Mobile Phone Photography - Part 1: HDR

 
Mobile phones are getting better and better at taking photos, especially outdoors in good light, they are usually in our pockets all the time, they have a huge DoF, they focus reasonably quickly and they shoot good quality 1080p 30fps videos with stereo sound.

This will be the first part of a series discussing mobile phones photography, and how they fit in the usual DSLR workflow, in this post I will discuss built-in HDR capabilities. HDR is short for "High Dynamic Range", it usually indicates a technique to get a picture with very light and very dark tones apparent at the same time. You will find lots of stuff on the Internet labeled HDR that looks like technicolor vomit with lots of halos, these pictures are usually overdone.
 
However, there are sensible pictures that uses this effect cautiously to get clear darks and highlights at the same time, the usual technique is to take several photos for the same scene at different exposure values to record all highlights and darks in detail, then you'd take these images and combine them using software like Photomaix or Photoshop. There are lots of other ways to get more dynamic range out of your photos.
 
Recently several cameras, phones and even DSLRs (ex. Canon 5D Mk III and Nikon D600) featured built-in HDR creation, this makes it much easier than having to use software later to process images, especially if you're as lazy as I am regarding post processing.
 
I have bought a Samsung Galaxy S III when it was available (I have owned the original S and the S2), it has a real nice 8MP camera, it also has two excellent features that I didn't have on the S2, can you guess? Correct, HDR is one feature, and the other is a burst mode that takes 20 shots at 6 frames per second and lets you choose the best one, it can even choose it for you.
 
Have a look at this example, I was sitting in a car with bright daylight visible through the windshield, I looked at the dashboard and it looked very dark in comparison, then I thought to use the HDR feature and test it out, I didn't need that picture, just wanted to test HDR, when you choose HDR, it gives you both the standard image and the HDR one, here's how the original looked like straight out of the camera:
 

Original image straight out of camera

 
Then I took an HDR shot of the same scene, the extremely fast burst rate doesn't make you feel that it took any time to shoot three photos (correct exposure, under-exposed and over-exposed), here's how it looked like:
 

HDR photo

 
Much better than the original shot, but how about tweaking the original in Lightroom? My phone doesn't shoot RAW, but I gave it my best shot, and here's what I was able to do:
 

Original shot tweaked in Lightroom

 
Which one do you like better? I certainly like the sky better in the original shot, it seems to have some halos in the HDR version (look around the tree top), more complicated masking in Photoshop can solve the issue, but I am no Photoshop user.
 
Mind that you're seeing a resized version of the pictures, the tweaked shot has a lot of noise and artifacts (caused by pulling shadows in a compressed JPEG), and It doesn't have enough details in the dashboard.

Posted with Blogsy

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Food Photography Assignment

I was asked by one of my friends to shoot a couple of dishes for his cousin's restaurant, and since I wanted to experiment with shooting food, I readily agreed. Click through for the details.


It's no secret that I never shot a paid assignment before. Although 95% of my photos are of people (mainly family and friends), I never warmed up to the idea of shooting other people for money, whether it's portraiture, weddings, etc... However, I am fine with shooting non-animate objects, I shoot some female dresses & accessories for a project run by family members, and very recently one of my friends convinced me to start a business out of food photography, fine by me, so I used this opportunity as a test to see how the experience and the photos turn out.



Before going, I asked my friend (who went there before) about the location, the lighting used there, the colors of the walls (for bounce flash), and what did the client want to shoot and for what reason. Turns out the client was offering a very competitive price on one of their cheese burgers, and he wanted a close up of the sandwich to show its size and components for the ad. I was also told that the restaurant walls were beige, and the lighting there is very dim.



Being my first assignment in front of a client I don't know, I was worried I'd miss some piece of equipment that I left at home, originally, I knew I'd be using the 100mm Macro and bounce flash, but I brought along the lightstands and umbrellas, just in case. My equipment included the 5D Mark II, the 100 Macro L, the 24-105 in case I needed some wide angle shots and a couple of 580EX speedlites.

This was the main course I came to take photos of, but as you see, it was not very well presented, especially the bread, but that's what I had to photograph, in the next photo you will see a closeup where I tried to hide the bread's defects.

