways better than the Nikon based setup due to weight and instant availability of the telephoto. However, it lagged hugely in low light performance. I think the next trip I take will probably be Micro 4/3 based; an OM-D and Pen Mini with 12, 20 and 45mm lenses will cover the vast majority of situations handily. And not weigh very much, either.

Piccadilly Circus, London. Ricoh GR Digital III

So what’s all of this talk about a single lens?** Or single camera? There are advantages to this approach: firstly, you’re unencumbered and free to enjoy the atmosphere, people and culture without feeling like a packhorse; a small camera around your neck is probably much easier to manage than an entire backpack full of lenses. Also, you don’t have to worry as much about security – frankly, carrying several Leica f1.4 Summiluxes and a Noctilux around even safe Singapore made me pretty nervous.

**Let me clarify: I don’t mean going with a 28-300, though I suppose this might be a viable option for some situations. That lens has more compromises than strengths, and if you don’t know how to manage your perspectives properly, then you’ll land up with weak images too, because you’ll always be trying to ‘zoom in’.

The Shard, under construction. Ricoh GR Digital III

The main advantage, however, is that it frees up your mind from having to think about what perspective to take for a scene. Do you find the essence in the details, or do you go for something wider and more encompassing, with context? Trouble is, there is often no right answer – and from experience, I know that inevitably you’ll land up trying to make both work and being satisfied with neither. On the other hand, if you’ve got just one focal length, then you can pre visualize what your frame will look like; with sufficient experience, your eye naturally looks for compositions that fit within the perspective and angle of view of the lens you’ve got. Thus: instead of wondering what perspective to use, you’re free to spent that mental capacity on fine-tuning the elements inside the frame of the only perspective you have. It can be liberating – providing you’re thinking about the photograph, and not about the equipment you left at home. There’s also the side benefit of not having to change lenses, and thus always being ready.

The doorway, Hanoi. Nikon D700, 85/1.4 G

I actually did this on several occasions. At the end of 2009, I made short trips to Oxford, Canterbury and Paris; for these I brought two lenses (21 and 50mm for the M8) but only used the 21. I did it again in 2010; the first trip saw me bringing a D700 and several lenses, plus the Ricoh GR-Digital III; I only used the Ricoh and its fixed 28mm because it was both much more convenient, as well as matching the way my eye was tuned at the time after my first Leica-M experience. I got wiser on the second trip and left everything behind except the GR-Digital III. Hanoi later that year saw me using only the D700 and 85/1.4 G.

A Vietnamese stereotype. Hanoi. Nikon D700, 85/1.4 G

If you are going to try this exercise, I’d recommend going for a wide normal rather than an ultra wide or a tele; for the simple reason that these are the most flexible focal lengths to use. 35-50mm can appear wide or moderately telephoto depending on how you choose to use the foreground elements in your scene. And at some point, chances are you’ll probably want to take a photo of yourself or your traveling companion (or both of you, or your family…you get the point) – and it’s generally much easier with something wide or normal than say a 300mm.

Prague castle and stars. Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

Some people may find a telephoto easier to use in these kinds of situations because they can snipe from a distance; I’d personally advise against it because it’s very difficult to make images with context; and that’s one of the cornerstones of travel photography. The bokeh may be great, but if the background gives you no clue as to where the subject is, then the image could well have been shot anywhere – and that somewhat defeats the point of travel photography.

A Viennese moment. Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

Personally, if I had to pick, I’d go with either a 28mm, or a 35mm – depending on whether my images would likely be more people-biased (longer), or more location-biased (wider). And it’d have to be fast, too; I’d be using the lens at night, and anything slower than 2.8 wouldn’t cut it. Frankly, in some situations, even f2.8 may be a little borderline. Finally, it’d have to go on something small, light and unobtrusive; responsiveness is important because your ability to anticipate things will be a little bit diminished thanks to the foreign environment. Right now, my choice is probably between the Olympus OM-D and Panasonic 20/1.7, the Ricoh GR-Digital III/ IV, or the Leica M9-P and a 35/1.4 ASPH FLE.

