In Public

If you enjoy photography and haven’t looked into street photography, now might be the time to start.

Street photography tells a story

Street photography is raw

Street photography is honest

 

The Decisive Moment

Henri Cartier Bresson


”… Photography is not a documentary, but intuition, a poetic experience.  
       It’s drowning yourself,
       dissolving yourself, 
       first you must lose yourself,
       then it happens”



Henri Cartier Bresson has often been referred to as the “father of modern photojournalism”.  In my mind, there are two sides of photography, the art and the story.  These, of course, can be broken down into smaller categories such as landscape, photojournalism, fine art, fashion etc.  There are slices of life all around us, and each one of those is a story begging to be told.  All the nuances that we take for granted can be brought into focus.  A lot of the times, the photograph itself is not what I’m after, I just want to capture a minute part of reality.  With street photography, you’ll need a great eye, good anticipation, and an enormous amount of good fortune.  Once you miss the moment, it’s gone forever.  Take the above image for example, one second too late and the person has hit the water.  One second too early, and he hasn’t taken the leap.  Life is a game of seconds, the successful photographer is the one who is ready, all the time.

BUT we have a problem, a problem that previous generations of photographers may not have faced.

The recent (past 5-10yrs) emphasis on paedophiles and terrorists in public places has put somewhat of a dampener on street photography.  To an extent, it is completely understandable but some people are blowing it way out of proportion.  For example, if you took out your iPhone and started taking photos with it, everything is all good.  However, the minute you bring out an SLR, people will start shooting you funny looks.  If you’ve been there, you know what I’m talking about.

SO … by law what am I allowed to do?

You as a photographer (I’m using this term loosely here), can photograph almost anything and anyone you want as long as it is in public. 
- Buildings, parks
-People
- If on public property, can even photograph private property
- If on private property, can photograph until told otherwise (unless there’s a sign)

Of course there are exceptions, use some common sense here guys
- Military installations/other subjects classed as national security (excluding bridges)
- Dressing rooms
- Restrooms
- ATM machine

In short, and probably the most important, if you are in a public place you can photograph adults, children, law enforcement, accidents, criminal activities, airports, trains etc

Every now and then, people will question you as to what the #%*% you are doing.  I’m going to tell you what to do in these situations.  SMILE (genuinely) and be polite, nobody likes an asshole with a big camera.  If someone asks you to stop because of security reasons, unless it’s in the situations listed above, this is not a valid reason (again, please use common sense here).  Depending on location, you do not need to give them your memory card or delete the photos unless they have a court order/warrant.  I will add that sometimes for the sake of things it is much easier just to delete the photos, it really depends on the situation and how much you want this photo.

 

 

 

Take this image for example, if you took an image as powerful as this … HOLD ON TO IT.  This is an image by Pulitzer Prize winner, Kevin Carter, hit the link to read about the amazing story of his life in Time magazine.  By far one of the most powerful images I’ve ever seen. 




Even though you have these rights as a photographer, not everyone will agree to what you are doing.  The photographer needs to  be ballsy, or quick.  And if you’re doing this while travelling overseas, learn the local customs, you definitely don’t want to be offending anybody in an alien environment. 

“The catch with street photography is that there are many opportunities for good pictures, but not so many opportunities for great photographs … which only happens every once in a while. Street photography is like gambling. You get lucky or you get nothing”                       ~Markus Hartel

Before I go, here’s an extremely handy page to keep in your camera bag when you decide to brave the streets with your camera. http://www.artslaw.com.au/legalinformation/StreetPhotographersRights.asp

Any further questions, you know how to contact me.

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The Workhorse

First of all, I’d like to wish everybody a happy new year and I hope that you all had an awesome holiday break.  Now that most of you are back at work, I’m here once again to give you guys something to think about.

Perhaps a new lens to work towards?

The 70-200mm lens has been a professional standard for as long as I know.  Why that particular focal length?  Who knows.  But what I do know, is that every brand has a professional grade telephoto zoom in the 70-200 range.  There must be a reason right? 

Canon has:

EF 70-200 f4L
EF 70-200 f4L IS

EF 70-200 f2.8L

EF 70-200 f2.8L IS

EF 70-200 f2.8L IS II (Just announced)

Nikon has:

Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 VR
Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 VRII

Olympus has:
Olympus 35-100 f2 (becomes a 70-200 equivalent due to 2x crop sensor)

And so on, you get the idea.  For some reason this tends to be the focal length that all manufacturers focus on (no pun intended).  As far as I’m concerned, it’s a winning formula.  If you look in any professional’s camera bag, you’ll find a 70-200mm lens of some sort.  It is such a versatile lens that it is known as the professional workhorse. 

