BEST KEPT SECRETS OF STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

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As a writer cum photographer, I have done my rounds as a photojournalist whenever the call came up and for that, I have never found it as a means to make money from it. It was part of the job. People often ask me about shooting street and I tell them that you need to have a few qualities before you embark on your quest. First, let's be clear photojournalism is about observing life through the lens and in many ways, it is the same as Street Photography. You don't make tones of money from Street Photography, and unfortunately in the West, you can even get arrested for just having a camera pointed at some place within the city. Cameraphobia as I call it, need only apply to big city places like London or New York. If you have a natural affinity for observing people, you'd pick out interesting scenes to frame your pictures but the best kept secrets are often ones that you tend to ignore. 



Don't Attract Attention

A rule that is often ignored as you lug that huge DSLR with a massive Zoom lens.  People like to pretend to be some big shot photographer and become the target of thieves and police. This is not the way to do Street Photography. As much as possible, people should not know you're capturing pictures. Use a smaller camera when possible and learn to blend in instead of stand out. Smaller cameras too have smaller zoom lenses with equal magnifying power, so there is no excuse for carrying that bulky DSLR. 




Use Fixed Lenses

For a change, be limited by your equipment and see how you can best adapt to that situation with a fixed lens camera. In the old days, a 50mm lens was called a standard lens and the preferred choice of all street photographers. HCB of Magnum was famous for this. So if he could do it, why can't you? 

Shoot from the Hip

A lesser known method is to shoot from the Hip and with a fixed lens, it is so much easier. Shoot from the hip is precisely that, you trigger the shutter when you "feel" a picture is happening before you without peering down on your viewfinder. 

Some of the best pictures may not happen at eye level and you have to feel your way around it. If you were born a Hobbit, then it's eye level. 

Once you get accustomed to the field of view of a fixed lens, it becomes very easy for you estimate the length and depth of your subject. It is not a precise way of composition but the results are sometimes quite surprising. 









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The Good, the Bad & Ugly of More Megapixels

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Coloredorginal

I have often been asked about the Megapixel debate, is it some urban legend? Folklore? Or some old wives tale perpetuated by camera manufacturers? But what I am going to say is going to be based on facts, and having worked with Sony's DSLR division, I sort of know the good and bad of the megapixel race. All too often, we find ourselves confronted with decisions on which camera is better based on just the megapixel count of a sensor. Now more megapixel means more detail in a picture but only if it is exposed well. Put that context into a low light scene, the sensor's sensitivity comes into play and this negates any gain in detail. But let's not work on that. Let's assess what more megapixels will do for you.

The Good side of More Megapixels

Henri Cartier Bresson of Magnum, known fondly as HCB, didn't like his photos cropped but with more megapixels, cropping is actually good. Let's use a photo I took as an example. The original is above. Let's do a HCB time lapse into the world of B/W photography and turn this into a contrasty picture of a street scene.

Uncroppedmegapixel
The composition isn't spot on. There is lot of room and in the editorial room, it would be considered a "loose" photo since it is not tightly composed.


Croppedmegapixel
Here is the cropped photo, by throwing away rougly 1/3 of the size of the photo, it becomes a better picture. So if you happen to be shooting with a 24 megapixel DSLR, this image would be roughly 24MB in RAW size and after cropping, a third of frame, you are still left with 18MB of image data. Now that is a big image!

The BAD of having More Megapixels

High density sensors cost more to manufacturer and low light handling isn't as good.
Often, dynamic range will suffer as these smaller high density sensors just doesn't have the muscles compete unless helped along with brute force noise reduction steroids. Larger sensors handle light better but large high density sensor cameras also cost a bomb to own.

The UGLY side of More Megapixels

If you look at the above cropped pictures, and realize that you can take a "loose" picture and still rescue it later with cropping, don't you think that you'd be a loose photographer than a tight one? Pros everywhere have one strong point, they don't need any image cropping for it to come out right. Should you rely on more megapixels to save your day, then you will forever be dependent on it. By relying on post production miracles, you'd stop being a photographer and more of an image manipulator. This is the ugly side of photography which we all try to avoid but get sucked into. Cropping your image in-camera is the best way to go if you want to improve your sense of composition.


Conclusions

There is no right or wrong way to see this Megapixel Myth. The more insecure you are about your pictures, then the obvious route to take is to have more megapixels. The more confident you are about your photography, then the megapixel myth would have fallen away from you mind and in essence make you an even better photographer. So learn to work with what you have.

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Understanding Exposure in the Digital Age

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Confusing as it is, you have to understand this and I did the hard way with rolls upon rolls of film but today, people don't seem to care as they leave their cameras running on Auto. The fundamentals of exposure are not understood in the correct context and as such, mishaps will happen the moment you go full manual.

