Colour Wheel

Many of us sees colour and snap away, some never realised harmonous colour or contrasting colour are used to create certain results. It can be strong, soft, sad, joy. I am as confused as everybody who has been taking pictures in colour until I read a book on painting which mentioned different uses of colour, how similar hue can be group together or contrasting colour can use to create impact.

First of all, the colour wheel, all visual art lesson will teach about this colour wheel one way or the other.

From this chart, we can almost immediately identify the colour which we should try to group together to create an harmonous feeling. e.g. blue, green,yellow.

or red, orange and yellow

However, to have impact using colour, try to pick 2 colours which are opposite each other on the colour wheel.

e.g Red and green , the colour of nature, too many example, so no need to post

or Orange and blue

Finally, purple and yellow

I have to post this despite the post's length. The picture was taken with the sharpest len in the world, of course I must use the soften skin tone function in aperture software to get such pleasing result. Purple and yellow... Right today is about colour wheel!

We must weed out non related colours to get colour, less is more. As always is the case!

Do I Adjust Auto Exposure

Friends have already started to ask this question: " Can you keep writing this ?"

Honestly, I do not have the answer. I am a person who will get bored very quickly if I realised that certain interest /hobbies is too easy. I play the violin, which is difficult enough to even get some decent sound, yet I am still improving after many many years. I take photographs, which looks easy with the advance of camera, but I still have new challenges from day to day photo shooting.

I hope you don't mind to read my self-talk, but let me focus on the next photo which I am going to discuss.

Click this and make it your wall paper, I like this so much that I almost want to show it to Singapore Tourism Board.

Shooting night shots is challenging for many reasons. You have to have a very steady hand or a tripod. Here I did not using any tripod, just handheld my camera with 35mm F2, at full aperture. I think the shutter speed is 1/15. Exposure was set using auto, but, a very big but, I reduced exposure by 1.5 stop. The darker the sky, the more you reduce exposure. Remember this, reduce automatic setting of exposure by at least 1 stop, sometimes 2 stops depending on the darkness of the sky. This will bring out the true darkness of the surrounding and the lights will show as jewels.

Also, you must watch out for reflection and ensure that all meaningful reflections are captures.

Lastly, if you do not have time, set the camera auto-bracketing and shoot away to get the best of the 3 or 5 from bracketing.

I hope this helps to reduce frustration from relying only on the camera exposure meter to get the correct exposure. I promise you no matter what camera you use, you will be very disappointed. There is not much I can do for you but ask you to try until it works. Just like baby learning to walk, she will not walk on first try, but keep trying and you will get it. I have been trying since I was 16, so don't be surprise and give up just because a few shots were not making the cut. Throw the bad pictures away and get started all over again, and again, and again. Or you can simply sell all your cameras and use your iphone and use the money to buy some shares.

Knowing your Camera

Just have too much to say. I have 2 posts today, it is Sunday and the start of Great Singapore Sales. You get more for less.

Yesterday I mentioned about using less colour to re-create the sense of black and white, and a few days ago about converting colour picture to black and white. This is a picture of my daughter inside Singapore Art Museum. The exhibition is 高行健, one of the great modern artist. The paintings are chinese ink in western style. The corner is very quiet but no one (no guard) around. I made a quick measurement of the light, set the camera and took the picture in a matter of 2 seconds. Since I know my camera well, the setting and arrangement is almost like instinct. (This was taken in film , so there is only one shot).

After scanning, the colour of the shirt was still a bit strong so I reduced colour saturation to leave a tint of colour, the whole photo is almost black and white. One painting is almost white, one almost black. The wall is white, the floor is black, the shoe is white and black.

Due to the soft lighting the corner almost disappear, the whole picture is uniquely balance and simple, yet the mood of the serenity of the picture has projected into reality, thus the picture helps to recreate such a mood. (I hope at least)

Snap Shots

Afternoon Tea is a life style which I enjoy, afternoon tea with rose is a luxury I have never seen. While having tea with my colleagues at Esplanade, each was given a rose. This was nice.

Many of  us use name card camera to regularly snap a picture here or there, however there is a very easy trick to do it nicely.

This is not taken by any expensive camera, but by a most common camera - iphone. I arranged the subjects in a nice and pleasing manner. To balance the strong red colour against the white porcelain tea cup, I pour more tea into the cup. Focus was on the rose, therefore the exposure is slightly more than normal since the deep red and dark green need more exposure, as a result the exposure of the white porcelain comes out just nice.

