Pics Chosen 2018 Collection

Here are the pictures I took in 2018 and I like best. I shot all photos with my Ricoh GR II.

Ricoh GR II, f/11.0, ISO 200, 1/1000s

Ricoh GR II, f/2.8, ISO 1600, 1/60s

Ricoh GR II, f/11.0, ISO 1600, 1/25s

Ricoh GR II, f/11.0, ISO 200, 1/500s

Ricoh GR II, f/2.8, ISO 320, 1/2000s

Ricoh GR II, f/2.8, ISO 320, 1/1000s

Ricoh GR II, f/2.8, ISO 250, 1/2500s

The Bouncer

Today we went to historic The Rocks district. This lad was a bouncer and he was just parking his bike. I opened the conversation as how beautiful his bike is. He answered “gold”, meaning what it meant to him. I asked if I could shoot his picture he nodded and added “nineteen-seventy-seven” meaning which year his HD is from. I think I captured a very much deserved pride of ownership in his eyes quite well. 

Ricoh GR II, f/2.8, ISO 200, 1/60s

Red December

Ricoh GR II, f/2.8, ISO 320, 1/1000s

Candid moments

In this photographic moment two stilt-walkers had just discovered me trying to take their picture. The walker in the front asked me if I was after recording a video or taking a photo. I said I was just taking pictures. After that they posed for me and I took several more pictures.

Despite those later pictures were better compositions structure-wise, ie. no half figures hanging around edges, they were not interesting, hence for me they were not better pictures.

In this first photograph however there is a tourist half cut on the right side. It is not a good composition according to book. But this is a damn good picture, because it captured a candid moment, a real story, as opposed to framing a staged moment, a fake story.

For me Street Photography is about capturing candid moments. It is these kind of photographs I would like to shoot.

Larger than life

After visiting Georges Head we went to Balmoral Beach for a walk. This colourful lad had surrounded himself with enviable ambiance to enjoy his xmas day, seated himself in the middle of the busy promenade of Balmoral Beach, dozing off after his meal and drinks that came in his eskie (cooler box). The retro music box was playing disco beats from 70's.

Ricoh GR II, f/2.8, ISO 320, 1/2000s

Photographic Experience:

Click to enlarge for best views. The light was challenging, as the sun was about to set in the opposite direction with long shades casting all over the place. I did a bit of DxO processing to remove the shades on my subject (set to 49), reduced blacks (set to 43), reduced highlights (set to -24) and cropped heavily. After cropping image size was reduced from 16 MP to 3.6 MP, yet dynamic range of Ricoh was so good I ended up with good image quality. I was maybe 2.5 meters away from my subject. But on my wide angle 28mm Ricoh he was too small. There were too many distractions behind him that I had to cut. Despite post-processing I am very happy with the result. The problem I have with wide angle is, most often it is too wide for Street Photography. But there are ways to overcome this via post processing.

Georges Head

A visit to Georges Head is a must for military history buffs. The Georges Head battery is located in Mosman, on the northern side of Sydney Harbour.[1]

Georges Head is now a National Park, and some of the restored barracks are hired to Artists who want to display and sell their work.

Note: I took these photos with my faithful Ricoh GR II on the late afternoon of xmas day 25 December 2018.

Ricoh GR II, f/2.8, ISO 200, 1/2000s

Ricoh GR II, f/2.8, ISO 160, 1/2500s

Ricoh GR II, f/2.8, ISO 140, 1/800s, Portrait Standard preset

References:
[1] Georges Head National Park

Ricoh GR II presets with TAv 2.8

I have been using My1, My2 and My3 for Sunny, Overcast and Night settings and until recently in aperture priority TAv mode I set apertures to 11, 4 and 2.8 respectively. The camera struggled in sunny and overcast days, setting shutter speeds too low in some low light conditions, most noteably dynamic range was narrow resulting in dullness and lack of depth.

