Earlier on, I had shared about my photowalk with my friend, Symon at the Gardens By The Bay East.

I mentioned that we had fiddled with each other’s cameras and today he sent me shots that I had taken with his camera.

Symon has been dabbling in photography way earlier than I did. And he’s a firm believer in the Micro Four Thirds system for his photography needs. I, on the other hand, went straight to DSLRs when I was ready for a camera that was fancier than a standard compact camera.

The camera he had was the Olympus E-P3 and it was pretty impressive. It has functions that are comparable to my DSLR and is less than 1/3 the size of my gear. The major disadvantage of such a system is that it has a much larger crop factor, which means to get the same shot as a DSLR, you would have to move backwards a little.

The thing I loved most about this camera was its image processing. There was a filter called Dramatic Tone which I loved. It made all the shots look like they were artist impressions!

For a comparison of the shots which I had taken with my DSLR on the same day, go to my post on Gardens By The Bay.

Symon has invested in some sweet lenses and one of my favourites was his 45mm f1.8 lens. He shot me with this lens and I am just drooling at the creamy bokeh.

If I could start my photography journey all over again, I think I would have seriously considered going for a Micro 4/3 system instead of a DSLR. If what they say is right.. that it’s the photographer, not the equipment that matters.. then I wouldn’t mind not lugging 4kg of equipment everywhere I go. =p

Just for fun, go read my earlier post on Why You Should NOT Buy A DSLR too.
 

Sandton is the current CBD of Johannesburg. Here’s the place where you’ll find gigantic malls, fancy hotels, large banking boys like Citi and HSBC, and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

When the Joburg Photowalkers decided to take a walk in Sandton, I was a little skeptical. Would there be anything interesting to shoot?

It was a very dark and gloomy day too. And I had just attended a funeral. So I was in a bit of a sad dump and needed to get out of the house. I downed a glass of red wine and set out to snap some street photography in Sandton.

This is the Nelson Mandela Square. You won’t miss it if you visit Johannesburg. It has a huge gorgeous statue of the amazing Nelson Mandela.

Everyone came decked in huge bags of camera gear. I have to admit it’s usually a little stressful and exhilarating at the same time looking at all these people that seem so pro.

Namrata and I were possibly the only giggly ones in the group.

Walking around Sandton turned out to be interesting. The streets were familiar because we always drive on them. But once on our feet, it felt like a whole new closer world. I never noticed things by the street side till now.

I love this poster – Carpe the hell out of diem.. which means Seize the hell out of the day!

I loved the tall buildings and observing the lines and reflections. Check out the building for the Citi office in Johannesburg.

I had fun checking out people’s homes. And browsing street side stalls.

I loved the colourful flowers by the streets. We spotted mushrooms too!

And then it all got a little boring for me and I started doing floor shots..

And playing with my aperture settings to catch sun rays..

The sun set and we proceeded to a different place. I had a great time, and once again showed myself that one can shoot anywhere and shoot anything.. and still have fun.

More on Sandton, when the sun has set later..
 

In my short time here in South Africa, I’ve had the privilege to meet many photography enthusiasts and professional photographers.

Two professional photographers have become my personal friends and today, while doing the dishes.. it’s amazing.. the stuff that goes through a housewife’s mind when she is wearing gloves and has her hands stuck in foam.. anyways, I suddenly thought about how wonderful these two friends have been.

Photo Credit: Jon Hrusa

Photo Credit: Jon Hrusa

The above shots were shot with my camera, leaving me with several tricks of the trade in the settings after they were taken. =)
 

I’ve worked with countless of professional photographers in my personal and past corporate life. And trust me, there are a bunch of snooty, arrogant pros out there who are very certain of their own work, never willing to share, will never show you how to get the kind of shots they do.. and if you are shooting at the same event with a DSLR, they would scoff at your settings.. Hah? You shoot in P ah?.. or even bark at you to move aside and get out of their way.

Photo Credit: Nathalie Boucry. Whose guidance to me in the field for Help Portrait has been extremely valuable.

