Olympus E-M5 Mll & M.Zuiko 12-40mm f2.8 PRO - Low Light Test

I normally never bother with the Black Friday sales as mostly here in Europe they are not such great value. However an ad popped up on the BBC news website with a deal I could not pass up, an Olympus E-M5 Mll and M.Zuiko 12-40mm f2.8 PRO combo at about half normal price! I have been contemplating a mirrorless camera for some time now and so I jumped in feet first. After fiddling with the rather special menu system for a few days I finally got it set up the way I wanted so today I headed out into town to give it a whirl.

There are a few things I really like about the E-M5, starting with the rather diminutive size. It is tiny compared to the Nikons I have been used to for so many years, but they still manage to squeeze in more external controls than I realistically will ever need. The second thing I like is the viewfinder, it is big, bright and great for chimping on the move. The preview of what the pic is shaping up to look like is fantastic.

Landskrona Citadel

It's an oldie but I liked it so much I decided to post it again.

Wide vs Tele - Which One is Best?

I am often asked why peoples selfies make their faces look distorted and my answer is always the same, serves you right you narcissistic fool! Well no, not really. But the right answer is that the lens on your front cell phone camera is wide and therefore distorts your face making your nose look big.

In regular photography shooting with a wide lens close up has the same result, whatever is closest to the camera looks bigger and therefore the resulting picture is distorted and not a realistic representation of whatever it is you are photographing.

However, this also opens up some creative possibilities. Deliberate wide angle distortion can provide some artistic flair, or interest, or emotional tension, or merely highlight a certain part of an object or product.

I recently took some photos of my beloved motorcycle and was using my nifty Tamron 17-50mm 2.8 lens. The first photo was taken at 50mm and the second at 17mm. Which is best? Well that depends on what you are trying to achieve, your own personal taste, etc.

The tele produces a realistic representation of the subject at hand,  but to me the wide angle produces an entirely more interesting and dramatic photograph and leaves the viewer with a little more awe and wonder.  But that's just me.

Tele

Wide

So which one do you prefer?

Faux Absolut Vodka Ad

I have always admired the Absolut Vodka ad campaign that used to run in magazines worldwide some years ago and always thought of how I would like to try and recreate something similar. I think it is a study in simplicity embracing the "less is more" ideology while having an attention capturing visual impact. The first step was to find a current news topic that would grab attention, hence I settled on Brexit and the "hard" or indeed "absolute" nature that it entails.

Next step, purchase said product and relevant prop, in this case a bottle of vodka and a Union Jack bowtie.

I studied the lighting techniques that the original ads used and tried to "reverse engineer" it. I used three studio lights, one from behind the backdrop shooting through a snoot, and two from the front on either side of the bottle shooting through two softboxes and positioned so as to give the two reflections in the shiny bottle cap.

After metering the lights and setting up the camera I shot two photos from a sturdy tripod mount, one with only the rear light and one with only the two front lights, and then spent a little time on the computer editing and combining the two to achieve the effect I was after.

The final step was looking up which font they originally used in their campaign, download and install it and then finish off the advert with authentic Absolut punchline at the bottom.

Lighting setup pull back shots below.

Food Photography, with whatever camera you happen to have on hand...

I originally (many years ago) trained as a chef in South Africa and I was quite good at it (if I say so myself) but circumstance and providence led me along other paths for many years. However a couple of years ago I received a good offer and took up a position as a chef at a company here in Sweden. This has of course left me with less time to pursue my love of photography, hence the slowing down to a crawl of this blog.

At work I have been called on many times to photograph dishes for the company website and the requesting always comes when the only camera I have with me is my phone camera. I do not have the latest and greatest, but I have found that with my old Samsung S5 and the incredible Snapseed photo manipulation software for Android I can get amazingly good results. While the fine detail and colour management I get from my DSLR is undoubtably much MUCH better I think that at internet resolution the photo below is just great!

Bear in mind that this was taken, edited and published directly from my phone with only window light in between my normal duties as a chef. It is no wonder then that camera sales are plummeting and photographer jobs are scarcer by the day...

Wedding shoot in France

I had the opportunity to shoot a garden wedding in France and the couple were wonderful!

Blues Harmonica

Just another quick harmonica pic to get the musical and photographic juices flowing at the same time.

Newcastle Brown Ale - Photographed in Mixed Light

Popped down to the local liquor store in Landskrona today to fill up on wine and other essentials and was pleasantly surprised to see that they had a healthy, but expensive, stock of Newcastle Brown Ale. Best beer ever!

Of course once I got home I was compelled to photograph this delicious beverage, and what better place than in my home made pub.

