Peter Oshkai photography

December 4, 2014December 5, 2014

On using a monopod

A monopod is not a substitute for a tripod for long exposure shots. It enables only slightly slower shutter speeds than what can be managed by hand-holding the camera. However, there are certain situations where using a monopod is very convenient.

The main advantage of a monopod over a tripod is its smaller footprint, so it can be used in crowded places, such as at sporting events. Sport photography often requires a long telephoto lens (I usually shoot soccer or rugby with a Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM and of course, there is Nikon counterpart: Nikon 300mm f/2.8G AF-S ED VR II). It is important to support a long lens not only to avoid fatigue (these lenses are heavy!), but also to reduce camera shake. At many venues, tripods are not allowed, as they take too much space, but monopods can be used. Sometimes, a monopod can be used as a makeshift stationary camera support in very tight spaces, when it is clamped to some heavy object. I have used it in this way in a research laboratory and also at a sporting arena where tripods were not allowed (by clamping the monopod to advertisement panels that surrounded the pitch).

It is also easier to move around with a monopod, even without folding it, to follow the subject.

There are two options for attaching the monopod to the lens (or camera): using a head or using a lens collar. I tried both methods and found that using a collar is more convenient. In the photo above, Armando has his 500mm f/4L lens attached to a gimbal head. When using a head, it should not be tightened too much, so that the camera can be be turned quickly. An alternative is to attach the lens hood directly to the monopod and tilt the entire system slightly to adjust framing. Since long telephoto lenses have a narrow field of view, small inclinations of the camera result in large changes in the framing. The collar should be kept relatively loose, to be able to quickly change from horizontal to vertical camera orientation. Most telephoto lenses have collars, so monopods are usually sold without a head.

When shooting, I find it convenient to angle the monopod and keep its lover end pressed against my foot. This prevents it from slipping on hard or slippery surfaces.

Genrally, I find a monopod quite useful for sports photography, but I would reach for it only if using a tripod is not allowed, impossible or too cumbersome.

December 3, 2014December 3, 2014

Photo contests

Whether participating in photo contests is useful for one’s development as a photographer or not, depends on the photographer, or rather, on what he/she takes away from the contest.

Some contests are judged by a panel of judges, while many online contests (in various Flickr groups, for example, such as Matchpoint Challenge or Flickr’s 100 Best) are adjudicated by the participants themselves. There are even popular sites dedicated to head-to-head photo “duels” (e.g. pixoto). Some sites, e.g. 500px, do not run contests per se, but give photographers bragging rights by ranking their photos and portfolios based on their popularity.

While no competition is objective, I personally value them for the feedback they provide regarding my photos. Incidentally, I found that off-line contests are largely useless from that perspective. Sometimes, the outcomes are surprising, in a sense that some of my personal favourite photos do not resonate with the audience, while others that I do not particularly care about (I would enter them because they fit the theme of a contest, for example) become hugely popular.

It is also interesting to see that different audiences prefer different trends. For example, the 500px community, which consists mostly of photographers, favours more subtle, elaborate post-processing effects than the pixoto community. Pixoto is more representative of a general population, and the preference is given to brighter, more saturated colours and generally images that “pop” more.

Participating in contests gives focus to photography when otherwise might be no external motivation to go out and shoot or creatively process images. Doing this regularly is an important practice for developing one’s skills.

I think that just as it is important for improving my work, receiving criticism helps me develop thick skin regarding the opinion of other people about my work. It may sound counter-intuitive: why invite feedback if what you learn is to ignore it? But it is not ignoring the harsh comments that is valuable, but rather learning not to take them personally. Any artist consciously makes him/herself vulnerable by putting out his/her work out for the World to see and judge. Nevertheless, even though our work is an expression of ourselves (to a degree, this is true of any work, not just photography or art), it does not define ourselves. Developing this concept requires practice, and contests provide such opportunity.

December 2, 2014December 3, 2014

Taking great photos consistently

A question of consistently making significant contributions to one’s field is continuously relevant in my main work, which is academic research in fluid mechanics. I believe that it is also important in photography.

