Andylim Creative created the identity of this new company, from logo to name card, letterhead, envelope, folder, and last but not least, the website. The recently launched website runs on a content management system, which lets Sunfert update the contents anytime they wish, with ease. Other custom features include an online appointment booking feature, a forum and a newsletter mailing list. Andylim Creative also helped Sunfert come up with their tagline “Conceive your dreams with us”.

Sunfert International Fertility Centre
www.sunfert.com

Introducing SimpleSLR Photographers. A network of budding photographers who already have experience in shooting events such as yours. Take your pick from the pool of photographers on the website. Browse their portfolios to see their style. Find out if they can speak your language. See what equipment they use. Most importantly, check to see if they are available on the date of your event.

Do all this on the website.

Many of the previous participants of my SimpleSLR PhotoClass have expressed interest in a follow-up class, and I’ve been meaning to do this class sooner, but due to my busy schedule I am only able to announce it now.

DATE

7th March 2010 (Sunday)

VENUE

Hotel Armada, Petaling Jaya

TIME

9am – 5pm (Buffet Lunch provided, with 2 coffee breaks)

DIFFICULTY LEVEL

Intermediate to Advanced

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

using flash with natural-looking results
on-camera flash techniques and off-camera flash techniques
infrared vs radio transmitters for off-camera flash
creating soft lighting or hard lighting
balancing flash with ambient light
white balance magic with available light, flash and tungsten lighting
lighting wedding receptions
wireless flash for wedding receptions
group photos with 1 flash unit / 2 flash units
understanding light placement – where to place your light in relation to your subject
4hrs hands-on practical session with a model
equipment recommendations for various budgets
quick and effective post-processing workflow

WHAT YOU SHOULD ALREADY HAVE

Basic working knowledge of aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance
Digital SLR (any brand) and at least one lens
External flashgun

NOT ESSENTIAL, BUT GOOD TO HAVE

Additional lenses
Extra external flashguns
Wireless flash triggers
Laptop computer to transfer your photos (with Adobe Photoshop software installed)

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Budding wedding photographers who wish to upgrade their skillset
Serious enthusiasts and hobbyists

INVESTMENT

Full payment is required to secure your place in the session, on a first come first serve basis.
Limited to 15 people only.

To grab your seats, head on to www.simpleslr.com/weddingportraits now!

Be there to grab some really attractive lucky draw prizes and door gifts. A great lineup of events await you, including a photography workshop that I’ll be conducting.

Date and Time:
9th January 2010 (11am – 6pm)
10th January 2010 (11am – 4pm)

Location:
Prince Hotel & Residence Kuala Lumpur
4 Jalan Conlay, 50450 Kuala Lumpur
03-2170-8888
View Map

Admission: Free

Getting Melinda ready for her big day…

Kris and his mates had a celebratory drink before the ceremony

The ring bearer had a bit of cold feet at first…

A performance by Melinda’s niece during the signing of the register

Arrival of the bride at Shangri-La Hotel

The reception was held the next day at Shangri-La Hotel.

Waiting eagerly for the bouquet to be tossed

She wants to have a piece of the action too!

The groom and his men make their way from the Westin next door.

Armed with wads of cash in a few briefcases…

Wan Sim watched gleefully from a live feed on her TV screen, as the men are subjected to unspeakable tortures

A brief portrait session around Kuala Lumpur

The good news is that there is a one-stop shop, called Scan Digital, that does both those things, and many more, including digitally optimizing and color-correcting the images for you before burning onto CD or DVD. Their photo scanning service even includes retouching jobs like removing minor blemishes, and red-eye removal! All this means that the images you get back are at their very best before being saved for future generations. They even upload the images onto an online gallery so that you can share it with friends and family.

If you are the type who enjoys photo slideshows but don’t know anyone who can do it for you, just send your photos (they could even be hard copy prints!) and desired music to Scan Digital and they’ll create the slideshow for you, all saved into a DVD format that you can play in any DVD player.

They also have this great gift idea, where you just send them your photos (again, they will do the tedious job of photo scanning for you) and make you an 8″ digital photo frame with 800 x 600 pixel resolution. Talk about convenience!

