So last Friday, I went to “Miss Melbourne Chinese Pageant”. It was the first time I ever attended a beauty pageant. I didn’t really know what to expect.
My girlfriend was one of the contestant, so of course I got to go there to support her.

She’s the one in pink.

Without further ado:
1. High ISO performance is really important.

Just like music concert or any classy entertainment events, the lighting is very moody dim. With my D700 body, I was able to nail shoots at 6400 ISO. My old D80 wouldn’t be able to do anything in situation like that.

2. Zoom lens is good.

The performers are always on the move. You need a good zoom to keep following their movement. I use 80-200mm f2.8.

3. Shoot RAW and post process later

There are several reason to shoot RAW here.
- Ever changing lighting color makes white balance a bitch
- You need good dynamic range as the stage uses quite a lot of spot lighting. The performers are usually really brightly lit while the rest of the stage is very dark. This can be balanced later with Camera Raw. JPG will die here.
- You will be using semi-auto mode most of the time. With so many variable changing outside of your control, you won’t have the time to go full manual here. semi-auto is aperture or shutter priority mode. I even go auto-ISO. It nails the exposure most of the time, but you will still get a bad exposure. RAW makes this salvageable.

4. Cheap seat is sometimes better than VIP seat

I got the cheapest seating arrangement for $30 on the second level of the hall. It was a vantage point that will make any sniper have orgasm. I have a perfect view of the stage.

The VIP seats was ~$168 located just in front of the stage. They were seated behind the judges (on elevated platform). Yes you are closer to the stage and might feel more of the atmosphere, but it is harder to take photos from there.

This is a pano pic taken with my cellphone.

5. Be BOLD

My seat wasn’t originally on the perfect spot. My ticket stated that I had to sit on the 5th row back and 45 degree to the left. It wasn’t a very good spot.

Then I saw empty seats on the best vantage point. I just rushed there and seat beside some people I don’t know. They gave me some weird look, but who cares.

More photos on my Google Plus

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Tonight there will be fireworks everywhere around the earth, and I’m sure you will have one where you live as well. Here are some quick tips.

1. Use a Tripod

Always always use a tripod, there is nobody on earth who can hold a camera steady for 5 second or more.

2. Use Manual Mode

If your camera doesn’t have manual mode, it most probably will have ‘night scenery’ or ‘fireworks’ mode.

On your manual mode, set the shutter around 5-10 second and aperture around f11-f15 with the lowest ISO you can get (e.g ISO 100-200)

3. Get Information and Arrive early

Research the time and location of the firework launchers. Look for vantage point where you can capture good scenery around the fireworks.

Arrive early to reserve the best location.

4. Trigger Happy

Just take many shoots of one particular fireworks explosion, you will increase your chance of getting good ones.

5. Use remote control/cable release/self timer

To reduce (eliminate) camera shakes from finger jabbing the shutter button.

Other tips:

http://www.worldstart.com/how-to-shoot-fireworks/

http://www.betterphoto.com/exploring/fireworks.asp

http://cameras.about.com/od/photographytips/a/fireworks_photography_tips.htm

http://www.digital-photography-school.com/how-to-photograph-fireworks

and… good luck.

photo source

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Couple of months ago I published an interview with the talented Tasmanian photographer Alex Wise.

Recently Alex just posted a very good series on showing the setups that he did, complete with a tutorial he wrote for this.

Links: Photo Setups and the complete tutorials.

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comments really encouraged

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Photo by Pieter Baert

Many people – including me – tends to think that you need expensive studio lighting equipments to learn how to light. I was once supporter of that notion.

My opinion changed when I watched the “One Light” DVD by Zack Arias.

Zack discussed many techniques he uses to produce magnificent photograph using only one light. And that one light is not a fancy studio light, it is just a beat up old Vivitar strobe that costs less than ninety dollar now.

Learning from that video, I set out to try to light with one Nikon SB-600, the only speedlight that I had at that time. The result was (obviously) not as good as Mr. Arias, but it kinda opened my eye. I have since been experimenting with one light source.

