There’s a new mall in out town.  It opened about a almost two months ago.  My kids and I had planned to visit it on opening day, but one thing led to another, and we instead ended up in a mall about two kilometers from the new one.  And today, we had planned to take pictures of it.

I have not had the opportunity to take a look at the place.  On the daily commute to the office, I saw the mall’s construction almost daily.  And relative to other malls by the same developer, this was relatively small.  It did have a lot of things going for it, including the full support of the city government.  The mall construction was incumbent on the construction of another bridge to ease the expected traffic.

By chance I went to that mall just this past week because the utility company moved their customer support office from a third mall, to this one.  And I was impressed and very much surprised by what I saw.  It was very bright.  Though I knew it was going to be well-lit, as I pass by the building every evening on my way home.  It’s practically blazing at night, even without any neon lighting.

I went into the building just before noon, and from the glare of the direct sunlight to the lobby, there was only a slight diminishing of the light.  The lobby was glass-fronted to the roof.  And with the wide lobby, this resulted in sunlight streaming in full force.  And along the main hallway running perpendicular to the lobby, one end was also a glass wall.

To capture how bright the building was, we planned to take pictures of the lobby from the top floor, this should show the sunlight streaming inside the building.  Another shot of the lobby would be from the ground floor, shooting upwards at an angle to capture the whole wall of glass and the big metal pipes which support it.  Wide-angle and quite close shooting upwards and from the side would show the vanishing of the glass and metal structure.  Unlike the concrete walls, the glass is set at an angle where the top has a slight overhang.  The close wide-angle shot would show the angle to its advantage.

Other shots of the building would be from several vantage points outside it. There’s the pedestrian overpass as one vantage point.  Shooting from there would also show the river and another mall across the river.  Another angled shot would be from the bridge.  This would frame the mall and the overpass.

some other shots from across the river would give it a good perspective.  Another good photo would be one where the train is crossing the river, with the mall as background.  But this would have to taken from the second bridge, and about two hundred meters distant.

Pictures of malls can give a false sense of perspective unless there are other buildings or structures within the frame, or there are people in the picture.  The other buildings would give more perspective and comparison in terms of size.  While the people would give the picture some sense of dynamics.

We’ll have to reschedule another time as the weather did not cooperate today.

There are still several niche photo opportunities out there if you’ll just think about it.  One of the more common is macro photography, as well as mating the still camera with a microscope for a science project or a attaching a camera to telescope for space or stellar photography.  There’s not much in terms of additional equipment except for the macro attachments, microscope or the telescope.

Though in terms of opportunities, underwater photography should be more common, there’s not too many who would want to go through the cost of a camera or a casing for underwater use.  There are alternatives, of course.

One no-brainer alternative is to use a disposable camera with underwater capability.  These point and shoot film cameras don’t have much depth to them but they are workable and well worth it, provided you know how to advance the film.  That’s because the film advance lever is it’s main disadvantage.  Most underwater disposable cameras do not advance the film far enough.  And when that happens, you can’t take the next shot.

Another alternative to an underwater camera is a camera casing for underwater use.  For the most part, these camera casings are quite expensive and are designed for a particular camera and lens unit.  Some water-proof camera casings are almost as expensive as the camera body.  The advantage of the camera casings is that they are rated to go deeper than point-and-shoot disposables.

These camera casings are not without their own set of problems, specially for beginners.  You have to test the seals once you enclose the camera.  And after testing the seals, only then should you go take the camera to deep water.  Unfortunately, it’s the testing which is crucial.  If the case was not closed properly, the seals won’t work, and the camera would get wet.  There’s no two ways about it.  And with a digital SLR, that’s a ruined camera right there.

For a really cool low-tech solution with partial results try a glass-bottomed tube or an aquarium.  These solutions are not costly, and could be done on the work bench.  These two solutions give different results.  The glass-bottomed tube is much like underwater photography on a glass-bottomed boat.  You’ve got a long cylinder with a wide diameter, with a glass or clear-plastic seal at one end.  To take pictures, you submerge one end of the tube into the water and you hold the camera at the other end.  There’s not much flexibility in terms of the shots, but you should be able to see the bottom, up to ten or 15 feet down.

The aquarium solution is different because you can have a different effect when taking pictures using it.  You don’t take pictures with the camera pointing down.  Instead the camera is pointed horizontally.  This allows shots of the waves as it touches the glass sides, as well as pictures with one part above the water and the other part under the water.

These low-tech solutions may not look like much.  But if you take into account the cost of an underwater camera or even a waterproof camera, the successful shots are well worth it.