Give it a try. On your next trip, just use a 35 or 50 prime for at least a day or two; if it makes you feel better, bring along your zooms too, but don’t use them until you absolutely feel that you’re missing shots. MT

Wat Arun and Boat, Bangkok. Leica M9-P, 35/1.4 ASPH FLE

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Filed Under: Articles, Leica, On Photography Tagged With: 21 summilux, article, essay, leica, m8, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, minimalism, one lens, opinion, paris, philosophy, thein, travel

How serious do you want to get?

June 6, 2012 by Ming Thein

At some point, every enthusiast photographer is going to want an upgrade. It’s a natural consequence of human society; more and newer is better. Since money doesn’t necessarily correlate to ability – in fact, it’s frequently the complete opposite situation – the people who’ve bought the best and latest gear generally aren’t the best photographers. In fact, I think a solid argument can be made that if you are very committed and passionate about your hobby, then you’ll find ways to make do without resorting to technology.

Advance warning: this article is as much about individual soul searching as it is about gear lust. Many of you will probably disagree with what I have to say, or find the truths a little uncomfortable; you of course don’t have to listen to me, but you might well find doing so unburdens you and allows you to develop even more as a photographer. Why am I saying this? Because I went through the process myself, and have to make a conscious effort to stop myself from falling into the gear trap. (It’s actually a lot worse when you’re a pro because you can justify buying anything as ‘work related’ and a tax-deductible expense.)

Notice the question I asked was ‘how serious do you want to get?’ not ‘how serious are you?’. There’s a difference: the former is aspirational, and the latter is slightly insulting, specifically in the implied stagnation and doubt of one’s ability.

Rule Number One: don’t confuse need and want.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting something. It’s what makes us human, in many ways. But don’t think you need it. Having a D800 will not make you a better photographer than D700. In fact, it might well make your images worse if you lack the discipline to use it properly. But if you desire one, and that’s all there is to it, then go ahead. If the ownership experiences gives you pleasure, and you’re happy carrying the weight around, then who’s going to stop you? These types of purchases tend to be accompanied by positive personal emotions.

Need is different: you’re going to find it difficult to do product photography without lighting gear. That’s a need, if the situation calls for it. I wouldn’t argue any other way. These types of purchases often feel like paying tax: we do it because we have to, not because we want to.

This brings me on to Rule Number Two: only buy something if you know you’ve exhausted the limits of your equipment.

There are so many advantages here: you’ll buy exactly what you need. You won’t waste money on trying things that ‘might’ be useful. You will actively seek the skillset required to make the most of the new acquisition.

Rule Number Three: learn to use what you’ve got. This one is a biggie. The number of people who keep buying bigger and faster lenses and cameras thinking that it’s going to solve basic compositional problems never ceases to amaze me. Fps and bokeh are tools and enablers, not a crutch for compositional imbalance! Yes, the ‘Photoshop tax’ is painful, but if you think about it, not unreasonable. I use photoshop for every single image I shoot. There is no other piece of equipment that falls into this category, yet some of the other tools I own cost far more. How is this unreasonable? I look at it as cheaper than having a darkroom, or paying somebody to develop films for you. Furthermore, signing up for a decent course or educational program is going to cost less than a new camera, but teach you far, far more. Buying a professional camera without understanding photography is like driving a Ferrari with traction control off in the rain: you can go fast, kinda wing it, probably hold it together most of the time, but sooner or later, you’re going to crash in a big, messy way.

This brings us around full circle. I don’t define seriousness in photography as whether you make your living from it or not; there are plenty of ‘pros’ who make big money but don’t really care about the output – so long as it’s about 90% there, the clients can’t tell the difference. Even more shockingly, I was told this in person, by more than one person whose fees are rather high. Similarly, there are amateurs who are outstandingly good photographers – probably without the commercial inclination or personal interest in making a living out of it – but their shooting discipline and workflow shows incredible attention to detail, even though very few people (if any) see their images.

Rather, seriousness is probably closer to how much of a sacrifice you’re willing to make; this comes in many forms. Cost. Weight of equipment. Time spent processing, which could be spent on other things. Sleep sacrificed for that perfect sunrise or sunset. Personal security, to get the shot in a dangerous area. Photographers who try to capture things they cannot control – think photojournalists and wildlife shooters – rank pretty darn high on the seriousness ladder.

