35mm f/2 in Alexandria

We're back, yes, we're back (you'll know what I mean if you're an avid Top Gear fan like me), I have been away for quite a long time now, but for reasons that were totally out of my hands, the situation is not over yet, but it has gotten much better. I thought to make it up to you with a quick post with images from my last trip to Alexandria with my work colleagues, hit the jump for more.

I went on a boys only trip with my work colleagues to Alexandria, as per my usual habit I decided to pick a single lens for the whole trip in order not to distract myself, and I decided on the Canon 35 mm f/2. It was quite a pleasure, and as I said in my 35mm f/2 review before, it is my do-it-all lens.

Now I leave you to enjoy the pictures, most of them were taken during a boat trip in the sea.

How many flashes were used to get this one? The answer is at the end.

And a couple more of my recent favorite 35mm pictures, as you'll see in my later posts, I have sort of developed a fetish for shooting shoes.

The flying man phot above was done using a single flash bounced to the ceiling and the wall on the camera left, trigerred wirelessly by my camera's pop-up flash.

This post has been written completely using my newly acquired iPad 2, this will be a subject for future posts, how can the iPad perform as a photographer's tool (everything, lightroom, editing, posting, sharing, etc...).

My next post will talk discuss my favorite uses for a circular polarizer.

Read More

Shooting in Autumn

I love shooting during autumn.  Of course there are those gorgeous leaves.   But besides that, it's also great because of the sun's position.  You know how we photographers dread the sun being overhead because it casts unflattering shadows?  In autumn, the sun never goes directly overhead.  This will vary of course with where you live, but here in Los Angeles, for example, the maximum altitude of the sun today is only 33.4 degrees (at 11:40 am PST) according the my iPhone app The Photographer's Ephemeris.  Contrast that with an altitude of around 79.5 degrees at 12:52pm at summer solstice (June 21, 2011). 

 

If you want to see what difference that angle makes, check out the recent review of the Lastolite Brolly Grip.  The shots there were taken around 11:30am yet the shadows are distinctly angled.

 

If you live closer to the poles, then the sun is at an even lower angle these days. The highest angle of the sun today for Boston is just 25 degrees, at 11:33am.

 

Don't waste this opportunity -- get out there and shoot!

Read More

Necessary Roughness: Information vs. Emotion

When it comes to action shots, a shot that is clearer, sharper and shows more of what's going on is not necessarily what I look for.  Instead my priority is to capture the emotion, and I don't let the need for information get in the way.

More after the jump.

When I take photos, I don't see myself as a recordkeeper.  Preserving information is not my purpose although it may be an incidental benefit of my shots.  Rather, I take photos in the hope of moving another person, perhaps through beauty, emotion, or sometimes, unreasonableness.  To do that, I sometimes sacrifice elements of a photo that a nonphotographer might think as always being critical in photographs: clarity, sharpness, capturing everything for the viewer.

Recently, I took some shots of my Brazilian jiu-jitsu teammates.  I had seen a number of jiu-jitsu photos and most of them didn't stir my emotions.  Frankly, I found many of them to be emotionally flat.  I thought this was strange considering that Brazilian jiu-jitsu is an intense sport.  I noticed that most of the shots were very clean: sharp, clear, with plenty of information for the viewer.  I thought that this might be the problem.

While I'm sparring in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, things are usually anything but clear and smooth.  Matches between equally skilled players are very unpredictable, constantly going back and forth, neither person remaining dominant for long.  Sometimes, the players might appear very still, but that's only as true as a heavy spring is compressed to the maximum.  A split second later and the players explode into sudden and erratic movement.

I thought about capturing the same feeling in my shots.  Here are the tips I used to do that.

1.  Understand the sport. 

a Brazilian jiu-jitsu "pendulum sweep"

Because I understand the sport, I can not only understand what is going on, but also anticipate when a sudden movement is about to occur, and when a climactic moment is coming.  In the shot above, I saw that the dark-haired player was positioned to sweep the other player off his feet. So I took aim and sure enough... whoosh!

2. Get the player's perspective.

The player in white has trapped the other player in his "guard" and is about to apply a "palm up palm down" choke.

To bring the viewer closer to the experience of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I positioned myself at the same level as that of a player.  Brazilian jiu-jitsu is mostly groundfighting so I got down on my hands and knees to get most of the shots.

3. Freeze time.

A hip throw

For some of the shots, I did use a high shutter speed typically recommended for sports photos.  To avoid making the shot boring though, I used this to capture moments where the high shutter speed actually makes a difference in appearing to freeze time. The shutter speed for the shot above was 1/250.

