How I Shoot It #6: Partial Solar Eclipse Using Micro Four Thirds

Hello everyone, today I'm back with another "How I Shoot It" post. This time I want to share a bit of astro-photography that I do sometimes with Micro Four Thirds. As you know, recently there's a Solar Eclipse that happened here in Indonesia last week, and I photographed the whole thing from start to finish.

So here you go, the partial solar eclipse pictures:
      

    

     

 

   

 

   

 

   
As you can see, I took a whole bunch of sun pictures on that day, and although I can't really get any detail out of the sun, I'm quite happy with the result. All of these pictures are taken using my Panasonic GX7 and Panasonic Lumix 100-300mm f/4.0-5.6 G Vario lens, with a bunch of some others stuff that I will mention later.
  

Camera Settings

f/5.6 at the beginning of the eclipse when it's still early in the morning, f/8.0-f/11.0 at the peak of the eclipse, and f/16 at almost the end of the eclipse, when the sun is bright. Shutter speed is always around 1/4000 or 1/8000. ISO is always 200, can't risk 100 because of the lack of dynamic range at that ISO for the GX7, which you will need to recover some detail from the sun should the light gets unpredictable.
   

IMPORTANT! I used 10-12 stops worth of ND filters to cut down the light entering the camera. The particular ones that I used were the Lee Big Stopper 10 stop, and a couple of Hitech 2 stops graduated ND. YOU WILL NEED TO USE ND FILTER, or some other type of light blocking device, or even A PROPER SOLAR FILTER. OTHERWISE, YOU COULD RISK DAMAGING YOUR CAMERA SENSOR WITH SUCH BRIGHT LIGHT, EVEN WITH F/22 ISO 100 1/8000S!!

   

This is my GX7 with the 100-300mm and the multiple ND filters that I attached to get a reasonable exposure setting on my camera. Hardcore stuff, isn't it? :p

  
I zoomed all the way to 300mm(that's 600mm full frame) using the GX7, and I sadly had to shoot JPEG because I need to use the 2x and 4x digital teleconverter, which unfortunately only available in JPEG. If your lens can get longer than 600mm eq, you won't need to shoot in JPEG. Always shoot RAW for situations like this!
  

Technique

Tripod! ND Filters! Ultra long telephoto lens! You can still skip the tripod if you feel ballsy, but don't skip on the other two when shooting solar eclipse!
  
Actually, there's not a lot of technique being involved here, it's all just about getting the right exposure and nailing the focus. I use single AF on the GX7 and it worked well. You just have to point the AF point to the contrasty edge of the sun's periphery to get a lock on the sun.
  
Composition wise, fill the frame. Crop if you need too, use digital tele-converter if you must, get as close as possible to filling the frame. Afterwards, you can always fill the frame with negative space later on in the post, because right now you want to "savor" as much of the sun to fill up your sensor, so you won't regret it later.
  
Keep in mind, the earth is rotating, so you'll see the sun "moves" from the east to the west slowly(in fact it's the earth that rotates). This effect gets very pronounced especially when you are shooting with an ultra long telephoto lens. Therefore, be ready to follow the sun and catch it in your composition. Lock your camera down in a tripod, and move the head slowly everytime the sun is at the edge of your frame.
  
Post processing, add some contrast and clarity to the file until you can clearly see the sun spots. The sun spots are the black spots on the sun's surface. At this point you are shooting at small aperture and you will risk showing dust on the sensor, and both dust spots and sun spots look almost the same. The only way to know which one is which, is by shooting the sun multiple times while changing the framing a little bit. If the spots are moving as you move the framing, then they are the sun spots. If they don't move, they're the dust spots, clean them using clone tool.
  

How to improve?

This is one of the situation where gear really matters. I really wish I have the highest megapixel count that I can have, I really wish I have longer lens, I really wish my ND filters aren't eating a bit of the sharpness, gear gear, gear, gear! Laugh at me, call me gear nerds, but you're shooting at the limits of what our cameras can do, and at this point gear does matter.
  
I also wish I was shooting this from the city where I could see total eclipse instead of the partial eclipse that I encountered in my city. But if I did so, I'll have to make a bet that the weather on that particular city will be cloud free at that time. I was about to make the call and go to Palembang city so I can get the total eclipse from there, but fortunately I made the right choice by staying here because it was super cloudy during the eclipse day.
  