Get ride of all those not the subject matter, if not possible, just show part of it to reduce impact.

Which Camera

No doubt there are different cameras for different personalities, otherwise there will only be one camera maker.

In terms of camera as a tool vs camera as an expensive paper weight (actually, some old Leica sumitar is good paper weight, really heavy, some friend of mine is using this for exactly this perfect purpose), there is very little point to argue which camera is better.

Is sharper the better? Show it to your girl friends a picture of her with such detail that all photog will praise the excellency of the camera , yet their girl friend may not want to be their private model any more, some may even lead to separation if camera sharpness is a photog's ultimate goal.

I cannot agree more that using the right tools for the right job. If you go Kranji wetland, it is no point to use a 50mm for birds, this is not about which camera is better, but do you have the right tools to take photo of birds? At Kranji wetland, you should have a 400mm, or better still 400mm with Nikon / Canon/ Pentax/ Olympus camera with crop factor of 1.5 - 2, this will get you the picture you want. Not a leica M9 with 21mm F1.4 ASPH. Here leica is a bad camera.

If you shoot weddings, you cannot use a point and shoot camera, the camera is for snapshots, unless you are not paid for the job, otherwise, you better show your muscle to bring along your Canon 5DMKII, Nikon D3x, Leica M9. (Now I am talking about cameras, may be I should stop). I hope you know what I mean.

Taking portraits, you can use any camera - point and shoot, DSLR, Micro 4/3, APS-C. Yet, which camera achieves the result you want is a good camera. For me, I want the background to be soft and blur, therefore it is alway a must to have Leica 50mm Noctilux, Leica 50mm Summilux , Nikon 50mm F1.2, Zeiss 50mm F1.4. All are great lens and will do the job.

However, however, however.. There are still certain lens which I prefer, e.g. Zeiss may not be critically sharp, but the richness of the colour is best for taking portrait and arts. Leica's colour is very neutral, yet resolution is too sharp and may be consider too mechanical.

You pick your likes and I will not say a word but "Yes yes, xx (substitute for any camera brand) is good." Remember, this is what friends are for, especially photogs.

(This is posted to state my view, there is no argument and will not answer any argument on any discussion about which camera is better. This is a blog on "Camera is not Important". )

(Friends, please send me your picture to post and lets discuss photo taking using any type of cameras)

Now a picture :

The picture is about expressing monochrome (almost) in colour. The last opened widow broke the monotony of the picture, the sunshine brought the sparkle of light. I have to add contrast to bring it closer to monochrome. Sharpness is sufficient, but not so important. The white balance is as pleasing as it can be.

Strawberry

This is a solid proof that modern point and shoot camera is as good as anything. Especially if you are using one with a large sensor.
This was shot during my business trip to taipei. Yes, I try to bring a camera anywhere I go. I was bored by taiwan television after dinner, went out to the 24 hour book store. Right next to the entrance, there was a hawker selling strawberry. This is not about the picture of the hawker selling strawberry, but about the strawberry itself.

Okay I know this is not a technically perfect picture of food, but I have to claim that this is as good as it can be. The strawberries were put inside a white bowl directly under the table lamp. The table lamp provided a single light source, the white bowl acted as a reflector to lighten the shadow. Colour balance need to be changed to tungsten, however it was still not exactly correct, therefore I used manual colour balance adjustment until the red and green both appeared to be right.

Now hold your breath, the camera used was not a technical camera with specialized macro len but a point and shoot Canon S90. (don't go out to buy one, because it has been replaced by S95, by the way, sorry that there is no link to Amazon).

After such a long while, my mouth still feel watery when I see this picture, was it by accident or my skill? I cannot tell, but I love the picture, I hope your senses are filled with the taste, sight and smell of strawberry. (dedicated to Shireen Ng, who inspired this blog)

Black and White or Colour

Sometimes when we see something, we know it will not come out nice in colour. Either the colour is very contrasting, or similar tone, not saturated etc. Let us remember that when taking a picture in colour, colour is an important element. If somehow the colour is not the attraction, we can consider converting the colour into B/W.

Once in B/W, the eye will automatically focus attention on light and shadow, on shapes instead of colour. You may see a totally different picture.