4. Facial expressions.

The player in blue winces as the player in white tries to escape.

In trying to capture the decisive moment, it's easy enough to look at the player's actions.  However, I also paid attention to the facial expressions of the players.

5. Tele or wide.

Although the player in black is on the bottom, he is about to execute a choke that could win the fight.

I avoided using a normal focal length and instead either used a short focal length (and placed myself close to the players) or I used a long focal length.  I believe that shots that offer a literally different point of view can be more emotional than one shot with a normal focal length.

6. Very tight composition.

Players struggling

Another way I heightened the tension and drama in some shots is by using a very tight composition.  Naturally, this will mean missing much of the information in the scene.  However, that's exactly what I want here because this imperfect information mirrors the experience of grappling and fighting in close quarters.

7. Blur.  

The player in black breaks a hold by rotating his upper body and kicking out his leg.

Another way I charged the shots with more emotion was to use intentional blur.  I used motion blur from the subjects' movement, as distinguished from blur from being out of focus, or blur from camera movement.  The shot works when at least part of the image is sharp, because the viewer consciously or subconsciously understands that the shot was not out of focus and the photographer had a steady hand (or in the case of panning movements, skillfully moved the camera along the direction of movement).  I added motion blur by using a slow shutter (1/20 in the shot above, though most of the time I used 1/25).  Other possible options include Flash Blur and adding blur in post-processing.

Anyway, here are more samples.

The bottom player is about to execute a type of shoulder lock called an "omoplata"

The player in white struggles as the player on top pressures his neck.

The player in black rotates to prevent the player in white from gaining a superior position.

RELATED POST:

Tension vs. Climax

Flash Blur

Inspired by UFC

Read More

Dancing on the Edge of Shadow and Light

Cool things can happen on the edge between shadow and light.  This fan palm was at such a magical spot.  It was among some plants that were shaded from the sun by a wall.  However, the palm was a little higher than the other plants, and it alone was illuminated by backlight, causing it to glow against the shaded background.

RELATED POSTS:
Using Midday Sunlight

Read More

Lastolite Brolly Grip Review: Soft Directional Light Anywhere

This is a preliminary review of the Lastolite Brolly Grip.  This unique lighting accessory allows you or an assistant to hold an umbrella, making it possible to get soft, directional light almost anywhere, without setting up.

In this review, I wanted to focus on using it by myself, without an assistant or light stand.  I also wanted to have a lot of sample shots to show the real-world potential of the Brolly Grip.

When there is no feasible surface to bounce from, one of my favorite light modifiers is a handheld umbrella, a technique that I read about from Bob Krist.  I put together my own version here and later found a rare handheld umbrella made by Propet (reviewed here).  The Propet handheld umbrella worked well, but it had two significant weaknesses: First, the coldshoe does not hold a flash securely (on one occasion, my YN560 fell into the water).  Second, the screws on some of the parts tend to come loose and are not easily replaced.  Plus, the Propet handheld umbrella itself is very hard to find.  In the last couple of years I've only seen it listed on eBay three times.

When Lastolite announced the Brolly Grip I was intrigued even though I already had the Propet bracket.  I thought it was somewhat pricey but not ridiculously so.  I finally took the leap and was surprised that it was actually out of stock.  After a few weeks of waiting, my order came a couple of days ago.

The Lastolite Brolly Grip with Nikon SB-800 and a Creative Light 25" Shoot-Through Umbrella

The Brolly Grip is made of a light but very durable plastic with a matte finish.  The top part of the handle has a removable cold shoe.  The cold shoe can be rotated if you loosen the thumbscrew that holds it in place.  The cold shoe can also be faced backwards if you prefer the grip to be tilted the other way.  The cold shoe doesn't have a receptacle for a locking pin and instead holds the flash through friction and pressure.

The grip holds the flash horizontally, placing it close to the axis of the umbrella, maximizing the use of the umbrella surface.  However, this leads to other problems with optical triggering as discussed below.  It also requires a flash that has a head that can be raised 90 degrees.  The grip has a downward angle of around 30 degrees.  I find this useful for holding the umbrella above the subject or as far off to the side as possible.  If you have a light stand or boom, this could also help you add short light or possibly even a back light (see here).

Just above the grip are two holes for an umbrella to accommodate an 8mm and 10mm shaft.  The bottom of the grip has a hollow receptacle for a 5/8 studs commonly used in light stands.

Strangely, there is no thumbscrew to hold the umbrella.  Instead, you just slide the umbrella shaft in and it is held with friction by an o-ring inside the shaft.  This leads to a few problems as discussed below.

