A Looming Problem - The Wide Angle Lens

Those of you who have shot 21mm Super Angulon lenses on Leica film cameras may skip this post. Also anyone who has ever owned an 18mm Hologon. You know the drill already.

I discovered the effects of superwide angle shooting at the Burswood Hot Rod Show in 2012. I took the 8-16 Sigma lens into the Burswood Dome on my Nikon D300 and shot away. The images in the viewfinder had straight edges - the 8-16 does not do fisheye distortion. They looked amazing - despite the fact that the lighting was appalling.

A recent review of those pictures horrified me. Every car shot from the front or rear quarter looms out of the picture like a cartoon monster. It is reminiscent of the worst of the old Linhof Chamber Of Horror articles. I got the cars on the sensor in the crowded conditions, but the images are neither attractive nor accurate.

I tried again with the 23mm lens on the Fujifilm X-100 at the Big Al Show this year and was pleased with the results - as the lens replicates what the 35mm lens saw on a film camera, there was much less distortion. Mind you, it was necessary to back off further on the open ground to get the entire car in the frame, and this might have been difficult in a closed venue.

The compromise between the two seems to be a focal length of 18-19 mm on an APSC sensor. It approximates 28mm on a film camera. I can achieve it on the Fujifilm X-E2 with the 18mm f:2 lens or by screwing the WCL-100 to the front of the X-100. There is more to see, but it does not loom out of the picture - a good balance.

And I can agree with Fujifilm - the WCL-100 does not degrade the image of the X-100 lens in any way.

Note: the Bugatti is a deliberate artwork in the Art gallery of NSW. Marvellous, but not driveable, except in your dreams.

Mass Murder For Photographers - Is There An Alternative?

As I took pictures yesterday at the car show I was struck by several things. Prams, fat Englishmen, and delusional farmers from Dalwallinu. Photography in crowds can be like that, and the chief thing that it will put you in mind of is being caught in a stampede in a Brazilian football stadium.

I have tried to develop a scientific theory of crowd movement in hopes of devising some way to circumvent them. When I try to take a picture of a vehicle it is always best to have an unimpeded view - my readers don't want to see a family of five out for the day.

Public shows attract the public, however, and they move in packs  - slowly - from one exhibit to the next. It probably would not matter whether they were viewing Fabergé eggs in the Winter palace or dried fruit at the Royal Show - they would still move in a stately and disorganised manner and would block the view of anyone trying to photograph the exhibits. There is a rhythm to their wanderings - one group moves out of the way and another one moves in - it is almost as if they are doing a tag-team. They do not move quickly, but they do effectively prevent taking the picture.

The picture of the bus is a case in point. I am delighted with it, but I realise that it cost me over ten minutes of waiting and clearing my throat to achieve the empty space. I am glad that the camera was operating at 1/500 of a second as this was about the interval before the next kid with the ice cream piled into frame.

I think part of the problem is the fact that the Fujifilm X-100 outfit is so small and unobtrusive. Also I dress not to be noticed. So no one notices that I am trying to do a job there. In the old days of a medium format camera and a tripod and a bulb flash on a coiled cord you made more of a statement and people kept out of the way.

Perhaps it is time to put the X-100 on a tripod and the flash on a coiled cord. Plus wear a high-vis vest with Official Photographer on it. Or to be more accurate...Officious Photographer. Most of the crowd wouldn't know the difference.

Proof Of The Pudding

You'll recall that the last blog posting mentioned a new wide-angle converter for the Fujifilm X-100 series of cameras. It converts the 23mm lens that is fixed on the X-100 and X-100s to 19mm. You might think that 4 mm wider is not significant...but it really is.

Wide angle photography is a funny business. Leaving out panoramas and wide-format film cameras...and these are truly funny...we come to the way that standard digital cameras can be made to see a wide view of the world. Please keep in mind that wide also means high - when you drop the focal length by whatever means you effectively pack more into the frame vertically as well as horizontally. In other words you don't change the aspect ratio as you shoot.

Except, of course, when you do, Some cameras allow you to shoot in a 16:9 format to accommodate wide-screen television display. One client recently found that his camera has an external switch that does this, and when he inadvertently clicked it over he got image files that do not print out all that well on standard 2:3 inkjet paper. Now he knows.

For my part, I exercised the new converter on the X-100 at the Whiteman Park car show yesterday. There was a Nikon SB 700 helping to add sparkle and to cope with the shadows when the sun came out. It all worked splendidly.