Simple as it is, taste wise, I certify that this is one delicious burger, the restaurant makes their own beef burgers, they don't buy frozen burgers and just fry it. Lighting wise, I was using on camera flash, usually bounced upwards and to my right in most of the shots, I varied the FEC based on what the histogram told me, I was working between +2 2/3 and +3 FEC, for some reason the camera decided that the correct exposure was way less than what I wanted. Before I shot any dishes, I used a grey card to adjust my white balance.

Next dish was a vegetarian pizza, using the same setup I took the obligatory full dish photo, and then I started trying to get more interesting angles (to hide the fact the pizza's edges are not a perfect circle like the dish) and imagining how they would look in the menu. Since I was shooting close, with a long lens and a full frame sensor, sometimes the DoF was plain shallow, so I varied my aperture based on the look I wanted, I was working between f/4 and f/8.

I think the photo above works better than the full dish. The last dish to shoot was a Fettucini pasta, this was the best prepared dish and easily looked good in photos without trying to get different angles to hide defects.

When I finished shooting, I uploaded the pictures from the camera to the iPad using the camera connection kit (iPad displays RAW photos) as a backup and to show them to the client, then we went through the pictures (~ 70) quickly, then we selected the photos the client wanted and deleted the rejected ones. This way when I got home, I plugged the iPad to my PC, and imported the photos directly into lightroom, no need for selecting or rating photos.



I learned a lot from that day, and we all agreed (me, my friend and the client) that the dishes needed better presentation next time we do a shoot. I am also looking online for more tips on how to make the dishes look better (using oil, etc...), so if you have any advice, please tell me in the comments.

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What Not To Do As An Event Photographer

Now here's a real story that happened today during our full day department meeting at one of the hotels.

But first, I have a quick confession to make! if you've been following me on twitter, you'll know that I sold my 60D and all of my EF-S lenses, and got myself a 5D Mark II with the 24-105 lens, but that's a story for another time, and that's one of the reasons I have not been posting lately.

This post is directed to all event photographers, and to Kirk Tuck, since I have read on his blog countless times on how to act professionally at events.
I went today at a full day department meeting at one of the hotels, the main event was hosted inside a very large tent (but with a flat ceiling, if that makes sense), the light there was pretty dim, and there was the typical hotel photographer blasting away flash shots, I immediately noticed a few things:

• The guy was using an SB-900 on top of his Nikon D80, with the omni bounce thingie strapped to it's head and pointed straight up, and every time he took a shot he blinded all of the onlookers, why use the omni bounce thingie and waste precious flash power in lighting the vast areas behind him and to his right and left?
• Where were he taking the shots from? Directly in front of the speaker, directly between the speaker and the audience, was that distracting? You bet!
• Then he'd suddenly step up to the stage during the speech and shoot the speaker from his side and his back, while blinding everyone, every time.
• Then, bored with getting the same shots of the same person, he'd step up in front of each of the tables and take some more flash shots, while the speech is still going on.
• Talk about being discrete, after all the distractions and the nuisance, he went up to the stage, behind the speaker, and started removing his jacket and putting it aside, I believe most of the people were concentrating on him.
• The meeting went on like that for the first hour, then suddenly he re-appeared without his speedlight and started taking shots with the popup flash, totally amateur, ugly, frickin direct flash shots. He seemed to repeat everything again from shooting the same speaker, and then the different tables, but at least now the flash was firing directly in our faces, and without seeing the results I have no doubt what his shots will be like, I've seen them countless times from hotel photographers.

Finally we had a small break, and we all went outside the tent for fresh air, green grass, and a nice blue sky,. I had my 5D with me with the 24-105 lens, I started taking some photos of my friends, but in no way obstructing the photographer, after all, he's the paid professional, not me. In a short while we came close to each other in the same group, I immediately put my camera behind my back out of courtesy and let him take photos of us, then we started talking, the conversation went like this:

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Me: So, did you run out of batteries for the speedlight, I noticed you stopped using it and were using the popup flash instead.

Him: Oh, no, it heated up, this was an SB-900 and when it heats up, it stops working. (by the way, he didn't use it till the end of the event, it must have heated up pretty badly and never cooled down during the remaining few hours of the meeting /sarcasm).