I think it’s very important to know where this boundary lies personally. Like every other wildlife photographer, I once had aspirations to shoot for National Geographic; the reality is that after a bit more research into what they do while on assignment; I don’t think I’d be happy with that kind of life; sacrifices are high. But on the opposite side of the coin, I’m willing to put up with PC lenses, tripods, focusing racks etc. in order to eke out a tiny bit more image quality for my watch photography – which I don’t think many people would bother with.

Perhaps another definition of the spectrum is whether you’d go out of your way to get the shot or not: a serious photographer would either go far, far out of their way and plan specifically to get that one image; a not-serious one would be more opportunistic and just make causal images as and when the opportunity arises.

Knowing where you stand on this continuum – enables you to make decisions without that slight discomfort and doubt that you’re compromising on other things at the expense of photography – but without really knowing why. It’s a lot easier to be happy about the choice to carry 20kg of equipment on holiday because you know that you aim to get some very specific shots that can only be done with that equipment; as opposed to bringing-it-along-because-you-bought-all-of-it-already-because-it-made-you-look-like-a-pro-and-now-you-should-probably-use-it. Similarly, you won’t feel bad about missing that amazing sunset your 20kg-toting friend got because he woke up at 5am, and you were hungover after partying the night before – but you know how to make a decent shot with your mirrorless camera when the opportunity arises, even if you don’t actively go out of your way to look for it.

That liberation brings happiness and contentment. Very simply, that makes it a hell of a lot easier to enjoy what you do; the fact that you’re here and reading means you’ve got a choice. And given that choice, would you want to do anything for any other reason? MT

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Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, commitment, how serious do your want to get, ming, mingthein.com, opinion, philosophy, thein

Chasing perfect color, and common myths about white balance

May 21, 2012 by Ming Thein

The previous article on the inexact science of color and emotion dealt with why color was important, and how we can use it as a tool to alter the mood and emotional response of the viewer of our photographs. This article explains how we get there.

Sandwiches. Did you know greens are heavily affected by the yellow channel? Nikon D700, AFS 60/2.8 G Micro

Although highly saturated color is visually striking, and B&W images are timelessly classic and elegant, there are a lot of times when neither is appropriate or an accurate representation of the scene. I’ve recently realized that I like accurate color above everything else – saturation control then becomes a matter of seasoning to taste. Color accuracy is actually quite critical when it comes to things like food – if the color of cheese or lettuce is off, it just looks moldy or unfresh. This is definitely NOT good for commercial work! My recent work is what I’d call in a ‘natural’ style – the color, saturation and hues are as close to my perception and remembrance of the scene as possible. I’ll do some shifting of white balance to make things warmer or cooler as required, but not a huge amount because it can do some very strange things to tonal accuracy.

Scarlet Ibis. The red in is plumage is due to pigments in the shellfish that forms the majority of its diet. Leica V-Lux 3

Skin tones are perhaps the most difficult to replicate accurately; this is because skin is both reflective of ambient light (easy for the camera to capture) and emissive – we’re warm, and there’s some passive IR radiated by warm objects. Although modern cameras have very effective UV/IR blocking filter packs, they also produce (in my opinion) slightly dead-looking skin tones. I actually liked the skin tones from the Leica M8 for this reason, which was notorious for having perhaps the weakest UVIR filtration of any camera on the market – to the point that to get accurate blacks you’d have to use a UVIR filter on your lens.

Black fabrics in the sun are notorious IR-emitters. Leica M9-P, 28/2.8 ASPH

Other objects that are notoriously difficult to reproduce accurately are flowers, some animals, and some fabrics. Again – this is because of the way they interact with the near-UV and near-IR spectra, which affects the way our eyes perceive color (though we can’t see UV or IR directly unlike some animals). To date, there is no camera that accurately reflects the spectral response of the human eye – and I suspect it might be very difficult to make one, because the filter pack would have to be calibrated to transmit or cut out a certain amount of each wavelength. It’s much easier to make a filter that cuts out everything above and/or below a certain wavelength. Throw in the added complication of mixed light sources, and you’ve got a minor nightmare.

