Bridal Wedding theme shoot

Been pretty much idling for the last 5 months or so, partly due to my laziness to go out and shoot and the other, nothing much of a significance to post it here :)

However, last month or so, a friend of mine told me about a photography gathering with tons of models and make up artists! There were about 100 photographers present as well!

The crowd was massive and everyone gathered in the nearby carpark lot in Tasik Titiwangsa to wait for the models to finish with their make up

And met with Philippe and his gang. Managed to get to test his Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 lens. Simply amazing! The sharpness and colour rendition is superb, also at it's widest focal length there isn't much noticeable distortion. Here are some poisons

And then the shooting session started!

Shooooooting Birdies!

The Bird Park. Never thought that I'll come here for shooting.

As you see, they're the naughty kind. Constantly moving around, the type that never sit still. Heck, it's gonna be one tough day trying to shoot em' and to make matters worse, I don't have a telephoto lens

Anyway, today's trip is a photoshooting one, 'organized" by Brian aka goldfries for all the LYN shooters. Was nice meeting the forumers for the first time, in person. Nice and friendly people.

Justin let me play with his Sigma 30mm *oooooomph* I've always wanted to get this lens some day. A few clicks on the shutter, bang! Awesomeness, everything was spot on. Auto Focus was quick and precise. The bokeh was excellent, and all the shots came out sharp wide open! This lens has lots of contrast, a little bit too much for my taste. Image quality is excellent, although there's some purple fringing. Which lens doesn't?

When we gathered around, we also can't help noticing a father and son combo. Yes, both with big and long lens. You know like they say, like father like son eh. Anyway, it's good to see young kids picking up photography

I think the Dad is using a 5D Mark II with a EF 180 f/3.5L macro lens while the son is using a Canon 7D with a 70-200 f/4L. Not sure whether it's the IS version or not.

Birdies were hard to shoot. Lock focus on their eyes, and the going to recompose the shot.. *pooof* they flew away or turned their head. So I learned that either I do it quickly or I choose different AF points, not the centre one.

Bird Park is a really big place and with all sorts of birds. With all the vibrant and different colours too. Sadly, I couldn't even identify any of em' except the Peacock. LOL

Funny, I can't help looking at this bird here staring at his meal being prepared. The pose, the look, the eyes staring right into his meal. By this time, birds were already crowding around, they seem to know when lunch time is served eh?

Chaotic. Used a Slow Shutter speed of 1/13 sec at f/22, ISO 100. Was bored with the usual fast shots, so I tried to do something new. This picture is of course, to show motion.

And, that's all for today' entry! Will be doing a blog post on the recent PC EXPO. Stay tuned

Children's Day Out

Photographing children has never been easy, I was told.

Had the opportunity one fine day in Mid Valley. Just finished some rounds in IT Fair, I got attracted by the colourful and nicely decorated small stalls set up in the Centre Court. Well set up and decorated. I saw some children there too, colouring and making Chinese New Year lanterns and costumes I think.

That's when I took out my DSLR and started shooting away.

Cheongsam Shoot

Here are the all the pictures from my previous photoshoot session which I did mention in my previous entry. Quality of pics are a little degraded when uploaded here. So do take a look at my flickr gallery instead if you want maximum quality, over here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/kytz/sets/72157625687312287/

Here are the three lovely models for the day; Renee Hong, Sonia Ng and Shermaine Chow.

Portraiture session

Went for a recent photoshoot session co-organized by D4M and CM photography, I learned a few things namely:

1) Outdoor Shooting is easy? Think again!

I have always had the perception that outdoor shooting is relatively easier than indoor shooting because lighting conditions would be good, especially when it's a bright day. Oh my... I was certainly proven wrong by the conditions that day - Sunny,hot and humid. "How bad could it be? " you might think.

First of all, the very bright conditons SCREWED my camera's metering system, resulting in totally over-exposed and underexposed images very frequently. At the same time, my white balance was also OUT but luckily I was shooting RAW. I had to constantly dial up and down the exposure compensation, using Av btw, after every shot. And when I've adjusted it already, the next shot again came out underexposed/overexposed. It's because the lighting conditions is so variable to the extent that a slight change in angle(composition) will more often than not, result in such drastic results.

2) Using "fill flash" ?

Looks easy, sounds easy but it's not easy. Balancing flash output with ambient lighting in indoor shooting is always a challenge. But how about balancing flash output with a super duper GIANT overpowering source of Light? Result- your camera Metering system gets OWNED once again. Dial down the Exposure Compensation and use flash to fill up the foreground subject? Didn't work at all... was pain in the a$$ to get the settings right, I was probably spending more time checking my camera than on taking pictures LOL.

And one important thing, I was using a Nissin Di622 Mark 2. It only has a max sync speed of 1/200th sec which is so slow for bright conditions where you would be needing a much faster speed(HSS), because I wanted to use wide apertures of like f/1.8 and f/2.8. Having only a max speed of 1/200 means that I had to dial down the aperture to around f/9 and even worse f/11 to get an "optimum exposure". Remember I said metering was screwed? Had to dial either up or down again, to get the proper exposure.

f/2.8 or f/1.8 is so desirable especially when you want blur out the busy background or there are background elements that you wouldn't want to be in your picture. And also, one of the reasons for shooting @f/2.8 instead of f/1.8 is because as you narrow down the aperture, sharpness increases. Refer here : http://k-ytz.blogspot.com/2010/12/prime-lens-awesomeness.html But I had to use undesired aperture values just to get the so called exposure right.Either this, or I really need a Canon Speedlite which can do HSS(High Speed Sync speed) of around 1/2000th i reckon. I prefer the latter though haha

Using fill flash also often screws up pictures. They came out overly exposed, sometimes not firing at all, underexposed pictures. It's just so Rojak! Same case, I had to keep dialing up and down the Flash Exposure compensation this time + the overall exposure compensation. Now, 2 things to worry about for EACH and EVERY shot. FML =.=

3) Posing and Composition

A good portraiture shot is not only about the photographer, it's about both the photographer and his model. You want a certain type of shot, but your model does not know that. Show/tell her what type of poses you want be it a smile,not smilling, looking away or certain angles like bending towards something, hands crossed or up in the air, etc.

Some shots are nice when the model looks into your lens, however there are some also which are nice even when the model doesn't give eye contact.Normally this types are to give a feel or mood to a certain type of shot. Composition,angles and lighting play a major role in getting that kind of effect

Came across this book before the shoot. Seems pretty good actually, although I dunno what is written there =X http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopic=1269417&hl=

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Also, that in portrats, composition is very crucial for getting a good shot. Some tips here:

1)This is most important- What to frame?

Don't just shoot a full body shot with no background at all. That won't make a good picture. You should instead always look out for background elements to add into your frame, to enhance the composition. There's not much skill involved if you're just shooting dead on full body shot. There are always things around to spice up your pictures, so it's up to you as the "painter" to use your creativity.

2) Get your angles right- High?Low?Side?

Best if you experiment, and take many shots from all sorts of angles.And also don't worry that you end up with "rubbish" shots because the more you shoot, the more experienced you become, and therefore you'll have an idea on which angle to tackle =)

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To sum up both points above: What to frame + Get your angles right

Which picture do you prefer? Left or Right?

I'll be updating with another post of the pictures I took. Stay tune.