Lastolite has a video demonstrating how the product is used:



SOFT DIRECTIONAL LIGHT ANYWHERE

Lastolite's demo shows good results but the photographer had the benefit of an assistant.  What about the rest of us who don't have VALs?  One of the key benefits of the Brolly Grip after all is the possibility of using it by yourself.  Is it really feasible to use it alone and does it really provide soft directional light in real world conditions?

I took my son to a playground and had the chance to use the Brolly Grip in sunny outdoors with no bounce surfaces available.  I used a Creative Light 25-inch Translucent Umbrella.  For my flash, I used a Nikon SB-800 triggered optically via CLS Advanced Wireless Lighting, using my Nikon D300's popup flash as a commander.  I held the Brolly Grip with one hand and the camera with the other.  When I was holding the Brolly Grip with my right hand, I would cradle the camera below the lens and press the shutter with my ring finger (it helps that I don't use a battery grip and my Tamron 17-50 VC isn't a huge lens).  An alternative to this finger stretching method is to use a remote shutter.

Anyway, here are some of the shots:

Here are some shots where the flash use is more overt:

For testing purposes, I also made some comparison shots showing the difference between ambient only versus the shot with flash (note: in the first and third comparison, the flash shot was already edited in Lightroom; the second set of comparison shots are straight-out-of-the-camera):

Even though I was using a small umbrella and I could only reach so far to the side with my arm, the light does look reasonably soft and directional.  Certainly not always as soft as bounce flash but a huge improvement over direct flash.  Plus, unlike bounce flash, I didn't have to worry about the color of the bounce surface.

CRITICISMS
I have some issues with the design.  First of all, the umbrella holder doesn't have any kind of thumbscrew or clamp to hold an umbrella securely.  Instead, there is a thin rubber o-ring inside each slot to hold an umbrella with friction.  On one hand, it is easy to insert an umbrella.  On the other hand, there is a risk that the umbrella might slide off.  I'm especially worried about the inevitable wear on the o-ring, which may make the grip more loose in the future.  Another disadvantage is that your umbrella shaft must be exactly 8mm or 10mm.  That worked for two of my umbrellas but my 19" reflective umbrella was tapered so it's too loose for the 8mm.  I also don't know how well the slots can hold umbrellas with hexagonal (as opposed to round) shafts.  My workaround for this issue is to wrap a little tape around the shaft to make the shaft thicker and allow it to be held more tightly.

The second biggest issue I have with the design is the cold shoe.  The cold shoe does not use a 1/4-20 hole.  Instead, it uses a non-standard size.  This makes it hard to use a third party cold shoe such as Nikon's AS-19 Flash Stand or a Frio Cold Shoe.  If you have a thumbscrew that is long enough, it is possible to use a Frio.  However, I haven't found a thumbscrew long enough to use with my Nikon SC-29 TTL Cord.

I have a few other minor gripes such as:

• the grip angle is non-adjustable, making it less useful when paired with a light stand;
• I wish they included a 1/4 and 3/8 spigot so that the grip can be used with a tripod.  Might as well include a hole in that spigot too so that the lower thumbscrew can securely hold the spigot and prevent the grip from rotating.

TRIGGERING OPTIONS
One of the challenges with the Brolly Grip is the need for reliable triggering.  If you're using the grip handheld, then the simplest solution is a TTL cord.  Triggering would be very reliable and simple - just like using the flash on-camera.  Plus, you can position the flash in any direction without having to worry about whether the flash will receive the signal.  Unfortunately, because of the non-standard screw size for the cold shoe, you'll need either a long enough screw to attach the TTL cord to the Brolly Grip or you'll need a shoe-to-1/4 adapter.

Using a radio trigger is another alternative.  There are many reliable radio triggering solutions such as a Radiopopper.  On the other hand, radio triggers with TTL capability are quite expensive.

The remaining alternative is optical triggering.  Optical triggering is not ideal with the Brolly Grip for at least a few reasons.  First, the Brolly Grip places the flash horizontally.  On most flashes, the sensor for optical triggering faces the front or the side of the flash (on the SB-800, the sensor faces mostly to the side but slightly to the front).  When the flash is placed horizontally, the sensor can only face one side of the flash.  With the Brolly Grip that means that if you use switch the grip from one hand to the other, the sensor will face away from the popup flash. My workaround for this is to hold the grip upside down if I switch hands.  If I will use that side for a while, then I rotate the cold shoe so that the flash sensor will again face the popup flash.

