Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels

Last year, I had a chance to visit the cathedral of Los Angeles, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels, which has amazing post-modern architecture.  Here are some photos I took (click on any photo for a higher-res version).

The windows are made of alabaster

Those are not paintings... they're tapestries! (i.e. they're woven, not painted)

The cathedral's park / playground

EQUIPMENT USED
Nikon D3 (reviewed here)
Tokina 10-17 Fisheye (reviewed here) Note: the Tokina 10-17 is designed for APS-C cameras but can be used on full frame at 14.5mm or longer.
Fuji S5 Pro (reviewed here)
Tokina 11-16 2.8 (reviewed here)

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Preview of New LAX Terminal

Los Angeles International Airport is in the process of renovating its international terminal, partly to accommodate larger aircraft such as the Airbus A380.  If you'd like to get a preview of what the new terminal will look like, check out the fly-through video (warning: 230+ MB) which uses the same autoCAD files that are used for the construction.

I had a chance to join a tour of the construction site.  If you watched the fly-through video you might recognize some of the structures.

BTW for these shots I used the Nikon D90 and Tokina 11-16.

About the last shot - it was taken about 10 feet above the platform where we were standing.  There were no ladders or other surfaces to climb on.  Instead, I took it with the aid of a gadget that I will be reviewing next week.  ;)

Have a great weekend!

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The Big Picture

We recently had a birthday party for our son. It was at a playhouse with large bounce houses and a play structure, with tall black ceilings (maybe about 30 feet high or so) and multicolored walls.

What lighting technique would you use in these circumstances? Hit the jump to see what approach I used.

When I'm indoors I prefer to use bounce flash because with proper technique, the light is soft and directional. In this situation however, I thought bouncing would be impractical because of the very high and dark ceiling. I didn't think bouncing off walls would be a good idea either because the multi-colored walls would create wildly inconsistent color casts on the subjects.

Without being able to bounce, I thought about other alternatives such as a handheld umbrella, the Fotodiox 8x12 softbox, or the Coco Ringflash. I first took a test shot using ambient only. At f/2.8 and ISO 1600 (what I consider to be a reasonable amount of noise for the D90 and to a certain extent, the D70), I was getting a shutter speed of around 1/80. I was surprised because I was expecting that the ambient would be too dim, with just some fluorescent lights overhead. At 1/80 however, I thought the shutter speed was usable, so that's what I used - ambient only (cue the thunder and lightning).

Sure, I often use flash because I believe it often improves the result, but I don't go out of my way to use it when I don't have to. I could have used the tools I mentioned (handheld umbrella, on-camera softbox or ringflash) but if I did, it would have been much harder to handle two cameras at the same time. And with only one camera, I would be compromising either my ability to capture moments (if I had to keep switching lenses) or my ability to compose (if I stuck to one lens). When the results of ambient only are fine, I didn't think it would be a good tradeoff.

A shot of me by my non-photographer wife:

Who knew that my wife would know to pan a shot and do it successfully? :-O

Part of what made it possible to get the shots above is that I was using fast f/2.8 lenses. The lenses I used here are the Tokina 11-16 (reviewed here) and the Nikon 24-70. See if you can guess which lens was mounted on the D90 and which was mounted on the 8-year old D70. :)

Speaking of lenses, I wanted to briefly mention my choice of focal length. I normally use a standard zoom (17-50 on APS-C or 24-70 on full frame) and a telephoto (50-150 on APS-C or 70-200 on full frame). However, I sold my Tamron 17-50 VC a couple of months ago after I got the D3 because I was using the 24-70 to cover the standard zoom, and then I recently sold my Nikon D3 in anticipation of the Nikon D600. I initially thought about using the Tokina 11-16 and Sigma 50-150 but I would be left with a large gap between 16-50 (24-75 in 35mm terms). Instead I paired the 11-16 with the 24-70, using the latter as a normal and short telephoto lens. I have a Nikkor 28-105 3.5-4.5 which I also considered because of its longer range but felt that I could use the wider aperture of the 24-70 in the somewhat dim light.

After the kids played, it was time to eat. The dining area was a medium-sized room, with light yellow ceilings about 10 feet high, and plain yellow walls. Unlike the play area, bouncing was definitely a good alternative here.

Some of you may know that I recently reviewed two bounce flash accessories - a modified Flashright and the "DIY Spinlight." Which one did I use here? Neither. The modified Flashright, DIY Spinlight, and even the black foamie thing are all useful for blocking the flash from directly reaching the subject when the flash is aimed forward to bounce it from a short-light direction. The short lighting looks cinematic and I love the effect.