I could improve the composition a bit by adding a foreground which will be silhouetted for sure, like the first photo on this post where I put leaves and branches of a tree as my foreground. Unfortunately, as the sun went higher and higher, I need to get closer to the tree to get the leaves and branches as my foreground, and if I focus on the foreground, the sun will just turn into a giant white blob that doesn't look like an eclipse. I tried focusing to the sun, and the foreground just disappeared into a messy grey mist in front of the sun. So it didn't work at that time, but I could try with branches or leaves that are more far away. Or I could probably use a faraway building's rooftop too.
  
That's all for today's post. I hope you enjoy this post, and stay tune for more! Cheers and God bless you!
   

How I Shoot It #5: Low-Key Stuffed Animal, Strobist

Hello everyone, today I'm back with a new "How I Shoot It" post to share my techniques on shooting off camera flash with small products indoor. The photo that I used today is a photo of small stuffed animal/plush toy that I have that's lying around in my house. On this post, we will be exploring my take on off camera flash/strobist shooting technique that was very popularized by David Hobby. You can check out http://strobist.blogspot.com for more info on that.
  
Anyway, here is the photo for today's post.
  

  
This picture of the plush toy was taken sometime around 2015, using either the GX7 or the GX8 (I can't remember, sorry). This photo is all about small product photography, indoor(studio), with off camera flash technique. So, pay attention if this is what you'll need to shoot.
   

Let's analyze this photo

Camera Settings Mumbo Jumbo

f/5.6, 1/250s, ISO 200. Lens was at 25mm for sure (that's 35mm in APS-C, or 50mm in full frame). Make sure that if you shoot the picture without the flash turned on, all is black and dark. This is the most important key-point in shooting low key photographs.
  

Lighting Mumbo Jumbo

There are two lights that were being used in this photo, the first one, a YN510EX was the main light on upper-left of the camera, the other was behind the subject. The main light was modified using Rogue FlashBender, and the back light is gelled using some red transparency paper.
   
The main light is rated at 1/32 power, and the back light is rated at around 1/64 power. I'm placing the lights fairly close to the subject, and the closer the light is to the subject, the more light it will put to the subject. Inverse square law, guys! You can't run from physics, ha! Balance the power as needed, adjust until the subject is perfectly exposed.
   
All flashes were zoomed moderately to 50mm, even the main light which is diffused using the FlashBender, so that it's easier to feather the light.
  

Technique

The main light was handheld using my left hand, while my right hand held the camera. This is how I shoot with single off camera flash most of the time by the way, all handheld and I avoid using light stand whenever possible, to help with run-and-gun situation. FlashBender isn't the softest light modifier in the world, but it's the easiest one to use for run-and-gun situations. And for this small product photography, it's large enough that it mimics the characteristic of a large soft box for small subjects. The plush toy is barely larger than the FlashBender, which makes the FlashBender very soft relative to this plush toy. And at this distance, with the inverse square law, it gets even softer for this close-range light setup.
  
Aim the main light by slowly moving it around, changing its angle ever-so-slightly all the time, until the main light isn't hitting your surrounding. This is very important, since you don't want the main light to bounce from any walls from your room. Hence, make sure the distance between the subject and the nearest wall is as far as possible!
   
For the back light, just place it on a surface behind the subject and hide it so that it won't show on your frame. Keep it zoomed in or gobo-ed so that it's not causing unnecessary flares on your frame, unless you intentionally want the flare, your call. The back light will help to separate the edges of your subject from the dark background by creating some sort of rim light. I personally love this rimmed light look on the subject, it's just so pleasing in my opinion.
 
Composition wise, fill the frame or add as much negative space as possible, your call. Rule of thirds will help if you decide to add negative space. Don't clip any part of the subject, unless you intentionally want to do so. Look around for the shadow, and decide if you need to cut the shadow in the frame, or just let them all be in the frame to add some tension to your picture.
 

Post Processing

Not much, with speedlights for lighting, you can pop the photo significantly that it doesn't require anything to post process. I further popped the photo by adding slight contrast, adding just around +20 clarity, and a slight vibrance to the photo in Lightroom. I also added a little bit of noise reduction to make sure that my black-low-key area isn't grainy. That's all.
 

How to Improve?