Second, if the Brolly Grip is used outdoors in bright sunlight, then a popup flash as commander may have difficulty putting out enough light to be detected by the remote flash.

Despite these limitations, optical triggering isn't so bad in the real world.  Most of the time I was able to trigger the SB-800 successfully with my popup flash.  Sometimes, when the SB-800 wasn't triggered, all I would need to do is to move the flash a bit forward to bring it within the scope of the popup flash.  Considering that I was shooting mostly in bright sunlight (i.e. almost the worst case scenario), I would say that optical triggering is a realistic alternative, even if it isn't ideal.

Picking flowers for mommy

USABILITY
We've already seen that it is possible to get soft directional light with the Brolly Grip.  However, how practical is it for real world use?

In my view, if I have the option to use bounce flash, I would prefer to bounce for simplicity, softness and directional control.  If bouncing is not an option but the ambient light is good, I might use a ring flash instead as fill for simplicity and ease of use.  For other situations when bouncing is not an option and the ambient light is not favorable, a handheld umbrella would probably be my preferred solution.  In that regard, the Brolly Grip is the best handheld umbrella I have right now.

UMBRELLA OPTIONS
The Brolly Grip can be ordered by itself or as a kit with a 19.7 inch (50cm) shoot-through umbrella (also available separately).  I already have a couple of small umbrellas (a 19 inch reflective and a 25 inch shoot-through) so I just ordered the grip.  I later found out that Lastolite also makes a 36 inch (90cm) TriFold Umbrella that folds down to just 10 inches.  I've ordered the TriFold Umbrella and will post about it shortly.  If you want to see a list of other small umbrellas, check out this post.

RELATED POSTS:

1. Handheld Umbrella - An Excellent Light Modifier
2. Handheld Umbrella Indoors
3. Small Umbrellas
4. Ultimate Handheld Umbrella - Propet Umbrella Bracket
5. Creative Light Shoot-Through Umbrella
6. Do Small Modifiers Work? 
7. 12 Alternatives to Bouncing from Ceilings and Walls

DISCLOSURE: I'm not affiliated with Amazon or Lastolite nor am I sponsored by them.  I bought the Brolly Grip for my own use and am providing this review for informational purposes.  I do have an Amazon Associates account and in this article I've linked to Amazon pages for the products mentioned, which means if you purchase the product I will get an approximately 4% commission (without any additional cost to you and which is a welcome way of supporting this blog).

MORE SAMPLE SHOTS

Read More

Winning a Photo Contest

Winning a photo contest both is and isn't a big deal.  It isn't a big deal in the sense that a real artist would care more about expressing his or her idea and less about the audience reaction.  On the other hand, I believe that art is a form of communication that becomes perfected when it is received by another person in a meeting of minds.

I entered the shot above in a photo contest and it was one of the winning entries.  This is the second year in a row when I've had a winning entry in this contest and I thought I'd talk about the approach I used in making this photo.

Ideally, I would like my photo to be something that is worth looking at.  It's not enough to be beautiful if it's something that has been done before.

There are amazing photos that simply demand attention because everything comes together perfectly.  For example, while hiking in the mountains, you capture a scene where dramatic clouds have crepuscular rays shining through them, illuminating a colorful and picturesque town in a valley with a vast field of green grass, with colorful flowers in the foreground, complete with butterflies.  And there's a triple rainbow in the background.  If you get a miraculous scene like that, then obviously that shot would win any contest where that photo falls within the theme.

Most of the time though, I'm working with a mundane subject that people have already seen many times before and I have to work hard to make the shot deserve another look.

First, I make sure that the photo doesn't have any defects.  By defect, I mean anything that detracts from the photo, such as a distracting object in the background.

Second, I make sure to control the most significant aspects of most photos: composition, lighting, exposure and color.  If any of those fundamental aspects are less than good, then the shot likely will not meet the required threshold.

Third, if possible I try to have a strong secondary element in the shot.  All photos have a primary subject or theme. However, I try to make the photo so that it has a secondary element or theme that is also worthy of attention.  For example, a photo could on its face be a portrait but the background is itself an interesting subject.

Is it a candid portrait or is it a landscape photo?  It's both!

Lastly, I think of as many ways as possible to make the photo special.  I ask myself, what would make someone interested in this particular photo?  It could be any number of things:

• a beautiful subject
• an exotic location
• a powerful facial expression
• an interesting or unusual point-of-view
• perfect timing
• amazing texture
• amazing details
• interesting shadows
• humor

The possibilities are infinite!  In my view, the more "points" I can add, the stronger the photo becomes. Usually I think of at least 4 points, although a very special point could count as 2 points on my scale.

