Through The Lens

So that I don't dilute this blog with my present diversion, I started a new blog called "Through The Lens". Since TTL is already taken up, I'd no choice but to settle for a less impactful URL. If you like what you see there, I hope you'll bookmark it.

I'm not a technically sound photographer, in fact you'll probably see plenty of mistakes in my shots. So there will be no dishing out of any photo tips in the new blog. I'm not vain enough to pretend that I know a lot, certainly not as much as running, so I'll just shoot and post the interesting stuff I see. This new blog will complement my online gallery at SmugMug.

What happens then to The Adventures of Carboman? Well, it'll go on, as with this blog when I return next year. There will be sporadic updates for sure. Simply put, I'm merely expanding my field of vision. So when you see me, there's even more to talk about now - running and photography.

Tamron Photography Workshop Group Photo

The big participation in the recent KL edition of the Tamron photography Workshop held at The Gallery Central Market. Photo taken with a wide angle lens of course. Spot me!

I'm On SmugMug

I’ve been a user of Flickr, Yahoo Photos, Photobucket and Facebook photo albums for awhile. Yahoo Photos have since been absorbed into Flickr, while I found Photobucket rather slow and I wasn’t taken by it. Facebook while excellent for mass “display”, auto-compress the images down to smaller size. That’s understandable since Facebook is probably the largest social networking site out there and storage and speed are going to be an issue if no compression are performed. Then there was Picasa but somehow I never checked it out. All the above are viable options for the casual photographer but when I went down the “dark side” of photography, there was really no going back – I needed more. Disk space was being gobbled up quicker than you munching on your favourite keropok, what with each image averaging 3MB.

I wanted a reliable photo hosting site that offers their customers great flexibility, scalability, ease of use and fast. Having a nice interface would be great too as it enhances the viewers experience. I considered going with the subscription-based Flickr account for awhile, because of its huge community. But one of the podcasts out there highly recommended SmugMug. To cut to the chase, I was hooked. It certainly has to be the best looking site out there and they’ve plug-ins to many of the popular photo editing software in the market which allows you to upload directly (or Export) from say Photoshop or Aperture. No such software? Then use their Drag and Drop Uploader. Best of all, even the basic account doesn’t limit you to storage space. They accept and display your photos as you want them to in various sizes, allow your “fans” to download their favourite shots, provide a Control Panel to monitor your traffic and other stats, ability to control your albums’ privacy and more. Once you decide to take the next step and upgrade your site to a Pro account, a humongous level of customization is made available such as eCommerce, inserting your own banner among other neat features.

Lest you think the basic account is expensive, let me say that I paid less than RM140 per year, after using a discount voucher. If you’re a shooter like me and are also looking to having a great presentation that does justice to your photos, I highly recommend SmugMug with no hesitation to you.

You can also enjoy the savings I did by entering my email (runcarbomanrun@gmail.com) and coupon code (ReWTeg2ry0Zak) in the “Referred by” field on the signup page. Just entering these 2 details will get you USD5 off your subscription.

Oh yeah, please visit my Galleries at http://jamiepang.smugmug.com and leave your comments and votes there. If you’re a shooter, you’ll be interested to know the EXIF data of each shot – you can do that by moving your cursor over the image and select “Photo Info”. Then you’ll be able to tell me where I went wrong.

Tamron’s Lifestyle and Snap Shot Photography Workshop

And so I attended my first ever photography workshop. When most, if not all, the ones out there charge hundreds of Ringgit, Tamron’s Lifestyle and Snap Shot (sic) Photography Workshop held last Sunday the 26th at the Central Market’s Galleria set me back just RM20, with breakfast and lunch provided. And if I’m a user of Tamron’s lenses, it would have been free!

For such a great deal, I ventured into the part of the city that I don’t usually go – not only parking is very expensive, the area in general reminds one of a flea market and very chaotic. All of which makes the area a great shooting scene. I’m not generalizing here but with 80% of the people hanging out in this part of town one has to exercise some caution and be alert. I spotted a patrol car parked by the roadside and with a hundred shooters clad in black Tamron tees descending down on block, we had safety in numbers. I hope I didn’t come across as depicting that area as being crime infested!