There is a healthy mix of lighting going on here with the led lights of the bar on as well as some daylight from a window to the right and then a Nikon SB910 hand held to camera left pointed at the ceiling for nice diffused bounce light and triggered via CLS. I had a slow shutter speed of 1/25th to ensure the background light was captured along with the balanced flash to add the right atmosphere. The lens was wide open at f2.8 to blur the background and isolate the main subject.

Harmonica and Guitar

Combining my love of photography and music by photographing my Yamaha guitar with my latest addition, a Hohner Crossover harmonica. Two quality sounding instruments that do not fulfill their true potential by virtue of my enthusiastic yet somewhat limited efforts.

My only light comes from a Nikon SB910 speedlight hand held to camera left, pointed at and bounced off the ceiling for soft light, and triggered wirelessly via Nikon's great CLS system.
My camera of choice was a Nikon D300s fitted with the excellent and sharp Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 non stabilised lens, fully zoomed at 50mm, shutter speed of 1/160th of a second with aperture of f5.6 and iso set at base 200.
Edited in Lightroom.

Geisha with Fan

Same lighting as the previous post.

Geisha Warrior

I got to photograph a geisha for an assignment yesterday that involved props and a lot of makeup. The lighting was simple enough. Main light is a Nikon SB910 from camera right and about two feet higher than the model's head at 1/1.7th power bounced into a black backed umbrella. The background light was a Nikon SB700 at 1/64th power mounted on a really tiny light stand I got off Amazon which was flagged to stop spill onto the back of the model and faced sloped up towards the black background. I changed things up a bit by mounting a tungsten filter on the SB910 and setting the camera white balance to tungsten as well, which means the background light shows up a beautiful blue while all is perfectly normal with the light on the model.

Sweeney Todd does his thing...

Another from the Sweeney Todd photo session.

Lighting the same as previous photo, i.e.:
I had my main light, a Nikon SB700 shooting through a 1/8 grid at 1/20th power from high to camera right, and to fill the shadows I shot a Nikon SB910 into a black backed umbrella at about 1/40th power to camera left and just about level with the camera's height. Both Speedlights were triggered wirelessly via Nikon's awesome CLS wireless triggering system.

Sweeney Todd portrait

Took an interesting Sweeney Todd portrait yesterday that required a more "stage lighty" type look. Having worked on stage lighting many years ago I know that it can often be a little more hard and direct than we like in most photographic portraits. I had my main light, a Nikon SB700 shooting through a 1/8 grid at 1/20th power from high to camera right, and to fill the shadows I shot a Nikon SB910 into a black backed umbrella at about 1/40th power to camera left and just about level with the camera's height. Both Speedlights were triggered wirelessly via Nikon's awesome CLS wireless triggering system.

Middle-Eastern themed Portrait

A three light portrait with a Middle-Eastern style theme.

Three Nikon Speedlights used, one gridded from camera left as main, one snooted from camera right slightly behind the subject and higher, one through a brolly to camera right for slight fill. All controlled and fired via Nikon's excellent CLS wireless trigger system.

Film Noir Style "Strobist" Portrait

Decided to try something a little more dramatic today and shot this film noir style portrait with a snooted Nikon SB 910 shooting from high camera right directed down to Ellie's face and a snooted Nikon SB 700 splaying some light onto the background from camera left and slightly lower than Ellie's head. Both Speedlights were triggered via Nikon's fantastic CLS wireless trigger system.

I am rather satisfied with the dramatic atmosphere of the portrait and I think it harks back quite well to the early Hollywood film noir movies.

How to be a good Artist, Photographer, whatever...

Applies equally to anyone in the creative arts... ;-)

John Scotts restaurant in Göteborg

Moving Tram After Sunset.

In Göteborg, Sweden.

There's a time and place for free photography.

Courtesy of What The Duck        

Photograph of D400!

I know, that was cruel... but I couldn't resist! :^)

Have a great weekend folks!

Nikon 85mm f/1.8 AF-S G still my favourite Portrait Lens!

Every time I shoot this gem of an 85mm lens it embeds itself more firmly as my favourite portrait lens regardless of whether I am shooting head and shoulders or full length portraits. (For full length I just stand further back...) This portrait was shot at f2.8 on my crop sensor Nikon D300s and the backgrounds are just wonderful!

It is also not at a ridiculous price point and would generally be within affordable reach of most people who spent much more than the price of this lens on a new Nikon dslr body anyway. The small(ish) expense is certainly worth the jump in IQ that it provides.

Have speedlights, will Portrait...

The best way to improve your portrait photography is to invest in a Speedlight... or two, and a wireless trigger system to be able to fire those flashes off camera. I use a cheap but reliable Phottix Strato system combined with two Nikon Speedlights and it has never let me down. Just make sure to have the batteries fully charged before you start and keep some spares handy too.

