A Moment Caught

Tripods - You decide

2012-01-23T19:34:00.000-08:00

Lisa was busy tonight, the kids were in bed, and I felt the need to get out of the house. I ended up going to the nearest Value Village (thrift shop). I tend to visit thrift stores a little too much, but I keep finding awesome deals. Tonight was such a night.

I've recently run across some cheap tripods, and I've thought that I'd like a second tripod. The problem with cheap tripods though, is that they're flimsy. The two reasons I've wanted a second tripod is to have something to hold an off-camera flash, and just perhaps something lighter than my existing tripod. The existing tripod is a Manfrotto 055CL with a 141RC head. I bought the pair new at Henrys almost 10 years ago after my father got me a Mamiya 645E for Christmas. Medium-format camera = bigger camera = bigger tripod. So I bought the 055 as something sturdy enough for medium format.

However, for most of my shooting these days (especially since I don't really use the Mamiya since almost nobody touches the film any more), the 055CL is overkill. So tonight's find was great - a Manfrotto 190SH tripod for a mere $6.99 (in the box). Google suggests people want about $100 used for them. SWEET. The 190SH is smaller than the 055CL, and weighs in 3 lbs lighter. Despite this, it's a very sturdy little tripod. According the Manfrotto, the 055's go to 178cm tall, and the 190's go to 146cm. It's rare that I need all that height (but it does happen, especially shooting over objects).

Here's the 055 and the 190 together. You can see that the smaller 190 looks much friendlier for transporting around. The two major drawbacks with the 190 are the screw-legs (instead of the clips) and the quick-release-less head. I can easily put the 141RC head on the 190, so the latter point doesn't matter so much.

So, what is the right tripod. Let's ask the professionals:

Ken Rockwell: Tripods went out with the film cameras.
Thom Hogan: Spend $1000US on your tripod.

So there we have it, two well known reviewers/professionals. Ken Rockwell says that high ISO digital cameras and VR lenses have made tripods obsolete. Thom, what about VR? "...it's designed to take equipment movement out of the shot. It does, but it's not infallible, nor does it solve every problem..."

I suggest actually reading the articles instead of just the quotes and paraphrases that I pulled out. Quite frankly, I disagree with both of them.

Thom: Really, I need a $1000 tripod? For the few times a year where I actually want/use a tripod, I need an ultra-light carbon fiber model? I'm not exactly out in the safari carrying equipment for hours. Thom seems to have generalized that ALL photographers will eventually want a $1000 tripod. I assure you that these Manfrottos albeit a bit heavy, will last me for years to come. Perhaps if I ever become serious about nature photography, or hiking with equipment all day, then I'll consider such an expensive tripod.

Ken: Ken, Ken, Ken.... The tripod is obsolete? Seriously? Ok, he says it can be used for moonscapes. First of all, the tripod is a necessity just for shooting repetitious shots. I'm sure when he shoots lens comparisons, they're all on a tripod. Ok, so I'm sure he wouldn't disagree that tripods are good for studio and other repetitious situations. Shooting in low-light, that's where he's really arguing they're obsolete. First off, not everybody has a full-frame DSLR. Ken points out elsewhere that a "f/1.4 lens on a (cropped DSLR) should perform about as well as an exotic f/2.8 zoom will on a (full frame DSLR)". That's 2-full stops of difference! Also, what about loooooooooong telephotos (like the 150-500mm Tokina that I recently sold). Even with VR, that lens would be awful to try to keep reasonable still handheld, and that's a short lens (compared to the Sigmonsters for example). A monopod would help, but I'd still rather a tripod.

One thing that I will say though, is that I used to use my tripod to save money. If I'm shooting at say 1/8 or 1/15 of a second, I'll fire a bunch and one should be sharp enough. In the days of film, that equates to a lot of wasted film/money. So the tripod was great for increasing the odds of a good shot - thus saving money.

I'll conclude by saying, if you love your fast VR lenses and think they replace tripods - then great. If you want to use your tripod all the time (even though Ken will think you look like an 'idiot'), then do it! Use a tripod however it will help you take the best photos. Are you really going to care if you looked like an idiot with your tripod when that photo has made your thousands from stock sales?

Cheap plastic

2012-01-09T20:33:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post about one of my peeves - companies that charge lots of money for plastic. If you look at how much Nikon charges for lens caps, body caps, hoods - it is outrageous. Apparently it sounds like Canon is no better according to a coworker.

I once bought a hood for my (former) 80-200mm 2.8 AF-D lens. It was somewhere around $30, for a solid piece of plastic (just a round hollow cylinder). How can they charge so much for plastic? The markup must be at least 3000%.