Their video transfer service includes adding Chapter Points using scene detection technology. This means that you can easily skip to the part that you want, without having to forward the entire movie. They also inspect and clean the videotape film before doing the transfer.

This service is based in California, USA, but they ship to addresses worldwide. Their pricing is very reasonable for the value of the service they are providing. Go check them out!

This was also the first time I worked alongside the talented team from Mayad Studios, who were there to create Chris and Wan Sim’s pre-wedding video, and their wedding day 2 days later (photos are here!).

In collaboration with TREAZURES, I will be presenting a small collection of my travel and landscape photographs through a narrated slideshow and exhibition prints. Following this, participants will get a preview of what I teach in my SimpleSLR PhotoClass via a hands-on workshop. A digital SLR is recommended for this workshop.

To sign up, please call 03 77280184 or email to kailee.chan@accent-edge.com

For more details, please click here to download the workshop poster

In the meantime, check out my interview on The Wedding Guide:
http://theweddingguide.com.my/2009/10/5-mins-with-andy-lim-wedding-photographer

Travelled about 1200km over 6 days, from Melbourne to the Great Ocean Road via Lorne and Apollo Bay, spent the night under koala bears in the wild in Cape Otway, went on the 12 Apostles and back via Colac. Caught the earliest ferry from Queenscliff to Sorrento, but our dolphin swim was canceled due to bad weather. Skipped our planned scuba-diving trip and went on to Cape Schanck for stunning views, then on to Phillip Island to see the penguin parade, it was about 10 degrees C that night but felt much colder with the ferocious wind! From there we went on to the Dandenongs for its beautiful gardens and then to the Yarra Valley for a ballooning trip at sunrise, some wine tasting and then on to Healesville to see more animals and some delicious Devonshire tea   Back in Melbourne, we enjoyed the sunset at St Kilda, and were treated to a surprise encounter with some penguins up close at the pier.

The beautiful St Patrick’s church in Melbourne

After enjoying scones in Cape Otway

Took loads of shots of these koalas who were everywhere on the trees

It was rainy during our Great Ocean Road trip, but we were rewarded with many rainbows

Blue skies in Sorrento

Stopped by to smell the flowers on the way to Cape Schanck

Stunning views at Cape Schanck

Met this couple at Dromana pier

Pelicans at San Remo

Swan Lake on Phillip Island

Great shot by wifey!

Waiting in freezing and windy cold for penguins to arrive… sorry, no pictures of penguins allowed

Beautiful gardens in the Dandenongs

Sunrise on a hot air balloon, what a great view!

They also blogged about what they thought of our photography service… really made my day: http://alicenah.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/wedding-tips-getting-married-in-kuala-lumpur

Engagement bells?

The stars of the day

Theta Service Partner

An extensive corporate re-branding exercise for Theta Service Partner,
a specialist in credit workflow solutions for banks. The re-branding exercise included:

I’ll get around to showing some of the printed materials once I get my copies from the offset printer.

Theta Service Partner website, with an easy-to-use content management system in the backend to facilitate easy updating of text and images by the client:

Treefy

Treefy is a venture creation company that develops and operates social marketplaces that offer people economic opportunities to build businesses online, to earn monetary income, to lower their cost of living or to make life better for themselves and people around them.

Asther Lau Photography

Asther Lau is a photographer who specializes in portraiture for pregnant families, newborn babies, couples & families. Asther’s brief was to use her initials, which I have incorporated into a single letter. If you look closely, it has both the A and the L

and here’s a slideshow montage:

The festivities started with Mehendi, followed by a Sagri ceremony…

and a Sangeet for the bride’s side…

The next day, an oil ceremony for the groom…

And the groom’s Sangeet….

Finally the Sikh wedding ceremony, the Anand Karaj at Gurdwara Sahib Greentown…

And the final event, the reception at Impiana Casuarina Ipoh…

I will be in Melbourne from 1st to 11th October 2009, to photograph a wedding on 3rd and 4th October 2009. If you would like to have your photos taken by me within the Melbourne and surrounding areas from 5th to 9th October 2009, please contact me for rates.

As I would already be there, there are no airfare and accommodation charges! This offer is only valid for 1 couple. Applicable to wedding portraits (pre-wedding or post-wedding), actual wedding day photography, or simply casual portraits.

