About manual focus

In 2008, I posted this question online - "Manual focus - when is it useful?"

http://photo.net/beginner-photography-questions-forum/00Rd7o

At that time, I was using digital DSLR with all the "haft press to quickly autofocus" practice. For me, manual focusing is too slow to capture the "candid moment", which I was after back then. For that question in Photo.net, I got many replies, all make senses but still suggest that manual focus seems not to suit me well.

Only when I started using the OM (SLR) cameras - then the rangefinder, manual focus has changed my way of seeing, for better or worse. Simply that with these cameras, I have better ways of telling me whether the subject is in focus or not, rather than guessing on a small viewfinder of the Olympus E620.

There is one important thing I realize from that experience : "Manual focus strengthen the connection between me and my subject". Why? With manual focusing, you simply observe the subject with much more attention and... focus. By checking if one's eyes are in focus, you also notice how she smiles, how the hairs look or how the background changes, etc... With rangefinder, you might have to guess the distance between the subject and yourself to pre-focus the lens even before raising the camera up. Slower speed, but much higher attention! And from there, the connection is established - I think.

Last but not least, by focusing manually, you lend yourself much more towards the serendipity, which to me is the wonderful joy of photography. Who do not enjoy the surprised gift? Take this as an example. Here is my favorite shot from the trip to Vietnam in 2012. I saw the boy jumping while walking along the beach in the morning. I was not sure if I got it until I saw the scan and smiled happily.

Olympus OM2 + Zuiko 50mm f1.4 / Tri-X 400

Have you already consider to change your 35mm or 50mm prime lens to MF mode (manual focus) and use it for a week or two? Let's ;)

.last post of 2012

It's another year-end... And there are much to be thankful for. Not because of anything special, but we've learned to appreciate more of what we had and what we are blessed to do.

This year has been rather quiet for us as you can see by the number of posts in 2012. Time is always a constraint, but more importantly, we have been trying to consolidate our work and define/focus more on what are really important to us.

Anyway, this supposes to be our last post in 2012. There is no usual entry of "favorite photos in 2012" since many of our photos/film have not been developed and the projects are still on-going. However, there are some news we want to share before closing this year - 2012.

Our profiles on Light & Composition - Minh Nghia & Mai Phuong

Last but not least, we would like to let you know about our new portfolios. Please pay them a visit at your spare time and let us know what you think. Your feedback will be much appreciated. The sites will be the main channels to share our photos in different genres of photography, since Flickr with its photo-stream style seems a bit messy for that purpose.

Travel Portfolio : https://a2nh.jux.com/

Street Photography: http://a2nh.tumblr.com/ 

Wedding Photography: http://a2nh-wedding.blogspot.sg/ 

It is just lovely to have more than 16000 views of this blog by 2012. It means a lot to us... Thank you so much for stopping by!
May next year 2013 be a another year of happiness, joy and success to you and to us.

Cheers

About portraiture

When making a portrait of someone, you see yourself in that portrait, like looking into a mirror. I read something like that from an interview on American SuburbX (of Richard Avedon, maybe).

It's trust or doubt in the subject's eyes.

It's a cold or warm feeling toward the photographer.

It's not only the subject but your own interpretation of him/her. 

I've just created a blog, Faces @ http://you-me-n-myself.tumblr.com/. Not really a "portfolio", just a place I come to see the face of someone again, or just to see myself..

Analox

"In Transit” - The intertwined landscape of Singapore

In the past 6 months, I tried to bring my camera around as often as possible to complete my project "In Transit", which is to mark my 10-th year of staying in Singapore. In such a small island, nature scenes have been combined with the modern cityscape to maintain the balance. There is no magnificent mountains, lakes or long beaches as ones often admire, but rather the intertwined land-scape of Singapore and the different races makes it so intrigued.

The photos included in the project tried to capture Singapore's landscape, to that extent.

Here are some highlights:

Project link is here. As it is still an ongoing project, I would appreciate very much your constructive comments and suggestions. Thank you! :)
Best view in monitor, not your iPhone, plz ;)

Analox

Family portraits. Again.

I planned to write a post on some "existential questions" about photographs, but then decide not to, as you guys are probably bored with that topic already. Anyway, I saw the scenes of people laughing when looking back at their family photo album in the movie. It got me thinking - we don't do that often anymore, do we? Maybe because we have so many photos these days that make it hard to select, to print and keep in an album. Maybe a life of a photograph ends when it is posted on Facebook and will be forgotten completely in a year, or just a week.

These photos of my family were taken in only 30', just before I was leaving to the airport, back to Singapore. Strangely enough, it is the only time where I can have everyone gathered and a good lighting in the morning to shoot with.   

And they make me smile, happily.

Film: Kodak Portra NC 400 (discontinued)

Camera: Ricoh Diacord G 

Lens: 80mm f3.5

My sister

My sister too

My aunt

My mom

Mom & Dad

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40th anniversary of OM system: Europe on film

This year 2012 celebrates the 40th anniversary of the OM system. Rumor has it that Olympus will release a new line of digital OM system (OM-D) to mark this anniversary. Just like what happened to the EP-Pen series. But that is for the future. 