However, in this case, I preferred a more even lighting, so I bounced the flash behind me or to the side, making it unnecessary to use the BFT or the other bounce accessories. Again, I choose the look I want then the tool to achieve it, not the other way around.

BTW note that for these shots in the dining area, I used a narrower aperture. First of all, a shallow depth of field would not be useful because the background was often plain yellow. The bokeh would not have been interesting. Second, by using a narrower aperture, I could more easily keep subjects in focus because of the deep depth of field.

As for color temperature, I took the shots in raw, which allowed me to neutralize the color, but I preferred the straight-off-the-camera white balance with a yellowish color cast because that's how the room looked to me. The neutralized white balance technically made the colors look "correct" but felt "weird" in the sense that I don't expect an absolutely neutral color under these circumstances (yellow walls, fluorescent lights).

The time came for blowing the candle on the cake. The playhouse staff dimmed the lights, which was perfect. To maintain the ambience, I set the ambient exposure so that the candles would appear to be the primary source of light. The fill was supplied by the dimmed ambient and bounced flash (dialed down so it wouldn't overpower the candlelight).

After that the kids had cupcakes and goody bags.

And then it was time to say good night.

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Capturing Epic Sunrises and Sunsets

Epic sunrise or sunset shots -- the kind where the sky is ablaze with hues of red, yellow and lavender -- don't happen purely by luck.  We can't control the weather but we can pay attention to the kinds of conditions that are conducive to producing glorious sunrises and sunsets.  Here are some techniques I learned for capturing sunrises and sunsets.

1.  Gotta have some clouds.  Just like a movie projector needs a screen, the sun needs clouds to catch the light from sunrises and sunsets.

2.  Cleaner air is better.  I recall learning at school that sunrises and sunsets are red due to selective scattering of sunlight passing through the air molecules.  I therefore thought that with some air pollution, sunrises and sunsets would be more impressive.  I was wrong.  The problem is that particles from air pollution tend to vary in size, so rather than scattering only a certain portion (e.g. blue and green) of the visible spectrum, most of the spectrum is scattered, so that air pollution produces a grayish light.

3. High or medium altitude clouds are usually better.  A couple of reasons: First, there is more air pollution at low altitudes.  Sunlight illuminating low clouds has to pass through a thick layer of this low-hanging air pollution, making the light more grayish.  On the other hand, sunlight reaching higher clouds (cirrus, altocumulus) has less air pollution to scatter it.  Second, even assuming there is no air pollution, higher clouds can catch the rays of the sun when the sun is lower in the horizon.  At those steeper angles, the sunlight has to travel a longer distance to reach the clouds, resulting in more scattering and thus shifting the color to a deeper red.

Low altitude clouds include the cumulus and stratus family of clouds.  In the picture below you can see that with cumulus clouds, even the peak of sunset colors is usually not impressive.

High altitude clouds include the cirrus family of clouds.  The medium altitude clouds I like are the altocumulus clouds.  (Altostratus is also medium altitude but is formless, like a fog in the sky).   The shot below is a sample of a sunset with altocumulus clouds (unfortunately all I had with me at the time was a camera phone).

4.  No cloud cover.  Even if you have high or medium altitude clouds, too many low-hanging clouds can block the view of the high and medium altitude clouds.  If there are stratus clouds (the fog-like clouds), I usually don't even bother to check what the sunrise or sunset looks like.

5.  Timing.  Assuming there are high or medium altitude clouds and no low-hanging clouds, it is best to start shooting about 15 to 30 minutes before sunrise or after sunset.  With the sun below the horizon, the sunlight has to travel a little farther to reach the clouds, scattering more of the greens and blues and casting a deeper red light on the clouds.

SAMPLES
A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that we had cirrus and altocmulus clouds in the sky without too many low-hanging clouds, close to sunset.  Conditions like those seem to be rare in our area, occurring only a handful of times in a year.  I quickly drove to the airport and waited at a popular local spot for watching planes land. Fortunately I was rewarded with a beautiful sunset, and I took some photos of planes landing (my first time to try that).

The series of shots below are arranged in chronological order.  The first couple of shots were taken at around sunset.  You can see that after sunset, the colors become more intense before becoming darker.

BTW, for my equipment I used the Fuji S5 (I thought the S5's unparalleled highlight range would help protect the highlight details in the clouds) and the Tokina 11-16.

FOR FURTHER READING
The Colors of Sunset and Twilight
Fuji S5 Review
Tokina 11-16 Review

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Filters for Protecting Lenses: High-End vs. Budget vs. Dirt-Cheap

With digital photography, using filters to achieve special effects has become much less common, with the exception of neutral density filters, graduated ND filters, and circular polarizers.  The other exception, with some controversy, is the use of filters to protect lenses.  Typically, UV filters or sometimes skylight (warming) filters are used for this purpose.