My two new friends in South Africa are possibly the most humble professionals I’ve ever met in my life. I don’t think they know this, but they’ve changed the way I shoot and look at light just by being the generous, patient people they are. I look at them and think, Now, THIS is professionalism.

Photo Credit: Nathalie Boucry

What is being a professional photographer? It’s not just about being able to capture a shot well. It’s also about having the grace and generosity to share the skills that one has acquired, and nurture others who are struggling so that the true spirit of photography can be kept alive and continued on.

Here’s me sharing the top 3 tips that I’ve been blessed to acquire from my friends. They have made a dramatic improvement to my shots.

(1) Set the * button at the back of the camera to control AF, and control Auto Focusing and metering with thumb. Use shutter button strictly for snapping.

(2) Use single point AF focusing at all times. MOVE the focus point manually instead of auto focusing and recomposing.

(3) In Picture Styles, reduce Sharpness to 0. Sharpening in the camera simply sharpens the noise. Do all sharpening in post editing later.
 

Before I had my iPhone, I went everywhere with my DSLR. I was always afraid that I might see something I wanted to shoot or document, and didn’t have a good camera with me.

Now that I have an iPhone and the lens is a whooping f2.4 lens, it gives me so many excuses not to lug that giant of a camera everywhere. There are so many great shots that I’ve taken with my iPhone, I don’t think I can ever move about without it now. The last time I was in Melbourne, I even shot an entire afternoon in the city with just my iPhone. My DSLR was tucked tightly in my bag on my shoulders.

I’m not a big fan of fancy iPhone Photography Apps. I’ve tried several, but found that I didn’t really like to do alot of editing on my phone. So now I use apps that give me great effects without much effort. Here are the apps that are hot favourites on my iPhone -

Instagram

This is my #1 app for shooting portraits.

My fave colour effect is “Early Bird” and I use it 99% of the time. It gives a hazey effect to pictures and makes everyone’s skin glow and we all look so good, even without make up.

The only problem is every shot must be uploaded to the Instagram server for it to be “live”. So if there’s no 3G or wifi connection, the shots are stored in the phone’s cache memory till they are uploaded and cannot be shared until then. Grrrrr… And sometimes, the Instagram server is koo-koo, and it takes forever to upload the shots.
 

Hipstamatic

This is my favourite iPhone photography app, hands down.

I love the vintage feel that it gives to my photos. And I love the wide variety of lens and film effects that come with it.

My favourite lens at the moment is Libatique 73 with the simple plain Blanko film.

Another advantage I like about Hipstamatic is that it shoots FAST. It takes up to 9 continuous shots in one breath. AMAZING. Such a feature is very important especially when you have children in the family that don’t always like to have their pictures taken and you have to shoot continuously before you capture that one shot of them smiling.

Quick tips on using this app -
(1) At your iPhone Settings for Hipstamatic, set View Finder Mode to “Precision Framing”, and switch ON for Disable LED Flash.
(2) When shooting, tap twice lightly on the small viewfinder screen. It will enlarge and become a larger frame. It’ll be way easier to compose a shot that way. Shoot by tapping once anywhere on that larger viewfinder frame. Great for camwhoring!
 

Leme Leme

The effects in Leme Leme are similar to those in Instagram but I mainly use it to shoot vibrant colours and when I want a HDR effect.

The HDR effect is gorgeous.

Try it!
 

All the apps above shoot in a 1:1 squarish frame. When I need to shoot things with no effects in a standard 4:3 frame, I use Camera+.

This is an amazing app. It comes with editing features, like sharpening, colour and tone control and photo effects. The shots are tack sharp because the app allows you to select your focusing point on the screen.

This shot of champagne in a glass was shot and “Clarity” (to sharpen it) was added.

It works wonderful in low light environments too.

Camera+ also allows me to process shots taken with other apps with its effects. I love that.
 

Photosynth

This is one of the nicest apps I have in my phone. I love this app because it helps you shoot several shots and then merge them into a panoramic shot.