I now use 2.8 across the board. I noticed this gave me a better image quality and dynamic range.

Settings:

• Mode: F 2.8 TAv
• Focus: Pinpoint AF
• Snap Focus Distance: 5m
• Full Press Snap: On
• White Balance: Outdoors
• ISO Setting: Auto-HI
• ISO Auto-High Settings
• Maximum ISO: ISO 200
• Minimum ISO: ISO 100
• Dynamic Range Compensation: Off

Note: none of the images have post-processing except the 1st one has Clear View Plus.

In this picture I experimented with manual subject tracking. The motorcycle was speeding and had just started breaking, still moving. I was moving my camera along with it really fast. Yet Snap Focus at 5m worked remarkably well. The man and the motorcycle was in focus and sharp. The distance seems longer than 5m, but that is an illusion of 28mm wide angle lens.

Don’t underestimate iPhone’s camera

Xmas is here. I was in the city without a camera except my iPhone’s. The train platform of the underground Wynyard station had strong ambient light. Just moments ago I had shot a photo of an advertisement post on the other side of tracks. 

Suddenly I saw this man with his loud Xmas party outfit, standing and browsing his mobile. Black and white ad panel was slightly underexposed in the background and there was perfect spot light coming from behind my subject. I was excited, as I positioned myself for the rule of thirds. Then boom. I got it. Several shots followed just to be at the safe side. 

As the saying goes “the best camera is the one that's with you”. iPhone in this case worked perfectly well. 

Under right conditions iPhone 7+ camera is quite snappy and unlike stand alone cameras you don’t grab much attention while taking pictures with it, because every other person is doing the same around you. 

Here is another picture from a pedestrian bridge in the city. 

Paris, Texas and Kurrajong Heights

Who could forget Wim Wenders masterpiece Paris, Texas? Barren landscape of American Southwest. How desert background helps shaping characters and drama where each scene becomes a beautiful photograph on its own right.

Compare that to Sydney, Australia where I live, where green dominates landscapes.

The problem with green background painted by vegetation is its tendency to camouflage your subject as this photograph clearly shows. You need to work out other ways to strengthen your subject's image. In this picture I used sky and lighter grass to break darker backdrop of foliage. The red truck of past comes to rescue as it draws our attention like a magnet along with the monstrous log. I must admit midday sun was hostile, casting brutal shadows. Should I waited until late afternoon, there would have been more light on the truck and on the log. Alas photography is not about excuses, it is about using what you have at that moment.

Knowledge is power

I have been irregularly shooting with Ricoh GR II since 2015 when I decided learning about Photography beyond taking pictures with my iPhone. My motivation has gone through peaks and throughs. I have a day time job, so during the week my excursions could not span beyond North Sydney area where I work and I had little time to allocated to Photography.

I have been unsuccessfully trying out Tav and Tv modes for years. There are so many fiddly parameters and settings I had to play with, I could never get the exposure I wanted even though conditions were close to perfect.

Then my fate changed overnight. Recently I started to fancy owning a Leica Q-P. I have done tons of reading and hours of watching YouTube videos. Then I came across the name Nick Rains,  a renowned Australian Photographer who is also the master Photographer in Leica Akademie. In his website a window popped up to download two free e-books in return to enrolling his newsletter. I said what the heck and downloaded them.

I have studied Photography from other books too, but these two little e-books "Ten Photo Fundamentals" and "Ten Lighting Challenges" are the best. They are to the point, refined and contain good examples. After reading these books I realised I was wrong in several of my assumptions all along.

Key findings:

1. I was wrong about P-mode which I had been avoiding all along. Then I found this in "Ten Photo Fundamentals":

'This mode (P) is often dismissed as a beginner’s mode but nothing could be further from the truth. Firstly, this mode automatically chooses both Shutter Speed and Aperture for you, again to match the camera’s metering recommendation. However, it does not do this randomly. Program mode picks settings based on the lens you are using...'

P, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/500s, +0.0

2. I underestimated the importance of exposure. I assumed exposure is to do with "brightness" only, ie. over-exposed just meant too bright, and under-exposed meant too-dark. Even though these assumptions were not entirely wrong, there was more to "correct exposure". Correct exposure relates to "quality", ie. it alone defines how good your picture can be.

"A perfect exposure is one which maximizes the quality of the image data."

 The book stated " The meter gives you a good starting point if you are in a hurry, but the histogram allows you to get the best possible quality of capture." In short the chapters on "histograms" and "exposure" are must read; I learned more from them than other resources I had been reading.

I learned I should not rely on the LCD as it would have tendency to under-expose under bright conditions. What you should rely on is the histogram, you should simply aim to remove clippings.

Consider this image which is over-exposed at +0.7 EV, because I relied on the LCD and ignored the histogram reading. The light blue sky on the right hand side, just to the right of the building has a different whiteish blue tone than the rest of the sky. That is the effect of overexposure. With +0.3 EV it would have been perfect, with 0.0 EV, the tree shadow on the left would have been too dark.

P, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/180s, +0.7

Blues Pt Road brickworks

Brickworks of old or restored buildings continue to amaze me. They remind us a golden era of craftsmanship. Every brick was laid with care and consistent precision with no trace of sloppy work. This approach contrasts modern building processes in which craftsmanship is treated as mortal sin and money is everything.

---

This building is at the corner of Victoria St and Chuther St. Most large commercial heritage buildings around this area were restored and are serving now as architecture or advertisement company offices.

What I like about this building is its minimalist deco lines, especially the round corner and on it vertical frosted glass panel tracing the curvature around the corner. Large modern windows on the right have this dark bluish tint, hiding the office clutter inside, at the same time reflecting beautiful silhouette of nearby houses at the opposite side of the road.  

• I took this photo in late November 2018, with Ricoh GR II. 
• EXIF: ISO 250, 1/2500s, 18mm, f/2.8.  
• Post-processing: DxO Clear View filter that enhanced colours on otherwise dull left side by removing the overcast dullness. DxO Clear View is a magnificent secret algorithm by DxO Optics. Unlike standard tools, like shadow, contrast, exposure, and white balance controls; DxO Clear View makes overcast areas brighter with colours popping out. It does this without introducing grain and without affecting sharpness. The catch is it needs to be applied when needed. If your picture is already clear it will break white balance considerably. I also noticed with Ricoh overcast days can introduce a bit of chrome aberration in the sky, Clear View removes that and makes blue sky areas appearing more natural.
• This picture is underexposed. I was experimenting with f/2.8 as it was an overcast day, so I did want to get as much light as possible. But in this occasion I failed. With an APS-C camera of 18mm (28mm eqv) lens I should only use widest aperture for close-by objects or nearby portrait or when there is sufficient daylight. What happened here was the wall side was dark, and my focus on the wall while the depth of field is minimum forced to camera to increase the shutter speed to an absurd level which cut down the light I needed. 
• I later found out the culprit. A set Dynamic Range Compensation to Auto which needed to be Off and I did not set dynamic ISO range properly. 

---

This building is in Mitchell Street. Again this is a large heritage workshop or a factory I presume, beautifully restored to serve today as an office. Note the interplay of yellowish and pinkish brickworks, the beautiful metal inscription (I adored the font), the art-deco pediment above the door, and indented moulding around the metal door. A also liked the postbox, and mysterious hieroglyphs on the pavement (you need to zoom).  The small sunny courtyard is both cute and unexpected breaking office space in a delightful way.  

I took this photo in late November 2018, with Ricoh GR II. 

EXIF: ISO 100, 1/400s, 18mm, f/2.8.  

Post-processing: DxO Clear View filter

Here are some links to Blues Point road which you may find useful:

• History of Blues Point Road