No doubt, taking even a single amazing photo is not easy, but every now and then, even if you know nothing about photography and don’t have the best camera, you will take a great photo just by blind luck. Probably, most amateur photographers have had this experience. However, producing great, or even above-average, image consistently is much more difficult. It takes dedication of a professional to develop one’s skill to that level.

I have been thinking about what is required to make consistent significant contributions to a field (in this case, photography) and came up with the following list:

Knowledge about the techniques: how a camera works, principles of lighting, composition, image processing, etc.
Equipment that is capable of producing above-average results in variety of settings/conditions (read: expensive, pro-level camera(s), lenses and lights).
Learning about the work of other photographers/artists: regularly looking at great images. Thankfully, it is very easy these days with online resources like Flickr or 500px.
Learning directly from others. This includes working closely with other photographers, receiving feedback on your work and generally involving people in your projects.
Practice: shooting regularly, which directly contributes to developing the skills of framing the shot, focussing properly, smoothly releasing the shutter, etc.
Support from family/loved ones. Well, I suppose that if there is no one in your life, it is still quite possible to be a great photographer, but for me personally, my wife’s is involved in all aspects of our photo projects, from brainstorming the ideas to helping during the shoots (or taking care our daughter while I go shooting) to giving feedback on images, has been tremendously helpful. It is not an exaggeration that she simply enables my photography.

December 1, 2014December 2, 2014

Printing photo albums

I have been looking through various options for printing an album for the wedding photo portfolio to showcase my and Armando’s work in that area. While both of us printed photo books before, we wanted to try a top-quality printing company for this project.

These days, there are so many online printing/binding companies that selecting the top one is quite difficult. My personal experience to date has been with the White House Custom Colour (not with books per se, but with gallery wrap prints). The quality was excellent, and one of the canvas prints hangs on our living room wall. I also ordered a couple of books through Apple, directly from iPhoto. I very much liked the result, and the workflow was very intuitive. However, I feel that a wedding portfolio calls for a more substantial binding.

Our top two choices were KISS and The Leather Craftsmen. Both companies came highly recommended by professional photographers in podcast interviews. Both websites have a registration process that involves verification of the user as a professional photographer. After my registration was approved (Yey! An external validation that I am a pro!), I was able to see the price lists. The prices of the albums from both companies are comparable, and they are significant – certainly not what we can afford to just try out by ordering a few different options. That is why it is a difficult choice.

We decided to go with The Leather Craftsmen because of the wider range of available formats. The KISS offers only square format, which is simple, but somewhat limiting for what we want to print. I am looking forward to trying the procedure for preparing the photos and designing the layout of the book and, of course, to seeing the final product.

November 30, 2014December 1, 2014

Shooting position for rugby: following the action

When shooting rugby or soccer, sometimes I stay behind a goal line instead of following the action along the sideline. Besides laziness, there is actually a couple of legitimately good reasons for doing so. The action of these sports looks good from the goal line position – the players face the camera as they run towards the goal. Being stationary also allows me to find a comfortable, low-angle position to shoot from.

On the other hand, following the action along a sideline (when it is allowed, which is not the case at MLS soccer games, for example) provides more opportunities to shoot close-ups of the players and also offers more variety of the action.

This past Saturday was unusually cold for Victoria. In fact, it snowed the night before. Although I dressed for the weather for our university’s rugby game, moving around instead of sitting in one place seemed like a good idea. I wrote before that I usually carry my Canon EOS-1D X with a 300mm f/2.8L IS USM lens on a Black Rapid Y-strap, but this time, I attached the lens to a monopod, which was extended to a height that allowed me to shoot from a standing position. Normally, a lower shooting position, such as standing on one knee, is preferable for sports, but I was willing to sacrifice it for extra mobility (no need to fiddle with the monopod – just set it on the ground, point and shoot). I attached the lens collar directly to the monopod, without a ball head. To frame the shots, I simply tilted the entire monopod. I kept the collar loosely closed around the lens, which allows me to quickly rotate the camera to a vertical shot position.

