After the Shangri-La trip, I wanted to explore more of the back light technique and Australia has given me the best opportunity to practice with its light. For those who live away from equator might not understand how prestigious of the light in golden hours, but it’s the limitation for us who live in Singapore. At least now I have better understanding the character of light and hopefully I can break the barrier and produce a better shot within the limitation we had back home.

There’s still lot of skill issues to be solved, the hard edges of the flare, the focus point in slow shutter, etc. But for now I’m happy to show you some of my satisfy shots of Velda and Fred in Australia.

With the technology’s advantage, some techniques have been much easier to achieve, panoramic is one of them (via stitching technique). There’s no big secret about stitched panoramic, just some understanding, preparation and setting on the shot and then a few awareness on post-processing follow by a few clicks.

What we get at the end will be a breath taking landscape, cover the view which not possible by wide angle lens or panoramic camera.

In fact, once understand about stitching, it could apply not only for panoramic but to produce a big image by stitching multiple shots together (If you are interest, you could read more at Gigapixel Image, Max Lyons covered a very detail information about creating a ‘Giga Pixel’ photos). But in this post, let focus only on panoramic shot.

What you will need is:

• Tripod, if the ball head have degree mark would be even better
• Cable (Remote) Release, to reduce any shake.

Take the Shot

I went to Shangri-La during late winter/early spring, it was freezing cold but the reward was beautiful skyline. Meili Snow Mountain is one of the most important spiritual mountain for Tibetan and she’s still forbidden from China government to climb after the tragedy that cause 17 international mountaineers death, and the rejection from the local that Meili is representing god. It’s also rare to see her full profile as most of the time she was cover by thick cloud or mist.

We were lucky to have clear sky for 3 days in between snow stomp that hide the mountain again.

I woke up at 6:30am, looking for the good spot to setup my tripod. I’m ready to take full panoramic shot that capture her entire profile, camera body felt freeze at -15° and the wing blowing strong that I can feel my travel light tripod is shaking. Hang the camera bag at the hook below the tripod solve the problem by adding its weight.

Step for preparation & setting:

1. Choosing the Lens
   It’s better to use tele lens then wide angle lens, to minimise any distortion and since we are going to take panoramic, we don’t have to use wide angle lens to cover more view. It depends on the scenery that we are taking, in Meili, I used 80mm as the mountain is quite near in front of me.

   Another reason of using tele lens is to minimise the any possible vignette cause of wide angle lens.

2. Place the Camera
   Place your camera vertically. By placing your camera vertically, you are increasing your photo’s length, that allowed you to have a larger image after stitching. Looking into the view and decide the range, overlap each shot at least 50%.

   In Meili, I shot 19 photos to stitch, for every 10° apart (my tripod ball head has degree marking and it’s very useful if you are taking the panoramic), that give me a coverage of 180°.

3. Manual Focusing
   This will be necessary to cut shot the time between each shot to avoid your camera auto-focus hunting.
4. Manual Exposure
   It’s important to use manual exposure, you may use your camera metering to find out the exposure value and switch it to manual mode. When we do stitching, the fits exposure will let your photos looks consistent and less problematic of irregular lighting.

   Shot at smaller aperture (bigger f number) to increase your depth-of-field. I used f8 due to the low light condition.

5. Be Quick
   It depends on the situation, if you shot the indoor panoramic, you may have more time but not when you shot outdoor, especially if sunrise or sunset shot. The light is changing every single second, that’s why if your ball head has degree mark, you are not rely on viewing the scene for placing but moving your camera according to the degree mark from shot to shot.

Here is what I did, I place the camera, connect the release cable, manual focus on the main mountain (Kawagebo) and get the exposure value. Sunrise is particular hard as I have to re-calculate the exposure value after every few set of shots. I get the degree that I want, place the 1st shot to the number 0, and end at 180. I cover the viewfinder to minimise light leak, holding the release cable looking at the scene waiting for the light.