So I've pretty much given up on name-brand plastic. I wanted a couple lens hoods for some lenses. I went to eBay and bought them each under $5. One is an Opteka brand, the other I forget. So no they're not Nikon knockoffs. Wow, what a savings though.

A couple months ago I bought some Nikon body and rear-lens caps from Hong Kong. They look like my other Nikon caps but these only cost $1 a piece. Quite likely not the genuine article. I'm not a fan of buying counterfeit. I'd rather buy a off-brand like the Opteka hood.

So if anyone from Nikon, or Canon, or some other company ever reads this, please tell me how your plastic is better then the much cheaper eBay offerings.

Shooting a couple of models

2012-01-01T20:35:00.000-08:00

Last week I had the chance to shoot a couple of models. One model just turned 40 years old, the other just shy of 40 by a few months. While you can tell they're not teenagers to look at them, you'd likely never guess that they were 40 years old. They were both all too happy to pose for me. It was an interesting shoot.

Meet the models, Maytag HA806A and HDE806. This is the old washer and dryer that came with our house. They've served us well for the past 5 years. Recently the switch on the washer lid broke. This is a small deal to fix once you get the part. However we've been finding these old machines too small, so we decided to upgrade.

Before parting with these old machines though, I decided to have a photo shoot. I had been meaning to try an exercise that I read about years ago. Find inanimate objects, not too exciting (i.e. not a Ferarri) and try to make them look interesting through various photos. This includes choice of lenses, film/medium, angles, backdrops, lighting, etc.

For this shoot, I opted for shooting the D90 in black & white mode. I thought it would tell some nice tales on these old Maytags. I chose my Sigma 10-20mm, Nikkor 50mm, and Nikkor 60mm lenses to shoot with (although I was tempted to deviate, I did stick with my original choices). The Sigma proved awesome for getting in the machines and some interesting exterior shots. The 60mm gave the greatest number of interesting shots with its close-ups.

The 50mm was a bit of a let-down. I didn't want to shoot it wide open since I wanted a deeper depth-of-field. This meant that I needed to stabilize my arms on top of the machine with the resulting slower shutter speed. With my elbows on the machine, the 50mm couldn't focus close enough most of the time for the shots I wanted. The result was that I barely touched the 50mm.

I also decided to shoot all existing light (overhead fluorescents) with the SB-800 available for some lighting of the machine interiors.

Here's some samples of what I shot.

Washer

Inside the washer

Washer temperature buttons

Washer Load size buttons

Washer tub (SB-800 is inside the tub)

The agitator (SB-800 is to the left-out of frame)

Dryer control (best viewed full-size)

Dryer control

Dryer all-aglow. You can see where I re-shone some of the chrome with my thumbnail in the 'grille' .

From inside the dryer

For the most part, I was happy with the results - but I wasn't blown away. I welcome any/all comments.

HDMI Tethering with the D90

2011-12-21T19:09:00.000-08:00

This is just going to be a quick post, since life's been super crazy of late.

Something that I wondered earlier this year was if I could use Live View on the D90 over HDMI. Google just could not answer this for me. Yes I knew I could view photos that have been taken already, over HDMI. But what about Live View. I simply could not find an answer. So I picked up a cheap mini-HDMI to standard HDMI adapter on eBay from Hong Kong.

The answer: YES, Live View does show over HDMI. Using my 15ft HDMI cable didn't work with my 19" TV, but using the 6ft cable did. I did however get the 15ft cable to work with a monitor using a HDMI/DVI adapter on the other end of the cable.

So for self-portraiture, or just composing photos where having huge magnification is a plus, this can work great. Shooting without Live View will still have the previews go to the monitor/TV if attached, so a subject in front of the lens could see what was just taken (if you wanted to show them - although it might distract in the middle of a shoot though).

Hopefully this helps someone else who might be wondering if Live View works over HDMI. Perhaps in the many months since I answered this question someone else has too, but a quick search suggested no.

Pinhole Phail

2011-11-29T21:19:00.000-08:00

I was discussing with a coworker today about making a pinhole "adapter" for a DSLR using a body cap. I had been planning to try this for a while, and just never got around to it. I gave it a shot tonight. I succeeded in taking pictures with it, but the results were not great. However I was shooting indoors in a dark basement. I tried many experiments with using a flash with sub-par results. If I was to take this same pinhole adapter outside on a sunny day - I'm sure the results would be much better. I gave up on this after about 45 mins of messing around.

So to console myself at not getting the results I wanted, I started playing with actual lenses, and started taking photos of random things. I had told another coworker that one thing I wanted to do was to take somewhat boring objects, and try to take photos that actually make them interesting. I gave that a shot tonight using a ZX81 that was sitting next to my desk. I admit, there's more boring objects than a ZX81, but it's not the most exciting thing to look at.