This picture of the wall is mixed with confusion, the dirt created an irregular pattern, the greenish dirt echo the green grass, the whole picture becomes very "noisy" and not so pleasing to the eye.

With some cropping and converted to B/W, the focus is now on the wall, which is the subject matter. The green grass no longer becomes a distraction. The dirt on the wall becomes a pattern. This is what I wanted when the picture was taken - to show the wall.

Portraits

Has been taking quite a bit of portraits recently because I have a  class A model.

This picture without the human being inside will be boring. The human adds a lot of contrast - the colour of flesh against metal, old man and young girl, life and lifeless. The statue figures are interesting with so much to explore, the addition of human touch accented that people are enjoying them to be there. The watcher's eye will keep moving between the three figures and never want to leave.
On the technical side, I have to use very wide aperture to soften and blur the background, otherwise, the three figures cannot stand out. Any camera with a short telephoto lens and a wide F 2.8 aperture can do it.

Use Everything to create Image

Many photographers believe that a good picture is one which is straight out of the camera without any alterations.

Agreed or not?

This is taken with Nikon D90 , 18-55 plastic zoom. I agreed this is an acceptable picture, but keep looking and I realised that the picture is simply boring. There is a whole patch of flowers in a pot, it is a recording of what went through my eyes.

Am I going to accept this image and move on to the next? I ask myself, what I want to show about this picture? Well, the flowers of course. The out of focus area is distracting,  and the white petals is very slightly overexposed due to the the dark flower pot and soil.

I cropped out the OOF upper portion while still trying to keep proportion to roughly 4:5,  and reduce the brightness by 2 notches.

Now I see a better picture!

Agreed that this is not a fantastic picture, but now it is acceptable because it is telling the watcher something about the flower. Such beauty, such purity, so refreshing.

So every photographer should use their software to crop and present what is the inner picture of a picture. Find and you may realised that there are so much being missed out if no one tries to unveil the real inner picture.

Please don't argue, even Ansel did that , why don't you....

For something more dramatic, how about this picture: 

Be Brave!

Dancing Butterfly

There is a saying that this species of Orchid is also called "The Dancing Orchid". I seldom associate this with dancing until I saw this and try to use the maximum aperture to soften and blur the background. Now this is really dancing, I hear Mozart....

The Power of Green

I know the Leica Noct can give very very narrow depth of field, using a ND8x filter, I went out to shoot everything at F1. When I saw these few strands standing out of the plantation, I already have this image in mind, however, I never realise it can be so dreamy, a good example of green to sooth your eyes

Road Sign

I was walking along the path, and see this sign, actually what attracted me was not the road sign, but the possible OOF effect, I tried a first shot which includes a tree nearby and more path was shown, but that lacks the focus of the subject, therefore I shot another one tighter. I deliberate use F1.4 instead of F1 because I know the OOF is soft enough, yet I do not want it to be so soft to be totally unrecognizabl

Camera Not Important

Since digital era arrived, we see new cameras every week. Image resolution improved from 1 mega pixel to 12 Mega pixel, cameras with different functions flocking the shops to get consumers to spend another USD1 k on something they will only need once in while.
I admit I am not a good photographer, I enjoy taking picture and to create images pleasing to the eye. There is never a master piece, but I happened to like playing around with cameras, therefore I have quite a collection of different cameras over the years.
My flavour of the month constantly changing. Yesterday I took the Leica M9 and an old Noctilux F1.0 to Botanical garden.
The Noct has been with me for 4 -5 years, yet I have only shot with it once before yesterday. Mainly because if I am not going to use F1, I can always bring a smaller, lighter e.g.  F1.4 Summilux instead. I decided to shoot in daylight, got myself a 8x ND filter, and went to shoot flowers and people. since this is the first post there is nothing really meaningful to say yet. will post pictures from my day to day life and give key notes on the picture.
Although I mentioned various camera brand and make, this is not a blog to discuss cameras, there are too many, but no blog which discuss how and why a picture is taken. The thinking process of the photographer is meaningful to discuss than about camera, thus camera is not important, you all have the best creative camera i.e. your eyes, how to capture this is important, therefore I hope will be the key theme of the post. I hope my friends can help me to gradually build this blog to stay away on spending time on which camera, which len, which film, which this.., which that...
It is all in the mind, if you see it you will get it, if you do not see it, there is no way an SWC, or Noctilux can create it for you.
Please stay in tune.