Once the light shine up, I start snap via cable release and shoot fast between shot by only shifting the camera 5° for each shot, it takes me less then 5 sec to complete a 19 shots to ensure I get the consistent light. Take time to observe the light, take shot when I like the lighting that paint the mountain, re-calculate when necessary.

The result is I’ve got my shot and at the same time I get to enjoy how wonderful is the light change the entire mountain, personally with eye, without looking through the viewfinder.

Post Processing

Load the file (I shot with RAW to have larger latitude information range for editing the image) into your editing software, best with Adobe Lightroom or Apple Aperture. Edit the main image, in my case, I used the main mountain image to adjust the color and fine-tuning the exposure. Once done, duplicate the value to all images (in the same set).

Remember, consistent is the key for stitching thus we do not edit every single image with different value.

If you are using Adobe Lightroom, you could select all the images and there’s a short cut to call up stitching function in Adobe Photoshop. Else, you may export the image to TIFF, prefer 16-bit and open the Adobe Photoshop, launch the stitching function and load in the TIFF files.

There’s many stitching software which do a wonderful job, professional would use PTAssembler which allowed you to import lens profile for absolute accuracy. But I find Adobe Photoshop has done quite well after CS4 for stitching.

Launch Adobe Photoshop, go File > Automate > Photomerge, choose Auto in the layout as I think it works just fine, you may try out other layout if you like. Browse your TIFF files (it will do automatically if you use Adobe Lightroom to launch), check the 3 option (Blend Images Together, Vignette Removal and Geometric Distortion Correction) and click OK.

It will take sometimes, depends on the number of files and the complex of the image. Once done, you may do a fine tune, cropping and done!

Enjoy your next photo trip.

Image Gallery

Some other shots during the 3 days stay in Fei Lai Si, where it’s the best spot to view the entire Meili Mountain.

Consider this, the colour in photography is as the soundtrack in movie. In movie, sound is one of the most important element for building up atmosphere and it does the same to me on photograph.

Of course, it’s personal preferences and artist’s vision either to retain the most original colour, or to edit the colour, and we would say that should be depends on the individual photograph idea. Remember, there’s no rules but only principle in arts.

We are in a wonderful digital age, digital darkroom allowed us to explore beyond imagination from the past, take this advantage and break your vision boundary.

The photograph dance with its colour, paint it with jazz, blues, classical or even rock, metal… we give it life when dress it with the right tone, forget about the skin colour, white balance, blue sky. Our vision is far more important than make it realistic (unless we are taking a documentary footage, but even sometime, realistic is an impression that need an alteration to project to the audience).

Take the Shot

I was walking down the tunnel, and didn’t have much idea as I’ve been travel passed there hundreds of times. I had the camera with me and these two brother were running up and down with their little roller scooter. I put on the wide angle lens and stood at one end of the entrance, waiting for the right moment. I got this shot before both of them get bored of this place and the elder brother just call it off while the younger brother starring back. The younger brother later ride on the roller scooter and follow his brother.

Post Processing

It will be a boring shot if I would just bring out the real world colour. The zooming rings in the tunnel are just right for “futuristic” colour, pushing the colour with greenish tint visualise that atmosphere. It’s rather a bit extreme colouring in this image and the contrast has been enhanced to make the green more “crispy”.

Overall I’m happy with the output and I have gave it an unique life.

Download

You could download this photo’s preset here.

One of the most important in photography is capturing the moment (The Decisive Moment, Henri Cartier Bresson) and that’s is one of the beauty of photography. And today, we understand it’s not how fast we react to the scene, but how we choose the scene and story, when the shutter is click you pause the moment, including the decision if it made the photography.

Often, we look for the scene but instead of most the time we could wait for the scene. Wait for the moment when all the element come into the frame and we make the picture. If we ask any nature photographer they would tell it’s the patient that made their photograph.

