Peter Oshkai photography

October 29, 2014October 29, 2014

Malta: my first travel photography destination

The trip to Malta in June of 2005 is very special for me. It was a combined conference-followed-by-vacation trip, the first one of many that my wife and I took in the following years. The conference was the first one, which I attended for the first time as a professor, not a PhD student. The vacation that followed was the first one, where we specifically included travel stock photography on the agenda. We read travel guides, brainstormed shooting lists, and spend many fun hours tracking down the destinations. For the first time, we packed a DSLR (the original Canon Digital Rebel) and a professional-grade lens (Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM – the link is to the current, second generation.)

We learned a lot about travel photography from that trip, both in terms of technique and logistics. Looking to capture commercially-viable photos was a big departure from my earlier approach to photography, where my audience had been only our family and closest friends (and I don’t mean Facebook friends – this trip pre-dates social networking as we know it!) Looking back at the photos now, nine years later, I can see how different my style and subjects were from what they are today. The biggest difference is that I largely avoided including people in the photos, while nowadays, that are my main subjects. I believe this is a natural initial stage for many photographers – to focus initially on landscapes, architecture, nature, etc. before gradually progressing to portraits of people. “But I am not interested in shooting people!” was my honest statement at the time when I started doing photography seriously, which I often hear from other beginning photographers.

It takes substantial time to develop skill and personal style in photography. One popular statement is that “the photos you take in the first 10 years of shooting are your worst.” On the one hand, I agree with it. On the other hand, some of my favourite photos are from that trip to Malta. Paradoxically, they have a lot of personal meaning for me, despite being shot for face-less stock consumers.

October 28, 2014October 29, 2014

Advantages of shooting in JPEG format

I usually take photos in RAW format to keep the ability to adjust exposure in post-processing. Having the large RAW files is particularly important for recovering over-exposed highlights.

However, having just completed a two-day photoshoot of a rowing regatta and two soccer games, I can definitely see the advantages of shooting JPEGs. I shot the rowing photos in RAW and the soccer ones as JPEGs as an experiment. Here are some advantaged of the JPEGs over RAW:

Obviously, the JPEGs take up much less disk space. This is particularly important in the case of sports photography, where I typically use a high-speed drive mode of the camera. My Canon EOS-1D X can shoot at 12 frames per second, which adds up to a couple of thousands of images per soccer game with my style of shooting (and I am trying to be selective and not to keep the shutter button pressed all the time!)
I can give some of the photos to the communication officer at the halftime without having to record two copies of the images (RAW+JPEG) or to switch file formats during the shoot.
Perhaps most importantly, large previews are generated much faster in Lightroom, which saves time during culling (selecting the images for publishing) and post-processing.
Finally, the JPEGs produced by modern DSLRs are very good. The noise is reasonably controlled while preserving sharpness, and the exposure is easy to monitor during shooting (by checking the histogram on the camera LCD screen) to make sure no excessive corrections would be needed in post-processing.

October 27, 2014October 27, 2014

Being engaged in the action: difference between professional and amateur photographers

The main difference between sports, travel and event photographs shot by professionals and amateurs is the degree of involvement of the photographer in the action. When I started taking photographs of festivals, sporting events and people in the streets, my subconscious desire was to be a “fly on the wall.” I wanted to convey in my photographs a sense of the action without disturbing the participants or being engaged in the event myself. As I kept shooting this way, my technical skills grew, but it became apparent that it was the non-participant’s mindset that was limiting my progress.

Gradually, I became more comfortable becoming more actively engaged in the action that I was shooting. Part of this is just technique. For example, it is often taught that in order to take better photos of playing children, the photographer needs to get to their level – lay on the floor or on the ground. However, a large part of this approach is mental attitude. If you enjoy the event itself, this notion will be conveyed in the photos, and the way to enjoy the action is to be genuinely interested in it and to interact with the other participants.

This active approach to photography, which distinguishes professionals from many amateurs, is a skill, and as such, it require practice to develop. (I hesitate to say “to master”, because from my experience in kendo, I have yet to see a limit to a particular skill that would qualify as “mastery” – there is always room for improvement.)

So what does it take in practical terms to take photos that convey engagement with the subject?