Holy Trinity of Exposure




When I started out, the first thing I had to understand was the correlation between ISO, Shutter Speed and f/stop. I had trouble imaging this because the damn SLR I got was fully auto EOS Canon. And the compact cameras I had didn't help either as there was no way to see this in action. It was that I bought into an old used, Nikon FM2 that I finally understood how they were related.

Everything in camera exposure is related to one another. The moment you preset one value, then you will be able to see how that value affects the others. Should any one of those change, for example, the shutter speed, then the corresponding Aperture and ISO would have to change as well to reflect this. One of the best way to understand this is to fix one of the variables so that you can see these changes.

Exposure Variables through Shutter Priority and Aperture Priority




In fully auto digital camera these days, many would shoot using AUTO mode and rarely will people even venture to P or Program mode. Confusion and madness abound when either Shutter Speed or Aperture is not fixed. This way, you can see how and why it affects exposure. Every scene is dependent on the available light at that moment. This is minimum exposure required to render an image. To learn about exposure, refer to the chart above where we have prioritized either the Shutter Speed or the Aperture's f/stop number. 

In the first example, by keeping the shutter speed at a constant 1/60, you will see how this affects both the ISO and Aperture. Shift the ISO up to 200, and the corresponding Aperture will have to go up to f/8 just to maintain the 1/60 shutter speed. 

The second example is the same, you have the Aperture fixed at f/5.6 but when you start to shift your ISO up to 200, the shutter speed will have to change to 1/125 and so on. 

Why ISO matters

This is a personal preference as some may shoot using high ISO like 1600 to 3200. The rule to remember here is that ISO will affect the quality of the image—giving it a noisy and grainy look as you go up the ISO ladder. So staying low is probably the best way to get good imaging. 

Exposure stacking, which is similar to HDR photography except that you capture only three frames with a 1EV difference between them is probably one of the most effective ways to capture night time photos without high ISO. Trusted that this method works best for scenes without moving objects, I have seen this method applied to model and fashion photography in high contrast scenes. The reason for such a method is to arrest the problems of the sensor's limited dynamic range by clawing that back with a three frame shot. 

High ISO is more effective in situations where there is movement and low light where exposure stacking is not possible due to movement of the subjects in the foreground or background. 


Depth of Field for Bokeh

Aperture control is a deft art. You can't deny its artistic merits but you can use a cheat sheet for this. How it affects exposure and DOF (depth of field) is sublime. 


As much as I love playing with the aperture, you have also got to understand that your choice of f/stop is dependent on exposure. If you want to throw something out of focus, then you need to keep the aperture wide open to let in all the light while throwing the background out of focus. Even during the analogue era, we had to get to grips with DOF for without it, the pictures would look dire. Digital is no different but there are more restrictions, something I will reserve for another article. 


Master of All Exposures

Once you jump over the exposure hurdle by learning how to Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO affect one another and in turn give you the creative edge in creating a picture, then you have ascended to a new level of photography. 

These basic rules must be understood. Once you have this, you can apply various techniques found in digital cameras to further your imaging goals. 

I didn't have to worry about the transition as I had already grasp the very basics of exposure and applied that to digital. For this, I hope that you will start with manual settings on your digital camera and learn to shoot with it to see the difference. I spent a fortune on film learning the outcome of my exposure experiments but you don't have to once you have a digital camera in tow. For this alone, there is no reason why you can't master this with just a few clicks. 

















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Shooting Speed: Motion Capture on the Fast Lane

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Speed. For professionals who hang around the track all day shooting racing cars, you pretty much end up with the same type of images because you are restricted by the angle that you are allowed to shoot. Often you find the same type of images floating around on the Web that shows some kind of speeding vehicle frozen at the exact moment in time. For stuff like this, you can't capture this unless you have a DSLR capable of up to 1/2000 of a sec shutter speed.

For me, I prefer shooting motion rather than freezing them as this gives a different look to the images instead of the same old, same old styles seen everywhere from billboard advertisements to print and web advertising.

When I started shooting these, I was still shooting on film. Imagine what I could have done with digital as it would have been a whole lot easier with the top of the line DSLRs you have today.

But the way forward is still the same. You gotta know your shutter speed. For motion capture like these, you need to know how to pan the camera.

Panning, as you follow your subject through a fixed path of motion, is what gives you the ability to capture speed and motion in your pictures.