You can get anything from …

 

Sports photography, 200mm will get you the reach, f2.8 will get you the fast shutter speed you need to freeze fast moving objects.  On top of that, superior optical quality will make sure you get a nice and sharp photo in any condition.








To … 

Wildlife photography, reasonable minimum focussing distances are good enough to magnify even small subjects like butterflies.









And one more …

 



Yep, even sunsets.  Not the most common use for a 70-200, but every now and then you can get a great image. 











The point is, a 70-200 is so versatile that if you happen to have it in your camera bag on a day out, you’ll find a use for it.  Portrait, wedding, event, fashion, editorial, sports, wildlife, landscape … you name it, this lens will do it. 

If you don’t already have one, get one.  If you already have one, think about upgrading?

In perfect timing as always, canon have just announced the new EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS USM II. 
Main improvements:

- Improved stabilizer, now 4 stops of stabilization
- Reduced minimum focussing distance
- Revamped optics, plus the insertion of a fluorite element for sharper images
- Wider focussing ring and flushed in buttons for IS and AF/MF switch for better ergonomics. 

But that’s just what they tell us, if this new version does prove to be a significant improvement optically, I may have to think about upgrading ;p

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Decided

In the last post I talked briefly about the Canon 24L, 85L & 100L lenses.  I also mentioned that I didn’t end up choosing any of those for my next purchase.

Here’s the reason

What you see in that video is the new Canon TS-E 24mm f3.5L II.  That won’t mean a whole lot to most of you, so here’s a couple of points.

The good:
- Replaces the Canon TS-E 24mm f3.5L (notice the II at the end of the other name)
- Minimal chromatic aberration
- Close to no visible distortion
- Awesome build quality

The bad:

- 82mm filter diameter, means I now have to get ripped off by Hoya on filters
- Manual focus, but then again that’s with all tilt-shift lenses.
- EXPENSIVE

As far as sharpness goes, this lens is easily sharper than the 16-35L, 24L, and 17-40L, this site here shows the comparisons between the lenses.  Here’s the thing, it’s not a little bit sharper, its noticeably sharper than the other lenses.  The capabilities of this lens stretches beyond anything else on the market at the moment.  According the DP review, Nikon’s PC-E 24mm f3.5D comes close but not quite. 

So what can one do with a lens like this?

- Architecture photography: Buildings that are straight in real life will look straight in the photos.  



Imagine if the buildings on the left didn’t lean towards the centre
of the image. 




- Landscape photography: This lens gives you the ability to tilt the plane of focus you can have as much or as little of the field in focus. 
- Product photography: same principles as above
- Portraits/weddings: A whole lot more creative options open up with tilt shift
- The “toy village” effect

Click here for an example of this lens in action in architecture photography. 
And here for landscape, here for portraits (notice the background)

Here for the toy village effect
And of course, the image that put the nail on the coffin (could not have been done any other way)

As soon as I get my hands on this lens, I will definitely be trying out all of the above.  The main reason for deciding on this lens though is that it opens up so many windows of creative opportunities.  There are certain things that you can only do with a tilt-shift lens. 

There is probably a handful of people in Australia that owns this lens, many will have the original version, but the MkII is something else.  And plus, I figured if I was going to buy something, I’d go all out. 

In conclusion, the TS-E 24mm f3.5L II with my 5D MkII is a killer combination.  With this lens in my kit, there really isn’t a whole lot that I can’t do. 

I leave you with a collection of tilt-shift images by Tim Grimshaw.

Here’s what happens when a tilt-shift lens and stop animation decides to hook up and have a kid (don’t worry, it’s work safe and you MUST see it)

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Spending Season

Over the last 2 years or so, I’ve sold many cameras and lenses to all kinds of people.  People who have absolutely no idea what to look for, people who were trying to decide between a couple of cameras, and people who knew exactly what they wanted and all I had to do was swipe their Amex.  I made the process seem easy and straight forward, I would ask them a series of questions and “decide” the right camera for them.

When it was my turn to buy something, I had absolutely no way of deciding (at first).  Here’s the story, a wise man once said “if you work hard during Christmas, Canon says you need to buy some new lenses”.  Of course I agreed, what good is money if you don’t spend it?  Before long, I had it narrowed down to a few lenses to add to my kit.

 

Here’s what I already have:
- Canon 5D MkII
- EF 17-40mm f4L

- EF 24-105mm f4L IS USM
- EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS USM

- EF 50mm f1.4 USM
- Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro

I’ve got most of it covered, but as some of you may know, you can never have enough lenses. 


Here’s what I narrowed my choices down to:
- EF 24mm f1.4L USM II
- EF 85mm f1.2L USM II
- EF 100mm f2.8L IS USM macro

24mm f1.4L II: Beautiful lens, nice and wide on my full frame body, and a huge aperture for a lens of this focal length.  Not to mention the corner to corner sharpness and wonderful build quality and balance when fitted on the 5D MkII.  If I bought this lens, I would be pushing some serious low light wide angle shots without needing a flash and some wide angle shots with a LOT of bokeh. 

