Juicing to Perfection

Smartphones nowadays have become incredible juice-sucking devices. Manufacturers are squeezing more and more features into phones to the point where conventional lithium ion battery technology is struggling to keep up.

I managed to get hold of one of these ‘power banks’ which are really just big batteries that hold a lot of charge and can be set to charge mobile phones and other devices. I got myself a Sony-branded one.

Here is how it looks like:

 

Now it’s time for me to get a shorter charging cable.

English as it is Broken

English as it is broken. But I think that whoever wrote this had indeed taken that whole ‘broken’ thing to the next level.

I don’t expect to see any ‘motorbites’ parked there anytime soon.

Instagram Madness

The iPhone proved to be a very capable photographic tool, and when Instagram came along, it redefined the smartphone as not only a tool for recording visual information, but one for sharing them as well. Here are some pictures taken with Instagram.

Concert Photography - My First Attempt

Concert photography is not something everyone will enjoy, but for those who wish to take a first step in this direction, having the right preparation is necessary. My first attempt at concert photography was a little while ago, when I was shooting under Wedding Celebrations Studio for Sungha Jung's concert at the Kuching International Airport. Sungha Jung was brought in to perform by Borneo To The World, a soap maker and newly-opened retailer at the airport. I would personally think their marketing strategy proved extremely successful, at least judging by the size of the crowd and the attention they were getting.

I only had two hours to prepare. A quick poking-around the web returned some interesting results on what gear to bring and what to expect during the event.

 Listed below were the items I brought along. Because I anticipated I might be moving around quite a bit, I decided to pack light.

1. Camera: Nikon D7000
2. Nikkor 35mm f1.8 DX.
3. Nikkor 18-105mm f3.5 - 5.6 DX

 I presume that the above setup would be largely dependent upon the type of concert photography (Yes! There are sub-genres!) you decide to get into, but having a fast prime would be mostly adequate as most concerts are set in venues with low ambient lighting. Having a camera body which can shoot at 'stupid high' ISOs (as Ken Rockwell put it) would certainly be an advantage. You may have also noticed that I did not include a flash. This is because flash photography is often not allowed, or even if allowed, it may be restricted to certain settings and under specific circumstances.

The truth is, you don't really need to have cutting-edge gear. Having a eye for good composition and some luck should suffice for most people. Below are some photos taken during the event. Click on the pictures to view the EXIF data.

If there was something important I learned about concert photography, it is about photographing minute and often-overlooked details. It is these things that help convey and express the persona of the subjects being photographed.

If it was hard working when the ambient lighting was too low, then it was even more challenging when you have distracting elements constantly creeping into the frame. A quick fix would be to get closer to your subject and have it fill the frame, thus pushing out all the distracting elements. Converting your photos to monochrome helps too.

Shown below is another version of the above photo, but in full color. At this point, you may notice that when the photo is rendered in black and white, we tend to focus on the texture and outlines of the subject.

Having your gaze fixated solely on to the performer(s) will tell little about the surrounding. I decided to include a bit of the audience in the above frame to give the picture a bit more impact. Shown below are a few more examples. This is a good way to 'throw' the viewer right into the heat of the action.

Metering Basics

Hi everyone! I've included in the how-to section above my latest article on metering basics. In this article, I will explain the three fundamental metering modes available in most digital cameras out there in the market. Please leave any feedback in the comments below. Happy reading!

Lionel

Photography Notes for the Rest of the World

It's been a while since I updated my blog, due to my hectic schedule. It is not easy juggling many tasks at a time, especially when you have to work 14 to 18 hours a day. It's not easy being an entrepreneur. Sometimes I wonder what keeps me going.

Anyway, I digress. I've recently managed to squeeze in a bit of time doing some write up on my iPad (Pages for iOS is AWESOME), especially since the 'right idea' inevitably pops out when I least expect it. Having a pen and paper at this time would certainly be great, as my sometimes quirky nature to multitask often means what I have in 'active memory' gets blown out of the window, but having an iPad to lug around is certainly the 'in' thing, but...

LIONEL! Stop writing nonsense!

Ok ok..so back to the topic.

I have decided to spend some spare time sharing my knowledge in photography with the rest of the world and what better way than to have them downloadable as PDF files right? I have added a 'How-to' section which you can access from the menu bar just above. If you have any suggestions on how to improve the articles, please do leave a comment below.

Raw vs Jpeg Part 2

In my previous blog posting, I mentioned about the differences between shooting in Raw and JPEG, as well as some the pros and cons between the two.

In this posting, We will be doing a side-by-side comparison between a JPEG image and a Raw conversion.

Comparisons will be done at 100% crops, so you can see how well Raw files retain fine details.

Conversion of Raw files will be done with ViewNX 2.

JPEG Output (Click to Enlarge)