As far as I can determine, the shots from this show are every bit as sharp as those taken with the companion camera - the Fujifilm X-E2 - taken at a previous show. In addition, the leaf shutter of the X-100 meant that I could run the shutter speed up and down for background effect without worrying about  getting the wrong flash synchronisation.

The focal length on the camera is now effectively 19mm and this approximates to 28mm on a full-frame camera. This is wide enough to allow a little closer shooting at a car show but avoids the looming corner effect of wider focal lengths - this is about as wide as you want to go to preserve some proportion in the result.

It must be noted, however, that if you need to go close-in, you need to unscrew the converter, turn off the powerful Nikon SB 700, and use the in-built flash on the camera. If you leave the converter in place you get a semi-circular shadow on the bottom of the image where the lens blocks the light.

Methinks the next stage of experimentation is to put a Fujifilm TTL flash on a coiled cord and see if it can overcome this handicap.

Watch This Space - Bookshop On The Move

We don't normally advertise other people's business here at the shop, but here is an exception for our photographic customers:

Boffins Bookstore is in the process of shifting its premises in Perth. It has occupied a position on Hay Street for decades and has established itself as the premier technical bookstore in the state. Actually it has outlasted most of its competitors, but done so by dint of good stock and good service.

I believe it is going to open again in William Street in the central block opposite Wesley Church with larger floor space and more departments. As I pass the site on the bus in the morning I eagerly look to see when it will open. Hurry, guys, hurry...

All this being said, I would encourage all of the Camera Electronic clients to look down the back of our place at the book shelf near the back door. We will be stocking it with lots of odd secondhand titles that pertain to photography. You can get a lot of ideas - some of them good ones - from books, and you can learn far more than the limited attention-space of the internet will present.

Note: I must confess a personal interest in Boffins. My daughter spent years working with them when she was a student and I have spent hours and dollars in there. My bookshelves at home groan with the produce of this shopping. No book has ever been unprofitable...

X-E2 - Picking The First Fruit

It has recently fallen to my lot to possess a Fuji mirror-less camera. It is not the first camera of this brand for me - I also use a Fuji X-10 and a Fuji X-100 - but it is the first one that has an interchangeable lens.

It features the new X-trans sensor, and the literature promises great things in terms of resolution and freedom from distortions. I ventured out yesterday to test the camera and to compare it to the others.

At the start, I have to say that the images were taken on jpeg rather than a RAW setting. My current operating system does not support an update of the Photoshop Elements to decode this new RAW. Nor does my Aperture program - but I am not too worried, since I know that the jpegs that come from the Fuji X series are nearly perfect...as long as i do my job and get the exposure right.

Of course if the scenes I take are evenly and brightly lit I can just trust to the matrix metering in the camera to deliver the right settings. Putting the shutter speed and the aperture ring on "A" and just letting them get on with it is totally successful. But I'm a awkward soul - I deal with subjects that are brightly coloured, reflective, and parked in appalling light. Cars are fun, but the lighting isn't.

To defeat this problem, I use a rig made of a Nikon Sb 700 flash, a flash bracket, and whatever camera system i have at the time. Sometimes it has been big film cameras, sometimes big DSLR cameras, and sometimes a small Fuji. The flash on the fuji bodies can be switched to command an external flash and I just dial up the power I want on the SB 700. I also run an outboard SB 700 on a small Manfrotto stand.

Yesterday's cars were veteran and vintage - a majority of which have solid colour paint schemes. This is good - metallic paints can be a pain to photograph as they send back troublesome hot spots from flash. I set the X-E2 to the bog standard settings and blazed away. You cannot say to start with what custom settings might be necessary for each new camera in each category of subject, so it is better to start from a central point.

In the event, I think I will dial down the saturation for car shows in the future - the dull-coloured cars are helped, but if the owner has decided to paint his Maxwell red the result can be a little Mexican...This will also apply to belly dance and Bollywood shows as the dress designers generally turn their colour control to "9" and throw the knob away to begin with.

I noted that there was little need to invoke unsharp masking for the images from the X-E2 in Photoshop. the jpegs seemed as sharp as needed straight up. Indeed there was very little PShopping done to the whole shoot - as long as I dialled the SB 700 anywhere near the correct fill ratio the results were ready to crop and save.