Cons - as with any other wide angle prime lens, its great when I use it … if I use it. 

85mm f1.2L II: 85mm works out to be the perfect portrait range for a full frame sensor.  The massive f1.2 max aperture is … incredible.  Not to mention it’s also incredibly sharp, but you would expect that from a lens that has a RRP of ~$3600 AUD. 

Cons – same as above, perhaps even less versatile than the 24mm 1.4L for what I need.  It’s also the kind of lens that screams “cock” and “I like to get ripped off by Canon” every time I take it out at a photo shoot. 

100mm f2.8L macro: The most versatile and the cheapest of the bunch (RRP ~1500 AUD).  Only came out a couple of months ago, building on the strong platform laid by the non IS version many years ago.  It’s sharper, focuses faster, much better built, and has IS.  All this for only an extra couple of hundred bucks in the price tag.  This much improved performance means I would be able to throw away the Tamron macro, and also use it for portraits.  In fact, it’s such a good lens I think it matches up really well with the highly acclaimed Nikkor 105mm micro. 

Cons – not much, apart from the fact that I would be replacing a lens rather than adding one to the kit.

So those are the 3 candidates, each with their own qualities and drawbacks.  No I don’t actually need a new lens, but where’s the fun in that?  At this point I should add that there were a few other lenses that were thrown in the discussion.

Honourable mention:
- EF 14mm f2.8 II
- EF 135mm f2L

- EF 180mm f3.5L

For most of you this discussion will be pretty useless, but for those who have most of the zoom lenses covered and are feeling a little rich … then this thought process could help.

NB: I actually didn’t end up deciding on ANY of these lenses, I’ll explain next time.

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My Top 10

It’s been a while, and in my absence I’ve managed to compile a list of things that really grinds my gears (so to speak).  Some of you thought I was slacking off, but in reality I’ve been busy saving the world … but that’s for another day.

10. Allen Iverson: After 10 years with the sixers, a fallout caused him to be traded to Denver, who subsequently traded him to Detroit where he was forced to start on the bench.  Like anybody else with an ego the size of Russia, the disgruntled all-star left for the Grizzlies (who were the only team that wanted him).  The Grizzlies soon found out that they were actually a better team with AI on the sidelines, which annoyed him even more causing him to retire.  Over the next couple of days, past and present players expressed their support of his decision, highlight reels were compiled, and a retirement ceremony was planned.  3 days later, guess what I saw on the headlines of NBA.com? “Iverson to sign with sixers”.   Here we go again …

In honour of AI, let us relive his finest moments

9. Khloe Kardashian: If you don’t know, she’s Kim Kardashian’s sis and the wife of Lamar Odom.  She walks around Staples Centre like she owns the place.  Soon we may even see her in the starting line up alongside Kobe and Pau.  Enough said.

8. Staff Parking at Castle Towers: On an annual basis, without warning, security guards magically appear at the car park entrances of Castle Towers shopping centre to tell employees to turn around and park in the outdoor parking across the street.  Which means after a long 8-10 hour shift of dealing with customers, I return to my car which has been transformed into a sweltering mess of a rust bucket by the Australian summer.  Christmas is truly the festive season. 

7. 9 AF points on the 5D MkII: Don’t get me wrong, I love my 5D MkII and I’m not regretting the purchase in ANY way ... but it could be better.  Minor quirks that canon will no doubt iron out for the MkIII over the next couple of years.  Speaking of camera gear, I’m struggling to decide on my next lens purchase (more on that later).

6. Facebook: No, I will not send her a message to reconnect with ___________

5. Flickr: Ever heard of Flickr Explore?  Well its a thing on their site that finds the most “interesting photos” and gives it more exposure.  Turns out they favour certain photographers.

4. You know the world is messed up when a man injects his wife with HIV

3. Christmas Island & Macquarie Island: Both amazing places and plenty of photo opportunities, but due to certain restrictions they’re not as accessible as I’d like.  Coconut crabs at Christmas Island should make for some amazing documentary style photos/videos.  Macquarie Island … well that might as well be a planet of its own, until you see it you would never know a place like that ever existed.

2. The crackdown on sport stars: Listen people, we pay them to play the game, not to be a role model.  I couldn’t care less if Tiger Woods was a cheating bastard or a saint.  Likewise if Kobe Bryant decided to have another affair, I wouldn’t think less of him.  Honest or not, they’re still the best in their respective sports, and plus, who are you to judge?

1. Following on from #2, a couple of days after suspicion of an affair hits the news, more women put their hands up about past relations with ________.  Yes, it happens, and it happens too often.  Just let the man play in peace.