My brother was sending me SMS messages the other day asking about print quality for a 2MP picture.  I answered that for a 2MP picture, you can print 3R photos okay.  He then asked if it was okay to print a VGA quality (640×480 pixels) to a wallet sized picture, which would be approximately 2×3 inches.  To which I said yes, that would still turn out fine.

I brought this up because, relative to the number of pictures being taken, there are less and less pictures being printed.  That may be true, in relative terms, of course.  But looking at it from a different perspective, there really are a lot more pictures being printed, not just in one-hour photo developing booths or shops at the mall, but also at home on the computer with the colored printer.  And these are not just pictures taken personally with the camera, but also pictures sent via email, or posted on social-media websites.

Going back to the print sizes, there’s an almost direct relationship between the camera resolution and the size of a good print.  Or, rather, the picture resolution and the resulting print.  It’s easy to forget that the camera resolution in megapixel can be re-set to a lower resolution by the user.  This also depends on how compressed the JPEG file is (which is a related to how good the camera software  is). And it’s also much harder to realize that you can get better prints (or larger good prints) from RAW files or from TIFF pictures.

The rule of thumb I follow is relatively easy.  A 3MP picture can be printed on a 4R or up to half the size of an A4.  A 5MP can be blown-up to A4 paper size and still have good quality, but you’d be better off with an 8MP picture on A4 paper.  Again, this depends mostly on the JPEG quality.

Relating this further to JPEG quality, there are lots of algorithms for JPEG, and these yield different compression ratios.  Typically, most JPEGs have a ratio of 1:10, meaning that a JPEG of any given size is equivalent to an uncompressed bitmap (BMP or TIFF) of up to ten times the file size.  With greater compression, you would have to print to a smaller paper size to get a better quality.

However, if you have a RAW or TIFF file of the picture, you can blow that up to a larger size.  Better yet, if you have a postscript-capable printer, printing can give better results.  To do this, you have to paste the picture to a document (Word or PageMaker) or open in a photo-editing software (Adobe PhotoShop or GIMP), and print as an EPS file.  Without going into the technical details of what a PostScript printer does and what an EPS file contains, suffice to say that personally, I have had better print quality using this method.

I’ve seen pictures blown-up out of proportion to the file size and pixel resolution, and the resulting pixellation can be tolerable or not, depending on how far you are viewing it.  I sometimes think it’s such a waste to print a badly pixellated picture.

I was on the light rail transit this morning, commuting to a business meeting at the other end of town, when I saw this guy with a Canon EOS camera on the train.  That would have been perfectly normal, carrying a camera around, but I do remember a memo a while back stating that taking pictures inside the train is subject to a fine.  (The reason for the warning is pretty obscure, but it was a way of telling peeping toms not to take stolen shots of passengers with their cell phone cameras, spy cameras or any other camera.)

At the end of the line, the photographer and his guide, walked to the connecting station to ride the other train.  Since I was also on my way to the other line, I didn’t pay much attention to this as I was deep in my own thoughts.  Until I saw him raise his camera and casually took a shot of a security guard.  The photographer was walking towards the pair of security personnel, raised the camera with one hand, and without looking through the viewfinder shot straight ahead.  I noted that he didn’t use any flash and that the LCD didn’t have a LiveView feature.  After taking the shot, he continued walking with his guide, who seemed to be acquainted with the security people, as if nothing happened.

On taking the train on the next line, I didn’t notice the pair at first.  It seems that they got on to a train prior to the one I rode.  After two stops, here was the pair again, stepping into the train and casually continuing their conversation.  The photographer again was very casual, asking questions and giving observations.  It seems that this was the first time he ever commuted on the light rail system.  On one shot he did take the time to look through the viewfinder, but on two other shots, he just raised his hand and pointed the camera to shoot.

While I found this to be too casual a method of taking pictures, I did find some method to what he was doing.  I was able to see one of the pictures he shot when he reviewed the picture immediately after shooting it.  It showed a vanishing point of lines pointing towards the center.  The lines were the posts, and ceiling and vents all pointing towards the end of the train cab.

Thinking about it and understanding the process, I can see that at least he was repeating a process which he most probably already did with the other train lines.  Alternatively, it was also possible that he had already studied the shots he wanted to take and just took them without any need of looking through the viewfinder.  It did help a lot that he had a good camera, with a good auto-focus and light metering.  The process of taking pictures looked less technical and he could concentrate on what he wanted to shoot, and if he repeated the process with several trains, he can choose which one would be best among other like pictures.