The talk started with an introduction to Tamron’s range of APS and full-frame lenses before the mike was passed on to Mr Foo Kok Kin. I can’t admit that I’m familiar with the name but his face was familiar to me. Over 60 but with an amazing eye – obviously since he mentioned he’d been shooting when he was 12! – for story telling through the lens, he came across immediately as a humble person. Calling us “friends”, this sifu from Ipoh said that he hopes to learn as much from us as we from him. From the sharing of his shots, I can safely say that his strongest and most impactful shots are streets followed by landscape and portraits. After being exposed to such inspiring personality and bagful of advice to always make a photo generate a “mood” and tell a story, we couldn’t wait to head out and start shooting. To incentivize the participants, the top 3 shots selected will win the shooters prizes. There were no particular theme. Mr Foo said to just go out and shoot. ‘Think and open your eyes,’ he said. I was glad I carried the lenses that do best for street – the zoom and wide angle.

The sun was bearing down and I was glad to have brought my cap out. I brought back 125 shots in 90 minutes and the one I submitted was the one below. I waited for 10 minutes before getting it done. Obviously I didn’t have a telepathic link with the bird. Back at the Gallery, all shots were projected for critique and Mr Foo commented that my compo was good but since he had to exercise stricter judging, my shot didn’t have the impact compared to many which were really good. I agree. I also wasn't too impressed with the IQ of the shot.

I came away with a greater sense of understanding in the criteria for “making the shot”. I’m glad to plucked up courage to approach street vendors for permission to shoot. The reception I got ranged from enthusiasm to nonchalance.

Here’s my submission. I wanted to capture the beautiful clouds and yet get the buildings in. So using the UWA, I took about 10 shots while waiting for the bird or birds to fly by. I wanted the buildings to frame their flight. Dang birds – I waited under the hot sun sharing up just waiting, waiting… Some flew too high to make an impact on the shot. But then photography also teaches patience doesn’t it? The winning shot was achieved after 30 minutes of waiting, so my 10 paled in comparison.

For more of the street shots, visit my online gallery.

Electcoms Tour of Malaysia

Not wanting to pay for the expensive parking in front of the Central Market, I opted for the shadier location behind the courthouse. Being free of charge made this a simple choice. Except my plans for a quick exit from downtown KL following the Tamron Workshop - more of that in my upcoming post - was derailed by the Electcoms Tour of Malaysia happening in the same area. That meant road closures for the duration of the 14-lap (I think) race. By the time I got to my car, it was 3:45pm and the rain put paid to the smooth running of the biking event. The already uneven tiled streets surrounding the courthouse were waterlogged and not quite safe. The conditions already claimed a few casualties. With 11 more laps to go, I perhaps selfishly prayed that the rains continued so that the race was abandoned or for the sun to quickly reappear from behind the clouds so that the event can get going. Well, the sun prevailed, which in hindsight allowed me to shoot some biking action. So for the price of a downtown drive, I’d attended a photography workshop and a chance to shoot some serious action. Not bad!

Prior to this, I’d no experience with capturing the biking action, so I had no expectations with regards to the results I was going to get. Even so I had some opinions of action shots:
1) The action must not be completely frozen – there must be movement, and impression of furious action
2) It’s OK to saturate the shots – in-camera or PP – to bring the subject out
3) Bold and dramatic is good
4) Gritty is acceptable if only to get the lowdown of the action.
5) 200mm is barely adequate, but my 200mm wasn’t the shortest one out there yesterday.

Some of the shots I reeled in surprised even myself. The “warp speed” effect was achieved by shooting bursts while pulling the zoom in or out. PP were on the saturation, a bit of the curves and in some shots I cropped to cut out the distractions. I’d wanted to avoid manipulating the curves but I had some trouble with the sun on one side and the ominous dark clouds on the other, which messed up the exposure a little. On some shots, I purposely slowed the shutter down to 1/40 to push the blur up to the point of movement of colours yet retain a semblance of form. Many of the ones uploaded look similar. That's because I want to refer to the very subtle differences in each frame. More for self reference than anything. I agree, however, that for portfolio building, one should just display the best few.