 

And with that bombshell, I leave you to ponder on my thoughts over a glass of hot chocolate.
p.s. I haven’t forgotten that this is a photo blog, I promise there WILL be some of my recent photos in the next few posts :)

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Here comes spring

That’s right, it’s spring time … and there’s no other way for nature to tell us than with a sudden influx of insects.  So many in fact, that I don’t even have to travel further than my balcony to get a day’s worth of shots.


Camera: Canon EOS 5D MkII

Lens: Tamron 90mm macro

I’m not actually sure what this is, but it’s definitely a young one.  It wasn’t moving a whole lot either, in fact it only flew away when a bug half its size chased it away.


Again, I have absolutely no idea what this is (I’d make a terrible entomologist I know)

I definitely know what this one is though :).  This is a baby dragonfly, or whatever they call them these days.  As photographic subjects, dragonflies are probably the most beautiful insects.  They come in all sorts of colours, sizes, shapes even.  Unlike some other insects, dragonflies look amazing at all stages of development.  I;m assuming there is a nest (resting place) near my balcony so I’ll continue to monitor the area and hopefully catch them in future photos as they become fully grown.

It’s hard to appreciate these insects until you see them up close.  Maybe next time I’ll catch some HD videos too, Sir David Attenborough style.

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Full frame anyone?

Today is the day we officially welcome a new member to the family.  It’s probably time I change the name of this blog as well since my primary camera won’t be a 50D any more.


Ladies and gentlemen, the 5D MkII has been added to the collection =).  Full frame has been everything that I expected and more.  The colours seem richer, the images seem to have that extra wow factor, and to top it off … wide angle is actually wide angle.

Both shots were taken with 5D MkII & 24-105 f4L IS.  (NB: San Churro had some of the best chocolate I’ve ever had”.  The video capability of this camera is great, when used properly the results are amazing.  Most people will say that they don’t care for it, but those people don’t know what they’re missing out on.  Since I can take photos while I’m shooting a video, I can now take more cinematic/documentary style photos that I never would have picked up on with the old 50D. 

Did I mention the high ISO performance was AMAZING?  Here’s the settings for the above image, and you can decide for yourself.  1/15, f4, ISO 12800.  That’s right, 12800.  In case you it didn’t get through to you earlier, here it is again … 12800 .. that’s 1-2-8-0-0 or twelve-thou-sand-eight-hun-dred.  I didn’t even dare think about using that type of ISO on the 50D. 


As always, there’s plenty more to come, so stay tuned for more.

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The start of something new

Today could have gone in 2 directions, we have now headed into the 2nd direction …

Most of you will know, that after the unbelievable run at the end of the season where Parramatta won 10 of the last 11 to go from nowhere to the grand final has ended in disappointment (figuratively).  As players and fans openly wept in disappointment after perhaps the biggest game of rugby league to date, it’s hard not to be excited for the future. 


Ofcourse we all wanted the fairytale finish, and nobody wanted it more than the carryovers from the 2001 grand final defeat.  The final score isn’t too much different from that game in 2001, but this is different.  2001 left a taste of bitterness and frustration in an embarrassing defeat.  As a result, players left, coaches eventually found new teams, and the eels crashed back into mediocrity.  2009, same spotlight, still a defeat, but as the camera showed the myriad of young faces on the Parramatta squad, you can’t help but be excited for the next few seasons. 

 

The likes of Mortimer, Hayne, Moimoi, Inu, Grothe and Reddy flanked by seasoned vets such as Cayless, Hindmarsh, and Burt already sounds like a promising future.  Let’s not forget the return of much loved centre Timana Tahu, and the additions of Shane Shackleton and Justin Poore starting from next season.

I hope the young players remember this feeling and hold onto it until they win a grand final.  This feeling is what’s going to drive them to victory, it’ll make them work that much harder in training and in the off-season.  And Hindmarsh … well we all just want to see him win.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t do it today.  But we got a great young team, and we’ll give it a good crack next year” Nathan Cayless during the post game ceremony.  All Parra fans should be proud of this team and how far they’ve come, you’ve done us proud and we’ll definitely be there in support come opening game next season.

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Shades of 2001

“Once again our second half defence was absolutely outstanding” ~ Daniel Anderson

It was a game that had the feel of a Grand Final, loser gets sent packing, and winner takes all.  It wasn’t, but for

the players and the 74549 fans, there couldn’t have been a better game of footy.  Friday night was about Hayne, it was about El Masri, and it was about Sydney.  But throughout the course of the game, there was trouble for the stars. 

Patten taking an accidental knock to the head in the first play for the bulldogs.
Hayne on report for coming in with his knees when Goodwin scored the first try.