Possible spots are within Melbourne city itself, or the rugged outdoors along the Great Ocean Road (Bells Beach, Twelve Apostles, Port Campbell etc), Otway National Park (meadows and forests), and Bellbrae (lakes and farmland). Feel free to offer suggestions. The bench pictured above was taken at Port Campbell National Park.

Bottoms up! The biggest toasting glasses I’ve seen!

Finally a short portrait session around the hotel

A fantastic performance by Weyn’s sister and friends at the reception at Saujana Subang

And a very fun second reception at Courtyard Garden

Weyn guessed the right handkerchief, to everyone’s surprise

The most whacky first dance I’ve ever photographed

Arrival of the bride

Batman and Wonder Woman wedding cake!

The couple’s first dance

And the guests join in!

The Bride’s and Groom’s respective waiting rooms before the ceremony.

Blessing ceremony at Zion Cathedral, just love the way the neon cross stands out against the deep blue sky

They even had a magician perform at the dinner reception

The flare was from an overhead speedlight, thanks to Sze who helped me out that day as second shooter!

We spent 3 days at the foot of Mount Kinabalu, woke up really early to catch glimpses of the mountain without clouds covering the peak. We also managed to see a double rainbow immediately after it stopped drizzling! A very rare sight.

A short visit to Poring Hot Springs rewarded us with this shot.

Then we went to Sipadan Water Village on Mabul Island for some diving. Here are some of the things we saw, including lots of stonefish.

crocodile fish

leaf fish

and feather stars

This is where we stayed.

Here’s a self-portrait of ourselves in the water, taken during our safety stop… the vignetting at the top edges was due to my underwater wide-angle lens attachment which came a bit loose.

The Sangeet celebration, a colourful event with food, music, dancing and singing…

The day of the wedding ceremony…

And a blessing ceremony the day after…

And the grand finale at the reception!

Changing into a traditional Thai costume

Quickie portrait session nearby

Suwalee, touched by the best man’s words

Long overdue, this redesign addresses a few issues that were bugging me. The earlier design was simply a hack of an existing Wordpress theme, due to a lack of time. I was (and still am) juggling at least 3 to 5 concurrent design projects and almost weekly photography assignments, so my own blog design took a back seat. The new design is entirely designed from the ground up. I’ve now repositioned the ads to a less intrusive location, removed unnecessary stuff, simplified the navigation and reprioritized functional areas to a more logical layout.

Let me know if you find any issues with this new design

I’m proud to announce the launch of Exotic Escapes: www.exoticescapes.my

Exotic Escapes approached me a few months ago for their brand identity and website needs. I developed their logo and business cards, as well as the website which employs a content management system (CMS). This allows them to update most parts of the website as often as they wish, an important feature that is growing in demand.

Elaine, very touched by her sister’s moving speech.

Emotion welling up…

There are also exhibition panels featuring prints from several photographers, including mine.

That’s me on Saturday

Talk schedule is here:

Here are some shots from the Hindu Wedding on the evening of 21st June 2008.

The Sikh wedding was held the next morning on 22nd June 2008.

And the grand finale at Sheraton Subang…

The celebrations started with the Ponnurukku ceremony on Day 1.

Day 2 was the Sangeet, a dinner party for the groom’s family.

Day 3 was the bride’s oil ceremony.

Followed by the groom’s oil ceremony on the morning of Day 4.

See the later half of Day 4 and 5 in my next post.

Going to the other extreme and getting the flowers, huts and mountains (and people too) sharply focused in a landscape photo requires deep depth of field. That means a sharp foreground and background as well.

Depth of field is controlled by 3 factors, the most common being the aperture setting. The aperture is usually taught in basic photography classes as the main factor that affects how much depth of field there is in your photo.

A big aperture (which means a small F number like F1.4 or F2.8) will give you shallow depth of field, while a small aperture (which means a big F number like F11 or F16) will give you a deep depth of field.