I decided the way to make it most interesting was to use my ultra-wide angle lens, and shoot close up. This trades in the ZX81's boring rectangular look for some funky converging lines. The angle is much like the Star Wars opening crawl.

Because of the weird angle, lighting from on-camera is wonky. So I used the D90 in Commander Mode, with its own flash disabled. Then I used my SB-800 in slave mode. Instead of firing it from above the hotshoe, I fired it straight down from above the ZX81. The effect of this I loved. Instead of sending a blast of light out behind the subject, the light radiated out from after reflecting off the computer. Thus it created nice falloff in the lighting on the carpet, which actually makes the photo much more interesting.

I shot the camera in aperture priority, with the aperture down to f22. With all the details on the keybaord, I wanted to make sure that it was all readable.

I loaded it into Photoshop, and quite liked it. I cropped it, and sharpened it - that's it. Somehow, it reminded me of an advertisement, from way back in the day. So I added some text to the top an ripped the bottom from a real ad, to make my very own vintage ad. Here's the result:

It's probably not for everyone, but I thought it was cool..

How to make the perfect burger

2011-11-24T21:09:00.000-08:00

Not my shot, it's a capture from the video below

I've always been interested in food photography since seeing a show about it many years ago. I remember learning just how edible that awesome looking food in magazines, or on TV really is. I stumbled on this video and figured that I'd share. It's quite interesting.

Why burgers looks so good at the pictures

If you like this, I'm sure you can find more on Youtube. I remember seeing how they make the perfect turkey years ago. Also, not something you'd want to eat.

A blast from the past

2011-11-21T22:19:00.000-08:00

Isn't the Internet Wayback Machine cool? You can dig up all kinds of old sites from the past. As some people know, I used to have a web site that I maintained for years some time ago. One of the offshoots of the site was a photography site. For all intents and purposes, it was a photography blog. My previous shots at night reminded me of when I started shooting existing light, nearly 10 years ago. Back then it was using film, so more of a challenge. The above shot was done using an LED keychain, and an old film SLR. I had no way of knowing the success of the shot until days later - when I got the prints back from that roll of film. Yes, those were the days!

Here's a link to the Wayback Machine's capture of my existing light photos going back to 2004 (back before DSLR's ruled the earth).

And now for something completely different from back then... PHOTOGRAMS!

What's a photogram you ask? Get photographic paper. Put stuff on top of it (in the dark, or under a darkroom/safety light). Expose it to incandescent/normal light (i.e. enlarger light). Develop.

The first was my drinking & driving photogram. It was produced by breaking a beer bottle in a plastic bag, then placing it accordingly to look like it was in the process of breaking by the keys impacting it.

The second one was, well, both my hands. Yep, I was a wishful dreamer back then. But hey, dreams sometimes come true - in my case they did!

Clueless - An adventure in HDR

2011-11-20T21:11:00.000-08:00

I've wanted to mess around with HDR photography for years - pretty much since I found out about it. However, at the time there were no decent free offerings, and I wasn't prepared to shell out money for HDR software. It was more of a matter of 'lack of time' to justify the money for the software. Yes, I'm one of those freaks who actually pays for software. Besides doing the right thing, I'm also supporting my fellow software developers.

Recently Adobe convinced me to take the Photoshop plunge, after using Photoshop Elements for years. They kept emailing me telling me I could buy CS5 for $300. Well, since I was a couple releases behind on Elements (which is ~$100) it seemed better to spend the extra $200 for CS5. Of the many cool features that I got with this upgrade was HDR. However despite getting CS5 in September, I haven't played much with it.

I've done a little night/existing-light photography this fall, but not much. Marty, a coworker who's new into the DSLR world, was doing some night HDR. I decided last night, considering it might be the last night with non-sub-zero temperatures of the year, to get some shots in.

Other than the slight fear that I'm going to get robbed of my equipment when I'm out alone in the middle of the night, I really enjoy shooting at night. It's calm, you have time to think (especially with the tripod), and it's a completely different world to shoot.

So on to the results. The photos that I took, I took with HDR in mind. As such, I didn't mind the results via HDR, but each photo on its own didn't seem to tell much of a story (not without needing some real good post-processing).