Several tips for when you decided to start testing your one light:
1. Invest in a cheap lightstand. Those $15 ones you see in ebay will suffice.
2. Get a shoot through umbrella. It will soften your speedlight significantly. Again, I recommend ebay.
3. If you own Nikon D80 or newer, you don’t need to buy flash trigger (use the commander mode). If you own Canon or the other, invest in one cheap flash trigger. I bought one for $20 from ebay.
4. Set the light above the model’s eyes, facing down around 45 degree. This gives a nice natural even light on the face. Of course, feel free to experiment with the angle and power.
5. Use the sun as backlight, and your flash as fill. I find that even small flashes light speedlights have the capacity to overpower the sun.
6. Experiment in many places. Bedroom, beach, living room, garden, city, bridges, day, night, etc.
7. Always learn and ask guidance from other. I read numerous blogs and forum about lighting that gives me the idea on how to light. You can read good blog (like Strobist by David Hobby) and learn more in a day than to go out and shoot blindly.

After several experiment, you will slowly understand how light travel, how it falls onto your subject, how can you soften it, reflect it, etc.

Good luck.

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Today I went to the Melbourne Zoo for the first time. We have around thirty something people with varying skill level. Some people have crazy DSLR with 70-200mm with extension tube, some people bring their humble entry levels, some came with compacts, and some come empty handed – they just wanted to enjoy the day.

The weather was really nice, its very rare to have sunny weather in Melbourne winter. Many people are bringing their young kids and babies to the zoo. It was packed and sometimes really hard to approach the animal enclosures from a good spot.

I managed to snap some good photos in there. Lessons to come after the showcase.

Seal. It swam really fast!

Mr Lion is really really lazy. He slept most of the day.

Monkeys playing around!

Mommy Sumatran Tiger is feeling edgy from people looking at her four cubs.

One of the tiger cubs, they are very playful!

My first butterfly house experience. There gotta be hundreds of them in that small compact enclosure.

The little one is Mali. She is the zoo's new star.

Orang utan drinking rainwater (presumably) from a plastic container 20 meters from the ground.

Practicing the monkey style kungfu

Mr Lion is finally awake, look at the angle of the light, its sunset!

Snow Leopard is one elusive cat. This is probably the best shoot I got today. It just hides between branches the whole day.

Trio racoon (?) just chilling out!

Those two crocs aren't moving at all. Probably they are statue

So, what are they doing?

This leopard is blinded on one eye!

I just love his skin texture

Lessons Learned from Melbourne Zoo

1. Go on weekday
On weekend or holiday, zoo is almost always full of people bringing their kids around. Resulting in huge queue in the cafe and huge crowd around animal enclosure. If you come during weekday, you will get all the space and angle that you need to take that awesome shot.

2. Avoid dirty glass
Glass in the zoo is most often dirty. No matter how good your DoF is, sometimes the glass just shows on the picture. Try your best to shoot through the cleaner part of the glass, or avoid it altogether.

3. Use high ISO and wide aperture
The main problem people face today at the zoo is lack of light. Even though it is a fairly sunny day, the light seldom penetrates the ground and the enclosures because of the heavy forest leaves. You really can’t depend on long shutter speed because the animals kept on moving.
Your best bet is to get good high ISO performance camera or get a really fast lens.

4. Be patient
You can’t give direction to animals. They move randomly and without any hint for you. Get your camera always ready to fire.
Today we have some really lazy bear who lie down all day and only showing its face once. We also have a very agitated cat who can’t seem to sit still, it just keep on walking around its cage. These are just some of the opportunities that you have to catch by yourself.

5. If you can’t zoom in enough, just crop it in PP
This is one thing that you just can’t workaround. My longest lens is 200mm. It is long, but sometimes (most of the time actually) not long enough. The best thing you can do during the trip is to imagine how you would crop it, and compose the scene accordingly.

Almost all of the photos you see up the are cropped a lot.

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Goodness, aren't they all the same??

Photo by ‘csaveanu‘ on flickr

Recently, I have several friends of mine asking my advice on their next lens purchase. All of them are beginner DSLR owner with varying skill level that are still not sure what they should specialize into.

My advice is always the same. Find the style that you are most passionate about, and buy primes or fast lenses for it.

If you love landscapes, get super wide angles like:
-9mm
-11mm
-20mm
-12-24mm

If you love portraits, get medium range lenses, such as:
-85mm
-105mm
-135mm
-70-200mm

If you love actions and wildlife, get the super long lenses, such as:
-200-400mm
-300mm
-600mm

If you love travel, get the super zooms so you don’t need to bring a lot of lens and weighing you down:
-18-200 VR/IS
-18-250
-17-300 (I think Sigma or Tamron have this one)

If you want a multi-purpose lenses, get the 35mm. It’s been on my d700 for a long time. I use it for almost everything that doesn’t require a specialized lens.

Why do you need to have prime lenses?