First, it means getting close to the subject. This implies genuine interaction, often with eye contact. There is no way to fake it.
Second, I take my best photos when I know the subject well. Again, this means genuine interest.
I try to take opportunities to shoot in difficult conditions in terms of weather or lighting. Doing so conveys willingness to share the challenging conditions with the participants of the game, event, etc.
To shoot in challenging conditions, I use professional-level gear (Canon EOS-1D X camera and L-series lenses, for example, a rugged and “fast” Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM).
Finally, there is a real advantage of actually being a professional. A media pass to an official event provides access to shooting positions and locations that are simply not accessible to the general public. So, what to do if you are attending an event as a spectator? Shoot what you can most easily relate to – other spectators, the setting,… convey the sense of your experience. And get to know the players/actors/organizers – this can lead to getting your own media pass for the next time!

October 26, 2014October 27, 2014

Selecting autofocus point for soccer photography

My default autofocus point selection for shooting sports is the central one, because it is the most precise sensor that is able to detect contrast gradients in the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal directions (I am using a Canon EOS-1D X, but this applies to any DSLR, since the central autofocus point is typically the most precise one, regardless of the specific technology).

When shooting soccer games, I sometimes switch to the bottom point to capture the moment when the players jump to receive a high-flying ball with their heads. When I anticipate such moment, for example, when a goalie kicks the ball into the field, I quickly switch the autofocus sensor to the bottom one. I have the sensor selection assigned to the joystick on the back of the 1D X, and one neat feature of this control assignment (which is customizable in this camera) is that pressing down on the centre of the joystick returns the focus selector to the previously used position. I also assign separate default sensors to the landscape and the portrait orientation of the camera (my default for the vertical orientation is the bottom sensor to capture the jumps).

On the other hand, when the action comes closer, I switch to the top autofocus point to focus on the faces of the players.

October 25, 2014October 26, 2014

A day on the water

Head of the Gorge regatta. October 25, 2014.

Today has been a very wet day for me: shooting the Head of the Gorge rowing regatta from an umpire safety boat under rain, followed by a soccer match under even heavier rain (but from a relative comfort of a tent, which was set up just for me). My gear (Canon EOS-1D X, 5D Mark II cameras and the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM and 300mm f/2.8L IS USM lenses) stood up to the challenge beautifully.

I took about 4,500 images from the rowing race and about 1,000 images from the soccer match. Having just finished going through the rowing photos, I must say, the rowing action is not as exciting as soccer, because the motion of the rowers is very repeatable. To add some variety to the final selection of photos, I mix the action shots (both closeups of the facial expressions and wider shots of the entire crew) with portraits of the athletes and the coaches.

During the soccer game, I was confined to the location of the tent, while usually I like to move around the pitch to shoot different perspectives of the action. Fortunately, today’s extreme weather conditions added sufficient interest to the shots. Another plus of the cold, rainy weather was a free cup of hot chocolate, courtesy of UVic.

AA5Q0040_10-25-2014

October 24, 2014

Making math look good: advertisement photoshoot for a calculus course

Last summer, my wife was involved in designing a short course in calculus for incoming first-year students at UVic. To help promote this course, we set up a staged photoshoot with current students and instructors as models. Armando and I set up the lighting (studio strobes with softboxes and umbrellas) in the actual classroom where the course would be taught. We had a relatively short shooting list: couple of shots of individual students writing on the board, a group portrait of them having a conversation in front of the board with formulae written on it, and a group portrait of the students talking to the instructor.

The key image, shown above, is a composite of two photos: a shot of the student pretending to be writing (he was holding the marker in mid-air) and a shot of the math formulae written on a white board with a blue marker.

Here is how I made it:

Opened both photos in the same Photoshop document: the portrait on the background layer and the shot of the board on the layer above it.
Created a Curves adjustment layer above the top layer.
Clipped the adjustment layer to the layer below it. To do it, I clicked the left-most icon at the bottom of the Curves menu, which looks like a square with an arrow pointing down. This makes the adjustment layer affect only the layer immediately below it, not all underlying layers.

Screenshot 2014-10-24 22.26.46

Increased the exposure (by dragging the midpoint of the curve in the layer menu upwards). The purpose of this is to over-expose the image of the white board, so that everything, except the text, becomes solid white.
Selected the layer with the board image, and clicked on the white colour with the magic wand selection tool (activated by pressing W). I held Shift key and click inside all areas enclosed by the blue lines, such as the areas inside the loops of 6’s. This created a mask containing everything, except the blue text.
Pressed Delete key. This removed the white board and left only the blue text.
Removed the selection by going to Select > Deselect in the top menu bar (or pressing Command-D).
Selected everything in the layer (i.e. the text) by going to Select > All (or pressing Command-A).
Went to Edit > Transform >Flip horizontal to create a mirror image of the text.
Selected the move tool (by pressing V) and dragged the image of the inverted text to align it with the marker in the student’s hand.
That’s it! I saved the Photoshop document to preserve the layers. The flattened composite image can be saved in any format afterwards as a copy.