The first example is this Bell phone booth on the outskirts of Hespeler's downtown. Luckily none of the busy bar crowd was out here while I was shooting. I don't love this shot, but I don't dislike it either. I looked at the phone booth and pondered, what's the best way to make this interesting. I determined that a near-ground level shot would be best. This is easy in daylight. Ok, nighttime HDR - this means long exposures, and repeated. So I collapsed my tripod down so it sat an inch or so off the ground (plus the head's height, so the camera was maybe 4-5" from the ground). This is a feature of the tripod I only played with shortly after buying it - I never used it in the field until tonight.

I tried different angles and positions, but I liked this the best. There is a streak on the road from a passing car that adds a little more excitement to the shot. I didn't like how blurred the Bell logo came out. Being a source of light, it seemed to through things off (vs the other signs at the same height). I tried different HDR schemes (including custom) but this shot seemed to scream for "Surrealistic" HDR.

This gas pump I recently spotted near my house. I thought - here's an interesting artifact that I need to shoot. I just had no intentions of shooting it at night. I didn't try many angles/positions - I just liked this best (also for avoiding noise of surrounding objects). I quite like how this shot turned out. It's a combination of surrealistic HDR, with numerous adjustments on the different levels & saturation after the HDR. I just tried different adjustments until I found something that I really liked (hence the "Clueless" in the title). Other than that, I did some minor cropping and selectively sharpened the pump. Sharpening everything ruined it, but I liked the extra pump detail.

This here is the building where the above pump lives. I also like how this shot turned out, but I despise the fact that the building is chopped off on the right side. I didn't have room to fit it in (with my prime lens) without moving my vehicle (casting the shadow in the bottom). Why didn't I just move the vehicle?

Anyways, this is as-shot with "Surrealistic" HDR applied. It sure seems that I love my surrealistic HDR. However the other HDR presets, while I suspect they look great in daytime shots, generally looked lousy at night. Colours aren't generally too vibrant when shot at night, so surreal really helps the shot look interesting (or so I think). I was tempted to put up a HDR monochrome shot of the gas pump that turned out well - I just didn't like it as well as the one that I posted.

If anyone reads this and either is more experienced in HDR, or has any comments, please let me know. I'm eager to learn. I might give in and post & look for comments on flickr, but at times it just feels like the Facebook of photography to me.

A mysterious friend on Halloween

2011-11-11T21:23:00.000-08:00

After having my PC die on me, I'm back up and running (unfortunately after buying a new CPU and motherboard). This finally gave me a chance to see the photos that I took on Halloween.

I shot all of the outdoor photos with my relatively new (but used) 50mm 1.4 AF-D lens. I bought this lens after reluctantly selling my 50mm 1.8 AF lens. By reluctantly I mean that I had listed it for sale, and between me deciding to keep the lens, and actually taking down the ad (a couple hours later), someone emailed and said that they wanted to buy it. They were willing to pay full price, so what could I do.

Then I saw the 50mm 1.4 at the local pawn shop in mint condition. After trading in some old audio equipment at the pawn shop, which I'd likely never have bothered selling privately, and the money I made from the 50mm 1.8, the 1.4 only set me back $60 even. Not bad for a mint lens.

Anyways, back to the real point of this post... The photos turned out fairly well (I thought) for having been shot handheld, in the dark. I shot with the lens wide open, which gave an ISO typically around 1600-2200. Sharpness was a little soft, which this lens is known for. But come on, I'm shooting handheld at night!

What I did notice was a friend trick-or-treating with my kids - who we didn't see. It was a mysterious blue orb, sometimes darker blue, sometimes a bit more yellowish. Translation: lens flare.

Note in the photo above, the blue orb hovering above the stairs between Lisa and Jonah. You'll note that it's opposite the house light. This is pretty much how it looked in every photo, with I think one or two catching flare on more than one element in the lens.

Apparently this lens is known for lens flare. I conducted some tests just before starting this post. I shot the front of our house at increasing apertures until the flare disappeared. Much to my surprise, it lived until f5.6. At f4.5, it was there but much smaller. Only at 5.6 was it actually gone.

This is a very harsh situation - shooting at night with a single bright light source in the photo. Photoshop could quickly lay waste to our little blue friends if I wanted however.

As a side note, I also tried shooting with the 35mm 1.8 AF-G lens tonight. It short completely orb-free wide open. However it was shooting at an ISO of HI 0.3 (1/3 of a stop over 3200) as compared to the 50mm 1.4 shooting wide-open at 2200.

I miss black & white

2011-10-28T21:55:00.000-07:00

Peggy's Cove NS. Which is better, colour or B&W?

What's this, a third post in one night? Well, I'm sick, not ready for bed, bored out of my skull (since my sick family is already asleep and I've been trapped indoors all day), so here's another. I also need something to keep me busy as it's a bit depressing that my illness will almost certainly keep me from a 10-year memorial lunch/get-together with relatives and family friends - most of whom I haven't seen in years. The real kicker - it was my idea.

