Loctor Mayat’s Autopsy

Oo… today leh.. Cikgu going to talk about something else laa..

You see, these photography stuff… while it may be fun… it is not actually cheap. When one is going into this hobby initially, he or she must be prepared to spend a substantial amount of money in order to get a basic start up kit for him or her to start shooting photos.

Well.. today Cikgu Mayat is going to give a few pointers, based on personal experiences, as well as from what I’ve observed over the years on how people finance their equipment lah….

(1) Never use ‘Evil Money’ to buy

Okay, what did I mean by Evil Money leh? Maybe this photo will go straight to the point:

Woahahha~!

I know that almost of all you, are buying your camera stuff using credit cards. Well… to me, there is nothing wrong with buying using credit cards. In fact, sometimes when the items are thousands and thousands of Ringgit, it is EXTREMELY dangerous to carry that amount of cash to walk into a store.

So, credit card is useful only if you look at it from this point of view.

Bear in mind, most shops will charge an additional of 2-3% on the total price if you use credit card to pay. There is nothing much you can do about it but if you are good friends with the boss, you might get charged lesser. WOahahhaha

Now…. IF you use the credit card to pay for your precious DSLR and it’s accessories…. BUT you only pay the minimum amount every month the credit card statement comes… then you’re nothing but a fool.

This kind of purchase, is what I call it buying with ‘Evil Money‘. Spending your future income is an idiotic way of obtaining your material desires. It is sad to say that quite a lot of people go into this kind of credit card debt so easily, after a few years, they are easily in RM20-30k of debts. What for laaa…?

Never spend your future income!!

(2) You DON’T NEED to have everything

When you are picking up photography, you need to differentiate between what you NEED and what you WANT. A lot of people cannot tell which are the things they need and things they want.

For Cikgu, the things you definitely NEED are:

- A camera (DUH~!)

- A good wide angle lens (e.g. Kit Lens)

- An adequate support system a.k.a Tripod

- A drybox , and

- A flash unit (if you can afford it)

To me, that is all that you need for producing excellent images for many many years. Of course, now with digital photography you will need to do some simple (or extremely heavy) post processing so you’ll need a computer powerful enough to run PhotoShop or whatever software you want to.

I really do not understand those guys who buy multiple lenses which more or less do the same thing. I can understand the concept behind having multiple flashes if the photographer is into multiple flash lighting techniques though.

The worst are those who want to buy everything but once they get their hands on it, they never use it.

There are photographers, and there are people who like to talk about photography. Which group do you belong to?

Every time someone asks me whether they should get this lens or that flash or that body bla bla bla…. I will always ask the same question.. “Do you need it?”

For some, they can answer themselves and admit that they just want to buy it for shiok shiok saje..

well.. if you have money and don’t know what to do with it….. by all means go ahead. But if you’re just an average salary earner with bills to pay and debts to clear, then…..

WOAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

(3) Buy ORI (if you can)

Okay.. this one.. not all may agree with me but who cares? LOL

If you have a Nikon DSLR… please la… go buy Nikon lenses and stick with it

If you have a Canon… then go get a Canon lens…

I have nothing against 3rd party lenses like Tamron, Sigma, Tokina, Etc…. I do admit some of them produce very good results. My point here is that, since you are spending your hard earned money on something that costs several thousands… why not just go ahead and get the best there is? The primary reason people go for 3rd party is because they’re cheap… that’s all. Not the F/2.8 capability or what Vibration Reduction or whatever mumbo jumbo… no… that is just to cheat yourself and make you happy for a few weeks after your purchase.

Personally, I have bought and used several 3rd party lenses. Today, I have already sold off each and every one of them. None of them can give me consistent results. Some of them couldn’t even focus properly when I needed it to. The worst is, after a couple of years, the coating of the 3rd party lens slowly disappear!!

Now, with my original Nikon lenses, I never faced such issues.

(4) You don’t “invest” in photography unless you make money out of it

Some people very smart. To justify their expensive photography purchase to their wives/mother… they said they are “investing” into the equipment.

These people ah… don’t know whether they understand the term “invest” or not….

Investing by definition means putting in your money with the intention of making a return out from it.

So… if you are “investing” your money in your expensive photography gear, you must have some plan of getting back some Return on Investment (ROI). How to do that leh? Easy nia…. 99.999% newbies will say they will shoot wedding photos for people.