The best times to shoot a picture under the sun would be between 7:00 to 10:00 AM and between 4:00 and 5:00PM.  But even the afternoon sun would give a reddish tinge as the sun’s rays get filtered out leaving the long end of the spectrum.

The worst time would have to be from 11:00AM to 2:00PM when the sun is at it’s zenith.  The light would be too bright (harsh as some would call it) and streaming from the wrong angle, straight down.  This would leave the face highlighted in sharp stark shadows.

The best solution when forced to take pictures while the sun is high would be take pictures in the shade, or partial shade and lying down, with the camera above the subject.  But seriously, there are ways to do this.

Without any props, the best way to do this would be to set the aperture one or two stops down, to underexpose the shot, use the flash and to shoot the subject with the camera held upside down.  This is specially true if the shot was a portrait.  The reasons behind this are simple enough to understand once you get past the shooting with an upside down camera stage.

Since it’s too bright, setting the aperture a step or two down, will result in a darker (or toned down) picture.  (The reverse is normally done if the background is much brighter than the foreground or subject.) Otherwise, there would be no details captured of the subject.  To offset this, using the flash will illuminate the subject.  And while using the camera upside down, the flash unit would be below the lens, resulting in highlighting the dark areas from the harsh sunlight streaming from directly overhead.

Alternatively, if there was a choice of position, shooting from above the subject and the subject looking up. there’s no need for a flash.  But it would still be a good idea to underexpose a bit.  This is a judgment call depending on what the ground is, if it was sand or snow, set the aperture one or even two steps down.

A word of warning is needed at this point.  If you have a digital camera, check the white balance setting.  And while you’re at it, don’t use the automatic mode for balance setting.

With some camera accessories (like reflectors and filters) the job gets easier.  There’s no need to use a fancy reflector, just a screen you can use to reflect sunlight so that instead of streaming harshly from above, the light gets reflected from the sides.  This could be a white board or a board wrapped with aluminum foil.

The aperture would still have to be a step or two down, because there’s really too much light on the subject and some details would be lost.  You’ll have to try for a softer shot, preferably with a neutral or gray filter.

And if you’re working with a polarizer, it would be a good idea to shoot the subject at an upward angle, in profile, with the sky and clouds as background.  The picture would have to be shot with flash, still with the camera upside down.

A photographer should take the time, every so often, to see things with his own eyes and not through the camera lens.  This sounds easy enough, but gives the irony of the photographer.  The photographer as the chronicler of the event is there as a third-party.  Not a participant, and not an observer, but a recorder of things.  In my view, to be a better chronicler of events, the photographer has two choices:  he has to know what is going to happen so he can prepare for the shot; or he can observe without immersing himself.

The wedding photographer is part of the former.  Today’s weddings and receptions (specially the reception) are setup affairs for the entertainment of the guests.  In this context the wedding photographer can orchestrate every move and shoot or re-shoot as needed.  This forces the photographer to re-create a wedding with every assignment, ending up with all the weddings looking the same.  The spontaneity of the picture would be almost missing.

For a more creative approach, or a novel approach, the photographer has to immerse himself in the event and understand what’s happening.  In this context, after a while, the amateur photographer has to let go of the camera and enjoy the celebration, or event.

Besides, there is a whole lot more fun in taking a picture which is not posed, nor expected.  Treat is as an exercise in creativity.

For candid shots, you need a telephoto lens, and/or a wide-angle lens.  Preferably, you should use an SLR (or DSLR).  But if you only have a point-and-shoot, then open it up to its maximum zoom.  Set the exposure for the lighting before-hand.  It’s necessary to set the exposure first, and allow the camera’s auto-focus feature to work when taking the shot.  This would result in faster focusing.  The aim of the exercise is to shoot fast.  When taking candid shots, you want the subject to stand out.  You can have the camera blur the background.   And double check that the flash is not set on auto-mode.

This takes lots of practice.  It also helps if you have a sense of humor, or an eye for capturing an unposed scene.  It would be good to have some practice in the wild, taking pictures of people, total strangers, in the mall, or at the park, and to do this unobtrusively.  With a wide-angle lens, you can take a picture without looking through the viewfinder.  It’s also particularly effective when taking pictures from a moving vehicle. And with a long telephoto, you can take a photo far away enough not to be noticed.

Candid photography is hard to come by.  And it is this freshness which a lot of ad photographers aspire to, putting a spin on an assignment, making the picture look more natural.  For the amateur, a candid photo is something which was not composed with the subject.  For a professional photographer, a candid photo is something very hard to capture even while it was set up to look that way.