Enough self-pity, and on to photography. The fact is, I miss black & white film. I really don't desire to shoot film these days. It's expensive (enough, when development & printing are factored in), getting hard to find (at least for black & white), and even getting hard to find a lab to develop & print it (unless you buy a B&W film that uses colour processing process).

I miss my darkroom. I don't however really miss developing film. What a pain that was - at least for someone without much experience. Once you get some muscle memory, it must get easier. Either that or better tanks. I used a Patterson tank, that could handle 35mm, 126, and 110/220 film. Loading 35mm film generally wasn't too bad. However, 110 and 220 film is so flimsy, that I just had a heck of a time getting it on the reels. You're in complete darkness, you can't get it on, and introducing any light ruins the film. Good times.

What I really miss though is printing B&W. If you've never witnessed a piece of exposed photographic paper rocking in developer, you've missed out. I just love watching the image magically fade in. My father used to show us in his darkroom when I was a kid sometimes. I loved it. 20 years later when I had my own darkroom, it was every bit as magical - the 1st time, the 50th, you name it.

Converting digital images to black & white is a very easy operation. It's actually easier than converting colour negatives to black & white (since normal B&W paper didn't work so well, you needed special paper). But the problem I find, is thinking in black & white. When you have B&W film in your camera, you find yourself thinking in black & white.

I used to think differently depending on what was loaded in my camera. You shouldn't be thinking about photos the same with ISO 50 slide film in your camera as you would with ISO 1600 B&W film. I found that shooting B&W was something that was best committed to. I didn't just happen to keep some B&W film in the camera bag. I decided for that outing/day, it was going to be B&W. My mind shifted during this process. "Hmm, that sky will look even better with a red filter."

So what about digital. Well, I just learned that the D90 can shoot B&W. I thought that they left it for post-processing, but you can shoot in black and white (or monochrome as Nikon calls it). In the Shooting menu, select "Set Picture Control" and set it to monochrome.

So why do this when you can convert in Photoshop (or your favourite tool)? The reason, as I stated about film, is to think in black and white. Maybe you can shoot colour shots, review them, all the while thinking black and white. That's not me. I tend to think in whatever mode I'm shooting. To shoot in colour, with the idea of converting to black and white, I'd almost have to turn off the "instant gratification" image review, and not view any of the shots while I'm shooting them. Seeing them in colour could mess with my mind.

Maybe this is a limitation from my film days. Maybe it's a better way to shoot (thinking with one mindset). I'm just a believer that the best B&W shots were not shot in colour, or with a colour mindset. The intention from the time the shutter was released was a B&W image.

As a strike against B&W film, it doesn't have a cool song about it like this one (warning, I'm not responsible for the song being stuck in your head):

From ewwww to awwww

2011-10-28T21:07:00.000-07:00

Late one night, I was getting ready for a late-night bike ride. My insomnia has been bad this year, and as such I've found myself going for more late night bike rides and walks. The tricky part with the bike rides is keeping the cadence & impact low enough to not get the heart working. Otherwise I'm definitely not going to be sleeping for a few hours.

Anyways, this was in mid-August around 11:30pm. I was getting my bike ready and I thought that I heard a noise in the garage. "I probably just bumped something" I thought and continued. Then more noise - it sounded animal-like. I moved the recycling box where I had heard the sound around, half-expecting to find something behind it. What I didn't expect was to find something in the (empty) box.

Wow, now that I didn't expect. It seems that he had fallen in, and didn't seem to have much luck getting out. I know that mice can do some crazy climbing, but this guy didn't seem to be faring so well.

I debated, do I bother getting a camera, or just figure out how to get rid of him. I decided I'd go for a few shots. While the results weren't stunning, they were worth the effort. When I told my wife about the mouse the next morning, she was responding with "ewwwwww". She didn't really want to see the photos but I showed her, which changed her tune to "awwwwww".

As for the mouse, I released him somewhere between Kitchener and Preston.

Shooting at a triathlon/duathlon - Lessons learned

2011-10-28T20:50:00.000-07:00

In September, I attended my third sprint tri/duathlon. Attended, not competed in - sadly. I was supposed to do my first duathlon this year. However due to knee problems (and a lack of benefits for physio while I switched jobs), this didn't happen. You can see my other blog for more details.

I've now shot at two races, and took the video camera to another race earlier this year. Quick lesson on shooting sports video: A cheap digital camcorder produces boxily (my new word, kind of like pixelated but in rectangular chunks) blurred images of fast moving subjects. Oops.