Some will have a plan of setting up a studio…. while some target commercial companies to sell their images.

Those are very good.. as long as you stick to your plan… and make a return as soon as possible.

NOW…

A LOT.. and i say … A LOT of people who go and shoot weddings… are actually quite…

How come?

Say for example a certain Mr Lambardo who just spent roughly RM4,000 on a medium range DSLR with a wide angle zoom kit lens plus a flash. He said he will go shoot wedding to make money…

One fine day, thanks to some recommendations from some aunties or what nots… Mr Lambardo was asked to shoot the wedding ceremony of some cousin aunty sister’s friend’s uncle’s mechanic son’s tuition teacher. However, because he’s new and inexperienced, he only charges RM200 for his services.

SO… if you do some simple calculation..

If Mr Lambardo charges RM200 *ONLY*  each and every time his ’services’ are needed, he will only Break Even after…

4,000  / 200 = 20 times

That… does not even include his petrol, toll, lodging, food incurred during the photo shoot. In addition, he might even need to apply annual leave from work or sacrifice his weekends just to achieve that.

Now.. the biggest mistake a newbie would do is… after getting .. say… 2 jobs worth Rm200… they feel like they’re damn pro already. So… the “pro” label must be accompanied by better equipment. So off goes the RM400 into upgrading to a better lens or flash or camera body. This goes on and on and after a few years, they would’ve already spent tens of thousands on equipments alone.. but still charging less than RM1k for their services.

Where’s the investment????

It is a different story.. if you have the mindset of buying the equipment.. as a hobby. This is actually what I’m doing now… I don’t care about how much I can earn from the hobby… I only care about getting nice images for myself and my family which I can treasure for many years to come. If someone needs my services, even if I shoot for free also i won’t feel a thing because in my head , making money out from the hobby never crossed my mind.

The only caveat is… I need to know you pretty well to be able to shoot for FREE for you. LOL… else… you go find those RM200 photographers la.. they are “Investors”

(5) Save up

This has got to be the most basic advice any parent can give.

If you want something so badly… even though it’s rather a useless thing…

as long as you like it.. and you think you will enjoy it a lot… who cares what other people say?? Just buy it!

These photography stuff are not cheap… in fact, some of them are so expensive costing tens of thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousand. If you want them so badly.. .then save up for it!

I find it very appalling that an average salaried worker cannot even put aside one or two hundred a month aside for savings. What comes in.. goes out immediately. How stupid is that.

As discussed about in (1), never use credit card to buy then slowly pay off… even though it has the 0% installment facility. It sucks to pay off something for several months. I’ve been there, I know the feeling.

If the camera you want to buy costs Rm3,000… then put aside RM200 every month.. by 1.5 years… you already have the money to buy it already. Hey, you do get a bonus at the end of the year… no? You might get the buy the equipment sooner than you think

The key word is…. DISCIPLINE

Some tried but only manage to save the money for 2 months.

Some talk very pandai but couldn’t even save for the 1 month.

Talk a lot but no action… you only have yourself to blame for getting into deeper and deeper debt.

Okay laa… Enough talk already. I manage to type so long because I am on annual leave enjoying my time off and UltraBen is with the babysitter now. Woahahha… time for Cikgu to go sleep liao…

See ya!

MURID MURID~!!

CIKGU DAH BALIK~~~~~~

WOAHAHAHHAHA…….

So how are you all? Yes yes… I know I’ve been busy and I’ve been neglecting the blog and my kelas kameras because of UltraBen. Really paiseh… I think most of the murid-murid Kelas Kamera pun dah cabutzz… LOL

Anyways, today I am going to go back to basic a bit for those who are new to this photography thing. Today I’m going to talk about the different type of lenses that is available, and which one you should use.

THE “LOUSY” KIT LENS

Okay, if you just bought your first DSLR, it will surely come with a packaged lens which everybody called it as the ‘Kit Lens’. The kit lens is an all-purpose lens that usually comes in the focal length range of 18mm to 55mm or sometimes 70mm. The higher end models will come with a longer zoom range but that doesn’t really matter.

Some of these kit lenses has extra features like VR (Vibration Reduction) and some mumbo-jumbo marketing thingamagic which I don’t really bother much.

The range provided by this lens allows you to capture a lot of images in different scenarios. In fact, if I were to go on a holiday trip, this is the only lens I’ll bring.

