Down at Echo Beach in Canggu, Bali. Sunset on 30th December 2011. Watching the surfers surf the end of the year away happily grabbing the few last waves of 2011. 

The good 'ole 100-400mm lens having to check the lighting constantly as it quickly got darker - trying to keep the shutter speed as high as possible.

Check out the full stream here on Flickr.

   

This Sunday involved getting out the strobes, lightboxes and trusty onOne software on the iPad. I had reviewed this in an earlier blogpost and again it came to the rescue in getting the lighting right and previewing the shots.

After a shopping spree the day before, and all the great summer fruit that is now here on the shelves from down-under (including some of the best nectarines I have had in over a decade) it was out with my two trusty flash units to try some food photography. 

Inspiration came from Nicole S. Young (Nicolesy) - author of Food Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots and (micro)STOCK: From Passion to Paycheck. Links to these can be found on her blog.

I have put the best shots up on the select project gallery here. On editing the images it also becomes clear that a single image can create many moods with different crops.

There is still plenty of room for improvement but it was good to try and prove the fact that backlighting food is always a must and use of softboxes to ensure a directioned but soft light was key to preventing harsh lightspots on the shiny fruit.

It was a grey drizzly day which helped keep the ambient light consistent and soft so I wasn't fighting harsh shadows on the display table.

In the meantime I have put the best of the best up here on 500px. While Flickr will still hold a large number of my general shots, I am aiming to use 500px to host the ongoing best works over time.

I spent a weekend in Hanoi in early August. Hanoi still remains an awesome city in my eyes and the few days I spent there and the people I met who helped me around - Mrs Kieu Phuong (a wonderful local guide) and Ngo Vi Phong (a fellow photographer) - were wonderful people who I hope I continue to meet every time I go.

Just outside of Hanoi are small villages specialising in hat making, frames for tables, lights and birdcages, as well as noodles !!

Hanoi is unpretentious, warm and friendly which I think is representative of the modern Vietnam.

My main portfolio is here @ 500px - a new website for real images above and beyond the happy snaps of Flickr and Facebook.

You can also see my second choice set here at Flickr. 

Enjoy - and if you get the chance - spend a few days in and around Hanoi - you wont be disappointed.

I do recommend Oriental Bridge for guides for novices in the area.

The bonus appeared to be a bright clear sky and an emerging sunset that bordered on spectacular. After firing off a few test shots I settled down to try and get the intense pattern of light with the aircraft wing neatly silhouetted on the left hand side of the shot.

Lesson learnt - dont leave the camera in the overhead compartment and get a window seat !!

Next - The Gear. With the studio providing all of the lighting control all I really needed was the camera and some music. But I had a new gadget up my sleeve. I wanted to get an idea how the iPad could be used to help manage the shoot.

The conclusion - WOW !!!

onOne Software has a couple of apps for the iPhone and iPad. DSLR Camera Remote HD for the iPad is not cheap but boy does it make a difference to the simple dynamic of the shoot itself.

Here are the main benefits

This is what you can do -

• Fire the shutter release
• Control and change the camera settings
• Get a full size image review and zoom in and out using iPad finger touch movements
• Quickly review recent shots
• Do all of this without being tied down by a cable.

Firstly controlling all of the settings on your camera from the application means walk away and maintain full control and view of what's happening.

This means whack the camera on a tripod. Get your test subject or model to stand on the designated spot. Set up the basic composition and start the magic.

I was now able to walk around the studio and change light intensities and camera settings constantly firing off test shots and reviewing each without having to run either back to the camera or to the laptop itself - this is sheer genius !!

Having a friend assisting meant he was able to accompany me around and help me by freeing me up to change the lights, offer advice and trigger shots and show me the on the spot previews while I was wrestling with light stands and studio strobes.

Secondly you now have this full 9" screen that feels great and is so easy to use

The preview screen allows very quick zoom in using the normal finger touch movements. In a studio (and any other shoot) with my highly valuable assistant, comments like "You didn't quite get the eyes in focus on that one" provided quick feedback enabling me to constantly check my settings and quickly adjust my composition or camera to help out.

Also this nice big screen with it's touch interface meant that while reviewing shots and lighting, adjusting the camera became very easy. Controls are adjusted by simply touching ISO, aperture, shutter speed settings and using the simple dropdown lists to select the new value.

The Technical Logistics

Before you start you need 2 things.

1. One of onOne's iPad or iPhone apps from their website
2. The onOne server software running on a computer - this is a free download

Setting up

Connect both devices to the network
Your iPad and your computer must be connected to the same wifi network. This can be an existing network or you can have your laptop broadcast it's own network directly and connect the iPad to that.

Physically connect your camera to the computer and start the server
You attach your camera with a USB cable to the laptop. I have an 8 metre cable for this purpose.
Turn your camera on and start up the server on the laptop. A little window comes up telling you it has started, gives you an ip address and acknowledges your camera.

Start up your onOne remote app
Start the app on the phone or iPad. It will look for a server on the network. When it finds it you just select it and you are off and running.

There are some extra options about saving files on the server as well as the remote device and you may want to play around with these settings to get the best result that suits you.

And finally the results

Photoshoot credits

Model: Prathabini
Make-up: Hari
2nd Photographer: Stuart Main

This means that even though shooting straight up in to the sky there is enough details in the buildings to capture both the building face that is in a noon shade as well as the sky and clouds such as this shot on the right.

Much of the year in Singapore the sky is a light grey or hazy white. Being close to the equator getting strong blue skies is always a challenge. The atmosphere is thick, there is often a haze from the ocean, the humidity as well as a reasonable amount of general pollution in the air.