I regret not having more chance to catch the BMX stunt riders on the field due to the threat of rain – that would’ve made some pretty dramatic shots. Head on to my online gallery to take a look.

Photo Essay: BHP Orange Run '09

My goal to run this morning's race was weak even though I like this race quite a bit. Besides being a free event hosted by the petroleum company BHP, the post-race festivities was quite good - a just reward after tearing through a hilly course. Since I wanted to get my feet wet with a sports shoot in preparation for next month's NB 15K, this was the only chance to test some ideas out.

I wanted to balance the typical posed shots with some which are usually not seen on the blogs and the results for the most part were OK to me. I carried just 2 lenses - the Sigma 18-200 and the highly rated and very fast Tokina 11-16mm wide angle. I'll put some links on this on my next post.

A mistake was lugging the pods. I'd feared that weak light will hamper the starting shots. But the comments of seasoned shooter, Chan Wing Kai turned out true. It was bright enough and after meeting the guys for a brief chitchat, I quickly returned the pods to the car. Lesson learned: You need to be very mobile out in the field especially when covering a sports event. So let's not wait any longer and proceed with some of the resulting shots. Click on any to enlarge.

Emerging from The Curve carpark, I saw this interesting shot. The parallel lines on the road, the lightening sky and the silhouette of the 2 girls.

I like these 2 shots. In fact I shot in bursts in this sequence. I kept the runner in white cap as the subject as there were no human obstruction surrounding him and his gear provided good contrast. Well-built too I must say. Daniel Tan is on the right in yellow.

I shot close to 10 frames in this angle and this is the best. I just wanted to catch the interesting shoes and this green/black adidas provided it providing strong contrast to the desaturated surroundings.

The lead pack was simply awesome. Made me want to join in! The eventual winner on the extreme left looked very relaxed. Shahrudin is the one in vermillon vest. If you want to know one of the secrets of running fast, see the 2nd shot. Notice the legs and form. All demonstrates the strong push-off, no energy wasting "sitting" position and long strides made possible by high knee lifts and high kick backs.

I like this shot as the yellow and red garbed runner stood out against the "typical" dull colours. I isolated just the legs as I felt that including the faces and upper bodies will dilute the shot. I wanted to focus on the contrast. I was on both knees for many shots in this stretch of the route.

A mildly successful shot. I'd wanted to catch long shadows and it wasn't easy as I was shooting into the sun.

Focus on the cop and blur out the runners.

Again, a very low shot and the result was quite surprising. I didn't notice the girl on the left and it turned out very well - she was smiling and in focus. The timekeepers on the right provided an interesting sub-topic while anticipating the return of the men's champion.

The run-in. You gotta be sure-footed as you wouldn't want to slip on the tiles storming towards the finish line.

A mountain of nasi lemak awaits

This uncle was nice enough to wait for my shot before covering the large container of teh tarik

The volunteers getting ready for the onslaught of finishers

I didn't know there are non-alcoholic versions of Kampai. Told you this run was happening!

He wasn't the champion but I like this shot of Shahrudin kicking to the finish

Michelle Tan who is training to qualify for the SEA Games moments after crossing the line. Her face said it all. And she lays it on the line at every race she enters. Talk about grit.

I shot this sweet girl so many times I felt like a stalker! Actually I was fighting the lens flare. The sunlight was creeping into the lens on the top left corner and only a crop took it off. She gave me 3 packets of the snack as I think she was eager to see me off! Bug off photographer man! Heheh!

Large, Medium, Small and Small

Not quite the Paris sidewalk cafe but the tables were well spaced out.

Runners coming in. Notice how sunny and hot it was.

Other than the building corridors, this small stretch after the finish line was the shadiest spot in the Piazza.

An overall view of the Piazza. From this angle it seemed to be nestled in between 2 building and an oasis. Wait, it is! Well, not the oasis bit.

That's it folks. A little debut photo essay. Your comments are most welcomed. I gotta hit the sack as it's been a loooong day.