Macro? NO PROBLEM~~~~ take this photo for example, it was taken using my old old old D50 + kit lens:

So, there is actually nothing wrong with your kit lens. The only problem is you yourself for no having no skills to fully utilize it. WOahhaha…

Telephoto Lenses

Well… usually, the 2nd lens that a hobby photographer would buy will be a telephoto zoom lens.

The telephoto zoom lens is pretty much the same as the wide angle kit lens, with the difference is that the telephoto zoom lens allow you to shoot something very far away (e.g. Your opposite neighbour changing his sarong).

Can you use it to shoot portrait? SURE!!!

Can you use it to shoot macro? SURE!!!

Can you use it to shoot fisheye effect photo? SIAO AH!!!

DAN SEBAGAINYA…

Okay.. there are many other lenses… from super zoom like 18-200mm… to super telephoto like 600mm F/4.. and of course.. my favourite the prime lenses like my precious 20mm F/2.8D

One day when I senang, I will talk more about prime lenses.

The Take Away Message…

You see, many people thought that certain photos can only be taken using certain lenses. So, without proper knowledge and some lousy will power, they go and buy and spend their hard earned money to go and get more and more lenses hoping to achieve something. Well that’s wrong. We are Kiammsiap™ people…. we don’t simply spend money in today’s economy.

After buying the camera, just use the kit lens and practice. Use it to your advantage. Find out its strength and weakness. Without any skills you go and spend tens of thousands of ringgit on lenses also no point one.

Itu saja la…. till next time Cikgu is free again… I talk about prime lenses

SELAMAT PAGI MURID-MURID !!!!

How are you guys and girls doing?

Today, Cikgu Mayat going to teach something very easy… which is how to use your flashes to do very nice outdoor portraiture lighting. If you are a Nikon user then it will be easier to understand as Cikgu Mayat does not really get how does the other systems work.

Anyhow, today Cikgu Mayat and 2 other handsome fellas went to the Momok Train Yard to do some portraiture lighting shots. Initially, I was hoping to get the cute Purple Lady to become the model, mana tau she’s busy. Aiyak…

Hokkien people say, “No fish, prawn also can la….”

Since there are 3 “prawns” between us, don’t waste time lah. Hahaha

When we arrived, Cikgu Mayat “unzipped” the tools needed for today:

On the floor, 2x free light stands, 1 shoot through umbrella, tripod, portable softbox, 2x Manfrotto lite-tite, 1x SB600 and 1x SB800

Before coming here, I’ve already got one shot which I wanna do… here it is:

Woahaha… nice leh?

Is it very hard to produce this photo???

Well.. Not at all !!!

I have some free time to draw this diagram on how I set up the lighting for this shot..

See? So easy !!!

Okay.. why do I compensate both flashes with 1.0EV leh? That’s because I used F/8 to cut down the amount of light coming into the lens, hence the overall ambient light is reduced in the frame. When shooting in CLS™, the shutter speed is fixed at 1/60 seconds.

Since I’ve reduced the amount of light from the ambient in the photo, I need to pump up the power of each flash since they’re the main lights that I wanted to capture in the photo. Else, you’ll only get 2 small glow of light in the photo.

Well.. that’s about it. We took turns to shoot each other using this set up:

(guess that’s how I would look like from behind. HAHHAHAHAHHAHA)

So, next we set up the next shot which is a close up half body shot.

The arrangement for this shot is rather simple. Here I taught my murid/model that to set up lighting, there are 3 easy steps only:

1. Shoot without any flash (use available light only)

2. Add and adjust your main light

3. Add additional light (backlight, fill, etc)

In this shot, I placed the SB-800 on the manfroto lite-tite and attached the translucent shoot through umbrella. I added another light which is dialed down a little bit to act as the hair/back light to give the model look 3D… like popping out of the photo:

Nice leh?

Here is the diagram on how I set up the shot:

If you noticed, the model looks like his face is being stuffed with the umbrella. LOL~! Actually no lah…. to get nice wrap around lighting, we need to place the light source as close as possible to the model. So, I asked my other murid Kelas Kamera to hold the light stand and hover the umbrella above the model’s head.

Like this:

Hahaha….. very funny..

Using this arrangement, you can shoot many beautiful portraits. In addition to that, if umbrella is not your cup of tea, you can also use the softbox to get more directional light towards the model, rather than the ‘everywhere also light up‘ umbrella.