I was shooting this photo in my bedroom. It's an okay sized room, but the walls are quite close to each other and to my subject. I struggled so much to avoid light bouncing all over the frame, so I have to keep moving the main light(FlashBender'ed speedlight)'s angle a few times while shooting until I found that one perfect moment where there's no bounced light on the photo.
 
I could definitely shoot in a larger room, and be free of such trouble. And thus making it faster for me to shoot and saving me from a lot of unused frames.
 
Apart from that, I am quite happy with this photo as of right now. If you have any suggestion on how to make this photo better, let me know in the comment section below.
 
That's all for today's "How I Shoot It" post, I hope this post is useful for you, and please leave any comments if you have questions or things to say. Cheers and God bless you :)

Travel Photography with Micro Four Thirds

Hello all, today I want to share to you about my Micro Four Thirds cameras and lenses that I will bring to my upcoming travel. The main purpose of this travel is not photography, so I'm not carrying everything with me, but I'll carry the most important pieces of gear for shooting sceneries and landscapes during the travel.
 

Philosophy on travel photography

The main philosophy is that I want to cover as much focal length as possible with minimum bulk, and I also want to add a little fast lens with a normal field of view to use for low-light situation. I'm not doing portrait in this travel, I'll be shooting mostly landscape, so I don't really need to carry lighting gear or wide aperture telephoto.
 
As with most travel, unless you specifically know what you're going to photograph, it'll be more beneficial to you to carry wide angle lens rather than ultra telephoto lens. Yes, a little bit of telephoto won't hurt if it's not too big and too heavy, just to photograph details of a far-away things; but a wide angle will help to frame everything in a single shot.
 
This doesn't mean that shooting wide angle is easy though. With wide angle lens, everything will be in focus, and your subject needs to really stand out from the rest of the frame to make your photo more meaningful. Distortion will become a problem too, not the lens distortion(which can be easily fixed in software), but the perspective distortion that every ultra-wide angle lens has. These issues will require extra care from you to get the best composition in your shot.
 

What I will carry

For this travel, I will go to Europe. I want to pack as light as possible, so I can have less weight and be able to move around better. My camera bag of choice is my Billingham Hadley Small, and the cameras that I will bring are the Panasonic GX8 and the GX7. They are both very capable cameras, but the GX8 performs slightly snappier than the GX7, so I will use my main lens with the GX8, and my secondary lens with the GX7.
 
On the GX8, I will mount the Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-140mm f/3.5-5.6 as my main lens. It doesn't have fast aperture, but it's sharp(almost as sharp as the 12-35mm f/2.8), and it can go from moderate wide to moderate telephoto, which eliminates the need to carry a separate telephoto lens. It's as big as the 12-35mm f/2.8 too, which is only as big as the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens of a regular Canon crop DSLR.
 
On the GX7, I will mount the ultra wide angle Panasonic Lumix G Vario 7-14mm f/4.0 as my secondary lens. The UWA(ultra wide angle) lens won't get a lot of use for sure, but for general city-scape, architecture, landscape, and interior, this is the right lens. It'll also be used for daytime shooting.
 
I will pack two extra lens, one is the Panasonic Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm f/2.8 which I will use on the GX8 only if needed(I don't plan to use it, so I'll pack it on my separate carry-on bag). And another lens is the Panasonic Lumix G Vario 20mm f/1.7 II, which I will mount on the GX7 during low light situation. The 20mm translates to a focal length of 40mm in 35mm equivalent term, which is right between moderate wide 35mm and normal angle 50mm. This will allow me to take natural perspective shots, especially during low light, that isn't too wide or too tight. I'm expecting this lens to perform well for street photography too.
 
Other than that, I will also carry a small Sirui T-005X tripod in the checked-luggage, just in case there's an opportunity to shoot beautiful landscape with long exposure. I don't think I'll have a chance to use it, but I'll carry it anyway since it's only 1kg. I'm using a separate ball-head from my older Victory tripod, which is quite heavy, but it's very easy to use and doesn't require coin to tighten/loosen the camera plate, unlike the Sirui ball head that comes with the tripod itself.
 

Video

Here's my video of what's in my main camera bag. I won't do the video of the separate carry-on bag, but it's just a standard 4-wheeler small roller luggage to fit the 12-35mm and a few clothes.

That is all for this post, I hope you enjoy reading this post. Until next time, cheers and God bless you :)