El Masri moving the fullback to accomodate the loss of Patten, and thus exposing the doggies right side defence to the brilliance of Inu and Burt.
Parra skipper Nathan Cayless limping down the tunnel with a hamstring injury

With all this going on, it’s easy to get sidetracked and lose your way in a game as important as this.  Fortunately for Parramatta, the supporting cast stepped up to keep the pressure on.  Eventually, after 70minutes of see-sawing scorelines, the tries came rolling in.


The win on Friday night was a credit to the underrated players of today’s game.  Starting with Ben Smith (left), was once a part of Parramatta’s backline.  After being sidelined with injury, is now in the 2nd row as a strong defender and reliable attacker.  Let’s not forget the awesome catch he made against the Titans to score a try.

Jeff Robson (middle), before last night, did you even know who he was?  Now you can refer to him as the “landscape gardener on minimum wage who got man of the match in possibly the biggest game Sydney has ever seen”  Sure he’s not the most exciting player, or even the most skilful.  But he brings solid defence, great organisational skills and a steady hand in possibly the most unpredictable team in the comp. 

Joel Reddy (right), always overshadowed by the great accomplishments of his father Rod Reddy.  When he’s not being compared to his dad, he’s being called mini-Hindmarsh (the resemblance is justified).  He is definitely the most underrated player in the team, he scores tries, saves tries, and even puts the Guru through a gap every now and then. 

We all love the stars of the game, but we can’t take these guys for granted.  The guys that throw “hand-grenades” before being held in a tackle, the guys that are always in support (ie the try by Daniel Mortimer), and the guys who spend half the match with their faces in the turf to keep the ball in possesion.  Grand Final is ours to win or lose, we’ve made history over the last 11 weeks, we just need to do it for another 80mins. 

At the end of the day, Jarryd Hayne’s Dally M medal, 7 game win streak, beating the Dragons, Titans and Bulldogs in succession … all this will have been for nothing if the Grand Final isn’t ours.  Nathan Hindmarsh knows what I’m on about “we’ve come from nowhere to being 8th and now in the grand final … but we haven’t won anything yet” ~ Hindy during the postgame conference.  Oh by the way, congratulations on 259 career games, tied in 1st with Ray Price. 

Maybe next Sunday can erase the bitter taste that I’ve had in my mouth since the 2001 grand finals. 

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The Impossible Dream

Not too long ago everybody wrote off the Parramatta Eels for this season. Inconsistent form, frustrating combinations, handling errors and a genuine lack of creativity from key playmakers turned what was supposed to be a promising season into a landslide.

Fast forward a month or two, the eels officially had no mathematical chance of making the finals. Nathan Hindmarsh once said on the footy show “we need to win 9 out of our next 8 to make the top 8”. The next night Parra played Melbourne in Hindy’s 250th career game for the eels, we won.

We also won the next 6 games, finishing off with a great game against the West Tigers. The city of Parramatta was buzzing, the papers couldn’t get enough of Jarryd Hayne, these 7 straight wins were a direct result of his brilliance. All of a sudden people were calling the Eels premiership contenders, they were talking about Hayne the way people talk about Kobe … “we know he’s going to get the ball, we can’t stop him, all we can do is try to limit his chances and make it harder for him”

The following week, Eels played the Dragons, who at the time were in a heated battle for 1st place alongside the Bulldogs. I remember saying “we’re going to beat the dragons, we’ve won 7 straight, they’ve lost 3 straight”. The scoreline … 37 – 0, Dragons win.

1st week of finals football, Parra played the Dragons (yes, again) 1st vs 8th, and after the 37-0 drubbing the previous week there were a lot of doubts over this game. In a remarkable display of hard-nosed defence and a bit of luck, Parra won the match by 15pts at Dragons home ground.

Parramatta fans flooded to Sydney Football Stadium the following friday to play the Gold Coast Titans in the quarter finals. The motto was to take it one game at a time, and the Titans were the 3rd seed with a great halfback-fullback combination in Scott Prince and Preston Campbell. But a spirited performance from the supporting cast such as Todd Lowry, Ben Smith and Jonathan Wright helped bring the Parramatta faithful to their feet.

Notable performances include:

- Nathan Hindmarsh (as always) : 49 tackles, 10 Hitups … and a fair few crucial tackles at that
- Jarryd Hayne (why is nobody surprised?) : 165 Run meters, 357 Kick meters, 17 Break tackles (17!)
- Fuifui Moimoi : Just because he’s FUUUUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"The confidence comes from just playing in tough matches week after week,”

"Realising we are good enough to withstand pressure and counter-punch.

That is what the confidence comes from."

With that being said, I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. But we are all witnesses, friday made the history books, Eels had never beaten Titans before (EVER). Time to make history again, win the premiership from the 8th position and get some redemption from that 2001 season.