Minox is an established brand in a niche all its own.  Well maybe not all its own, there are others out there in the space it occupies, but these are mainly low quality copy cats and not really competing with the Minox.  The niche is very small, and Minox invented it:  the spy camera.

Though the Cold War is all but history, Minox continues to make mini cameras which for all intents and purposes, really are spy cameras.  Minox designed cameras to be small and easy to hide and carry.  These cameras were also designed to shoot pictures unobtrusively, in the best possible resolution.

The company started in the late 1930’s and has weathered the transition from film to digital cameras quite nicely.  The latest products maintain the mindset of the mini-camera.

The new Minox camera is named the Agent M DSC (for Digital SpyCam). The Digital SpyCam is a 5MP camera in a very small form factor of of just 86 x 29 x 20 mm.  With a bright 1.5 inch viewfinder, you can take spontaneous, fast shots, even in low light condition. And when in doubt, the integrated flash switches on automatically.  Pictures are stored in mini-SD card (capable of storing up to 16MB of files) aside from the 128MB built-in memory.  It’s also capable of shooting 320×240 video in AVI-format.  Without the flash unit, the camera weighs 90 grams.  Aperture is f/3.0 and the focal length is 8.5mm, equivalent to 42mm on a 35mm camera.  It may not have optical zoom, but it does have 4x digital zoom.  Minimum focusing distance is at 0.5 meter.  The pictures can be downloaded by a USB 2.0 connection to a PC running Windows or Mac.

Another new product is the Agent M Digital Sunglasses Camera.  Looks like an expensive pair of sunglasses (with replaceable lenses too), it has a micro video camera integrated in one earpiece which can be controlled remotely and inconspicuously.  The other earpiece has an MP3 player.  Though I think it would be a bit suspicious wearing one of these indoors and away from the sun.

There’s also the Agent M Digital Belt Camera which masquerades as a belt buckle and enables videos being taken without being noticed.  The camera records in 3GP format with the controls within easy reach on the underside of the buckle.

Something more  common is the Agent M Digital Pen Camera.  This is a real working ball-point pen with a micro video camera which records in AVI format.  It also has a microphone integrated in the pen clip.  Videos are downloaded via a built-in USB port.

And there’s the special Agent M Spy Sunglasses 180°.  So called because it allows the wearer to see behind his back.  The secret is in the mirror-coating on the inside outer edges of the lenses, acting like rearview mirrors.  And like any other pair of decent sunglasses it also has UV protection.

These products may look like novelty items or toys, but Minox has been manufacturing well-designed durable miniature cameras for the past 70 years.  Going digital, these are not your grandfather’s tools.  Some companies make instant classics, and Minox is one of those.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 is a compact camera with loads of difference from the regular compact point-and-shoot.

It has an elegantly simple design with a 3-inch LCD at the back and a 2.5x zoom lens, equivalent to a 24-60mm on a 35mm camera.  The aperture is a bright f/2 on the wide-angle and 2.8 at 60mm telephoto.  The camera can shoot in RAW format only, or RAW and a choice of two JPEG setting.  This gives the photographer more than enough choices with the choice of picture formats.

Framing the shot is done via the 3-inch LCD screen.  It’s clear, bright and has a legible menu system.  You don’t need to bring your eyes close to the camera see what’s being shot.

The cameras manual controls are accessed with a joystick, which allow you to set apertures, shutter speeds, manual focusing and to access the quick menu.

However, this is not a PHD (”press here dummy”) camera.  It has too many buttons buttons and switches controlling most everything, that the regular casual photographer would be hard-pressed to understand any of the button usage.  This is definitely one of those cameras where you have to read the manual.  There are almost twenty buttons to control this camera.  This adds a layer of complexity to the learning curve.  Added to this is the depth of the menu systems for setup and record. For a non-techie, this just means that he’d be enjoying the camera without using the more advanced features.  Nonetheless, the manual is easy to follow, just in case you want to understand how to use this thing.

Speaking of reading the manual before using it, shooting in high-definition has a bit more to set up than other cameras.  You have to set the lens to shoot in 16:9 format first, and then select the picture mode on the menu before you start shooting in HD.  The camera does not automatically crop to widescreen for the HD video.  The LX-3 shoots HD in 1280×720 pixels at 24fps.  At 24fps, the television playback will be a bit choppy due to the difference in frame rate between the video and the TV.