After cropping -

It is idiot proof and helps you align your shots as you shoot away. It’s just brilliant.

After cropping -

Brilliant, right?
 

I have other photo editing tools in my phone, like 美图秀秀, moreBeaute2, Pixlromatic, Snapseed, etc.. for the days where I really want to edit a picture in my phone. Which is rarely. I’m too lazy.

What iPhone photography app do you use? Please share if you have a wonderful one!

Have a great weekend everyone! And don’t forget to vote for me -
 

If you liked my blogged posts on Melbourne, click here to cast your vote for me as your favourite and stand a chance to win $300 Jetstar travel vouchers and Crumpler laptop bags!
 

It was a Saturday in Melbourne and the itinerary was free-and-easy. Everyone had something in mind to do. And for me, it was street photography.

We had briefly zoomed by Brunswick Street while on the Bike Tour. I had taken one look at the neighbourhood and told myself that I had to come back.

I ♥ this street. It’s a street that is so rich in character, I was surprised at every corner and turn. It’s not a touristy destination and I was probably the only Asian along the street that afternoon, walking around with a giant camera.

You’ll find an eclectic blend of modern, vintage, home, food, produce, art, architecture and lifestyle. It was absolutely fascinating. The graffiti that lined the walls along the street was inspiring and beautiful. Ever since we moved to South Africa, I’ve developed a love for street art. It says so much about a city. Graffiti art is the people’s voice, the youth’s heart.

There were too many shots to display them all in full size here. Click on the thumbnails to see them individually or as a slideshow.
 

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

If you like my blogged posts on Melbourne, click here to cast your vote for me as your favourite and stand a chance to win $300 Jetstar travel vouchers and Crumpler laptop bags!
 

I mentioned in my earlier post, that we were in a slightly dodgey location when we did our painting with light. It was called Newtown and although it wasn’t necessary an unsafe neighbourhood to walk about in, it wasn’t a place that we would roam about on our own.

We were there in January 2011 and I had loved the walk because of the graffiti walls. See Graffiti Photo Walk. I was excited to go back to do painting with light because it was such a privilege for our gal to be able to see all this graffiti art of Joburg city.

What a pleasant surprise it turned out to be when I discovered that all the walls that we had seen in January have been painted over! I didn’t know they “changed” the art so quickly. The old paintings were all gone and beautiful new ones have replaced them. Oh gosh, that made all the shots I took in January even more precious now.

More drawings with sparklers.

And a superhero was born! This was done by outlining the person with a torchlight while the shutter is open.

And yeah, we love Joburg city.

It’s been 8.5 months now and I still marvel at the kind of stuff we get to do in South Africa. This place may not be the safest place on earth. But it is surely an exciting one.

Here’s a stop motion video clip of our entire evening. Shot by a fellow photowalker, Bianca Bothma. It is freaking cool. We appeared in the video at 0:22 and 0:41. Our gal was drawing with sparklers.

It was a very cold evening. But we were very excited.

A small group of photography enthusiasts were meeting up and we were going to make some “light art”.

We came to.. of all places.. a large trash dumping ground.

It was too dark for me to see what was around. Which was good for me, I guess. I could then focus on setting up my camera, remote trigger and tripod.

We had a huge bunch of sparklers and a laser light for this experiment. The last time we tried painting with light was at home – see Playing With Light, and it was really fun. But being in a huge open space with abandoned buidings as the setting was simply amazing.

Here was our first try with sparklers. A giant mess.

Our girl tried to draw a sun and a tree.

And then a house. We realised, Hey, this is not easy!

So we practised and practised.. and finally got it!

It really wasn’t easy writing words like this because we had to imagine how the letters would look like inverted and then write them in the air. It was difficult to gauge the distance between each letter, and write and physically move at the same time.

Making sure lines don’t cross when you don’t want them too was even harder.

But it was fun.. way fun..

And only got better as we got crazier and we had more quirky ideas..

Oops! There were ghosts!

And then there were angels.. haha!

