Here’s something fun you can try out with your camera with its built-in flash, a light bulb and patience. I was trying demonstrate light painting with flash photography using the Samsung NX11 and its built-in flash.

There’re actually 2 things that happened in this shot. Think about it as a multiple exposure throughout the time the shutter is opened. In this case, the shutter was opened for 20s. So what happened in this 20s?

1. The flash fired (assuming your flash is set to 1st curtain sync) and Mr. Teddy gets exposed
2. I get to play with lights in total darkness for the remainder 20s.

In actual fact the flash fires in something like 1/125s thereabouts depending on camera make so that leaves a lot of 20s left to do anything.

The first thing you’ll need to understand is at a fixed ISO, aperture affects the exposure of the subject. Second thing, shutter speed determines ambient light coming in. This is the most basic principle which everyone should understand. This is fundamental to studio photography especially.

So set the aperture and ISO to get Mr. Teddy well exposed. Don’t worry about the shutter speed at this time. If you do this in total darkness, you can afford even a few minutes of exposure. You can do something with lights, take a break and continue. I only spent 20s for these streaks.

This is loads of fun. But importantly, it reinforces your understanding of flash photography.

Many people struggle with composition and in my workshops, the bulk of the time is spent discussing this. There are a few rules but they are not cast in stone. Break them by all means if it gets you the image you want. I remember a long time ago, people were discouraged to shoot against the light but now I love doing that. It’s kind of my style nowadays.

Anyway, here are the rules and a few examples which might demonstrate it.

Rules of Thirds . I would say this is the most basic. In fact many cameras now come with grid lines to help you compose. I don’t like that because it makes everything so technical, as if photography is a set of formulas. Learn to see the image before you. This rule states that the subject should be positioned at the side and not in the middle of the frame. If you imagine the scene to have 2 lines running across vertically and horizontally, place the subject on one of the lines. The idea is not to have the subject dead-center of the image.

In portraits, this is useful if you want to take an environment portrait like below.

Colour is used to draw attention to a particular subject, for eg, a red umbrella in front of a mostly gray building. Or like this flower against a green monochromatic background. The whole idea is to draw the viewers attention to your subject.

Frame. Framing your subject can be used to draw attention. The frame becomes a natural boundary. In can be an arch or this case, I used legs to frame and of course contrasting colours to isolate the subject.

Leading lines. The eye naturally follows lines in the picture. It could be straight lines or curves. So if you have lines to help lead the viewers eyes to your subject, it makes a stronger image.

Isolate background. Especially useful in portraits. You would want to avoid a distracting background. One of the most effective way is to completely blur it. You’ll need a very wide aperture to achieve that. The images below were taken at 200mm with an aperture of F2.8. With that blur background, you’ll just concentrate on the athletes.

Different angle. Shoot from a different viewpoint. Try shooting from bottom up, top down, etc. Too often, people take images from eye level, straight. A different angle would introduce variety.

Layering. If you shoot everything far away in the same plane, it looks flat. Try to layer ie, having a foreground, middle ground and background. This is very useful in shooting landscapes. You create depth by having different layers in your image.

Break rules. Try to incorporate as many of these elements as possible in your image.

A month more to the Singapore National Day. The great thing with all the previews now is there’ll be fireworks displays every weekend till then. So you’ll have plenty of practice. The picture below was taken last night in front of the Marina Bay Sands. Camera used was the Samsung NX11, the camera on loan to me by Samsung.

I’ll be first to admit that this is not a great shot. Too tight. With the ‘fingers’ of the burst above cropped away. So I guess the important lesson would be to shoot wide. Makes sense since you have no idea how high they’re gonna hit. This was one of the first few shots before I recomposed. The other better ones will be on Samsung Facebook hopefully next week.

Here are a few more tips to help you get the shot you want. Shooting fireworks takes a lot of luck and practice but once you nail that shot, it’ll be a real keeper.

1. Location
You’ve heard it many times before – location, location, location. I was fortunate enough to meet Ben, a total stranger and super helpful guy, to tell me I was pointing the camera in the wrong direction. Yes that was how way off I was! Someone told him the main display will be above the buildings from where we were. And not where the stage was. If you plan to shoot outside the MBS and opposite the stage, point your camera towards the buildings. You will have a rough idea when you see the barges and cordoned off area in the bay. That’s where the fireworks are fired from.

2. Exposure
This is a bit tricky. Fireworks are bright so keep your ISO to lowest. The NX11 I was using gave me ISO 100. To cut down exposure even further, try F11 or F16. You’ll notice your shutter speeds will drag to seconds. That’s how you can capture the streaks. If you use a wide aperture and high ISO, you’ll get a lot of smoke and dots of light. Not exactly what you’ll expect to see in a fireworks picture.