First, I'd like to say that I enjoy shooting these races. There are definitely many moments to be caught. This includes the swim start, the people emerging from the water, transitions, bike mounting (always a plethora of events here, good and bad), bike dismounts (occasionally something gone wrong), running and finishes.

For the fun of it last time, I tried to shoot everyone who passed by me. This basically meant training the camera on them, shutter half-down (with continuous focus), and releasing when the moment was right. For some people it was when they smiled (most common with women). Sometimes it's the right look of agony (more common with women). Sometimes it's something you'd never guess, like this:

Yes, that is a fellow competitor (who had already finished the face) using a pylon as a bullhorn to inspire a racer about 80ft from the finish line.

This shot was earlier than I would have shot this racer at, and I would have missed it if I waited to ready the camera. However since I had it ready , I was there to catch the moment.

In a previous post, I had alluded to problems that I had shooting this day. The problem was basically auto-focus. While shooting the racers mounting on their bikes, I had a number of cruddy shots due to mis-focus. Take this one for example:

If you look at the photo close up, you'll see that the bike and rider are out of focus. Focus is actually behind them, more at the fence. At the start, the auto-focus was selecting the closest subject. That simply didn't work here. So I switched to a single point, but I had failed to notice that that point was not on the center, where I was shooting people. It was above, hence usually focusing behind.

Here's the same rider, shot in-focus:

Here we can see that she's riding a Cannondale bike, with a Camelback water bottle, and Louis Garneau shorts. That's the detail that we should see in focus.

Here's a more complex problem:

Here we have multiple riders. Some are in focus, some are not. The guy in the orange & white (second from right) is clearly not in focus.

So where did I go wrong? What is the answer to all this madness.

I wanted some nice bokeh, so I was shooting in aperture priority mode. The last shot was f4.5, which is as open as the 18-200mm lens will shoot at that focal length. This is great for bokeh, but definitely not a good choice for multiple riders, since depth-of-field (DOF) is so tight. Obviously this lens, at this focal length, and f4.5 does not give enough DOF to get the varying distances of these riders in.

If I shot aperture priority at say f8, then I'd have more DOF. However, it still depends where the camera has focused. DOF will descend from that point.

I'm actually thinking the answer is really to say 'forget auto-focus'. There are pylons that riders are supposed to (doesn't always happen) stay to one side of. So if I shot with focus at or shortly before the pylon, with a reasonable f-stop (maybe f8 or f11), then I'd have all the riders in focus. I'd have more than I wanted in focus, but that's better than having subjects out of focus. Photoshop can easily correct that easier than trying to correct out of focus subjects. Too much detail is always better than not enough.

Also worth noting, is that they're not moving fast enough at transitions or runs to require terribly fast shutter speeds. I'd say anything faster than 1/500 is unnecessary.

Shooting manual focus locked on the pylon would have also solved the other shots (like the first out of focus sample). I hate shooting in non-WYSIWYG situations like this - since what you see (focus-wise) is not what you get.. However my D70 and D90 both give me a DOF preview buttons, which is far more useful in daylight situations like this (vs. trying to use them in darker situations). The button is made for this purpose. I could actually get an optimal f-stop using the button without shooting a shot.

I certainly learned a lot on this outing. I did get many more great shots than bad ones. I got some amazing expressions on racers, some exciting accidents, and post-race celebrations. However I don't believe in putting people's photos online (without pixelation of faces & race numbers) so many photos lose a lot once you can't see the person's face.

One thing that's easy about shooting these races over other sports, is that they're like shooting trains. That's an odd analogy, but here's the idea. In many sports, you have no idea where a player is going to go. In racing, there is a set path. In sprint tris/dus, the path is generally about 8 feet wide (per direction). As a photographer, you know where every racer will pass. It's like waiting to take photos of trains. You find a nice place to shoot along the tracks and wait.

The joys and curses of auto white balancing, and light meters

2011-10-24T20:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, so not the next post that I had promised. But I thought I'd write about some shooting that I did yesterday. We took the kids down to Storybook Gardens in London ON. We had been meaning to do this since the spring and finally got down there. This was the first time I had been there in, oh, 30 years. It's amazing how much smaller it seemed than when I was a young kid. Wow.

I took the D90 for this trip, and only the 35mm 1.8 lens. Shooting zoomless was kind of a blessing - one that I'll enjoy again. It simplified the shooting, while making me work harder at times to compose the right shot.

The first curse I dealt with was the cameras metering. The camera tended to overexpose yesterday. I often found myself shooting into dull backgrounds like wood chips (on the playgrounds) or plain wooden structures (buildings or the playgrounds themselves). The D90 seemed to like to overexpose things. I tried compensating down 0.3 of a stop, which didn't quite seem to do it. Going down 0.7 of a stop seemed to be too much. RAW would have given me more flexibility in post-processing. But hey, I haven't done any post-processing yet.

