Stuck in My Mind

Important Note: 
For those beautiful Penang folks, if you are free this weekend, there is the Olympus PEN E-P5 Touch and Try session happening on 26th May 2013. Do register, and have up close and personal experience with the new Olympus PEN E-P5!
More information and registration here: http://home.olympusimage.com.my/eventlist.php
There are limited seats, so hurry up!

I was strolling along the Forest Chase building (first floor) with open view over Murray Street Mall in Perth, and I saw this man and a child feeding the pigeons on the interlocking pavement walkway. Being an engineer I was instinctively drawn to the interlocking patterns of the pavement, and having a high ground means a top view can create something out of the ordinary. The street was getting busier with people passing by, but I thought the shot would look too "normal". I was using my Olympus E-5 and the wide angle lens 11-22mm F2.8-3.5, and I zoomed the lens until I found the right perspective (surprise, surprise, it was zoomed at 17mm which was equivalent to 35mm field of view, a focal length which was not my favourite and I seldom worked with) and then I framed the scene with some empty space to allow passer-bys to enter my frame. I regretted not bringing around my ND8 filter, but I improvised on the spot and set my camera settings to allow the slowest shutter speed possible: setting ISO to lowest 100, and aperture to smallest F/22 which the lens permitted. The aperture priority shooting mode gave me about 1/10 sec shutter speed which was correctly exposed, and then I switched the shooting mode to fully manual to override the shutter speed and deliberately overexposed the shot to get even slower shutter speed. It was the motion blur which I sought after, and I could care less about overblown highlights in this shot at that moment. I did 1/3 sec shutter speed (with all other settings maintained) and I managed to get the movement blurry effect that I wanted. Thank goodness for the built in body Image Stabilization I got away with a usable image (without the whole frame being shaken into blur). I indexed this image in my mind, that I would pay special attention to it when post-processing because I have over-exposed the image intentionally. 

Interlocking pavement

When I returned from Perth, I had more than a thousand things to do, and in the midst of compiling photographs from my Perth trip to blog here, I accidentally missed out this particular shot. 

Not only until a few days ago, I am not sure how or why, the "index" started blinking in my mind and the image popped out, screaming for attention!! I dug out all the RAW files and you have no idea how happy I was to find this image, after having forgotten about it for a few weeks! The image was exactly as I have planned and visualized and it was there, waiting for me to put in some final touches. I converted it into black and white (I wanted this to be a monotone) and cropped it into square, not because of any other reasons but the distracting elements on both left and right of the frame. Thankfully it was shot in RAW, I managed to tone down the over-exposure by a few notches and the image still appeared good. 

Of all the images I have taken when I was in Perth (read here if you have not seen the photos) I love this image the most!

Seeing Colorless Squares

It has been a long, traumatizing week at work place and the only consolation I had to cap off the otherwise fruitless week was something I looked forward to very much, my shutter therapy session, and this time, I have a guest from Sydney, Australia, Tom Truong! Together with usual suspects, Nick Wade and Kelvin Ng we attacked Petaling Street in the morning. I used my newly acquired Sony A57 and one lens only, the 50mm F1.8 lens. I shot everything in RAW, but as I was processing the files, my hands got a little itchy and I started cropping everything in squares, and yes, suddenly the black and white bug bit me again. In many cases on the street photos, I actually preferred the square format presentation. I do not know quite how to explain it, composition seemed to work better generally. 

All images were taken with Sony Alpha A57 and 50mm F1.8 lens

Your Neck is Mine

Panasonic GH3, Sigma 35mm F1.4 and Tom Truong from Sydney!

Tom Truong, a professional photographer from Sydney, Australia is in town again, and I managed to catch up with him over dinner earlier tonight! Do check out his amazing photography work on his portfolio website here (click). It was great hearing stories from a real, working, professional wedding photographer from another land, and surely there is much to share and learn from each other. He has got his hands on some of the latest and most interesting gear as well, such as the Panasonic GH3, which he intended to use mainly for video shoots. His main gear for his professional work is the Nikon system, and the latest addition to his Nikon was the new and highly raved Sigma 35mm F1.4 lens! Tom exclaimed how amazed he was using the Sigma lens on his Nikon D800!

Initially Tom suggested me to review the Panasonic GH3 (he brought along two lenses with it, the 12-35mm F2.8 as well as the 35-100mm F2.8). I do not have time to spare for reviewing the Panasonic GH3, I really want to, believe me, but I am tied down with my current day engineering job which pretty much sucked out all my free time dry. Then I suggested to Tom, why not he does the review himself, so I can feature him and his GH3 review on my blog here? It would be some sort of like a guest-blogging thing. Tom seemed to like the idea, and surely, he would need time to shoot and compose his review, and lets hope that really will happen!

That GH3, it actually felt like I was holding a real DSLR in hand. Rather large and heavy. It is interesting to see Panasonic taking such different approach on Micro 4/3 system. 

Shooting a Wedding with Sony

I think it is still a popular opinion that if you do shoot anything serious you would use either Nikon or Canon. You know, how people would regard any other camera brands as less than what a professional gear should be. I could go on and on about how Olympus and Sony can be just equally as capable, but this kind of discussion has become old and pointless, somehow. I have been shooting wedding as a freelance photographer for quite a while now, and I have very little complain with what the Olympus can do for me. It has never failed me, and my clients have all been happy so far. Nonetheless, I did acquire a new Sony Alpha A57 to add into my shooting gear, and for past weekend's wedding shoot, I decided to just bring the Sony, and leave the Olympus behind, for a change. Was the decision a sudden and unplanned one? Far from it, I have been shooting with the Sony A57 enough to know that I can confidently use it for a paid assignment. 

The following is my setup:

Main Body: Sony Alpha A57

Lenses: 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 kit lens, 35mm F1.8 and 50mm F1.8 (all Sony lenses)

Flash: Olympus FL-50R mounted via an ISO hot-shoe adapter, controlled fully manual

Back-up: Sony A350, 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 and Sunpak external flash

Quite a mediocre setup for a full on wedding job, don't you think? A Sony A57, an entry level DSLT (oh my, not even a DSLR) for a professional level job, and all budget-designed lenses, cheapest available from the Sony lenses. And using a KIT LENS for a shoot? I think some of the audience must have rolled their eyes looking at my rather toned down setup for the wedding shoot. I think most people would expect a wedding photographer to use multiple latest and most advanced full frame bodies, with those gigantic oversized lenses, with camera bags rivaling airport luggage in size and weight. 

The following are preliminary quick edits for preview purposes. But they are sufficient to illustrate what the above Sony gear setup can produce.