photography
I went down to the camera shop today, the one that NICO highly recommends, to get my camera flash. At long last I can finally say that I have a rather decent "ok-ok" camera system at home. My camera is so odd. It can survive being knocked and bumped around on the ophir trip like nothing. Yet the flash hot shoe is showing some signs of rust already. All because I have yet to buy a dry cabinet to store it in. The humildity in Singapore is a real killer at times. Especially since the weather has been so baking hot lately.
I've enjoyed taking photographs for as long as I could remember. Back in primary school I was already fiddling around with my Dad's Nikon. Yet I never actually had the chance to own a camera proper. The first camera that was given to me was instead taken apart just so that I could see how the shutter worked. And I didn't know how to put everything back together again.
I actually never owned a camera even as the digital camera boom came up during my secondary school days. Almost always ended up borrowing someone else's. I've shot on everything from Canon, Nikon, Sony, Minolta. The best thing is that I almost never take photographs of myself. Worst that being the photographer, I have almost no opportunity to be in the photograph at all. It is kind of frustrating to hand the camera to someone and that person just looks at the controls in a daze and wonders even how to trigger off the shutter. And me, being the impatient one, never likes to explain how to "press halfway to focus and then all the way to snap".
What's worst than a whole group of people getting into postion, settling down as quickly as they can and putting on their best smile. Only to receive a superb anticlimax when the photographer releases the shutter and says, "Eh! How come no flash one?" and everyone just sinks into a pool of groans and grumbles. I've had people accidentally switch off the camera when I've handed it to them switched on and such and incident above has happened quite a number of times. Notably at the prom.
I never liked the way my prom pictures turned out. For those who had seen them. I looked terrible in all of them! On a sidetrack, I notice that with me and my friend's prom photographs. Those that we shot with the pretty girls all came out BLUR. Honestly, I went with the rest to have their prom photos developed the day after and I could see all the sinking faces when they realised that much hoped for photo that might last for a long time actually turned out blur. It also happened during brother's prom. So I guess there must be a mathematical correlation between "how pretty the girl looks and the steadiness of the hands of the camera-man". Sigh.
For instance, my prom photos had whosoever in the picture basked in the whitish-bluish light of the camera flash at close range. At the same time, the background was totally washed out in darkness. I can imagine how much black ink the developers used up to print the prom photos for the whole of ACJC alone. Especially since that day, with the exception of the highly skilled photographers and their expensive fast lenses, almost everyone took every shot with a camera flash. Group shots were the worst. The more people in the group, the more flashes that blind each of our eyes. It is quite miserable to note that when I stand in front of a nice back drop, nothing except black shows up on the film, no thanks to the camera flash cancelling out all the ambient lighting. Coupled with a fast shutter speed and practically little reflected light from the flash. The photos are often awry.
Similar to this.
While of course, the above photo is open to artistic interpretation. I would like to highlight the fact that all the photographer gets for such a shot is a super bright, over exposed foreground. A poor visibility of the background with very low contrast and the cancellation of all the ambient lighting in the area where the photo was originally shot at. Capturing a freeze motion shot in low light conditions is considerably difficult without a flash. Either everyone stays still for a period of time and the photographer's hands does not shake at all for a period of time lasting perhaps a few seconds. Or else we will end up with blurred up photos like such. Obviously its possible, yet rather difficult to do so.
At the same time, long exposures lasting from a second to 30 minutes are useful to convey an impression of "motion" or to help isolate the focus of the photograph. So it depends on the photographer.
Yet this is totally unsuitable for prom photos. As we do not want a blur picture! Thus one of the solutions that exist for me is to use fast lenses. Fast lenses are just lenses that let plenty of light through at ones. They have been around for as long as SLR cameras have existed. Take Nico's 1979 Nikon F2. Its legendary. One of the truely hand made mechanical cameras that gave Nikon its dominance in the 1970s.
The lens mounted on his camera is a fast lens. Fast lenses are easy to distinguish. Just look at the "F-number" that is written on the lens itself. Anything that has the values 1.4, 1.8, 2.0, 2.4, 2.8 are more or less considered to be fast lenses. Special cases include 3.5 and 4.0. Currently, the lens mounted on this camera is fast enough for indoor, low light photography. Which means the prom, concerts and so on. The lens lets in sufficient light for a higher shutter speed to freeze motion, as well as to capture all the natural ambient colours in the environment. Its beautiful!
Funny that Nico's 1970s mechanical camera can take nicer photos than a modern day digital compact camera with flash!
I guess if not for NICO, I wouldn't even be interested in photography in the first place. I would have just let this interest of mine die off. Its strange. All the way I was into mountain biking and Nico photography. Now it seems as though as we had traded interests. His being mountain biking and mine being photography. I will never go back to compact cameras now that I realise how good interchangeable lenses really are. One of my photographer friends actually told me that if I handed him a compact camera today, he probably wouldn't even know how to use it properly.
Now I'm focusing on saving up for several types of camera lenses to complement my camera, as well as investing in a dry cabinet to prevent the growth of mould on my equipment and I hope that Dad will sponser me for some lenses as well. In the meantime, I'm going to sign up for a proper advertisement free photo gallery and transfer all my current web albums there as well as uploading older photos from the past, and more recent ones like the ophir trip and hopefully, the rugby finals match as well.