For some reason I thought, I bet center-weighted metering on old cameras wouldn't be messing this up. Then I figured, what the heck - let's kick it old school and get the D90 using center-weighted metering. Low and behold, this was giving me better results. Using center-weighted meant that I either needed to shoot the kids in center-frame, or meter them in the center - then use the AE lock while I composed the photo. I was impressed how much better this worked against the dull backgrounds. When we hit more (visually) exciting areas, I switched back to matrix metering.

The second issue was lighting was kind of alternating between daylight and shade. I left the camera on Auto white balance the entire time. It didn't do the best job (I'll try to get some samples - not tonight). It sided towards a bluish cast in shaded areas. In more direct light, it was generally better. Yes I could have bounced the white balance between daylight and shade, but that's kind of a pain. Even with the WB button, it's still a nuisance. Auto is closer then me forgetting to change the white balance back too.

Again there was of course the RAW route, but these are family snapshots - not something I'm looking to hang on the wall. I used to overshoot RAW, but I tend to use if fairly sparingly now. I'll use if for existing light photos at night, special events, or anything else that I think might really be a keeper.

I also have a Mennon white balance cap which I've only tinkered with. I didn't have it with me (and it would have been a pain for constantly switching lighting) so it was of no use. But from my tinkering with it so far, it's not quite perfect, but does produce consistently better results than Auto. To use a similar cap, or grey card, just hold the WB button until Pre blinks on the display - then take your reference shot. You'll want manual focus on - or it won't shoot.

As annoying as the shortcomings of auto white-balance might be, I gained a new appreciation for it this past week. While looking through an old camera bag, I found some of my old 80A and FLD filters. For those not familiar with them, they are for white-balancing daylight-balanced film in tungsten and fluorescent lighting. I remember shooting a music concert on my Mamiya under fluorescent lighting. There's nothing like composing photos where everything in the viewfinder is purple. Yes I could have used non-daylight films but they weren't so common, and if you don't finish a roll - then finishing it is harder (since you need to shoot in similar lighting).

So with those old filters in mind, I definitely appreciate Auto white balance - even though it can't (and never will) be perfect.

I'm not a pro

2011-10-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

Now that I've slammed many photography newbies enough, I'll mention the theme of my next post. I'd like to discuss a recent triathlon/duathlon that I shot hundreds of photos at. I made lots of great decisions on my locations for shooting, composing photos, etc. But I got a much too high number (in my opinion) of cruddy photos. I'd like to discuss how and where things went wrong.

I also blew some shots of our kids at a recent outing. It wasn't many, but when telling the camera to underexpose significantly, don't forget to reset it before the next time you use the camera. Yes, I sometimes make mistakes like that. The key is to learn from mistakes.

An observation about equipment for sale

2011-10-19T21:12:00.000-07:00

One other observation that I will make about Kijiji and equipment, to follow up on my last post, are the amusing comments from some of the for sale ads.

I can't count all the prime lenses (especially the 35mm f1.8 and 50mm f1.8) I've seen for sale with comments like "I just like zooms better" or "only used a couple times". It seems that many amateurs are blindly buying lenses like this because of all the great recommendations. This includes comments from a well known reviewer by the initials KR who says "every DX shooter deserves (a 35mm lens)". People then go out and buy such equipment, then never learn how to use it right. They can't appreciate that a prime lens involves moving yourself to get the best shot, not just moving a zoom ring.

I could go into a whole diatribe on why I think prime lenses are so great but I'll leave that for a future post. I said that I won't discuss equipment, but I'm talking more specific equipment (i.e. the Nikkor _____ vs. the Tokina/Tamron/Sigma _______) - just to clarify.

A last point on this discussion, I also see many ultra wide lenses for sale - barely used. I think that far too many people discover that these lenses are extremely boring when used incorrectly. I think that many people never learn how to use them well.

There's so much more to photography than point and shoot.

A brief history

2011-10-19T20:54:00.000-07:00

I've been shooting SLR-based cameras for about 22 years now (since the age of 13). I started with a Praktica BCA 35mm SLR that I got one year for Christmas. I also occasionally got to shoot my father's Mamiya RB67 or Yashica 135-G. I didn't really shoot much until about 10 years ago. I'm not sure what it was, but something triggered the photography bug in me. Shortly after I started diving back into photography, my father bought me (and my brother) a Mamiya 645e. That certainly elevated things quite a bit. Going from a Praktica to a Mamiya was quite a step.