My associate Armando was shooting the same game from the goal-line, low position using a Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM lens on a Canon EOS 7D Mark II body. With the crop sensor, this combination gave him a very long effective focal lens, allowing to shoot closeups of the action from the opposite side of the pitch. Also, low camera position was excellent for capturing the flying pieces of mud being kicked up by the players.

Between our two shooting positions and different focal lengths used, we captured a good variety of shots from the game.

November 29, 2014November 30, 2014

Basketball photography: autofocus speed

The main drawback of using the Canon EF 85mm f1.2L II USM lens for shooting indoor basketball is that this lens focusses rather slowly. As I wrote in another post, the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, on the other hand, is lightning fast, especially when paired with a built-for-sports DSLR, like a Canon EOS-1D X.

At the yesterday’s game of our university’s team, my associate Armando had an opportunity to directly compare the autofocus speeds of the 1D X and his recently-acquired Canon EOS 7D Mark II. He tried both cameras with a 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, and his impression was that the 7D Mark II was slightly slower of the two. We had a hypothesis of why that might be the case: it is possible that this apparent lag in response is due to a lower battery voltage of the 7D Mark II. The massive battery of the 1D X probably drives the motor, which turns the optical elements of the lens, slightly faster.

When shooting a game like basketball, the autofocus speed is critical for being able to follow the rapidly accelerated players. Having said this, yesterday, I still used the 85mm f1.2L II USM lens because of its incredibly shallow depth of field.

Note: The most important of all camera settings to check before starting an action photo shoot is the autofocus mode. It should be set to AI SERVO, which makes the camera to continue tracking the subject if it moves after the focus has been acquired. In contrast, the ONE SHOT mode, while giving more accurate focus on motionless subjects, does not allow continuous tracking of a moving subject.

November 28, 2014November 29, 2014

Finding time for photography

All the things that are worth doing, take time. (I’d like to credit someone for this quote, but too many people said it.) Photography for me is a part-time pursuit, so finding time to do it seriously has not been trivial. However, it hasn’t been particularly difficult either. How can this be? Actually, photography is naturally integrated in most of my activities, both within and outside work.

The main part of my work is academic research in fluid mechanics. In my lab, we use flow visualization (photography of fluid flows). While the goals are far from artistic (we measure forces on submerged objects, etc.) and the techniques are highly specialized (we use lasers as light sources, for example), the basic concepts are the same as in conventional photography. So there is considerable cross-pollination between my interests in experimental fluid mechanics and taking pictures.

Family activities are even more easily connected to picture-taking. Photography gives focus to our vacation trips. It keeps us closer to our families and friends all over the World. Sharing my photography skills with friends feels good, because there are not many other options to give something as a gift, without buying it. Photographs are something of value that I can create myself. Hopefully, this makes them more personal as a gift. So doing photography while spending time with family and friends does not take away from personal time, but enhances it.

It is the same with my practice of kendo. Taking pictures of matches and practices is not only interesting from photography point of view, but also allows me to study kendo more deeply. In fact, I wrote about balancing these perspectives in this post.

I believe that if we look at our activities closely enough, we find that there is no such thing as multitasking. Having said this, we do variety of things in our lives, and sometimes certain activities, skills or interests enhance our experiences in other areas.

November 27, 2014November 28, 2014

Selecting photos for contest

Selecting my favourite kendo photos for a photo contest turned out to be more difficult than I thought. First of all, I realized that I did not have that many photos of kendo. This is largely because practicing this Japanese martial art (any martial art, for that matter) and photographing it are mutually exclusive. Still, I have a few shots from tournaments, taken after I had been quickly eliminated from competition.

Keeping in mind that the goal of the contest is to produce a calendar for fundraising, I was looking for high-impact shots, not necessarily those that would be interesting from the standpoint of studying kendo. Also, I wanted to submit a uniform-looking selection, so I decided to convert all submitted shots to black-and-white (or monochrome, to me more precise). Actually, I found that a present called “Yellowed 2” from Nik’s SilverFX 2 plugin works well for kendo photos (after removing the image border).