Gotta Fix Them Leaners

You’ll notice that my shots of the twin towers were plagued by the phenomenon called distorted perspective (or something like that). That’s when the top of the buildings lean much like a certain tower in Pisa. This problem will crop up when shooting tall structures. Squat short structures will not suffer that much from the effect. Dave Johnson of PCWorld describes it clearly here.

If like me you don’t have the costly Tilt-Shift lens, then your salvation lies in getting the software to correct the issue for you. When you’ve interest in historical buildings and architecture, you’ll need any help you can get. Bless digital photography!

After some trial and error, I corrected the shots I made last night and the result's what you see above. Some useful guides and tutorials here: http://www.photoshopbox.com/photo-retouch/fix-perspective.html http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=579968 http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/10.0/help.html?content=WSF65FB40F-00F5-445a-BD9A-38B3737A9A19.html

Redux

Aperture Priority, 1/5 sec, f5.6 @ 63mm ISO 1250

Aperture Priority, Shutter speed 1/4 sec, f4.6 @ 28mm, ISO 400

Shutter Priority, 1/5 sec, f4.0 @ 21mm, ISO 400

Can you see the difference a solid platform provides? My previous post showed a handheld shot without PP and above are shots I made a few hours ago also without PP. Click on the photos to enlarge. The only difference was the 40 was sitting on 2 Italians, I mean a tripod and ballhead, both Italian-made. Individually, the ‘pod and head can kill a person when swung. Together, they provide some upper body workout.

Changed into my decommissioned 2120s and a t-shirt, I waited for sundown before heading out. I’d planned my “shooting tour” the day before and was a bit upset that the vendor didn’t deliver the RC2 head as promised yesterday. After pestering the fella 4 times today I finally laid my hands on the thing. In case you’re wondering, I opted for Manfrotto. Other brands that were in the shops I checked simply didn’t cut it. Playing with the other makes didn’t give me the confidence to attach my 40 to them. But with the Mannys, you feel the difference the moment you lay your hands on them – the build is typical Italian. While I can’t afford an Italian-made car, I’ll settle for their mid-range support system! I felt the pinch but it was a necessary “burn” if I wanted some decent shots and not waste my time committing basic mistakes. After all, unlike the camera, this equipment is for life. And I want to get on to the "serious" shots quickly.

Prior to my purchase, I searched the web and came across this review - http://www.cameralabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7063 . This shooter’s set up is coincidentally exactly the one I have (the 40D) and was eyeing (the best-selling 055XPROB tripod and the 488RC2 ballhead)! You’ve to check his review out – not because he covered my gear but because I felt that’s how gear reviews should be done – with lots of pictures. I felt that he saved me some money as I had considered the Velbon, which isn’t really in the affordable range anyway. If I'd gotten the Velbon just because I wanted to save some cash, I might have regretted it. With photography, you’d want to get the gear that you’ll be satisfied using, and not having to change anytime soon. You wouldn't want to find out just a month after your purchase that the item just couldn't perform. Might as well get a good one from the start. My gear is just in the midrange. What's important for me is to have a reasonably good platform to start the learning process. There are potentially many other brands and make out there that have more value for money or performs better. So be sure to expand your search if you’re in the market.

As usual comments and critique are most welcome.

Why The Tripod Is A Necessity

This shot shows why a tripod is necessary. When you look at this shot, you know what I was trying to achieve but several things were wrong:
1) Disastrous lens flare from the street lights. I had my hood attached to the 18-200mm but it was impossible to avoid it unless I moved further up from my shooting location. I didn't have time and since it was just a learning excursion, I left it at that.

2) It wasn't sharp. But of course! But if I had my tripod with me, I could've used a slightly smaller aperture for a longer exposure. That would've made a tremendous difference. I now understand why pros lug their 'pods even for day shoots.

The short outing today was supposed to be one which I wanted to put the Manfrottos to good use. But the RC2 head's delivery didn't happen and the 055XPROB had nothing to be mated with. But tomorrow is when I hope to lay my hands on them and I've already got some plans for the Mannys! Heheh...