Colors. All of them. Which one do you balance for without shifting the others? Answer: focus on your subject – in this case, skin tones and blacks. Olympus E-PM1 Pen Mini, 45/1.8

So what can we do to achieve perfect color?

First clarification: we are not trying to achieve perfect spectral reproduction; we’re trying to achieve perfect perceptual reproduction. It’s not quite the same thing. Basically, you want to get to the starting point of being as close to what you remember seeing as possible, then work from there. That way, you know that all of your tweaking isn’t going to create some strange shifts in certain parts of the tonal spectrum.

Chilis. Nikon D700, AFS 60/2.8 G Micro

White balance is inextricably linked to color. And there are some important things one has to bear in mind:

1. You have to get it right first time if you’re shooting JPEG. There just isn’t the tonal headroom in 8 bits to be able to make anything other than minor channel adjustments and not encounter posterization or weird hue shifts.

2. Manual white balance and a piece of paper are your best friends.

3. If you’re shooting RAW, white balance is less critical, but if you blow a channel, you’re not getting it back. Usually reds and yellows are the first to go. With earlier cameras, you might have to underexpose by as much as two stops to maintain tonal detail in the reds. I think it’s something to do with IR-sensitivity, the effectiveness of the filter pack over the top of the sensor, and how the red pixels respond very strongly to IR pollution.

Cigars are one of the most difficult colors to get right. I don’t know what it is about the tobacco leaf, but that rich, deep brown hue requires a lot of work to perfect. Nikon D700, AFS 60/2.8 G Micro

4. White balance does affect exposure. This isn’t immediately intuitive; the reason is because if you get it very, very wrong, you’ll find that after correction, the dominant colors in the shot will shift, and the sensor may not have gained up enough at the extreme ends (red or blue) resulting in underexposure – most likely. You can to some extent recover this in post, but the bigger problem is that you’re going to land up with a very noisy image – the blue channel is generally holds the most noise for most cameras as it is the least sensitive due to the laws of optics, photon energy and filtration…but I won’t go into that here; complex quantum mechanical formulae are beyond the ability of my blogging software to input and display. 🙂

Prayer wheels, Nepal. Nikon D700, 24/1.4 G

Bottom line: shoot raw, and get in the right ballpark. Small adjustment are fine, and you can never get it 100% right all the time with a manual balance because ambient light is always changing. AWB works reasonably well on most cameras these days, but you have to watch out for the very warm light sources. I was told by several people in the camera industry that it was a conscious choice to leave the yellow/red components in the tungsten AWB because people expect the light to be warm (back to perception) – and having pure whites just looked odd to most consumers. I can attest to that as a lot of my students have asked me why the color is so blue when shooting indoors! Although I can’t say whether it’s a visual expectation on the part off the photographer, or whether inaccurate white balance is something they’ve come to expect because it was inadvertently dictated by the industry.

I’ve been playing with a handy little tool recently called a WhiBal. Basically, it’s a very, very accurate neutral gray card. I’ve found there are two ways to use it – one, take a shot under AWB with the card in the frame, and use that as your reference frame; eyedropper tool WB from the card in ACR, then sync white balance between the remainder of your files. Note that these two methods only work when your lighting is consistent from frame to frame, i.e. under studio conditions. The other option is shoot the card under the lighting conditions you’re going to use to set the preset in camera; I find this works better because all of your frames are automatically synced from the shoot. And if you’re using the same setup – as I do for watches – I can basically do it once and just leave one of my manual presets to match my flash and diffuser combo.

If any of you have shot purple flowers, you’ll know they’re notorious for shifting towards blue: that’s because of the UV reflectance. Flowers have UV and IR reflective pigments to signal to other animals – in this case pollinating insects and birds – that can see UV and IR.
Nepal. Nikon D700, 24/1.4 G

Next, make the tweaks – in your RAW converter, (I use ACR 6) perfect your white balance. Use the eyedropper tool on various gray areas in the scene until, it looks close to what you remember. (This is another reason why I like to process as close to immediately as possible: you might forget what the originals scene looked like, or any processing ideas you might have had at the time). Don’t worry if the eyedropper tool doesn’t get it right; you can shift the color temperature and hue sliders a little until you do.