EXAMPLE
The shot above is of one of the buildings at Los Angeles International Airport.  I thought about shooting it at sunset while there were dramatic clouds in the sky (not so common in the dry Southern California weather). Finally, there was a storm that created the conditions for dramatic clouds.  For this shot, I used my Nikon D300 and the versatile Tamron 17-50 2.8 VC.

Minimizing distractions: When I got to the spot where I wanted to take a shot, I looked for the best vantage point with the fewest street lamps and trees.  At the time I was taking the shot there were also crows flying around.  The crows were not appropriate for the photo so I waited for the crows to fly away before taking the shot.

Composition:  I chose a slightly longer focal length (75mm equivalent) to make the clouds appear a little larger than normal (relative to the building) and to get fewer street lamps and palm trees in the shot.  See here. In framing the shot I placed the building according to the rule of thirds.  I waited for picturesque clouds to move into the background to complement the subject.

Exposure:  Exposure can have a couple of meanings for me. First, it means the overall exposure value chosen.  In that regard, important highlights and shadows should be retained.  Second, it means the selection of aperture, shutter speed and ISO within the same exposure value in order to achieve the best results.  I selected an aperture of f/11 to give me deep depth of field (to keep the building and clouds sharp).  At f/16 I become concerned about diffraction.  I also focused not at the building, but at a point that was closer (around the closer streetlamp), in order to maximize depth of field with the hyperfocal distance.  I chose the base ISO for lowest noise (according to pixel peepers, ISO 160 is the real base ISO for the Nikon D300).  I selected a shutter speed to get an exposure value that would retain details in the highlights of the clouds.  That turned out to be 1/13.  That's pretty slow but I wasn't concerned because I was using a tripod.

Lighting:  I chose to take the photo while there were cloudy skies, instead of harsh direct sunlight that would have made the building washed out.  There was also one other lighting decision as discussed below.

Color: To get the most intense colors in the clouds, I waited for the last rays of sunset to hit the clouds.  The other thing I did for color is to change the white balance.  I altered the color temperature and tint to get the colors in the shot.

Secondary Element:  The literal subject of the photo is the building.  However, another significant secondary element is the clouds.  Without the clouds, this photo would look just like any other of the hundreds of photos of this building.

Special Effects:  Here are the points I was able to put together for this photo (some already referenced previously).

1. Golden hour.
2. Dramatic clouds.
3. Interesting reflection.  I caught the sunset in the reflection of the building.
4. Contrasting light conditions.  The reflection of the building here is facing west.  As the sun began to set, west of this building, the clouds were already in dusk.  Because of the reflection, two different "time zones" with distinct light conditions were captured in the shot.
5. Spotlight.  I waited until the clouds overhead parted slightly to shine a "spotlight" on the building (that's why the left part of the building is brighter than the right part). This not only highlighted the building but allowed me to get a darker exposure for the clouds (relative to the sunlight), making the clouds even more dramatic.

So there you have it!

RELATED POSTS
What's the point of having different lenses?
Environmental Portrait: Go Short or Long?
Brushing the Sky
Mitchell Kanashkevich's Captivating Color

Read More

When NOT to Use Lens Correction in Lightroom

One of my favorite Lightroom features is lens correction, which can correct vignetting, chromatic aberration and distortion.  I find this really useful because my lenses are not pro-grade and suffer from these issues.  With lens correction, my photos look like they are from more expensive lenses. :)

I used to assume that I ought to apply lens correction to all my images.  However, I found out that sometimes, it's better not to use lens correction (or to choose which issues to correct for).

I recently took a portrait of my family and some family friends.  I used a Tamron 17-50 VC at 17mm, which exhibits very noticeable complex distortion (the middle of the image bulges).  Here's what the distortion pattern looks like:

Notice that the middle of the closet door bulges, but the top and bottom do not.  This is one of the weaknesses of this otherwise great lens.

Anyway, back to the portrait that I took.  Here's the image without lens correction:

Here's the image with lens correction:

If you look at the "corrected" image, the faces of the people at the edges look more distorted (and less flattering) than those of the uncorrected image.  Take a closer look at my son's face, which appears skewed in the corrected image.

So in this case, I chose not to apply the lens correction.

Fortunately, Lightroom also allows not just turning lens correction on or off completely, but also selectively applying the lens correction to correct vignetting, chromatic aberration or distortion or any combination of those issues.  You can also select the degree of correction of each issue.

RELATED POSTS:
Intro to Lightroom
Tamron 17-50 VC First Impressions
Creating a lens correction profile for JPEGs

Read More