From Wikipedia: 

"The Olympus OM System was a line of 35mm single-lens reflex cameras, lenses and accessories sold by Olympus between 1972 and 2002 (some accessories were sold through early 2003). ... The range was designed by Yoshihisa Maitani, chief designer for Olympus, and his staff. ... The first model introduced was the all-mechanical M-1, which after pressure from Leica was renamed OM-1. ..."

I only start using OM camera since 2010 and really like it. Maitani's design is simply beautiful. The camera is compact and fits right in my hand. Using rings to control shutter speed and aperture so that you can keep your eyes on the viewfinder all the time. And OM lens has their own reputation, obviously. 

I'll start posting the photos that were taken using OM cameras during my 2 months of staying and traveling in Europe. Shooting about 24 rolls of negative films. Hope the series could demonstrate how the 40-year-old camera system is still capable of sketching the moments.
Camera: OM1 and OM2-MD
Lens: OM 28mm f2.8 / 35mm f2.8 and 50mm f1.4 (1million+ series)
Lightmeter: Sekonic L-308S Flashmate
Film: various brand of negative film, color & BW

Side note: Though the camera's metering is still quite accurate, I prefer using an external light meter to decide "correct" exposure. Not much slower though, since you're already slow when using a manual focus camera! 

So, our first stop - Paris:

Analox

2011 Recap

2011 is coming to an end... Realize we haven't done much, as usual. Folders of photos are still untouched. Films have not been developed. And the vision is still blurry... Nevertheless, it is still worth-while to look back and appreciate what we've achieved in the past 12 months.

Early this year, we created our website for wedding photography, http://a2nh-wedding.blogspot.com/, and did some serious assignment ;). Yay!

We completed our Paris Project (Part 1,Part 2), which composes of our photos taken in Paris in 2009 and 2010. And we finished processing them in 2011, finally!!

We participated in the IPA Street Photography Contest. Not awarded. But the process of selecting our photo entries (i.e., "cut" or "keep") was fun!

I explored extensively on film. Here is my favorites this year. 

We traveled quite a lot. In Asian and Europe. \:D/. More photos will be posted on 2012, I guess. And hopefully there will be Italy Project, Germany Project, or Vietnam Project :D

....

Sometime, I wanted to share more here with my thoughts on photography. And there's a time when I wanted to delete this blog as I'm not sure what's the purpose to maintain it. In the end, let only the pictures speak. Emotion that comes from a photograph to audiences, if any, should be the end result.

Anyway, I would like to thank you all for stopping by and wish you an awesome 2012 ahead!

Cheers !!!

Favourite film shots in 2011..

January:

February:

March:

June:

August:

September:

October:

November:

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Street photography in Wedding...

When a child picks up a camera and pushes the button that simple spontaneous image is a Street Photograph, it is, first of all, a raw reaction to the scene in front of it, a person, a car, a color. That primitive urge to react, to make a picture is at the heart of Street Photography beyond any other area of picture making, it comes before any other agenda.

Nick Turpin - Undefining Street Photography

Some of the shots taken as my pure reactions toward things happens on wedding days. And they become my personal favorites :)

 Analox

Medium Format - an irrational decision...

Here are the facts:

•  A roll of medium format film (MF, 120) is more expensive than a roll of 35mm.
•  You can only take 12 shots with medium format film (6x6 size), as compared to 36 exposures in 35mm.
•  The cost of develop and scanning MF is also more expensive than the usual 35mm.
•  People talk about the rich tonality (dynamic range), the smooth bokeh and great details offered by medium format... But honestly, it is a bit hard to "really" appreciate these in normal small prints and 16-base scan. I also don't think that the bokeh is significantly better, if not inferior to those using 35mm with fast lens 35mm f1.4 or 50m f1.2, etc...

Then why investing on medium format... ? I just love "too much" the square format (6x6) and the big viewfinder (56x56cm) of a MF camera. Plus the cool factor, especially when you hold a twin-lens reflex TLR (here for some examples). Clearly, it is not convincing, irrational, not economical at all.

My first roll of MF was taken on a TLR camera (Ricoh Diacord G) as my Valentine gift from my wife (:X). I often joke that shooting MF shows great respect of the photographer toward the subject. You always has to bow your head (example).

I guess one application where MF should be useful is for photographing landscape. So on my 2nd roll, I tried to capture the light show (every night) at Marina Bay Sand (Singapore) that is only about 5-10 mins. The shot below was taken at 8s, f5.6 on a 50mm MF lens (equivalent to 28mm lens in 35mm format). Until now I start to appreciate the mirror lock-up mode, otherwise, the picture will be shaky due to the vibration when big mirror goes up in long exposure... (a bit technical...)

It's kinda funny that the logical reasons above just vanish when I hold the camera and then saw the pictures from the lab. Sometimes, irrational decision makes sense...

Analox