October 23, 2014

Close-quarters shooting using a fisheye lens

As a part of collaborative research of hybrid-powered ships, my colleagues and I recently visited the first diesel-electric vessel in the BC Ferries fleet, M.V. Tachek, which operates between Quadra Island and Cortes Island. I new that we would have an opportunity to visit the machine compartment, among other areas that are normally restricted to passengers, so I wanted to photograph them to document the site visit and to promote this research project on the web.

I expected to shoot in a highly-confined environment with poor lighting, so I packed my Canon EOS-1D X DSLR, which has remarkable low-light performance, and fast lenses (35mm f/1.4L USM for extremely low light and 16-35mm f/2.8L USM for extremely tight quarters).

Also, Armando lended me his Canon EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye lens, pointing out that it would be better for photographing people than the 16-35mm f/2.8L. He was absolutely right. Of course, the fisheye creates a lot of distortion, but this distortion is of a different kind, compared to that of a rectilinear lens, such as the 16-35mm f/2.8L. Since a rectilinear lens is designed to preserve straightness of straight lines, objects near the edge of the frame appear to be stretched and enlarged, which is not flattering to human faces. On the other hand, a fisheye lens covers the 180° field of view by reducing the scale of objects towards the edge of the frame. It also does not preserve straight lines, but since a human face does not contain many straight lines, this is typically not a problem.

As it turned out, the machine compartment of the Tachek was more spacious than I thought, but the fisheye lens produced fun images with a unique perspective.

Here are some tips for using a fisheye lens:

Compose a portrait so that the face of the subject is located close to the middle of the frame to minimize distortion.
If there is a horizon line, place it so that it crosses the centre of the frame – this way, it will not be distorted.
In many situations, such as sports or other action, for example, it is a good idea to switch the lens to manual focus and manually focus just short of infinity. Because ultra-wide angle lenses have huge depth of field, compared to normal or telephoto lenses at the same f-numbers, almost everything in the frame is going to be in focus all the time, regardless of there the focussing point of the camera points to. Turning off autofocus can maximize the framing rate, particularly in low light situations.

October 22, 2014October 22, 2014

Building wedding portfolio: staged photoshoot

A staged wedding photoshoot at the historic Empress Hotel in Victoria was one of the major photography projects for me last summer. Armando and I wanted to expand our portfolio beyond sports, so we approached our friends, who work at Lugaro Jewellers and the Empress, as well as colleagues, relatives and local models and makeup artists and proposed this collaborative project.

The shoot involved three photographers (Armando, Ilijc and myself), two male and two female models, and my wife, who was involved in all aspects from brainstorming the shooting list and posing ideas to coordinating the jewelry inventory. The preparations were fairly involved, and literally every aspect required multiple iterations and coordination with many people. We had to find a date that worked for everyone, contact local bridal boutiques to borrow a wedding dress (one of the models had her own dress) and visit the location beforehand to decide on the lighting setup and the shooting list.

The day of the photoshoot was quite intense, as we planned a lot for the eight hours. We shot in two rooms: first in a library, and then in a banquet hall. At each location, we had two lighting setups operating simultaneously, and the models rotated between them, changing the outfits and jewelry in the process. We used Paul C. Buff Einstein E640 studio flashes with various diffusers and umbrellas to modify the light. We shot with Canon DSLRs (1D X and 5D Mark III) and various lenses, from 35mm f/1.4L USM to 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM (the most useful one) to 85mm f1.2L II USM (most spectacular one).

As I look through the images after being focussed on other projects for a few months, I am glad that I had this pause to become a little detached from the whole planning/staging/shooting experience. Looking at the photos with fresh eyes helps me appreciate how much effort everyone involved put into this project and how much I learned from it.

October 21, 2014October 21, 2014

Converting a noisy photo to black-and-white

I wrote in another post about reducing noise in low-light photos, but sometimes the amount of the recorded light is just too low to yield adequate results. Suppressing the noise in those situations would lead to the loss of details that would not be acceptable. I particularly dislike colour noise – random occurrence of alternating red, green and blue pixels in close proximity to each other.