Me: So how are you managing?

Him: I turned up the ASA and all is well, by the way, what is this camera you have? (P.S. for those who don't know, by ASA, he means ISO, he's probably an old film guy).

Me: It's a Canon 5D!

Him: Wow, does it capture high definition? Full high definition?

Me: What do you mean? (I'm now thinking he has no idea what a 5D is, nor any background about the Canon system, as I knew later on).

Him: I mean, how many million pixels does your camera have? 12? 16? 18?

Me: Well, 21 million pixels.

Him: Wow, it must take very professional pictures.

Me: Of course not, I'm just an amateur, having a nice camera doesn't mean I take good photos, you're the professional one (he was very flattered at this, and I honestly meant it since he was way older than me).

Him: Nice meeting you, my name is ..., the hotel photographer.

Me: My pleasure.

--------

The guy was very humble and quite nice, but I don't believe that's an excuse. The meeting resumed indoors, then we took another break, and before returning indoors again, he decided to take a group photo of everyone (more than 300 people), he came over to me and asked me: "what do you think of placing the group here? It will be a nice view, won't it?", I simply told him that I don't really know, I'm just an amateur.

Well, he gathered everyone in and started taking shots while people gathered, and to my horror, this happened:

Did you notice? He was taking photos at 1 pm, in full sunlight with the popup flash open, this only meant one thing, his photos will be totally blown out beyond recovery. If you haven't picked up the hint yet, here's what's going on, in bright sun, your shutter speed will be usually above 1/1000 sec, unless you use a very narrow aperture. But when you use your popup flash, the camera will limit the fastest shutter speed possible (sync speed) to 1/200 or 1/250 sec, especially since popup flashes doesn't have high speed sync, which allows faster shutter speeds to be used. This means you will be letting in a lot of light into the sensor, resulting in a blown out picture. If he were using the SB-900, I'd have probably assumed that he was using HSS/FP modes and using it for fill, how can a popup flash be of any use for a HUGE group shot at a far distance with full sunshine?

Anyway, I was sitting among the group like everyone else while this was happening, I didn't notify him and thought maybe he's using an f/16 aperture or smaller to make sure the whole group is in focus, and the shutter speed then would've been below the sync speed.

As the group finished gathering and he was still firing away, I decided to take backup pictures, just in case. I stood up, went to the photographer and politely asked him for permission to take photos beside him, and assured him I won't stand in his way, and so I did, I took a few pictures in no more than 30 seconds, 24mm, f/11, ISO 400, hyperfocal distance and fired about 20 shots from a slightly awkward angle since I didn't want to get in his way, and immediately went back to the group. Below is a small shot to show you how the group and the place looked like (in the full 21 MP res photo, all the faces are clear and recognizable, but I can't post it on the web). He took 3 more pictures, then went for the grand finale by raising the camera high above his head, pointing it somehow at the group, and taking the last shot as everyone cheered and clapped.

We went back in, and continued the meeting until it was time for lunch break, and while filling up my dish, the guy came up behind me and ashamedly confessed that he blew the group shots, and asked me to look at the shots that I've taken, I showed them to him and he picked a couple that he wanted from me if I allowed him, I told him "of course, my pleasure", he walked away very happy. I was very happy I have saved him the day, and we lived happily ever after. And that is the end of today's photography adventure.

Learned Lessons:

So why did I write this post? I have never worked as a paid photographer, and never will, but when I was reading Kirk's blogs and the extreme measures he takes to make sure he's not in the way of the audience, or even cause a loud shutter sound, I expected that most of the photographers will be this professional. You can take bad photos, you can use direct flash, you can do whatever you like, you are simply a bad photographer, but don't you dare get in the way of the main event.

I am telling you, most of the people were quite distracted and annoyed with the photographer's behavior and his blinding flash fire in the very dim environment, during the actual speech. If I had the authority, I would never let him cover any important business events in his life.

I hope you can convey this message everywhere, twitter, facebook, etc...

Very soon I will be posting a comprehensive initial impressions of the 5D Mark II from the view point of a previous crop sensor user, then I will talk some more about how the iPad fits in my photography and blogging worlds.

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