A lot of compact cameras have fireworks settings. In the NX11, that gives the following settings: F9 at 2s and focus locked at infinity. That works too but you’ll notice that in that 2s maybe nothing is happening or the burst is after the 2s and you’ll waste precious times just saving the image to the card. I’ll teach you a method below you can try.

3. Focus
Focus at infinity. If you are using a compact camera, just focus at the buildings and make sure you lock that focus. Use Manual focus or switch off the auto focus once you’ve locked focus. And don’t touch the focusing ring after that! If your auto focus is on, the camera will waste precious time trying to lock focus before each shot.

4. Equipment
Unless you want really arty shots, a tripod is essential to prevent camera shake. Bear in mind the shutter speeds will be in the range of a few seconds.

Cable release or remote shutter release. This allows the shutter to be fired electronically or mechanically. Every time you press the shutter button, you risk camera shake so these devices prevents it. If you don’t have it, you can use the timer. Or just be as careful as possible not to bang hard on the shutter button.

Black card. Just a piece of card to cover your lens. I’ll describe this method in detail below.

Lenses. Zoom lenses are useful to allow you to make quick final changes to your composition without moving yourself. Get ready to shoot wide. I was using the kit lens 18-55mm throughout the whole shoot. There just isn’t enough time to play with lenses and moving around.

5. Technique
This is where it gets interesting. You can just bang away the shutter at a fixed shutter speed and hope for the best but that’s just like a ‘Hail Mary’ situation….you know, when you just fire away above your head without live view. And hoping for the best.

Or, you can try to get a higher hit rate with a black card. Actually anything will do, even your hand. I use a black (black is preferred to avoid reflection) piece of foam coz it’s easy to stuff into the bag. The idea is to cover the lens when there’s nothing happening. And then open at the burst to get multiple exposure. Takes a bit of practice to know when to block and withdraw.

So what I would do is use the BULB mode. If your camera doesn’t have one, you can use maybe 10s shutter speed. You can only do this in the Manual Mode. Throughout the shutter duration, open the lens at the burst and close when there’s nothing.

With the NX11, I had one hand on the shutter button and another holding the foam.

And that’s about all there is to be done. Remember to make sure everything is within the frame! Don’t follow me on that one.

All the best and have fun!

Here’s a fun thing to play with. You remember those images that comprised of 2 in one? Superimposed images? In the days of film, one would take a shot, without advancing the frame and take another. The result? 2 images in one frame. We used to have a ball of a time playing with montages. Not all cameras allow you to do this nowadays so you’d probably have to do it in post processing.

So here’s my take on something similar, shot with the Canon G9, our ever trusty travel camera. Really old school stuff but kinda fun. Lydia and I were in KL last weekend and we took this in the hotel room before checking out. To get a shot like that, a lot depends on camera position. It has to be at an angle where the light is not reflected off the glass and with enough light falling on the face. It was bright outside, so I used a -0.67 EV to capture details of the next building and balance ambient light and flash. As a result, I had to increase the flash power to overcome the overall exposure reduction. With a compact camera like the G9, it’s hard to find the right flash exposure, so I had to play with the aperture to get the right amount of light on her face.

Here’s the result.

So finally, my settings: ISO100, f/4.5, 1/200, -0,67EV.

A lot of trial and error. But I love the shot! Give it a try next time.

Just checking in to inform everyone that I’m still alive although my blogging is real slow. It’s no joke shooting weddings, corporate and commercial assignments over these few weeks plus planning a wedding! That kinda leaves not much time to breathe. Well, expect more pictures up on my blog soon…hopefully!

So far, I’m really glad I retired my 1D and got the 5D. Shooting with two 5Ds and not having to decide which lens to put on which camera leaves me more time to shoot. I’ve made mistakes like mounting my 35mm F1.4 on the 1D and 50mm F1.4 on the 5D. And then finding out that both are the same because of the 1.3X FOV of the 1D. Duh! Plus both 5Ds are light and gives me more maneuverability. I’m really enjoying this!

My June 26 Workshop still has space for more. So do sign up quick! Learn to use your camera’s functions well and also learn from critique of other images.

Recently I was asked if there’s any ‘cheat sheet’ for figuring out exposures. Especially if you’re not planning to do any further processing, this may help:

1. If you’re shooting white or bright objects which fill a significant part of the frame, pump up the exposure. If in Av mode, increase the EV by opening the aperture until the meter is on the plus side. If in M mode, adjust either the aperture or shutter speed to get the meter to be in the plus side. Reason being, the camera is not very smart and will try to average a scene. So if you’re shooting snow, it’ll look gray.

2. Vice-versa dark objects. Make sure you underexpose it. The image below was shot at -2EV. Without the exposure compensation, the suit will look gray and the flower completely white.