Sometimes, a very noisy image can be salvaged by converting it to black-and-white. The reason why the resulting monochromatic image looks better than the original is that the colour noise now appears as luminance noise. In other words, there is no longer a visible variation in the colour of the neighbouring pixels – just in their brightness.

Another important advantage of black-and-white conversion for low-light photos is that a monochromatic image would actually show more detail than the colour one. This is because all three RGB channels (red, green and blue) are now contributing information about the contrast and brightness gradients that can be perceived visually. In an extremely low-lit scene, such information is very limited, and any single colour channel might not carry sufficient amounts of it to be processed by human brain. Incidentally, this is why we see night scenes mostly in black-and-white. Any colours that we do perceive at night are either very desaturated or actually produced by our brains based on our prior experiences of adequately-lit objects.

Finally, noise in black-and-white images is more acceptable than in colour ones, because digital noise looks like physical grain in black-and-white film emulsion, which is associated with fine art images. In fact, there are many plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop, for example, that simulate various film grains.

How to convert a photo to black-and-white

There are many ways of doing the actual conversion, but perhaps the most important this to remember is that it is more than simply desaturating the colour.

Using a channel mixer (go to Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer and click the “Monochrome” box at the bottom of the menu) provides great control, but is a bit difficult to master due to a large number of possible adjustments.

Personally, I use a packaged solution – a Nick Collection module called Silver Efex Pro. I usually start with one of the provided presets and adst some parameters slightly, while watching the preview. My favourite presents are “High structure,” “Full dynamic range” and “Film noir.” I rarely use the image in the form it comes out of the preset, because the adjustments do not work equally well for all elements of the photo. I either modify the effect using control points within the Silver Efex, or make several layers in Photoshop, each containing a different effect, and then masking portions of each layer as appropriate. This, by the way, is a general rule for avoiding a cookie-cutter, Instagram-filter-like effect – a post processing effect needs to be applied to parts of the photo selectively.

October 20, 2014October 20, 2014

Best walkaround lens for a Canon DSLR

When Canon 5D Mark II came out, the camera was available as a kit, bundled with a 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens. I really liked the lens, and for a long time, it was my favourite walkaround lens – something than can work in most everyday situations. I shot landscapes, street travel photos and family portraits with it.

The problem is that while the 24-105mm f/4L works well for almost everything, it is also not particularly spectacular in any given situation. It is, basically, a compromise, albeit a very good one.

The wide end of the zoom range (24 mm) is not wide enough for creating really unusual perspective of confined spaces and wrapping the view around corners, which works well for closeups of architectural details (the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM or the Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM are better for these types of shots). The 104 mm focal distance is also not long enough for compressing perspective and isolating far-away details of landscapes (the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L II IS USM is better for this, although it is quite a bit more expensive).

Also, the maximum aperture of f4 is Ok, but not fantastic in terms of bokeh and simply does not gather enough light for indoor sports or concert photography.

Currently, my favourite walkaround lens is Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM. (The photos in this post are taken with this lens.) It may seem less flexible than the 24-105mm f/4L, but in reality, it is not so. I find the 35 mm focal lens ideal for portraits and street photos. I need to get very close to the subjects for an interesting composition, though. The sharpness is superb. The wide aperture allows shooting in near darkness with a modern DSLR and produces very pleasing bokeh and subject isolation.

There are a few challenges, of course. The fixed focal length (lack of zoom) means less flexibility with composition. To complicate this aspect further, if you are shooting wide open, at f1.4 (and why wouldn’t you? After all, this is the main feature of this lens!), the depth of field is so shallow that you cannot half-press the stutter button to focus on the subject and then re-compose the shot, as slightest change in the angle of the camera after focus has been obtained will cause a blurry image. It took me quite a while to get used to, but with practice, getting close to the subjects, placing a focus marker exactly on the subject’s front eye and not re-composing became second nature.

The super-wide maximum aperture is really the key feature, and not only for light-gathering capacity, but mostly for the incredibly shallow depth of field it produces. The ability to isolate the subject in almost any situation is what often makes the difference between an artistic photo and a snapshot. I really appreciated it during our recent trip to Disneyland.

Basically, the 35mm f/1.4L makes no compromises, and is unforgiving because of this. But for the same reason, it can produce unique images.

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