It happen the same thing on street photography, we look at the corner that trigger our creativity and we wait for our moment to make it our own picture.

Take the Shot

It was a raining day when I walked on the 信義區 overhead bridge from 新光三越 to 誠品店, and when I looked down, the wet floor made the zebra crossing line contrast out, I know it’s something I would like to compose it in my picture. I also knew there’s a pedestrian traffic light right under where I stand, it means there will be people crossing and raining day means they will all carry umbrella. I had the vision.

I also wanted to show the motion of busy crossing people that contrast out with the static traffic line so I step down the shutter to 1/15, then I wait for the moment. I spend 15 minutes there, taking numerous shots of people crossing while the traffic light turns green, with different formation, color of umbrella, etc.

This was the closest to what I picture in my mind, though it’s not perfect but it’s closest (and I have to leave the place, my camera is now all wet and the rains is getting heavy).

Post Processing

I cropped the image to 16:9 ratio (one of my favourite) and edit the colour with Adobe Lightroom. I’ve turn down the saturation to give it moody raining day, however the red and green has been bring back up for the umbrella. A slight green/blue hue over the entire picture is just my own preferences.

Download

You could download this photo’s preset here.

There isn’t any unique about this picture but there’s a few interesting contrast found in this picture.

The 2 long hair ladies on the different world, inside the train with warm lighting, moving and quiet (atmosphere) versus the cold, station and noisy on the platform. The contrast split the picture half in between.

Contrast is very much like a conversation in the picture, they respond to each other, back and forth, create flow and atmosphere. Once the contrast is in place, the composition need to take place for it to express. We could have the left-right, top-bottom, diagonal or outside-inside (within).

Take the Shot

I was in the train and camera is always ready. I was taking a few shots on the different train station along the train journey and my camera is on Aperture Priority mode. I left the camera on and the train stop by this station where there isn’t much people. From my viewfinder I first saw the outside lady sitting lonely and I want to take a shot of her. At the same time I saw another lady in the train on my left eye (my focus eye is always my right eye and I have a habit to occasionally open up both eye before I push the shutter button to see if I missed out anything, the habit pays off).

I quickly re-composed the picture to have both of them include in the frame, at the same time step down the aperture to f8. I’ve got my shot.

Post Processing

The lighting was rather flat straight out from the camera, I push the colour to make the contrast of cold/warm more obvious, other than that, it will be the color adjustment of my own preferences.

Download

You could download this photo’s preset here.

How would you want to paint or draw on your paper? It’s a same question as how would you want to take your picture.

We could use a ruler and a pencil to draw a nice architecture drawing or used the paint brush to paint the beauty of the dancer under the sunset. But we won’t use the ruler for sketching the dancer or use the paint brush to draw the architecture drawing, will we?

Of course I for one strongly believe in basic and foundation, that’s the knowledge for us to understand our tools and they are all correlated, especially photography where it’s a perfect mixture of science and art. So, once we understand all these, it will be time for us to explore the limitation, break the rules and create arts.

Too often, we get the comments from rules & technology guardian who concern only the exposure, sharpness, bokeh, depth-of-field, one-third rules, noise, composition, corrected color, etc. These rules guide us but shouldn’t rules us. But of course, there’s always the visual principal that we can’t break away from: Balance, Consistency, Hierarchy, Proportion, etc. And also the context of the message, the motive, the interaction, the vision. Thus the basic knowledge of the arts is far more important and it takes us forever to study, compare to the effortless guidelines (rules).

Shutter, one of the primary component of photograph taken, need our full attention to use it well. We know its function very clearly, it control the time of the image exposed on our censor/film, corresponded with the aperture to capture the amount of light for the exposure we wanted. And the faster shutter, the better it freeze the moment.

Thus, rules guardian start creates guides, sport > fast action > high speed > sharper image, then dark time > need more light > slow shutter > tripod, then water/light trail > continuous flow > slow speed > tripod, the list goes on. These are not wrong, in fact they are all good guide, only when it fall into our vision.