In this post, we compare images from lenses without any filter, with a budget filter, and a high-end filter.  The filters I tested were:
(a) a high-end filter, the Hoya HD Hardened Glass 8-layer Multi-Coated Digital UV Filter, around $70 for 77mm.
(b) a budget filter, the Hoya skylight filter (standard version, not multi-coated), around $20 for 77mm.  Note: the skylight filter has a warming effect, so for purposes of this comparison, please take that into account as part of the filter design and not an inherent characteristic of budget filters.
I've also included a separate test for an ultra-cheap generic UV filter.

I tested the filters on two lenses:
(i) a flare-resistant lens, the Nikkor 24-70 2.8G on a Nikon D3; and
(ii) a lens that is [supposedly] susceptible to flare and ghosting, the Tokina 11-16 2.8 on a Fuji S5 Pro.
Both lenses use 77mm filters so I was able to use the same set of filters for the tests.

Hit the jump for the samples.
NIKKOR 24-70 2.8G
For the first lens to test, I chose the Nikkor 24-70 2.8G because it has a nano-crystal coat, which reduces ghosting and flare.  The 24-70 thus represents a lens that is flare-resistant.  I tested two angles: one where the sun was directly in the middle of the frame and another where the sun was at the corner of the frame.  I didn't use the lens hood.  The images were taken in raw, but I applied no processing, so these are SOOC, at full resolution.  You can view the slideshow below or click here for the web album instead (the images are also downloadable).


Observation: In the first set of images with the camera directly facing the sun, the most noticeable differences are in the area above the window of the shed.  In the second set, with the sun at the corner, the most significant differences are near the corner of the house nearest the small window on the middle/left.

TOKINA 11-16 2.8
For the second lens, I tested the Tokina 11-16 because it is a wide angle lens and is reputedly prone to ghosting and flare.  You can view the slideshow below or click here for the web album instead (the images are also downloadable).


Note: in the last shot, with the sun at the corner and the budget filter, the exposure was 1/3 stop higher (must have accidentally nudged it).  Please take that into account.

Observation: In the first set of images with the camera directly facing the sun, the most noticeable differences are in the area above near the window of the shed. In the second set, with the sun at the corner, the most significant differences are near the small window on the middle/left and the lower right corner of the frame.

COMMENTS:
Personally, I was somewhat surprised that there was not a bigger difference between the budget filter and the high-end filter.  Kudos to Hoya for producing a budget filter with relatively good quality.  Nonetheless, I would much prefer to use the HD filter.  If the lens isn't expensive enough to justify the cost of the HD filter, I may as well not use a filter and just rely on the lens hood.  [On the other hand, if you are the type to frequently go into dusty or gritty environments, I could see how having at least the budget filter (if not the HD filter) on all your lenses.]

As between the HD filter and having no filter, I think the difference is small enough that I would prefer to have the HD filter for my more expensive lenses (e.g. 24-70 and 70-200).  If those lenses got damaged it would really make my heart sink, so the very slight image degradation is an acceptable tradeoff in my view.

GENERIC FILTERS
Oh yeah I did mention those ultra cheap filters, didn't I?  Just because the Hoya standard filter wasn't too bad, doesn't mean that you'll get the same results if you get an ultra-cheap generic Made-in-China filter.  I have tried those in the past and those will definitely reduce the contrast in your image.  Here are a couple of comparisons (no pixel peeping required).  These were from a Nikon D80 and a Tamron 28-75.

no filter

crappy filter

no filter

crappy filter

In fact, the shots above were the moment I realized how noticeably a crappy filter can affect the image and I stopped using filters for protection from that point forward until I got the HD filter for the 24-70.

BUYING FILTERS
One more word of advice: there are plenty of fake high-end filters out there.  I strongly recommend buying from a reputable seller to make sure you're getting the filter that you're paying for.  If you find one that's on sale for a substantially lower price, I would think twice about buying it.
I bought my Hoya HD filter from Amazon.  If you would like to support this blog by buying from Amazon as well, just click on this link.  You can also help our blog by sharing links to our posts in social media (Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, etc.) or your website (if you have one).  Thank you for your support.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Lenstip.com and Optyczne.pl tested and compared several UV filters here:
http://www.lenstip.com/113.1-article-UV_filters_test.html
http://www.lenstip.com/120.1-article-UV_filters_test_-_supplement.html (including the Hoya HD)

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