We had heaps of fun. And decided to shoot a picture in the darkness with our friend doing angel hoops above our heads. Try standing completely still for 20 seconds. With a frozen smile and eyes wide open. Keeping still was very important because any movement would cause blurriness.

This was one of our best nights in Johannesburg. Very cool!
 

Just for fun, I’ve decided to shelf my DSLRs and shoot with just my iPhone for 4 days.

I’m in withdrawal shock, of course. I keep reaching for something heavy that isn’t there. And I move around going close to everything with this pink looking thingy (my iPhone cover is bright deep pink). The South Africans probably think I’m loony. I don’t think they get why this Asian girl smiles brightly to herself looking at her phone. We need to invade this country and teach them camwhoring.

So, anyways, I’ve been having fun. I’ve shot almost 90% on Hipstamatic on iPhone and the shots are wonderful. You really don’t need a DSLR or great photography skills to have nice photos. You just need to have fun.

Here are snippets of all things at our home in Johannesburg. Love my disgusting big Milo mug.

Some Hipstamatic tips:

		Go to Hipstamatic Settings in Settings. Change Viewfinder Mode to Precision Framing. That means what you see will be what you get in your shot. I cannot do the Classic framing. I never get a good composition with Classic. It gets me edgey.
		Go to Hipstamatic Settings in Settings. At Disable LED Flash, switch OFF. Your flash will work wonderfully now in Hipstamatic and you won’t get a burst of flash light in anyone’s face. Try it!
		When shooting with the Hipstamatic, use two fingers and slide outwards (expand move) on the view finder. The small viewfinder will extend to a large one as big as the camera screen. It’s easier to compose with a large viewfinder. Tap any part of the screen to snap. Perfect for camwhoring.

People often ask which mode I shoot in on my DSLR camera.

I shoot in all modes, EXCEPT Full Auto and Creative Auto on my Canon cameras. In my opinion, if you only want to shoot in fully automatic mode, then invest in a good compact camera. They can deliver the same stuff and are lots smaller and cheaper.

I shoot mostly in Program (P), Aperture Priority (Av) and Manual (M). Actually, MOSTLY P and M. Occasionally Av. And only for sports and fast moving objects do I choose to shoot in Shutter Priority (Tv).

My favourite mode is P. There, I’ve admitted it. People laugh when I say that because I’m always harping on control over photography.. and I shoot in P?

Some people love to say that they shoot ONLY in M. In the past, I used to get very impressed when I hear that someone shoots 100% in M. Until I realised later that what many of these folks do is basically flick the dial till the exposure meter is in the centre (showing that the picture is correctly exposed). Which means that even though they shot in M, the camera still did the Math and decided on the exposure settings for them!

That to me, is equivalent to shooting in P because the camera still did the thinking, the photographer just moved the aperture or shutter speed settings instead of letting the camera move it.

So yeah.. I shoot in M when I need full control and yes, there are moments where full control is necessary. But P is the one that rocks for me.

And this is how I shoot in P -

(1) I select my preferred ISO. Relying on my camera to choose ISO settings has failed me many times. The camera either goes too low an ISO and I lose shutter speed and get camera handshake blur. Or it goes too high when I don’t want it to and I get noisy grainy pictures.

(2) I use the DIAL. Did you know that once you have metered in P mode.. i.e. focus and hear that beep beep sound.. you can rotate the dial and select the aperture/shutter speed that you want? That’s equivalent to shooting in Av/Tv mode. I still get to decide on the aperture or the shutter speed I want to shoot at.

(3) I use the Exposure Compensation feature. When I want a picture to under-expose or be a little brighter, I adjust Exposure Compensation up or down a couple of notches. This allows me to properly expose a dark person.Or a dark environment. Or a subject with a strong backlight.

In M mode, I would manually adjust the shutter speed or aperture to get the desired exposure.

In P mode, I adjust Exposure Compensation to tell the camera the desired exposure and then let the camera set the shutter speed or aperture for me to achieve that. Keep in mind that I would still adjust my preferred aperture or speed settings using the technique in Point (2).