I will experiment next with the X-E2 at a belly dance hafla in April. You get to see the results so make sure you are over 18!

Headlights

The first thing that we see when we look at people are the eyes - and the first thing that we see when we look at cars are the headlights. Sometimes the first thing that we see when we are looking at pretty girls are the headlights but that is an entirely different story...

Back to he cars. If you are going to capture the essence of  that car you need to feature the lights and some of the grille. Even if there is no grille...like with a VW or Porsche...you need to show the eyes of the car.

The Plodge* that you see on the heading image is a 30's car, and those lights are complex glass sculptures that need careful lighting - no pun intended - to bring out the patterns. Lucas lights and other spot lights may also need extra illumination to show the center bulb structure.

The choice of flash in this case meant that the shadows caused by bright sun light could be filled in. Any dedicated TTL flash works well for this if it is on the appropriate body. You can even use one that is not TTL as long as you can adjust the output somehow and fire it from the camera. This image used a Fuji X100 and Nikon Sb 700 flash and worked fine.

If your car owner can turn on the headlights, and if you are photographing it  at dawn or dusk, so much the better. If not, you can always fudge it a bit in Photoshop.

Go towards the light...

* Dodge with Plymouth components. A particularly Australian variant, made in Adelaide.

Fudge...Oldsmobile fudge...

Begone Dull Care - Begone Dull Car

 Did goe to Gillam Drive yesterdaye for to see the hot rods and was greatley entertained.

This follows upon a visit to a celebration of the motor car on a previous weekend. The venues could not have been more different, nor the visitors, nor the cars. Indeed the photographers were similar, but with an important difference.

The venue is a strip of street that is lined with panel beaters, spare-parts yards, and chop shops. If you know what a chop shop is I need say no more about it. The street is hot in summer, cold in winter, and dusty withall. There is a lunch bar, that serves Chiko rolls and pies and pasties. With sauce.

The people who frequent the Gillam Drive show are variously described as rockabillies, rodders, rednecks, bogans, or motor-car enthusiasts - depending upon the prejudices of the observer. They dress well, and not so well, and badly, and appallingly - again based upon the observer. They wear caps, and hats, and mullets. Sometimes all three at once.

They are invariably cheerful, and well-behaved. They respect each other's cars and conditions. They appreciate the opportunity to show and see and cooperate with each other. They may not have as much money as the classic-car enthusiasts who gather under the gazebos of the expensive venue...but by God they have a great deal more style.

On to the photography - several Black Rapid rigs seen. Several people using battery packs - at least three of the experienced hands using fill flash. Lots of mobile phones and one iPad being aimed clumsily. No Hoodman loupes in use, but they were needed. I am still puzzling over the chap with the extreme wide angle lens and the 64X ND filter over the front of it...

For most shows I recommend a wide-range zoom but this time I experimented with a single focal length - the equivalent of 35mm on a full-frame camera. Had to frame tightly in small spaces, and would have appreciated a 28mm for that but still happy with the results. Not having to haul a big rig has advantages, particularly when you are trying to juggle a Chiko roll and a choc milk as well.

Ah, the taste of grease in the morning...

Don't Look, Don't Look....Ahh...Too Late...

Did goe to the " Celebration of The Motorcar " at Cottesloe Civic Centre yesterday and was greatley amused.

The first point of note was the method of entry - the cash desk was unprepared for the hordes who assaulted them. $ 20 to get in - money to charity - but so many bank machines issue $ 50 notes that you need a big float to cope with ticket sales. It is a point that catches many small traders at markets, too. You only need one $ 100 note man at the start to screw up sales for the rest of the morning.

Once in, I assembled my professional-quality internationally-famous state-of-the-art image capture system ( Also known as my Fuji X-10 and a Nikon SB 700 on an old Metz bracket.) out of it's high-tech carrying system ( An old Tamrac bag and a spare woollen sock.) and started to take pictures of the cars. Then it started.

It always starts. Whenever I am out with other photographers I start to notice what they are carrying - and what they are doing with it. I try not to look - but the instinct of the sales trade is too strong. I MUST look...

I can look with some degree of pity - I have been where many of them are now, and I can recognise the symptoms. I know what impels some of them - like the man with the Black Rapid double harness and the two battery gripped DSLR cameras depending from the straps. I saw that in the shop and I saw myself as the sportswar correspondent running through the shell craters with two rigs...Fortunately I snapped out of it here in the shop before I did myself an injury. I hope the gentleman is similarly lucky - I admire his fortitude in the sunshine. And I was amazed when he pulled yet a third grip-equipped DSLR from some other portion of his person for the fisheye lens. I stopped myself from following him in case he had an 800mm telephoto and all my concepts of space and time would have been voided.