Converting to monochrome also serves two other purposes: it reduces appearance of noise and it removes distractions from the background. Kendo matches are usually held in school gymnasia, which are painted in colours that are quite horrible for artistic photography. Also, it is next to impossible to avoid the spectators in the background, who wear clothes of all sorts of colours. Even is they are out of focus because of the shallow depth of field (I used Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM lens wide open), the distracting colours are still there. Converting the photos to B&W makes the background colours uniform, which enhances apparent subject isolation.

So my contest submission is done. Would it be nice to win? Sure! After all, the first prize is a ticket to the World Kendo Championship in Tokyo. Wouldn’t it be nice to say: “I was selected to go to the WKC!” Oh, the irony… As I said, kendo photography and kendo practice are mutually exclusive.

November 26, 2014

Family Christmas card idea

This year, we wanted to take family photos that we could use for a printed Christmas card, but did not want a formal, “studio” look. My wife and I took some photos of each other and our daughter, while we were painting wooden Christmas tree decorations in our living room. The photos were not strictly “candid”, since we were aware of the camera, but we used only ambient light to imitate the candid, spontaneous photo style.

The lighting was quite dim, so the photos turned out quite noisy. This is Ok, however, since the prints are going to be very small, so they can handle quite a bit of noise reduction in post-processing. We used a Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM lens on a 1D X camera body. I set it to a manual mode with f/1.4, 1/200 sec and auto ISO. I found that our daughter moves sufficiently fast, and the camera with the 35mm lens needs to be sufficiently close to her, that a slower shutter speed gives too much motion blur.

For a group portrait of all three of us, I set the camera on a tripod and used a 10 sec timer. After a few tries we got a decent shot, but shooting with the wide aperture gave a narrow depth of field, and our daughter ended up being slightly out of focus. Hopefully, this will look Ok in a small image on the card.

A really precious and unexpected moment for us happened when our daughter walked over to the camera that was sitting on the tripod and started taking photos of us. Below is her very first photograph. As a parent, I am biased, naturally, but I like it!

November 25, 2014November 25, 2014

How much processing is enough

When doing artistic image processing, knowing when to stop is important. In a non-digital world, for example, when painting, continuing to paint beyond a certain point could actually ruin the picture. The colours would become dirty and lose vibrance. With a digital image, there is always a possibility to undo the last action, so as long as the versions are saved regularly, there is no danger of losing all the work. However, there is certainly a point of diminishing returns, when doing a lot of work results in progressively less and less noticeable changes in the image.

I find that some image adjustments are almost always worth doing. They are cropping, colour balance and exposure adjustments. Playing with them does take some time, but the results are significant and there is a good chance of drastically improving an image by playing with these tools.

On the other hand, more detailed work, such as local dodging and burning, using a Liquify tool in Photoshop, skin smoothing in portraits, etc. is not always necessary. Of course, the more work you put in the image, the better it ultimately becomes, but the return on the time investment decreases. There is one counter-argument to this, though, which is quite significant to me. When I spend time working on an image, I am not only investing time in improving it, but also in learning new skills and techniques. In the long run, this makes me more efficient overall. I learn which methods work or don’t work for certain types of images. I also learn to apply various methods faster.

Generally, whether an image is over-processed or not is a very subjective question. I believe that in order to make a photo unique, I have to touch most of its pixels with a brush (I use a Wacom graphics tablet) at some point in the editing process. Having said this, time is a very precious resource, and while I am doing fine tweaks, which might not be noticed by anyone, except myself, I am not doing something else, for example, shooting more photos or learning new techniques. In my experience, the “optimal” stopping point in post-processing is actually not a true optimum, in the optimization theory sense of the word. Rather, it is a bit of a moving target. Finding the balance between under- and over-processed image is like riding a bicycle: sometimes, I lean more one way, sometimes – the other. The important thing is doing it consistently and avoiding extremes.

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