3. If you’re not comfortable and quick when using the M mode, consider using Av. I’ve met plenty of beginners using M mode and that surprised me. Personally I think the full control is good but if you want to grab quick shots, isn’t it easier to change one variable rather than two? This is just a matter of preference though. I use Av outside the studio.

Just shot a ROM yesterday in which the bride walked in with her two brothers. I felt it was a really sweet moment and thought I’d share this with you. If lighting conditions change rapidly I have to worry about both focusing and exposure reading. Here, I used Av, set at F1.8 and just concentrated on focusing. Focusing was already hard enough with such shallow depth of field. I wanted to blur out the background as much as possible.

More to come…

I had a discussion with a friend this afternoon who blogs at NikonD90Lab.blogspot.com and the issue about lenses cropped up. He wanted to know what’s the most versatile lens to get. I have 6 lenses and if I were to go shoot street photography, I’d pick the 35mm F1.4. I use a Canon 5D MkII, so on the full frame without FOV (Field of View), I get the full 35mm. For street photography, Continue reading 'The Versatile Lens'»

A few days ago I was asked to give some advice on someone else’s photography assignment relating to architectural photography. The theme was ‘Extraordinary out of the Ordinary’, using compositional techniques such as two thirds rule, diagonal approach, balance of negative and positive space, and colour. Here’s the content of the email I sent out (with more explanation here). Continue reading 'Composition'»

You’ve been there before. You shoot an image on a bright sunny day and then you realise there’s no detail in another part of the image in the shadows. The basic thing photographers know is that the film/slides/sensor of the camera cannot capture all the exposure values you see with your eye. The eye has a wider latitude to exposure values compared to the camera. So how do you increase the latitude or the dynamic range of the camera? Enter HDR, or High Dynamic Range. This is a fancy term for something photographers have been doing all the time, since the darkroom days. We burn (darken) and dodge (lighten) areas of the picture to pull out the details and to even out the lighting. With the digital camera, our lives are made easier. Continue reading 'What is HDR?'»

I’ve been asked this question many times and to be perfectly honest I think a good image surpasses the basic techniques like composition, lighting, contrast, colour, etc. Sure, every photographer and aspiring ones, need to know all this. Instructional photo books flood the market with these basics. So what makes a good image? Continue reading 'What makes a good image?'»

This article is to help those who want to take pictures of food or products at home without any professional equipment. This is a simple one-lamp setup, shot with a digital compact camera. Here’re the things you need: Continue reading 'Shooting Products at Home'»

This is a follow up on my notes on shooting portraits with a flash. The same principle applies where you can use a wireless transmitter, ST-E2, or another flash, with firing disabled. The trick is balancing it with ambient light. A bit of trial and error on the flash output is required to have the effect more or less pronounced in comparison with the ambient. The pictures taken in Aceh shows the different levels of flash output and Continue reading 'Shooting Landscapes with Flash'»

Light modifiers

They do exactly what they are called, modify or change characteristic of light. You’ll see some of these terms used frequently in this blog since photographers use these a lot to get the effect they want, kind of sculpting light. They can be used for both strobe-based (flash) or continuous light. I’ll explain the ones I use a lot in studio and on location, and in my opinion the most basic if you want to start getting into studio lighting. Continue reading 'Light Modifiers'»

One day Kevin, from Yellow Octopus, informed me he’s bringing a bike over and if I were keen on shooting it. Sure, I said. I love bikes. So he came over with this fantastic piece of art. I couldn’t keep my hands off it! We discussed how the shoot would go and we wanted to shoot it in a way that it won’t look obvious at first what it is, concentrating on the parts of the bike. The design of the bike is a collaboration between YOLO and bike designer, SOUL and this is the resulting YOLO-SOUL website. Here are a few images from the shoot. Continue reading 'YOLO'»

My favourite equipment when I shoot portraits outdoors is (besides the camera and the flash, of course) the Canon’s wireless transmitter, ST-E2. You would need this to trigger an off-camera flash and really, that’s the way to go for good portraits. Alternatively, you can use another flash to trigger the main flash, while disabling its light output. Check out the flash manual to do this. Continue reading 'Shooting Outdoor Portraits with Speedlite (Flash)'»

I was approached to contribute a few tips to shooting with a compact camera to JetStar’s inflight magazine recently. I shoot so much with heavy equipment that on a vacation, I’d love to just bring a compact camera or a film rangefinder. I find that, sometimes, stripping away all the equipment allows me to have a new approach to shooting. Very refreshing. Well, my favourite compact camera is the Canon G9. I would have a G10 had I waited a few more months. Nevertheless, the G9 is a beauty, both to hold and to shoot. Continue reading '5 Tips to Shooting with a Compact Camera'»