I went down to the camera shop today, the one that NICO highly recommends, to get my camera flash. At long last I can finally say that I have a rather decent "ok-ok" camera system at home. My camera is so odd. It can survive being knocked and bumped around on the ophir trip like nothing. Yet the flash hot shoe is showing some signs of rust already. All because I have yet to buy a dry cabinet to store it in. The humildity in Singapore is a real killer at times. Especially since the weather has been so baking hot lately.
I've enjoyed taking photographs for as long as I could remember. Back in primary school I was already fiddling around with my Dad's Nikon. Yet I never actually had the chance to own a camera proper. The first camera that was given to me was instead taken apart just so that I could see how the shutter worked. And I didn't know how to put everything back together again.
I actually never owned a camera even as the digital camera boom came up during my secondary school days. Almost always ended up borrowing someone else's. I've shot on everything from Canon, Nikon, Sony, Minolta. The best thing is that I almost never take photographs of myself. Worst that being the photographer, I have almost no opportunity to be in the photograph at all. It is kind of frustrating to hand the camera to someone and that person just looks at the controls in a daze and wonders even how to trigger off the shutter. And me, being the impatient one, never likes to explain how to "press halfway to focus and then all the way to snap".
What's worst than a whole group of people getting into postion, settling down as quickly as they can and putting on their best smile. Only to receive a superb anticlimax when the photographer releases the shutter and says, "Eh! How come no flash one?" and everyone just sinks into a pool of groans and grumbles. I've had people accidentally switch off the camera when I've handed it to them switched on and such and incident above has happened quite a number of times. Notably at the prom.
I never liked the way my prom pictures turned out. For those who had seen them. I looked terrible in all of them! On a sidetrack, I notice that with me and my friend's prom photographs. Those that we shot with the pretty girls all came out BLUR. Honestly, I went with the rest to have their prom photos developed the day after and I could see all the sinking faces when they realised that much hoped for photo that might last for a long time actually turned out blur. It also happened during brother's prom. So I guess there must be a mathematical correlation between "how pretty the girl looks and the steadiness of the hands of the camera-man". Sigh.
For instance, my prom photos had whosoever in the picture basked in the whitish-bluish light of the camera flash at close range. At the same time, the background was totally washed out in darkness. I can imagine how much black ink the developers used up to print the prom photos for the whole of ACJC alone. Especially since that day, with the exception of the highly skilled photographers and their expensive fast lenses, almost everyone took every shot with a camera flash. Group shots were the worst. The more people in the group, the more flashes that blind each of our eyes. It is quite miserable to note that when I stand in front of a nice back drop, nothing except black shows up on the film, no thanks to the camera flash cancelling out all the ambient lighting. Coupled with a fast shutter speed and practically little reflected light from the flash. The photos are often awry.
Similar to this.
While of course, the above photo is open to artistic interpretation. I would like to highlight the fact that all the photographer gets for such a shot is a super bright, over exposed foreground. A poor visibility of the background with very low contrast and the cancellation of all the ambient lighting in the area where the photo was originally shot at. Capturing a freeze motion shot in low light conditions is considerably difficult without a flash. Either everyone stays still for a period of time and the photographer's hands does not shake at all for a period of time lasting perhaps a few seconds. Or else we will end up with blurred up photos like such. Obviously its possible, yet rather difficult to do so.
At the same time, long exposures lasting from a second to 30 minutes are useful to convey an impression of "motion" or to help isolate the focus of the photograph. So it depends on the photographer.
Yet this is totally unsuitable for prom photos. As we do not want a blur picture! Thus one of the solutions that exist for me is to use fast lenses. Fast lenses are just lenses that let plenty of light through at ones. They have been around for as long as SLR cameras have existed. Take Nico's 1979 Nikon F2. Its legendary. One of the truely hand made mechanical cameras that gave Nikon its dominance in the 1970s.
The lens mounted on his camera is a fast lens. Fast lenses are easy to distinguish. Just look at the "F-number" that is written on the lens itself. Anything that has the values 1.4, 1.8, 2.0, 2.4, 2.8 are more or less considered to be fast lenses. Special cases include 3.5 and 4.0. Currently, the lens mounted on this camera is fast enough for indoor, low light photography. Which means the prom, concerts and so on. The lens lets in sufficient light for a higher shutter speed to freeze motion, as well as to capture all the natural ambient colours in the environment. Its beautiful!
Funny that Nico's 1970s mechanical camera can take nicer photos than a modern day digital compact camera with flash!
I guess if not for NICO, I wouldn't even be interested in photography in the first place. I would have just let this interest of mine die off. Its strange. All the way I was into mountain biking and Nico photography. Now it seems as though as we had traded interests. His being mountain biking and mine being photography. I will never go back to compact cameras now that I realise how good interchangeable lenses really are. One of my photographer friends actually told me that if I handed him a compact camera today, he probably wouldn't even know how to use it properly.
Now I'm focusing on saving up for several types of camera lenses to complement my camera, as well as investing in a dry cabinet to prevent the growth of mould on my equipment and I hope that Dad will sponser me for some lenses as well. In the meantime, I'm going to sign up for a proper advertisement free photo gallery and transfer all my current web albums there as well as uploading older photos from the past, and more recent ones like the ophir trip and hopefully, the rugby finals match as well.
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