This blue is one of the most difficult colors to get right. What makes it so appealing as a car color – the fact that it changes a lot under different lighting conditions – also makes it a royal pain to photograph and represent accurately. The honest truth is that I have no idea what RGB value this actually is, because it’s both reflective and in many spectra. Nikon D700, 28-300VR.

Open your file, make whatever contrast adjustments you need to – curves/ levels – then only use the Hue/Saturation tool to adjust the individual channels. Using curves inevitably shifts the saturation and hue slightly – there’s no way out of that – so you’ll need to bring back the individual channels. For instance, if it’s predominantly red and you used a curve that darkened the image, you’ll have to compensate for that by reducing saturation and increasing lightness slightly in the Hue/Saturation tool. There is no exact science to this – it’s all about experience, perception, and having the most accurate monitor you can find.

Remember what I was saying before about shellfish and birds? Nikon D700, AFS 60/2.8 G Micro

Each camera has a different filter pack and spectral response. Even though manufacturers try to keep the color output consistent from model to model, there will be differences. The D3100, for instance, has a crappy color gamut that I was never happy with – much like the NEX-5 – however, the D700, D5100 and D7000 are all pretty similar. The D800 is close, but even more accurate and with a wider supported tonal range out of the box. The M8 with UVIR filter, M9 without and S2 are almost identical. Since I use a whole bunch of cameras – at the last check, Leica, Nikon, Olympus and Ricoh – I’ve created individual color profiles for each camera in ACR and saved them as camera defaults. The look I like is somewhere between the tonal richness of Leica and the warmth of Olympus – perhaps Olympus + Zeiss glass describes it best. Oh, and different lenses have different spectral transmission characteristics too, just to make life more interesting. Your personal preferences will almost certainly be different because each individual perceives color differently. But I suggest that if you have the time, this is a worthwhile exercise.

The challenging pale but saturated lightness of macaroons. Nikon D700, Carl Zeiss ZF.2 2/2.8 Distagon

One important final note: all of this is in vain if your final output use is extremely limited gamut or highly compressed (*cough*FACEBOOK*cough*) – all of the additional tonal information you tried to save is going to be lost and compressed to hell. Some browsers (Safari) and photo sharing sites (Flickr) are better than others because they are color profile aware and don’t compress images, but the issue then becomes monitor accuracy. So unless you know the final output method and have some control over it, it’s very tricky to ensure that everybody is seeing the same thing. And printing is a whole separate blog on its own…MT

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Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, color, essay, how to, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, opinion, perception, thein, white balance

The inexact science of color and emotion

May 19, 2012 by Ming Thein

What makes this photo identifiable as dawn instead of sunset? Hint: it’s the color. We expect sunsets to be warm, but mornings to be cool and clear.

A series of experiments was done many years ago that showed humans have been conditioned to expect certain things in the way of color: blue ketchup just doesn’t fly, for instance. The theory is that it’s a primeval subconscious response to warn us of danger. Think of it this way: rancid meat looks a certain way, and has a certain color. Even if we can’t smell it – looking at a photograph of vomit or something decomposing makes us go ewwww. Such examples are to be found in nature all the time – think of those brightly colored poisonous beetles, for instance. In fact, the link between color and range (and thus emotion) is so strong that many species mimic the coloring of more dangerous species to warn away predators, but at the same time rely solely on that as protection because they pack no venom or toxicity. (Toxicity is energy-consuming to produce, and in food-scarce environments, you want to waste as little of your nutritional intake as possible producing something that’s only going to help you if you’re eaten – and thus probably going to die anyway.)

A tale of two cities. Shot minutes apart, though. How does the first image make you feel? The second?

How does this relate to photography? Quite simply, when you look at a photograph, how does it make you feel? Ignore the subject for a moment. The remaining emotional response is mostly down to your reaction to the processing: specifically, color. Why do black and white images have that ‘timeless’ or ‘ageless’ quality? Why do they make you feel slightly detached, as you’re an observer but not really part of the scene? It’s all due to color, or in this case, the lack of it. It’s difficult to relate to something if your information or perception on it is limited to tonal information only.

