CCMS – Camera and Lens

[calvincychin]

I believe a lot of people in preparation mode for the coming Shutter Asia 4th Year Anniversary Gathering. To help elevate the standard and bring newbie closer to those who has been in the photography for a while, I create this Calvin Chin Master Series (CCMS).

In this coming weeks I will try to share my experience as much as possible. I consider myself new to photography and welcome brothers and sisters give me feedback on my CCMS.

In this event, there is a "Tak Nak Chimping" Photography Contest, which I thing a lot of people wanted to be the top 3 but there is only 3 members will be top three. So to win we need to prepare for this contest.

In every competition, I normally go through these steps:-
1. Understand the rule and requirement.
2. Prepare the right gear and settings.
3. Use all the skill I have to be creative and be different from other. The objective is to capture images which give wow! factor. (composition and concept)

I will leave the step one to the organizer. In this first series of CCMS, I will share how I prepare for this contest.

Pardon me for using Nikon term, as I have no experience with other camera system. Please use equivalent in your system.

First I think this contest will be capturing walkabout photos. Yap… I am just like you all, don’t know the topic but we still need to prepare with reasonable amount of assumptions. So you will need to have a good well rounded lenses and a camera body which you are familiar with. For lenses, I will go for 16-85, 17-55, 18-200, 24-70 with relatively close focusing.

For body, I will set to the following:-
1. sRGB – Most likely organizer will be using windows (or maybe mac). Most windows application is not color managed so it is safer to shoot in sRGB color space.

2. Select either center weighted or spot metering mode and be very familiar with its behavior. Why not Matrix metering? Matrix metering mode will normally give you a little bit under exposed photo because it takes into a large area into consideration. Center weighted is what most old camera is using… the famous Leica also using center weighted. I like center weighted because it emphasize on where my focus point is. You got what I mean? I can give more emphasis on center area in the picture. This is very important as you are not able to edit the photo in the contest. So the emphasis step has to be done in camera. Spot metering will give you more control on every area in your photo but you need to know what you are doing. Metering will be one of the topic in my mind to share it out in later CCMS.

3. Set picture quality to the best quality. E.g. fine.

4. Set capture format to Jpeg.

5. Set your White Balance to Auto. If your camera Auto WB giving you inconsistent result, you may want to switch between Sunny, Shade and Cloud during the contest.

6. Picture Style customization. For this you need to bring your camera out and try to shoot between 9am to 12pm. Adjust the saturation, sharpness and contrast until it gives you the most optimum output. You will need to repeat this step in different day to test on different lighting condition such as Sunny, Shade, Cloud and Raining.

7. Get yourself familiar with DOF button. Check your DOF before shooting. The objective of DOF is to have the subject separated from the background. Use this button to check it is giving you a good separation before hitting the shutter.

8. Set your ISO not exceeding 400 if possible. Of cause this is a personal preferences.

9. Try the Active D-Light level, during step 6. Try Off, Low, Normal and High. If it does give you a good result, stick to the setting.

10. Lastly bring a light weight tripod. Why? Because you don’t want the weight to kill your mood.

Other necessities:-
1. Comfortable bag to carry all your gear, food and water bottle
2. Water bottle
3. Food e.g. energy bar

Hope you all like it.

[syahrir]

Originally Posted by calvincychin

I believe a lot of people in preparation mode for the coming Shutter Asia 4th Year Anniversary Gathering. To help elevate the standard and bring newbie closer to those who has been in the photography for a while, I create this Calvin Chin Master Series (CCMS).

In this coming weeks I will try to share my experience as much as possible. I consider myself new to photography and welcome brothers and sisters give me feedback on my CCMS.

In this event, there is a "Tak Nak Chimping" Photography Contest, which I thing a lot of people wanted to be the top 3 but there is only 3 members will be top three. So to win we need to prepare for this contest.

In every competition, I normally go through these steps:-
1. Understand the rule and requirement.
2. Prepare the right gear and settings.
3. Use all the skill I have to be creative and be different from other. The objective is to capture images which give wow! factor. (composition and concept)

I will leave the step one to the organizer. In this first series of CCMS, I will share how I prepare for this contest.

Pardon me for using Nikon term, as I have no experience with other camera system. Please use equivalent in your system.

First I think this contest will be capturing walkabout photos. Yap… I am just like you all, don’t know the topic but we still need to prepare with reasonable amount of assumptions. So you will need to have a good well rounded lenses and a camera body which you are familiar with. For lenses, I will go for 16-85, 17-55, 18-200, 24-70 with relatively close focusing.

For body, I will set to the following:-
1. sRGB – Most likely organizer will be using windows (or maybe mac). Most windows application is not color managed so it is safer to shoot in sRGB color space.

2. Select either center weighted or spot metering mode and be very familiar with its behavior. Why not Matrix metering? Matrix metering mode will normally give you a little bit under exposed photo because it takes into a large area into consideration. Center weighted is what most old camera is using… the famous Leica also using center weighted. I like center weighted because it emphasize on where my focus point is. You got what I mean? I can give more emphasis on center area in the picture. This is very important as you are not able to edit the photo in the contest. So the emphasis step has to be done in camera. Spot metering will give you more control on every area in your photo but you need to know what you are doing. Metering will be one of the topic in my mind to share it out in later CCMS.

3. Set picture quality to the best quality. E.g. fine.

4. Set capture format to Jpeg.

5. Set your White Balance to Auto. If your camera Auto WB giving you inconsistent result, you may want to switch between Sunny, Shade and Cloud during the contest.

6. Picture Style customization. For this you need to bring your camera out and try to shoot between 9am to 12pm. Adjust the saturation, sharpness and contrast until it gives you the most optimum output. You will need to repeat this step in different day to test on different lighting condition such as Sunny, Shade, Cloud and Raining.

7. Get yourself familiar with DOF button. Check your DOF before shooting. The objective of DOF is to have the subject separated from the background. Use this button to check it is giving you a good separation before hitting the shutter.

8. Set your ISO not exceeding 400 if possible. Of cause this is a personal preferences.

9. Try the Active D-Light level, during step 6. Try Off, Low, Normal and High. If it does give you a good result, stick to the setting.

10. Lastly bring a light weight tripod. Why? Because you don’t want the weight to kill your mood.

Other necessities:-
1. Comfortable bag to carry all your gear, food and water bottle
2. Water bottle
3. Food e.g. energy bar

Hope you all like it.

Wah...thanks for sharing. Good information for beginner like me

[calvincychin]

Good to hear that you like it.