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Good things come in 3’s

Product photography is something that I haven’t really done before, despite being still life there’s plenty of room for creativity.  You can play around with the lighting, the arrangement of the objects, the background/backdrop and even camera angles. 

I had 2 energy efficient light bulbs on left and right of the picture, softened with white semi-transparent sheets.  The background was created with a black piece fabric.  Photo taken with an EOS 500D and the standard EF-S 18-55mm IS lens as I didn’t have the 50D with me today.  Fortunately I did have access to these 3 lenses, which was what inspired me to attempt this shot. 



Starting from the left we have the EF 16-35mm f2.8L MKII.  Great lens, extremely wide on a full frame body, and the fast aperture makes it a great lens for both photojournalists and enthusiasts alike. 

In the middle is the oft forgotten EF 24-70mm f2.8L.  It’s a mystery to me why this lens doesn’t really come up in conversations.  Everybody talks about the 16-35, the 24-105, and the great canon primes, but this tends to be forgotten.  In the short amount of time that I had to play around with this lens, it’s a fantastic piece of glass, has rock solid build, and a monster of a hood.  Construction of its lens elements is quite unique, you can see in the image that the lens is at minimum length at 70mm, and the barrel extends as you zoom out … making this mechanism the opposite of all other canon lenses.  This also explains the ridiculously large lens hood, which I think looks great by the way.

Finally, on the right we have the popular EF 17-40 f4L.  Construction and build is very similar to the 16-35mm, and the only real difference between the 2 is that the 17-40 is smaller and has a slower aperture.  This is definitely a lens for the landscape shooter, extremely sharp, strong build, fairly versatile in terms of focal length as well.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the 16-35mm, but the 17-40 is about $1000 AUD cheaper while producing an image quality very similar to that of the 16-35. 

I strongly recommend the 24-70 for full frame users, but if you’re a full frame user you don’t need me to tell you that.  For the landscape enthusiast, go for the 16-35 if you can, but if you’re on a budget get the 17-40 and spend the rest of the money on filters :)

Surprisingly, product photography was quite enjoyable so I might have to look further into it.  Like I said in previous posts though, there’s plenty more to come.

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Too much IR

ohh kay, I admit I’ve been neglecting you guys for almost a month now.  I know you’ve heard it all before, but there’s good reason to that.  Rather than read about my bitching and complaining about my workload I thought I’d let a picture do the talking.  This is a photo blog after all.

 

 

Photo taken with the good old Panasonic Lumix LX-3
That’s a typical view of my work desk while I’m doing reports.  I don’t really know why I decided to take this photo actually.  But since the table has IR spectra all over it, I put an IR filter in photoshop to make it seem less ordinary. 

That’s it for now, don’t worry, I got some big things planned for the future. 
By the way … if anyone can confirm that the middle IR spectrum is for acetanilide, that would be a great help haha.

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It’s an Arms Race (Chapter 1)

Admit it, photography has come a long way. Gone are the days where you pretty much need your own photographic darkroom for processing and development to be called a pro. In fact, pros now have a digital darkroom in a workstation as small as a MacBook Pro. This should make things easier … right?

Well … technically no. I’ll provide a structured series of arguments to sway any doubters, and if there are still doubters after that we can settle it with a bar fight lol.

Before you read on .. make sure you WATCH the videos, they’re awesome. Even if you’ve seen them before you’ll enjoy watching it again.

The Cons of using film:

- overexposed and underexposed negatives when taking the photo is harder to fix
- If you have your own darkroom and do your own developing manually, there is a chance of overdeveloping or underdeveloping the film. Which makes the negs pretty poor quality despite how good you took the photo

- If you use a manual enlarger, there is the change of overexposing or underexposing when transferring the image from the neg to the light sensitive photographic paper

That’s 3 major steps where minor mistakes will affect the desired result out of your images. If you are careful enough, most of the time things go well, but sometimes you just can’t do a whole lot about it. After reading that, it would be safe to assume that being a digital professional is much easier.

In that respect … yes (not to fret, I haven’t changed my mind). Sure I can take photos in RAW format (giving me ample room to fix exposure), and sure if I mess something up in processing I can hit the undo button. Even the printing of photos are neglected as most people would prefer a copy of the images on a CD so they can facebook it. As a result of this, in today’s photographic world, it makes it really hard for an individual to stand out. When people apply for photographic positions, they often get asked what equipment they have. If I was an employer I would favour the candidate with the more serious equipment over the one with basic equipment.