Why does this shot imply richness and juiciness? How would you feel about pale gray steak with red tomatoes, even if it tasted the same?

In fact, if you look through historical photographs and video – you’ll see that each recent era or block of ~10 years in modern history actually has quite distinct color and tonal styles. And looking at this often makes one feel something – nostalgia, hatred, wondering what one was doing with their youth. Early color photos from the 1930s and 40s have that vintage look, for instance.

To me, this screams classical photojournalism – because of the contrast, the tonality, and the lack of color. Early photographers didn’t purposely go for that look – they learned to work with it because of the limitations of darkroom chemistry.

A lot of modern photography software capitalizes on this. Instagram and all of those software filter packages are a good example – hell, even Lomography to some extent – they let you instantly create a feeling through a combination of color fiddling and contrast manipulation. There’s a reason why a photo from a Lomo or Instagram looks like a vintage hippy polaroid: it’s because the white balance was shifted warmer by several notches, the saturation decreased slightly, the contrast decreased a lot, and the relative luminance and hue of the red and yellow channels shifted. And there’s probably some grain and gaussian blur in the mix, too. Try it yourself in Photoshop, if you don’t believe me.

Cool mountain. Nikon D700, Zeiss ZF.2 2/100 Makro-Planar

The point is, polaroids looked that way because of the chemical process of the day: not because they wanted them to look that way. I’m pretty sure the engineers there were chasing perfect color, too. The upshot of all of this is that a modern photograph processed that way invokes memories of the polaroid era, because that’s how most social images looked then.

Mmm, natural green freshness.

Most humans respond in similar ways to color, namely:
Red – danger, warning, attention;
Blue – cool, calming, relaxing;
Yellow – warm, friendly, open;
Green – natural, fresh;
Black – mysterious, sinister, classic, premium, heavy;
White – pure, open, light, honest, clean
Gray – apathy

Multiple light sources can be confusing as hell, but almost always signal ‘party!’

Simply put, there’s a reason why most Ferraris are red, and most hospitals are white.

How does this help you as a photographer?

Actually, it’s fairly simple. Color enters your image everywhere, but makes an impact in at least two major ways. The first is if you’ve got one dominant color in the scene that registers on the subconscious of the viewer even before they figure out what the subject is; it can be the color of the backdrop, for instance. A more subtle way is the ambient light temperature – for instance, a warmer white balance setting will result in a shift towards the red and yellow channels; this in turn imparts the ambient light with a particular quality and tone.

Warmth. The ambient WB was shifted further away from the primary light source (the flame) to preserve the warm color.

The second major way is through contrast: if you’ve got a subject of one color against a backdrop of another completely opposite color (red and green or blue and yellow, for instance) then it’ll stand out because it’s the only thing in the scene that is visually discordant. It’s a good thing, in this case, because it draws your eye to the subject and lets the background serve as a stage – which is the way it should be.

Why does my subject stand out? It’s a different color to the background, of course.

But what if your scene has no dominant color, or is very washed out or low in saturation? Do what the cinematographers have been doing for years, and either impart a global tint as described above – you can easily do this if you shoot raw by shifting the white balance; lower color temperatures that what is accurate are cooler and bluer, and vice versa for higher color temperatures. The other alternative is to use a filter over your lens, or color the light – the latter obviously assumes you’ve got some control over your lighting, though. By far the easiest way to shift color and not land up with odd hues due to the nature of color addition and subtraction is to adjust your white balance.

KLCC dawn, color slightly shifted. Nikon D700, 28-300VR

One final comment: you need to start with an accurate white balance before you shift the color temperature. This is so you don’t land up with strange colors due to shifts along the green to magenta axis (white balance and color temperature affects only blue to orange/red). Also, remember not to overdo the saturation: shifting the white balance can cause other channels to blow, even if the original appeared to be correctly exposed. And over saturated images just look crude, frankly.

And on that note, I’m going to break until the next topic: chasing perfect color, and white balance myths. MT

Funky diner colors. Sometimes, your ambient light is close to exactly what you want – and all you have to worry about is color accuracy. Nikon D700, 85/1.4 G

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

POTD: Electoral reforms

April 29, 2012 by Ming Thein

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