Motion Capture Tips




  1. The best shutter speed to capture motion is 1/125 sec
  2. Make sure your subject is moving in a parallel line to your panning movement
  3. AF should be OFF (if you haven't got a spiffy DSLR with super fast AF)...AND 
  4. Prefocus your Distance to Subject
  5. Use a Monopod to steady your panning

The aperture value is irrelevant as long as there is sufficient light. If there isn't then dial up your ISO to 1600 and preset your Shutter Speed to 1/125. In the days of film, photographers were handicapped by the film speeds of between ASA/ISO 100 to 400. Shooting with ISO speeds of 800 were not widespread due to the grain. That is irrelevant these days with digital cameras which perform well with minimum grain at ISO3200.

Minimizing Background Blur at 1/250

Seems like it is frozen but notice that the wheels are turning
For others, you may want to minimize background blur by shooting at a slightly higher speed of 1/125 just to get the wheels in motion. This depends heavily on the distance to subject and of course the telephoto lens you are using. Shorter lenses (200mm) will need to capture at shutter speeds of 1/125 whereas longer telephoto lenses (above 300mm) will require shutter speeds (between 1/250 to 1/500). Longer telephoto lenses tend to magnify movement so less panning movement is required. The movement is very much amplified at longer telephoto lenses, say between 300mm to 800mm so you need to judge the speed in which the car or bike is carrying on a straight or around corners. The important thing here is to mount your gear on a monopod. You could also fashion a monopod out of a Tripod if you didn't know any better. Just don't use all three legs and only extend ONE of the legs out to help you balance your gear. Hand holding your camera is no recommended at longer focal lengths.



Shooting Around Corners

Motion panning can be done around corners as well but the effect is different, meaning that the subject is less sharp and appear to be blurry. That's because you use a slow shutter speed of 1/60 sec.

All vehicles will have to slow down to take a corner and when you are sitting smack in the middle of one, then you will be using a wide lens instead of a telephoto lens. A standard 50mm lens (full frame) would suffice.

You can of course use a wide angle lens such as a 35mm or 28mm if you are really close to the action—like when you can extend your hand out to touch them but that is rarely the case with racing circuits.


Freezing Motion

When you have a DSLR capable of 1/2000 sec shutter speed. It is very easy for you to freeze motion. You can also freeze motion at 1/250 when the vehicle is in low speeds around corners.


This is probably the first place you will find most trackside photographers camping out. They will of course choose the same angles as everyone else as action shots don't really differ much from one location to another when you want to freeze the action. Getting to a high or low place depends on your access to the track. If you have clear access to trackside shooting spots, you will probably get a chance to use a longer telephoto lens on dedicated racing circuits.

Street circuits, like Monaco and Macau, require lower telephoto ranges, around 200mm and less since you don't have a lot of places on the track which you can fully utilize 300mm. The most common uses for a 300mm lens is a head on shot during the start of the race as all the cars are bunched up together running into the first corner. After this, you'll have to pick out your targets one by one as the race progresses.








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Street Photography Tips

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Street Photography is all about developing your photojournalistic eye. So what is this photojournalistic eye? Well, they are quite easy to learn really and it's not rocket science. Anyone can learn it and you can master this too if you paid attention to these few tips.

Observation

A good photojournalist must have a keen eye for observing and anticipating movement within your environment. When you sit alone in a park, what is it that you see? By identifying possible subjects for your camera takes a keen sense of observation. You have to train your eye to constantly search for subjects,

This picture would not be very interesting if it just showed the food instead of having the street vendor present in the picture. The background restaurant element is a bonus. Captured in Seoul, South Korea. 

Story Telling

If you had a picture of a city street, you have to ask yourself if the picture on its own is able to tell a story. Similarly, I feel that having a human element in your picture enhances the picture as it gives "life". An empty stall with just the food would be extremely boring even though some may find the spread tantalising.


Stall owner in Seoul manning his food stall

Story telling has always been about pictures of people in different places. By having human subjects, you add that bit more into the picture to give it depth.

To do this successfully, you need to have patience as nothing happens immediately. People in street photography are not posed models. They come and go as they please and your ability to anticipate movement is what makes it work.

Sometimes, the timing may not be perfect but with patience, you can be rewarded. The picture on the right is a good example. If I had shot this frame earlier, the woman would not be in the frame and what you have is an empty storefront. By waiting for a human subject to enter the frame, the story telling bit has been fulfilled.
 Composition

This is probably the most misunderstood element in street photography. How you divide the frame to place your subject is very important. If the picture doesn't look right, it is because the subjects are out of sync.  Subjects in the picture can be delineated by lines and segmented by color, space and texture. Some photographers have even used "mass" as way to define an object's place in a frame. To me, it's just the same difference.

Stall owner falls asleep on a hot summer's day in Macau

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