To help with handheld shakes the camera has a High Sensitivity mode which effectively raises the ISO from 1600 to a maximum of 6400.  This allows for slower shutter speed, and it allows the photographer to take the relatively low-light shots without need of a flash.  Or alternatively, it can freeze fast movements more effectively.

The onboard software is quite comprehensive as it allows for cropping, resizing, leveling, organizing, change aspect ratio, sort images, insert text, delete, protect, add a sound clip, and do a side-by-side comparison.  The leveling option is particularly good for pictures which are a bit skewed or leaning to the left or right, rotating the image to straighten it and crops the edges.

Though not being marketed as a bridge camera, this particular model has enough advanced features to go head to head with other more established and more expensive brands.  Lumix as a brand has always had a different approach to marketing.  This is one camera which again would follow its predecessors with a full feature set (and more) and will be a pleasant surprise to any photographer.

The present popularity of digital cameras came about because of the 1980’s and 1990’s boom in point-and-shoot 35mm film cameras. These are easy to use, no hassle, just point (automatic self-focusing) and shoot. Next step is to go to the photo print shop and have the film developed. If the user does not know how to take out the film (or even insert the film in the first place) the store clerk can assist you in taking it out — and making sure that the film is not exposed in the process.

The digital cameras go up one evolutionary step higher. There is no film, so the pictures get downloaded and printed from the computer or if the user so wants, he can still get this printed at the mall’s print shop. Since almost everyone with a digital camera also has an email address, logically, lots of these pictures also get sent to wherever friends, relatives, websites are.

With almost all major film (and camera and computer) manufacturers also creating their own line of digital cameras, it stands to reason that there might be more pictures being taken now with digital cameras than with film-based cameras. Because there is no film.

There was a glaring problem with point-and-shoot cameras. It was so glaring, that it differentiates and defines the quality between pictures taken by dedicated hobbyists and professionals using SLR cameras pictures taken by real amateurs or beginners with point-and-shoot cameras. Most of those taken by amateurs and beginners are center-oriented. The subject is literally in the center of the picture.  Even with the “free film” of digital cameras, this is still the case. This is partly because to the photographer it doesn’t really matter how the photo is composed. If you do not have the “eye” for composition, and no inclination to study and develop composition, this will not happen.

The other reason, is because with early point-and-shoot cameras, off-center subjects are off focus. To a certain extent this is still true of digital cameras, as some cameras will not focus unless it is centered. Other cameras just default to center-focus and the user doesn’t know the difference.

The “rule of thirds” is a simplified interpretation or rule of thumb in composing pictures. You divide the shot into 3, and have the subject occupy the left or the right — rarely the center. Simple and easy to follow. And out of focus because the camera does not focus on the 2-thirds which is the left and right, but in the middle. Could have been a great composition, just that the picture is blurred. The only solution is to study the camera manual and experiment. Should take the regular user about 2 to 3 weeks to go through the camera features while taking pictures. And forever to remember how to do it right. Sounds almost like a manual SLR learning curve.  This is also related to the rule about the “Golden Ratio.”

Of course, there are now auto-focus systems which are not center-weighted, but even then, most photographers don’t pay attention to this very simple rule.
Which is why, sooner or later, I will get myself a digital SLR, so I can go full-manual again. I do sound like a throwback sometimes.

A photomosaic is a fairly common technique in poster presentation. Though there are some instances when this is over done, or done poorly, the technique is still something to marvel at.

The concept of a photo mosaic is to represent a photo as a set of smaller photos. Instead of pixels, there would be a large number of pictures representing relative large pixels. There have been several good instances of movie posters which have used this to good effect including the movie poster for “The Truman Show.”

In creating a photo mosaic, there are several tutorials on the web, including one from Engadget. The important thing to remember is that you only need a few hundred pictures of your own. Preferably these should have a full spectrum of colors. The main picture is, in effect, blown up as pictures are used to recreate the image. This would result in a large picture (with a large file size). It would be good to view for a webpage, for instance, or for printing as a poster.

For best results, the tiles should be of one topic only. There was once a photo mosaic of Bill Gates made up of logos of companies which Microsoft has acquired, owned or competed against. The tiles serve as a sub-topic to the photo-mosaic. For instance, a portrait could be made into a photo-mosaic using other potraits of the same person, taken over his lifetime. A poster like this could be a good birthday present, if you have an archive of pictures.

The software used, AndreaMosaic, is a credit-ware program. It means that if you use it, you have to attribute the software used. It is also relatively easy to use. It can also capture frames from a movie. You can use a home movie, for instance, and the software can capture individual frames for use in a photo mosaic.

Source: AndreaMosaic.

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