To get even harder core, I bought an enlarger (Vivitar dichroic of some sorts), and started developing film and printing photos in my apartment. I bought some nice toys for the darkroom (Schneider-Kreuznach 50mm Componon, and Fujinon 75mm EX lenses, Gralab digital timer, nice Paterson tanks) which sadly are worth a fraction of what I spent on them back in the day. Nevertheless, I got some great results from my Mamiya shots. I even put a roll of film through my 1920's Kodak box camera. The results from it were most impressive (with its 6x9 negative).

Then one night I visited the local Henry's store. I made the mistake of asking to see the Nikon F4s in the case. I had no intentions of buying such a beast (I was kind of contemplating a F-80, but wasn't sure I wanted to spend $650 on a camera). Somehow I fell in love with the F4s. After checking the bank account, I found myself the proud new owner of the F4s (and a new Nikkor 28-105mm lens). This was massive overkill for someone of my skill level I admit. But if you've never picked up a F4s, you don't understand it. These cameras are just a joy to hold and use.

To match the caliber of the F4s, I acquired more lenses over the next couple years or so. This included the Nikkor 20-35mm f2.8, Nikkor 80-200mm f2.8, Nikkor 50mm f1.8, and a Tokina 150-500mm AT-X f5.6. I'm not sure what I was thinking. I was single, and making good money at the time. My mother had also passed away recently. I was in a kind of "enjoy life now while you have it" mode when it came to money.

Today I own none of those lenses. They were all phenomenal I'll say that. The two pro Nikkor zooms lived up to their reputation - that's for sure. They were a joy to work with. However, in the hands of an amateur, they produce amateur results. I was amazed how cruddy many of my shots looked - despite the equipment I was using. There's many photos shot by National Geographic photographers in the 1990's using the exact same equipment. My shots sure didn't look like theirs!

Shortly after getting married in 2005, we bought a D70. This allowed us to reuse the great glass that I had already bought. Our shooting improved, and I got some great results with the D70 as I learned more and more. However shortly before my wife gave birth to our first child, I got a Nikkor 18-200mm and sold the two f2.8 zooms. There is no comparison between the image quality between the 18-200mm and a pro zoom. However, the 18-200mm is awesome for taking photos of the kids. Indoors, out, it's almost always ready for a shot (no matter how close/far the kids are). Plus the 20-35mm was no longer an ultrawide zoom on the D70. Shortly before the switch, we were on a vacation and I was always switching lenses. That made it easy to realize that this wasn't ideal for taking family shots.

Just before our second child was born, the D70 decided it wanted to corrupt memory cards. Although the D70 was very out-of-date, I had no interest in replacing it. My equipment acquisition interests had long been extinguished. I knew that better equipment wasn't going to equate to better photos (at least not that often). But, with a week to my wife's due date, and unable to find a good deal on a used Nikon DSLR (one that would use my AF and AF-D lenses), I found myself buying a new D90. It wasn't the best time financially, but we needed a camera. I would have skipped the D90 (since it was first-generation of multiple features), but it's been a great camera.

I recently decided it was time to start getting rid of unused photography stuff (and some other things like old audio equipment). I sold the Tokina 150-500mm since I just never really used it. I also kind of reluctantly sold my 50mm 1.8 AF. I still have to part with the 28-105mm and a 28-85mm that came with a used D70 that I bought. There's other bits and pieces to part with. There's also the possibility of the Mamiya going to eBay since I don't shoot it any more (it could be a nice addition to the RESPs for the kids).

I've acquired more lenses of late, so two steps forward, and one back. However these lenses are more ones that I'll use (primes and an ultra wide zoom). I don't plan on reviewing them or even talking about them much. I might discuss them when showing shots that I took, or discussing techniques used. However I don't really want this blog to be about equipment (contrary to what this post would have you believe up to this point).

Far too many people are talking about equipment online. Far too many people are obsessed with buying and playing with new equipment. People think that equipment makes all the different. I've even seen ads on Kijiji for 'pro' photographers who make claims like "I shoot ______ lenses so you know the results will be good." Umm no, been there, tried that, no. The best lenses can take the worst shots. Handing someone pro camera equipment and expecting great shots is like handing someone a sniper rifle and expecting them to be a sniper.

So from this point on, I will try to deviate away from equipment discussions, and focus on technique. If I fail, please feel free to point it out :).

My new photography blog

2011-10-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

Just what the world needs, another photography blog. That's what part of me thinks.

On the other hand, I do feel like I have things that I've learned over the years. I have things that I'd like to learn and experiment with (and I can share here). I would also like a place to share my shots & photographic endeavours with friends and family.