I know what you’re all thinking, it’s the photographer not the equipment. And I would say that you’re correct, however that’s just not the way society works. Many brilliant people get overlooked no matter how good their work is all because their gear wasn’t as serious as the guy next to him. I don’t blame them because that’s just the way it works. When a customer is asking me about DSLRs and he brings up the fact that he used to be a “pro”, I automatically ask what lenses and what bodies he worked with. And sure enough after telling me his life story, he’ll name some of the lenses that he has and I’ll end up thinking “are you serious? That’s some pretty basic stuff” And eventually I would see some photos that he did back in the glory days and I’ll think to myself “If I had a son, and he was 3yrs old, he could take better photos than that”

The problem here is that film SLR pros don’t understand the nature of digital photography. They even undermine it and brush it away, while us digital users do the exact same to film people. I’m not saying there weren’t any great photographers back then, there are … Max Dupain, Kiichiro Ishida to name a few. But there are a lot of people that will think “I can tell this kid I was a pro and he’ll believe me because he’s young enough to be my grandson and that digital photography will never match film photography”.

If you are one of those people, read on. If you’re not, well … read on anyway.

The game has changed, and if you’re not willing to hop onto the bullet train we’re leaving you behind. Gone are the days where you could win the dunk contest with a tomahawk, these days you’ll need to dress up in green and jump over a 7ft tall superman and complete the dunk to get a good score.

The simple truth is … digital photography has taken photography as an art, as a source of communication and a source of evidence to new heights. With film, 400 ISO provided some pretty grainy photos … on the Canon 5D MkII … what grain? Too dark, cant shoot? Let me just pump up my ISO to 6400 while you sit there and ponder how you’ll get a shot that doesn’t turn out pitch black.

Digital will never reach film? Please, us digital shooters are so multitalented that we can even piece together some hectic short videos shot ENTIRELY on an SLR. Go on, watch the video

What up? That’s another point to the digital crowd.

I won’t overload you with too much info in one go. In fact I haven’t gotten to the heart of my real argument. Think of this as an intro if you must, but things will make more sense as I post up the rest of my beef over the next week or so.

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Busy Days

Many of you will have noticed that I haven’t been writing anywhere near as often as I used to. There’s a very simple explanation for that … wait for it .. UNI. Between Organic Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry and Physical Evidence, it’s hard to find time to write these days.


Lucky for me, I still find a small amount of time to get inspired and take the occasional photo. In fact as I’m writing this I’m watching the Wallabies vs Springboks rugby match (Steyn is a magician out there). The world champs are really flexing their muscles right now.

I won’t reveal too much, but there’s some exciting movement in the photographic plans at the moment which involves some possible new equipment along with some other stuff that could lead to more shoots and more work. On a side note, I’m writing & posting this using Windows Live Writer which is surprisingly intuitive and easy to use.

Oh and how rude of me … I introduce my brothers Chuck and Cam

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The Persistence of Our Memories

There is an interesting concept about time. If I was to describe time not in hours or days or years, I would have to describe it relative to another significant moment. Many before me have tried to define it, many have tried to control it (albeit unsuccessfully). Me, I just want to capture it, freeze it, and imprison it for all to see.

Space and time are merely human inventions in a crude attempt to comprehend the world. Philosophers, physicists, religious leaders have all been able to come up with a feeble attempt of describing the phenomenon that is time and space. The most noble attempt by far has to be from the self proclaimed genius Salvatore Dali in his painting "The Persistence of Memories"

This painting is absolute genius. The feeling you get when you first see this painting is impossible to describe. It's a mixture of shock, awe, bewilderment and wonder. To top it off, nobody knows what it means. Why melting clocks? Why FOUR clocks? What is the meaning behind the ants crawling on the clock in the bottom left corner?

In this painting, time has forever been immobilized by Dali. Three watches, suffering the same creative death while a fourth lies mysteriously in its own secluded corner oblivious to its own impending disaster. It doesn't tell time, perhaps it doesn't even have hands. This fourth clock lies there, mocking us in its self-sufficiency, inviting us to come and open it and forever tame its secrets. These watches melt so that our time on earth is not represented by a ticking time bomb.

The persistence of our memories, at times liberating and at times suffocating, but always fleeting. Its meaning? Elusive

NB: On a completely different note, perhaps Dali just melted some chesse which instantly inspired him to paint this cacophany of madness onto canvas.

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Serene

To many people, silence is the solution to a lot of problems in their lives. There is something quite serene to being alone in certain places. I'll admit that I prefer not to be alone in most situations, but there are a select few moments/places where the silence is golden. After all, silence is the real conversation between friends, not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts.

In situations like this, there is nothing like being alone. This is the foyer of The Venetian, often crowded with gamblers and tourists, it's rare to be able to get a photo with absolutely nobody around. For a split second, it is as if you own the place, and you're not sharing it with anybody else.

Leonardo Da Vinci once said "If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself, or even less, in proportion to the thouglessness of his conduct; and if you have more than one companion, you will all more deeply into the same plight.