(4) I select my preferred White Balance, especially for indoors. This is one feature that I like having alot of control over. I do not like jaundiced faces and orange-coloured food. I like setting Custom White Balance (see previous post on Setting Custom White Balance here).

So you may ask.. why don’t I shoot 100% in M if I understand the mechanics and can have full control over what I shoot all the time?

It’s because sometimes I just want to be able to shoot real fast. Sometimes there isn’t time to think. Sometimes I need to lift up my camera and be ready to snap a shot. Even if the settings were not perfect, it wouldn’t be a bad shot if my mode was in P. Sometimes I like to relax a little and not have to think too much about settings and just focus on composition for the shot.

Sometimes, I would like to know that my camera and lens.. easily a SGD4,000 combo.. is doing SOME work for me.

Having control over the camera is the key to beautiful pictures. That one, we all know. But having control doesn’t always mean shooting in M mode. It means learning to have control over the features that can help you achieve what you want and you can still have a glass of wine at the same time. It’s like manually sweeping the floor vs learning to use a vacuum cleaner.

So, try it.. don’t be afraid. Check out the P.

Before you slam me, keep in mind again – I’m just a housewife. What do I know? =)
 

A couple of months ago, I had written about participating in a project called Help Portrait.

The Help Portrait is an international effort. Where each year, volunteers get together and do this – they go to the less privileged people, take their pictures, print them and then return and give the pictures back to them.

The actual exercise in South Africa is going to take place from September to December 2011. In the meantime, a group of volunteers and the kind people at the College of Digital Photography in Johannesburg will conduct a series of workshops to align all volunteers’ understanding of the expectations and share tips and techniques on getting great portraits.

The hubby and I attended one of the workshops on Portrait Photography and were blown away by how sincere the volunteers were in sharing their knowledge. It was as good as being in a photography class.. no, better.

The workshop was conducted in a childcare centre and it was beautiful there.

Here’s the hubby, getting a portrait shot with our coach holding a gold reflector.

The kids from the centre were incredibly sweet. They posed as our subjects for our learning and practice and many of them came to me and asked to take pictures with me.

They had a natural curiosity about the camera.

And always loved seeing their pictures in the LCD screen.

I loved learning how to use the reflector to get light to fall on the subject’s face.

I also noticed from this shot that my posture was wrong in shooting this. The elbow should have been tucked in! That’s why I often get handshake blur, because I don’t always remember to tuck my elbows in. Haha..

Fortunately, in good light, the shot still came out great and very sharp.

All thanks to my nifty Canon 50mm f1.4. One of my favourite portrait lenses.

We had a fabulous time and here’s what we learnt -

(1) Shoot in Manual. Set your ISO according to the light environment. Set Aperture to f5 to f5.6 for portrait shots. Then meter with a grey card or an ExpoDisc to get the appropriate shutter speed. This will ensure that your camera gets the correct exposure whether the subject has white or black skin.

(2) Look for soft window light and let the subject stand facing the light. If the light is casting a shadow on the subject’s face, use a reflector to balance it.

(3) Outdoors – look for shade where there is soft outdoor light. Position the subject in front of an object like a large tree or bush, allowing a good distance apart. The object would form a natural canvas for a single coloured background for the portrait shot.

(4) When the light is harsh, look for shade and place the subject right at the edge of the shade. Then use a reflector close to the subject’s face. This would send plenty of light to the subject’s face. My shot of the little girl earlier was shot with this technique.

(5) Where the subject is pale, use a gold reflector to add warmth to the face.

(6) Keep the subject’s eyes in the top 1/3 section of the portrait shot.

(7) Don’t be afraid to pump up our ISO. Speed is critical, especially if we are not using a tripod. Pumping up the ISO gives us more speed.

We really appreciated the training.

It was stressful just shooting about 15 kids here. I can’t imagine the stress I would be in when I have to shoot 50, or 100.. or 300 (!) kids in one session! I have to start practising!
 

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