The other end of the equipment spectrum was much in evidence - the mobile phone camera. Held at arm's length and waved in the sunshine. I have been assured by mobile phone salesman that this produces a file fully as detailed as that from a full-frame DSLR with full studio lighting plus you can order pizza on it. This is patent nonsense - I tried calling Domino's on a Canon 5D Mk III and got nowhere. The man with the iPad was wrong - just wrong.

Somewhere in between were the small DSLR users  - I saw plenty of APSC Canon and Nikon cameras and the users were doing pretty well in their framing and angles. But not a one of them popped up their integral flash for a bit of fill. In some cases it would have made all the difference to a shot into dark wheel wells and the shaded side of a car. But they will get better and good on them.

One enthusiast was using a Leica M digital camera - with what looked like a 28 mm lens. He had on the correct lens hood and was focussing, squaring, and settling himself for his shots. I think he will have some good results from that Leica lens.

Later in the day I believe that Thorsten Overgaard and Saul took a number of their Leica enthusiasts to the show with a lot of the new equipment. With Mr. T's instructions they should have gotten some very good shots - particularly as the light would have been settling in from the west. Of course I still say "fill" but that is just me.

One final note for car show photographers. Car shows are crowded affairs and you sometimes want to get an undisturbed view of a car but are continually being baulked of your desire by people wandering into the frame. There are two methods of dealing with this - a pea shooter and a pocket full of small pebbles to blast them away from your front - or the Jedi Mind Trick.

For the latter, you just position yourself where you need to be for the car and stare at it. As the oicks wander in you direct vibrational mind messages to them that this is not the car they are looking for. Eventually they move away - be pre-focussed and ready for a snap shot when it is clear. May the Force be with you.

Hot Car Day Tomorrow

Cottesloe Civic Center tomorrow, folks. Classic Car Day. They are doing it for charity and I am doing it for art.

The attendee's at Thorsten Overgaard's one-day workshop will also be there at some stage of the afternoon exercising their Leica cameras and lenses.

I do hope they remember the value of fill flash - I do, and whether I opt to take out the Nikon D300/SB700/Stroboframe rig or the little Fuji X-10/SB700/ Metz outfit, I should be able to soften the shadows under the cars - and see into their deep, dark interiors.

There will be crowds, so a wide lens setting is going to be necessary, as well as a sharpened stick to clear a space. If you see me coming, prepare yourself...

A Money-Making Opportunity On The Road

I couldn't put my finger on it yesterday, but I think I have it now - what was wrong about the British Classic Car Day at Pinjarra.

Don't bristle up - or don't Bristol up, as the case may be - it wasn't the cars, or the raceway, or the visitors, or the enthusiasts, or the food, or the fly-over by the Aero club. It was one of the stall holders who missed out on a good thing. As it happens, he was the chap with the photo business booth.

He did a good job of setting out his booth - a mini studio and advertising for all the services that he provides - weddings, glamour, commercial, portrait, etc. And he had signs and a computer  and printer and a soft box set up and a chair to sit in. And no customers.

I sympathised with him - I've been in precisely that position at other field events where the photo business wasn't what they came out for and the punters walked by as if I didn't exist. Indeed, we had that happen a couple of times when the shop sent out a sales display - at least I was getting paid overtime for that one - overtime and all the lizards I could eat. But the chap at Pinjarra might not have had lizards, so his day would have been long and hot.

The thing that hit me today was he was trying to sell the wrong thing to the wrong people - he had no need of that stall at all, either, unless it was to house a busy minion tending the printer. You see his customers weren't the farmers lurching by unheeding - they were the enthusiasts out in the center field with their cars. He should have been out snapping cars and owners.

I did. Got some great car pictures for my personal blog. Could have posed any number of proud Poms with their cars and passed out my professional card - and would have likely got a number of orders for prints or image files. Didn't, because I went there for my own purposes, but the market is definitely there.

People who spend money on their cars want recognition of their cars and themselves - they have their own audience of other enthusiasts at these things but in most cases that are not good enough photographers to organise good record shots of their vehicles. They ALL secretly long to be on the cover of Classic Cars or 4WD Driver or Car Kulture Deluxe and if you provide them with images that are based upon this idea you have a winner.