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Light Show

Perhaps the hardest type of landscape to capture is cityscape at night time. The lights from buildings are contrasted against the dark shadows and a lot of the time it doesn't turn out the way you want it.

The easiest way to capture a night landscape is to use a long exposure on a tripod. This was a 5 photo HDR merged with Photomatix Pro 3 and processed in Photoshop CS3. It's a slightly different representation of HK harbour, with much more contrast and mood than what you normally see. Personally I quite like the big white halo of light suspended above the main tower, I actually have no idea what it is (but it's in most of these photos).

In any major city there will be photo opportunities like this, but here's my list of what I think are the best for night landscape:

- Las Vegas (Casinoes, bright lights, interesting personalities ... what more do you want?)

- Macau (like a mini Vegas, great if you're not 21 or can't afford Vegas)

- Paris (Art, fashion, culture)

- Beijing (those Olympic buildings look great at night)

- Alaska (aurora borealis ... enough said)

So ... if you live in or near these places, what are you waiting for? If I were you I'd be out night after night trying to improve on my shots. After all, Sydney only gives you a certain amount of options before you get sick of it.

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Why not

Every so often, we feel an urge to do this ...

Yes, you do

Maybe you don't go through the thought process of "I don't feel like waiting for the traffic on my side to clear so I'm going to take my bright red scooter through absolute chaos and see if I make it"

But surely there have been times where you just go "I'm going do something completely out of the ordinary just because I feel like it". Every once in a while, something like this will happen even if it makes no sense whatsoever.

Have a look around you, you'll see examples of this all over the place.

Maybe I'll even be there to photograph it ...

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Another game, another milestone

On monday July 20th 2009 Nathan Hindmarsh played in his 250th career game.

Over his years as a Parramatta Eel, Hindmarsh has been the face of consistency. Every single week, no matter how bad the Eels are playing, you can count on him to have a stat line of 45 tackles and 15 hit ups ... easy. If an opposing player was on the fly to score a try, he'll be there. If an opponent is trying to barge over the defensive line and score from close range, he'll be the one lying underneath the ball to hold it up. There was nothing spectacular about the game he had against Melbourne, but guess what, he had 48 tackles and 13 hitups while inspiring his team to a hard fought victory. If every player on the team played with the same commitment that Hindmarsh does, Parra would be a much better team.

Did I also mention all 250 games were with the Eels? In this day and age where club loyalty isn't a big thing, that kind of milestone is just unheard of. I'll throw in some examples:

- Craig Wing signing with Japanese RL (wtf?)

- When Willie Mason, Mark O'Meley went to the roosters (cmon now .. )

- Tahu to union

- Brett Finch (enough said)

I'll just say that not too many of these deals went down too well in public opinion, except maybe for Tahu, only because he's such a cool guy.

Let's not forget Hindmarsh is only 30 years old, there's plenty more mileage left in those legs and I have no doubt that he will make it to 300 games AND end his career with the Eels. When it's all said and done, Hindy will go down as one of the greatest forwards, second rowers, Eel to ever play the game.

Yes, he still hold the record for most tackles in a single game: 75 tackles vs ... Melbourne Storm in 2007. What kind of monster finds the strength to make 75 tackles? He has got to be the most underrated player in the league right now, he's so good that people take him for granted. The last 2 years he's been snubbed from Origin for players like Laffranchi and Learoyd Lahrs (how many people even know him?), yet he continues to play like a man inspired night in night out.

Good on ya Hindy, the way you play the game is a testament to rugby league.

And another thing ... he blogs too

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Parra Eels vs Melbourne Storm (18-16)

In what was advertised as Parra legend Nathan Hindmarsh's 250th game for the Eels, this game quickly turned into a showdown between 2 of the best full backs in the league. Whenever one would pull off something brilliant, the other would answer back with a show of his own.

Jarryd Hayne continued his brilliant form sparked mid-season by State of Origin, and proved a handful for the Melbourne defense whenever he got the ball. On offense he continuously got involved in set plays and made half breaks to keep the Storm on their toes. On defense he ran down Billy Slater multiple times (which isn't easy) and saved a number of tries with his excellent positioning.

As always, Billy Slater looks dangerous every time he touches the ball and if it wasn't for some hard nosed Parra defense the score line would read a Melbourne victory. Slater played an important role, along with Greg Inglis (origin center) and Cooper Cronk to lead a late rush after being down by 10-0 at the half.

Don't worry I haven't forgotten that this was supposed to be Hindmarsh's game, I'll elaborate more on that in tomorrows post with some more photos from the game.

Both photos were taken with the EOS 50D and EF 70-200 f2.8L IS USM.

Settings: ISO 1600, 1/320, f/2.8

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