The more you understand what shutter can do to the image, then you can control your image.

Take the Shot

I wanted an image with dynamic motion of pedestrian, to show the fast pace of city (it works well to delivery the sense of movement to the audience). The swinging direction give it more interesting visual movement so the visual track of the viewer will go back and forth within the frame.

I used a shutter priority mode and 1/15 speed was chosen, it’s slow enough for me to move my camera around while the shutter is open. To give a nice “blur”, swing the camera before pressing the shutter release and continue swinging after the shutter close.

Total of 3 shot was taken and this is the closest to what I visualised in my mind.

Post Processing

I used Adobe Lightroom for the post processing, colour has been enhanced and I pushed the contrast to a higher level to give a more “graphical” look.

Download

You could download this photo’s preset here.

We know, it is all about light. It’s also our experience that told us light can be either our best friend or worst enemy. Thus most of us would avoid direct pointing light (I know it has been ruins countless frame of your shot). But what you have not known is you might just missed out the magic moment when the light fall in straight on your canvas (censor or film).

I love natural light, especially in the late morning or early evening, while the sun light’s travel through the atmosphere at the angle that the colour temperature are slight warmer but not too warm. The direct light washout most part of your picture, the contrast are filter off from the light mist, it gave me the different visual harmony that light is almost comes to life within the frame.

Of course, it does the same to the generated light source, creative is on me.

Take the Shot

Thanks to the amazing improvement on digital censor, we wouldn’t able to do this 3 years ago when the problem of fringe is everywhere, and also the increasingly improvement of the dynamic range allow the tone of light expand to its maximum.

I would use wider aperture to avoid possible of capture the light ray, that’s not something I want but it’s your own preferences. In order for optimising the capability of the censor of your camera, RAW is the only format that you should be considered. Manual mode will work better for these work as the light is changing fast but you don’t want to be distracted. I would also tune the exposure +1EV~+2EV to make sure I had all the latitude of the details as I know the camera metering would be fooled by the light source. (Why should you over exposed in digital photography)

Get the best filter you can afford, if you are using one. In my own experience, only the best would avoid any reflection when in this extreme light condition (Hoya is consider bad, whatever cheaper than it or at it’s price range, don’t use). If that’s what you have, just take off the filter.

I would also carefully find the right angle while composing the frame, I would decide how much light I want it to fall. The front object is the key to bring out the best of characteristic. It works best on model portrait too.

I may need fill in flash or reflector for the front object, depending on the situation.

Post Processing

Post processing is as important as taking the shot (another topic to be discussed). I used Adobe Lightroom for all my digital work. For this, I fine tune the colour temperature, further adjust the exposure and brightness, define the colour mode of my liking via Split Toning.

Download

You could download this photo’s preset here.

Impression of Hokkaido

Impression of Hokkaido I, 1500mm x 500mm, Limited Print Edition 1/5

The theme of my exhibit work is Impression of Hokkaido, which is showcasing the montages work of Hokkaido. The inspiration came from the Chinese painting where the scene is the result of artist’s impression with personal interpret of feeling. It allowed me to show how I see the place. I always wanted to work on body of work that move beyond the border of camera frame, it has to be presented to viewer with the vision. This give me a great opportunity to explore the alternative way of how we could see the photography work (whether or not you accept it as one). To push it further, the body of work is printed on Hahnemühle Fine Art Rice Paper to enhanced its characteristic.

I must thank the gallery for accepting the controversial work (in fact it’s Gwen of the gallery that encourage me to have this done). The concept has been well received during the exhibition.

Sakura Triptych

Sakura Triptych I / II / III, 350mm x 700mm, Limited Print Edition 1/5

If you are interested on the print work, click here.

Light and shadow created space, and space ain’t empty. I wished the light shine on my and cast a shadow, that give me beautiful space.