In this shot I have a Nikon SB700 to camera right shooting through a 105cm white umbrella set to 1/16 power and behind the model I have a Nikon SB600 on 1/64 power with no light modifier at all. My camera is at 1/200s, f2.8, and iso 200, handheld. I hate trying to shoot portraits on a tripod preferring to be able to adjust to my subjects movements freely.

Keeping the Lighting Simple for a Street Portrait

When you have a lot of lights and like to work in a studio set-up utilising at least three of those lights for portraits (sometimes more...) then it can be very liberating to get out into the open air and do some portraits on the streets of LA (affectionate term the locals give to our small town of Landskrona) and be restricted to using a simple single Speedlight set-up. I have a Nikon sb700 on a light stand shooting through an umbrella to camera right and a little higher than the subject. Everything is on fully manual for consistent control. The sb700 was set to 1/64th power and triggered wirelessly with a Phottix trigger system. Camera was set at 1/200s, f2.8, iso 400 and I used my favourite portrait lens, the Nikon 85mm f1.8. For good measure, here is a pull back shot of the scene showing the light firing:

A Portrait using Window Light balanced with Off Camera Flash

First off, my apologies for not posting a whole lot over the last few months, I have been busy with several new directions in my professional life and there just never seems to be time!

Today I had the pleasure of photographing my good friend Murtaza who needs a few portrait photographs for a series of interviews, websites and a news channel to display on-line and via television. He specialises in ground breaking techniques in treating drug addiction and it seems a lot of people are interested in what he has to say on the subject!

For the session I travelled light and did the "strobist" thing with two Nikon Speedlights balanced with ample beautiful soft window light streaming in through a large window. The window is to the left of camera, an SB-700 at 1/64th power is shooting through a large white umbrella to camera right and elevated somewhat higher than the subject, and finally an SB-600 at 1/16th power is shooting against the wall behind subject from it´s position on the floor. Of course I used my favourite go to lens for portraits, the Nikkor AF-S 85mm f/1.8 G which is a class piece of glass! The pic above was taken wide open at f1.8.

Nikon's Fluorine Coated Lenses in action.

Another reason to love and use Nikon/Nikkor!

Sunset over the Öresund

I took this photograph from the crest of a hill overlooking the Öresund between Sweden and Denmark with the island of Ven between the two on the left side of the photograph. Below is a picture taken with my cell phone camera of the camera on a tripod and my bicycle waiting patiently for me to get finished and take it back home.

Park in down town Malmö Sweden.

Jetty on the Öresund

Long exposure photograph during the day made possible through a combination of an overcast sky, a small aperture, an ND8 neutral density filter and a good tripod. Still only managed to squeeze out 13 seconds, but it was enough to totally smooth out the water.

Long road to nowhere...

Daar tussen niks en nêrens! ;-)

Die Ou Melkery

An old abandoned milking shed/dairy on a friends farm in the Freestate province of South Africa.

Rocks against the Öresund

Storm Damaged Jetty

Borstahusen Sweden.

Blue and Yellow Flowers

I posted a sunset a few days ago so now I have to post a picture of flowers. It's compulsory! ;^)

Have a great weekend everybody!

Fireworks over Landskrona's Harbour Area

Another one from New Years Eve where the slow shutter speed and steady prevailing breeze caused the fireworks to streak into interesting shapes.

Landskrona Watertower at Night

Taken at 22.50 on a warm Swedish summer night there is still plenty of light in the sky to provide a really lovely blue. Trapped in the depths of winter, as we are now, I look forward to late night cycle rides with my camera and tripod once again!

Landskrona Citadel in Winter

Nikon D300s and Nikkor 18-105mm lens, tripod, Aperture Priority, f/11, 20s, ISO 200, at 18mm, triggered off camera via Phottix Strato, basic RAW editing in DxO and fine tuned in Corel PSP. All while freezing my butt off at 16.55 on a Swedish winter afternoon. Worth it. :-)

Taking Photos in Freezing Scandinavian Weather

This evening I went out to take some winter style photos near the Landskrona Citadel and after a while I was almost regretting my decision because of the ice cold wild and fine sleet. Despite having gloves, woolly hat, insulated winter boots and a very thick jacket it didn't take too long before I was desperately cold. On a positive note the D300s kept shooting in those horrible conditions without skipping a beat, but the battery was dropping charge somewhat faster than normal.

Once I got home and looked at the photographs on my computer screen (and I was warmer) it certainly seemed worth the minor inconvenience so I suppose I'll get out there again soon! :-)

Scandinavian Sunrise over Landskrona - a Panorama

This morning we were treated to a spectacular Scandinavian sunrise which I rushed to capture for posterity. Sunsets and sunrises may be cliché, but somehow we never get tired of their beauty!