If you reduce the aperture, you’ll capture less and less ambient light but remember to increase the flash power to light up your model properly. If you balance it right, you’ll be able to get indoor studio effect, but taken outdoors !

FUYOOOH~~~!!!!!

Actually, lighting from the top is really nice. A few experiments here and there, showed that you can produce very COOL photos….

Hahahahha….

After that, we looked at different locations and each of us tried to take our own unique shot of the day. One of the coolest shot produced by my murid kelas is these two:

Ha ha haa…. so cool !! And very strategically placed lightings too. Let’s see in the two shots above, how many of you know how it was set up. *GRINS*

So, that’s about it for today’s kelas kamera.

Of course, a group photo to remember today’s Kelas Kamera outing…

*Walks in to Kelas*

Cikgu LM: “SELAMAT PAGI MURID-MURID!!”

MURID-MURID: ……….

Cikgu LM: “Eh? BIADAP BETUL NI!!”

MURID-MURID: “Cikgu… Lu sudah lama tak ajar laa… sudah lupa siapo lu!”

Cikgu LM: **angkat rotan dan bantai semua murid-murid punya punggok**

————————–

Wah… Ha ha ha. . how are you all ?

Today, I am going to talk about something which we shoot often which is GROUP PHOTOS.

Yesterday I had the oppurtunity to be assigned to shoot a group photo for a local church which is celebrating its 50th Anniversary. When I got to know that the group photo will be about 100++ people I was a bit shocked as the last time I ever took a group photo of such scale was several years ago and it sucked.

Also, the group was to be taken at 6pm and the weather was not very helpful too. It was cloudy with dark skies and about to rain.

So… what to do?

Pakai flash loh!! Ha ha..

Before I went for the assignment, I did some reading and got to learn a pretty cool technique which is what I’m going to share today.

As you can see, big groups will be arranged into layers. The younger ones will be squatting in front, while the oldies will be sitting while the other uncles and aunties will be standing on a bench behind. Usually, a 3 or 4 layer group photo is very common when you have about 80-100 people.

Now, if you only use your camera pop-up flash, it’s gonna be suicide as the pop-up flash will never have enough power and coverage to shoot such a group photo in a non-ideal weather. It’s even worst if you’re doing this indoors.

But then, even if you only have one Speedlight, it’s not going to help much too. If the group is only .. say… 40-50 people… then you may… I repeat… may…. pull it off by just directly blasting the group with the speedlight.

So.. my ultimate solution is to use TWO speedlights. And this is how I arranged them:

For both flashes, I pulled out the wide angle diffusion plastic so that the flash will provide more coverage. However, Instead of pointing each of them on only the left / right, I pointed the left flash towards the right… while the right flash towards the left.

This way, there will be some cross lighting and the whole group will be illuminated nicely. Also, the onboard pop-up flash is not only used as a CLS™ commander, it is also used as the 3rd source of light to further light up the center part of the group which usually consists of the important VIPs.

In addition to that, blasting the whole group with directly flash will help to give a flick of reflection from the human bean’s eyes and it sure looks nice

However, that’s just top down arrangement. Another important thing I learnt is that, you need to position your speedlights as high as you can, then point it towards the LAST ROW of the group photo like this:

This is to avoid just illuminating the first two rows of people while underexposing the background. You shouldn’t worry about the front row not getting enough light as the light from the Speedlights are blasted out like the shape of a cone. The front row will definitely get the flick of light one. WOahhahaha

I used my 20mm prime and dialed in F/8.0 @ aperture priority. The camera tells me that a shutter speed of 1/100 seconds is enough. But after a couple of test shots, I found out from the histogram that the group photo will look better by at least half stop difference.

So, using the exposure compensation button, I dialed in +0.7EV on the camera and eventually the camera gave me a reading of 1/80 seconds. Checking the histogram again, I am very satisfied with the outcome.

Finally, I set the 10 second timer, triggered the camera and run towards my position and …. *CHIK CHAK*

*TEET…. TEET… TEET~~!*

OH yeah~! Cantik sekali…

Well… I personally find that… this technique works indoors as well too. As long as…

1) Cross the lights

2) Get your flash as high as possible

3) Aim towards the last row

ITU SAJA! SENANG KAN?

OKAY…itu saja kelas hari ini!

TERIMA KASIH

*walk out of kelas*