The same might be said for boating enthusiasts - remember that yachties may easily forget the ages of their children but they can nail to the day the time they bought the fore-deck wing for Saucy Sue II. If you can stand them, they have money.

Airplane enthusiasts might be the same, but getting to meet them is tougher than the car people. they have to be where the airplanes are and anything that aviates is hemmed round with regulations. Research your venues before you try.

As for me and the chap at Pinjarra - we will be wise little photographers if we get a good little portable field flash rig ( and I do ) and some good cards ( and I don't ) and go schmooze the drivers. Automotive ego ain't a bad thing!

" What do you mean you can't make a decent dashboard, Man. Make it out of wood - we'll tell the buyers it is a luxury item. That stuff doesn't grow on trees, Y'know..."

Man Conquers Sun - Pictures To Follow

A few posts ago I showed photos taken at the Vauxhall Car Owners Day and whinged about the sunlight. They were taken in the broad light of noon and had the unpleasant sort os shadows that obscure detail. Of course, when you are looking at Vauxhalls that can be a blessing...

Warned by this, I went out to take photos of the British Classic Day at Pinjarra Raceway yesterday. I knew it would also be out in the open in full sun - and thought out a different rig to tackle it.

Where the first foray had been with the trusty Fuji X-10, yesterday saw a run with the equally trusty Nikon D300, Nikon SB 700 flash gun, and Stroboframe PRO-RL flash bracket. And a hat.

Well, Pinjarra did not disappoint - smelly oval, smelly cars, and smelly owners. ( Horse poo, petrol leaks, and sweat...doesn't get better.) Broads sun and enough fill bouncing back off the freshly mown infield to act as a partial reflector. And the SB 700 to fire into the rest.

The Stroboframe rig lets you do landscape or portrait with a quick flip of the camera while keeping the SB 700 way up the top out of trouble. The flash can be angled down 30º to drop onto closeup subjects. No lousy shadows crossing the subject to break a good line.

The great part about day shows is you can run the ISO low and the flash fills beautifully. No fiddling with reflectors and diffusers either - belt it out. The subjects are colourful enough to repay the bright light. If you are going to be worried about reflections on the side of the car you can always throw a handful of dirt on it...

Note also that many owners at car shows open the bonnets of their prize vehicles to show off the wonderful engines. In the case of British cars they open the bonnet to show off the wiring and gain the sympathy of the crowd. I always like to stay for the ceremonial burning in effigy of the designer of the Lucas electrical system - one year they tried to set it off by electricity and we were reduced to rubbing two boy scouts together...

Boom boom.

Coming At It From A Different Angle

It always pays to investigate coming at a target from a different angle. Whether it is an oil refinery in Ploesti or a portrait subject in Perth, the unexpected yields results.

Likewise in the car game. There are a number of solid professionals who photograph cars for the Western Australian publications - magnificent productions for some of the magazines with dusk exposures, multiple speedlights, and reflectors all over the place. Every month's issue of Perth Street Cars is a visual treat.

Unfortunately, on the occasions I photograph cars in the field, I do not have the luxury of multiple lights. I make do with one speedlight and the sun. Sometimes it all works out well, and sometimes it doesn't. The sun can be hard to program. I have increased my chances of success with the Stoboframe camera brackets.

Initially I carried a Stroboframe Press-T with a Nikon speedlight on the top - a coiled TTL cord between camera and flash. All good, until I chanced to try the Stroboframe PRO-RL. Now I use the PRO all the time at the car shows.

The basic operation is self-explanatory. The frame holds the flash above the axis of the lens no matter how the camera is orientated, and you can slide it waaay on up there to drop the shadow behind the subject. It also means you never have red-eye on telephoto shots. You can angle it down to drop that light onto a close-up subject.

But you can also do the Ploesti on it - you extend the flash to the end of the bar, rotate the camera to the portrait mode, then shoot it flat in landscape orientation. The flash will be way out there on the right-hand-side of the lens. It is perfect for taking interior shots of cars when there is a glass window between you and the insides. You can get your lens close up to the glass to eliminate reflections and then the flash enters from the rear window. See the example of the '32 Ford Sedan. The whole interior of the car lights up without you infringing upon the vehicle.

This might also be the answer for interior shots in real estate.