Hand held 5 shot panorama from my D300s and the wonderful 18-105mm plastic fantastic kit lens, stitched in Microsoft ICE.

Firework Photography over Landskrona Harbour at New Years Eve

Firework photography is really easy if you have patience, a tripod and a firm grasp of your camera's manual controls. The settings for this photograph were: f5.6, 2.5s and ISO 200.

2.5 seconds was more than enough to capture the fireworks but not so long as to create too much blur as the fireworks drifted sideways in the breeze.

Cross Beams

Have a great 2014 everyone!

4 Steps to Improve your Christmas Light Photography

At this time of the year many towns have beautiful Christmas light displays and as photographers we naturally want to capture these as best we can. However, because the light is low it is not always possible to just go and shoot away on auto because the camera never gets the scene to look quite the way we really remember it at the time because human eyes are light years ahead of camera sensors and so what we see and what the camera captures is often less than satisfactory.

A lot of people will shoot bracketed shots and blend them in software to increase the range, but very often HDR images look really unnatural to me and not pleasing to the eye. There is also the problem of people walking around in the shot and causing multiple "ghosting". So what to do?

Well, the picture above was a single shot photograph and by following a few simple steps I managed to get the scene exactly the way I wanted.

1.) Be patient and wait for the light. Photography should never be rushed anyway, but it becomes even more important when we want to capture the light perfectly. I generally do not like to go out on a shoot together with anyone else because I always feel obligated and pressured to keep to a schedule when I am in a group. Photography is not a team sport! Wait until the light from the sky is balanced as closely as possible to the electric lights on the street in front of you for the best results. I normally find that I get the light I'm after about 20-30 minutes or so after sunset.

2.) Always use a tripod. As steady as you think you can handhold your camera, and as wonderful as your systems image stabilisation may be, you still cannot beat a tripod. Most folks just pump up the ISO and hand hold anyway, but even the best modern cameras will show noise of some sort or the other at even moderate settings. The best performance will always be at base ISO so why not go for the best? While you are at it you may as well get a decent sturdy tripod that will not shake in the wind.

3.) Shoot in RAW. The cameras RAW files always contain a LOT more information than shooting in jpeg and hoping for the best. Don't listen to the "internet experts" who claim that real photographers "get the settings right in camera" and therefore don't need to shoot RAW. I have news for them, real photographers do shoot RAW and for good reason. The dynamic range of light captured when using RAW is much greater than any jpeg can capture. Shoot RAW, you'll never be sorry that you did!

4.) Hone your post processing skills. In the days of film we would shoot away and then hand over our film to an expert at the processing lab who would do all the important stuff behind the scenes for us. In the digital age we have to become expert at every aspect of the photographic process unless we have the budget to hire someone to do the post processing for us. I generally recommend purchasing a decent program like DxO Optics Pro or Adobe Lightroom as they offer great options to extract the best from your RAW file and produce the kind of results that professionals the world over would be satisfied with. Then practice, practice, practice... and then practice some more. Maybe take a course, even an on-line course. Then practice some more. Decent post processing skills will take your photographs a large step further.

I hope that this short bit of advice will help you when you step out to capture all the pretty lights down town during this holiday season.

Here's wishing you great light, and a wonderful 2014!

Lanthus

In the Aftermath of Storm Sven

Storm Sven swept through Southern Sweden at the beginning of December and the damage can still be seen along the coastline.

Discarded Blue Rope

...because old, worn and decaying can be beautiful!

Landskrona Citadel Panorama - Stitched with MS ICE

I decided to use Microsoft's Image Composite Editor (ICE) program to create a panorama of the Landskrona Citadel and if the first attempt is anything to go by then it is a very competent panorama stitching program. It is simple and just works, but fortunately has all the needed adjustment tools to get the final image just the way you want it.

It's also free. Nothing beats free. You can download it HERE.

And it's free...

NEWS: Photographer Wins $1.2 Million Lawsuit Over Images Taken From Twitter

From Mashable.com:

Photographer Wins $1.2 Million Lawsuit Over Images Taken From Twitter

With an endless amount of photos floating around on Twitter, it's easy to find images of almost anything. But this large social-media bank of seemingly free-to-share photos can also lead to issues regarding ownership and copyright infringement.

A New York jury delivered a landmark decision on Friday when it sided with freelance photographer Daniel Morel after he sued Getty Images and Agence France-Presse for using photos that he posted on Twitter without his permission. Morel won $1.2 million for the unauthorized use of his images.

Click here to read more.

Hamba Kahle Tata Madiba

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
- Nelson Mandela