Most of the lenses I recommend are primes. Several reasons for that:
- Primes are designed to work at one focal length, and do well at it.
- Primes are generally really fast (wide aperture)
- Primes are generally sharper than zooms
- Primes are lighter than zooms

Once you go prime, you will never go back.

Where should you get your lenses?

I recommend you to buy it online. Always online. Its just cheaper.

Do a Google search, Ebay search, price comparison websites, etc. Avoid buying cameras or lenses from a local physical store. The difference in price could be very significant.

Bonus advice

Before you buy anything, read reviews from multiple sources first. You never know if the lens you are about to buy is not a good one, or easily upgradable with little money.

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3. 9 Zoo Photography Tips & Tutorial

Last week I did an experiment with Candice to try and do a strobist test shoot in my bedroom using my red wooden sliding door as the backdrop.

This is the result. Beside the stunningly beautiful model, and anyone can take good picture of her, I’m still proud of my lighting, haha.

Edited a little bit in Lightroom for exposure and fill-light

And stealing my brother's acoustic guitar.

First time using 3 lights indoor.

This is my setup:

The bottom left: SB-600 with reflective umbrella
The bottom right: SB-900 with Stofen aimed at the ceiling for reflection. My ceiling is around 2,5 meter high.
The upper right: SB-600 with shoot through umbrella

shot with 35mm f/2 on d700 and on-camera commander flash

Comment and critic welcomed

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Monash Photography Club recently asked me to teach a workshop about ‘Zoo photography’ because they are organising a zoo trip next week to the Melbourne Zoo. If anybody wants to come, feel free to contact them:

Monash Photography Club Zoo Trip

here goes:

1. Use Long Zoom Lenses

Wedge-tailed eagle, one of my favourite image

There are just some animal you can’t afford to get close, think of tiger, bear and rhino. If you get close, they’ll rip you apart. To capture them in all their glory, you just gotta use long lenses.
Long lenses have shallower depth of field, making it easy to shoot through fences.
I personally love my 80-200 f2.8 for zoo trips.

2. Fill the Frame

Handsome Roo!

And his friend the Emu!

When you fill the frame with the subject, and excluding everything else, you will evoke a sense of intimacy and connection between the viewer and the animal. You can either use long lens or crop it in post processing.

3. Get down to their level

Mr Meerkat on the lookout

Lizard doing his thing

It is the same technique we use when photographing children. When you get down to their level, you make the photograph just a little bit more personal.

4. Select good background

The background should NOT distract the viewer’s eye from the cute or fierce animal you are shooting. Try to get a homogenous leaves or pattern for the background.

Super bokeh for ms owlie

So, which one is the head? top or bottom?

If you can’t avoid a distractive background, just blur it out with bokeh. Your long lens and wide aperture will help.

5. Shoot through fences or glass

When you have to shoot though fences or glass, zoom in as long as possible, and open your aperture as wide as possible, and get as close as possible to the fence or glass.

Just repeating:
- longest zoom
- widest aperture
- closest you can get to the fence

Mr and Mrs Lion resting.

It will throw the fence or the glass out of focus, and the viewer will get the illusion of you standing directly infront of the lion.

6. DO NOT use flash

You don't want to make me blind, do you?

Unless you know what you are doing. Flash could potentially scare the animal away. Besides, if you are using flash at night, you could blind all the night-vision animal like owl and cats.

7. Walk around, change your perspective

Do-Re-Mi!

If you couldn’t get a good shoot from your location, don’t just wait in place. Go walk around, jump up a bench, get low, or whatever. Too many people stand in one place and keep shooting, and ended up with the same images. You want variety.

8. If you want to include human in the picture…

WATCH OUT!

Oh, i luv u i luv u i luv u i luv u i luv u i luv u

I-forgot-whats-his-name eating a mouse!

Make sure that they look natural. Avoid posed pictures. Unless you are at the ‘Touch this animal’ section of the zoo.

9. Capture the animal doing human-like activity

Grandpa Roo scratching his back

Don't even think about what you are thinking now

This will introduce humor into the picture, and will make your viewer smile.

BONUS

Oh yeah baby! Kangaroo porn!

Have you ever seen a kangaroo’s balls & penis? well, here is it

Images were captured by me at
Australia Zoo in QLD
Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary in Gold Coast
Weribee Zoo in Victoria

Hope you enjoy!
Please re-tweet and share this for your friend on facebook!

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Click for the HUGE size

I didn’t make this. I find this guide at:

DIY photography website

They have written a very comprehensive article on this. Read it, you won’t regret it.

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