The other weekend when I was out doing some construction themed shots I was blessed by good colour in the sky. With the sun also nice and high in the sky the shadows were not too stong.

So how does this help.

In this case I was able to put the sun behind a cloud and get the reflection off the side of a building. By bumping up the shutter speed metered off the sky directly I was guaranteed to get good definition in the sky itself.

This left the building face a little dark. Now normally we might reach for an HDR technique to bring back some of the range, however in this shot, I was able to simply reach for the fill flash slider to add a bit of light into the darker (but not completely blacked out) shadows, giving me a good tonal range, maintaining definition, and not unimportantly, only taking a couple of seconds to complete the final processing tweaks.

In the case of the 2 shots below I was able to put the sun behind the cab of the crane and get a good upward perspective shot. A nice 1 stop under exposure on the meter indicated the perfect exposure to bring out the detail in the sky.

Again a good touch on the fill light exposure slider (44) in Lightroom quickly brings back sufficient detail in the foreground to finish an interesting exposure. The camera was set to capture the colour in the sky leaving the foreground a little too dark for interest but a quick tweak on the fill light adjuster rather than several minutes it may take using HDR processing provides a perfect end product.

So consider this next time the light is overhead and strong. Shoot up and meter off the sky to bring out the full detail and sky richness. You may want to bracket -1 0 +1 to make sure one of the exposures is spot on. Use the fill light adjustment to make any tweaks to bring out the detail in the shadows. Note: this technique will not work if the shadows are a deep black rather than just darker tonal shades.

Since then the camera market has gone head to head, pixel counts have stabilised and noise has been all but eliminated. While I did hear a professional photographer once ask why you would want a 6400 ISO setting (let alone 64000) when 800 at f2.8 is the fastest you really need.

OK so I hung out for a while and bypassed the 30,40,50 and 60 as nothing really grabbed me functionally. Then finally Canon release the 7D and it looked like the perfect upgrade - targeted specifically at the same market that snapped up the 20D when it was released.

Now we have the rumours on the 5D mkIII. OK, one camera is a little more expensive than the other but the picture quality is near perfect, fps rates are high, noise is at an all time low. The camera rumors at 26mp, DigicV, 5fps, HiRes LCD. Canon has already caught up with Nikon on the in camera remote flash control.

All the improvements in cameras now are about new technology and new gimmicks but in reality the in camera picture quality has surely reached a boundary. I did some of my early training in the 80's on videography but my passion remains in still photography.

So I will continue to purchase upgrades as the cameras die their technological deaths.

But on picture quality, resolution and capability for still photography - is there really anywhere else to go ?

Photography and the appeal of a photo lies in the eye of the beholder. Before we get into all the processing techniques, the ideas behind creativity and inspiration and explore the elements of composition, a photograph starts with an idea - this may be on the spot spontaneous or a long considered project.

Of course like everything in photography these ideas are not always held in isolation and are often combined in any given image.

1. The subject itself

Probably the most common great photos feature a single simple great subject. Landscapes, portrait, food and other stuff. Well composed, great light all add to it but quite often the main idea behind the photo is the singular subject that is it's focus.

These two shots are not mine. They come from a fellow photographer and are good examples of a great portrait and a very pleasant scene of a village in Switzerland. View more of Mark's shots at his Flickr stream.

The idea behind each is single simple and interesting subjects.

2. Texture, patterns, lines, colours, geometry

Some photos are not about the actual subject. Photography also has the ability to capture and highlight textures, patterns, geometry etc. These two photos feature 2 relatively banal subjects - a bag of flowers and a staircase. However in both, the colours and patterns help create appealing images. Macro photography often looks to use these ideas behind its compositions.

The colour and texture of the flowers presents a warm picture. Whereas the silhouetted and angled staircase on the side of the building provides an interesting set of lines and angles.

3. A magic moment

Some images are not just about the image itself but the moment in which it was captured. The main idea behind this type of image is to capture a special moment. This is often done in slow or fast capture shutter times. In these cases the idea is to grab a view of the subject that is fleeting or momentary.

This one - another great shot from Mark - who has a fondness for small town country rodeos in Australia. In this case the expression on the cowboy, the flying dust all contributes to the mood expressed in the photograph.

4. A story

The idea behind images that tell a story is that a number of elements in the frame combine to tell a joint story. The image itself remains incomplete or relatively dull with only one or two of the elements, but the combined interaction of these creates an interesting composition. This is not about just having many copies of the same thing in the frame but the direct relationship between the elements in the image.

In the photo above, the play of the cigarette, the dangling ash overhanging the freshly butchered meat are offset by the onlooker in the background who's expression is curious and not easily readable. The depth of field ensures that while blurred the onlooker is sufficiently in focus to be recognisable and clearly part of the pic.

5. An expanded vision

In the art of photography the camera is part of the process as is the wet and digital darkrooms. Probably the most common post processing technique is converting photographs into black and white. I know some don't like the idea of post processing but the type of processing I am talking about is not adding or removing items from the photo but playing with the light information in the photo to create an image conceived in the mind that moves past the simple captured shot.

I personally come from the school that believes that processing pictures to extend a vision beyond the simple limited image capture is a perfectly valid approach to creating art. I do not do alot of processing but do accept it as a perfectly acceptable artistic technique.

These two shots in colour come across as just average. The transition to black and white and sepia enhances the tone of each to provide striking and moody images. The night time street scene is from a friend of mine and you can catch his extensive collection at Chaani's Flickr stream.

Another technique is to move the camera itself during the capture process. In the image below there is no post processing. The zooming movement while depressing the shutter creates the moving image and a more interesting result than the simple stationary statue.

 Think about the above when out shooting and use the above to help guide and direct your creative process.