This works well on SLR and DSLR cameras, but on point-and-shoot compact digital cameras, the differences are difficult to spot. This is because point-and-shoot compact digicams are built differently and inherently come with deep depth of field, even at an F2.8 aperture setting which is common in point-and-shoot cameras. That means it’s pretty hard to get the shallow depth of field effect on point-and-shoot cameras, unless it has a longer zoom range (like 10x), which brings us to the next factor in controlling depth of field.

Your lens focal length is the next factor. Longer lenses (telephoto lenses) like a 200mm lens will give you shallow depth of field, while wide angle lenses like a 10mm lens will give you plenty of depth of field.

The third factor is distance to subject. Did you know that if you moved in closer to your subject, your depth of field will also be decreased, ie. a shallow depth of field? This works well if you’re using a point-and-shoot, and are trying to get that “out-of-focus-background” look.

This photo above was taken with an F2.8 aperture setting, and focused very close, with a wide angle lens.

The photo above used a wide angle lens with a small aperture (F11), which leads to a slower shutter speed. I will write about shutter speeds in an upcoming article.

Stay tuned!
Or rather, stay RSS-ed. If you are browsing using Firefox, just click on the orange icon at the URL field to subscribe to my blog.

For more weddings, see www.andylimages.com

For more weddings, see www.andylimages.com

Visit www.andylim.com/gallery/Japan for more photos!

The Simple SLR forum is a community of past and current participants of Andy Lim’s Simple SLR PhotoClass. Photos can be posted for critiques, photography-related topics can be discussed, and more importantly photography skills can be improved. This forum is open to everyone!

Image A (taken from my Central Bali gallery)

The background usually means the sky, and the foreground is usually the subject of the photograph, eg. a hill, building or lake. For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume the subject is a hill. Pay attention to the bar graphs on the right side of the diagram below. They show the balance of light (or lighting ratio) between the foreground (hill) and background (sky) within a scene.

It’s 6am, and you’ve chosen a nice spot where the sun will rise behind you and your camera. You set up your sturdy tripod, engage the mirror lock-up, and wait. The first rays of the sun slowly breaks out above the horizon and illuminates the peak first (or clouds, as seen in Image A), because that’s the highest point. The sunlight gradually illuminates the whole hill as the sun rises higher above the horizon.

By 8am the sun would have risen high enough to illuminate the hill quite completely, thereby giving you a 50:50 ratio of light between the hill and sky.

Imagine for a moment that you are shooting from the opposite direction, with the sun facing you, shining at you from behind the hill. The lighting ratio would drastically change to about 5:95 (hill:sky) because there would be very little light illuminating the hill, but a lot of light in the sky because the sun would be shining directly into your lens. This is evident in photographs of scenery with a white sky and a dark landscape. Or silhouette photos (Image B).

Now that we know which direction NOT to shoot from, we will try shooting with the sun to our left. This will create cross lighting which can be very attractive. Cross lighting is used in people photography in the form of off-camera flash. Now you know why your built-in flash rarely gives flattering portraits!

At 12 noon the sun will be directly above almost everything in your scene, giving it a 20:80 ratio. This is because the sky will almost always be brighter than your hill at this hour, especially in humid tropical climates like Malaysia. In dry climates you may still get a 50:50 ratio at this hour.

If storm clouds start gathering behind the hill, the dark clouds will create a 60:40 (hill:sky) ratio if there are openings in the cloud cover that allow the sun to illuminate the hill. This can yield beautiful landscape photography because the sunlit foreground can really stand out from the background of dark clouds.

Shooting at the right time and direction will make a dramatic difference to your landscape photography. Understanding the balance of light and what affects this balance will bring your photography to the next level.

Image B (taken from my Bangkok gallery)

28th December 2007

Twilight image of Ubud town in Bali (taken from my Central Bali gallery), showing streaks created from car tail-lights, shops lit up from within, street lamps and the signature of twilight photography, a rich deep blue sky:

Kek Lok Si Temple in Penang, magnificently lit up at twilight. Taken from my Kek Lok Si gallery.

The trick to finding the right time to shoot is to observe when ambient light diminishes and artificial light takes over. Successful twilight photography relies on a good ratio of ambient to artificial light. Ambient light is natural light from the sun (or moon). Artificial light comes from home lighting, street lamps, car headlights and tail-lights, and even your flash gun.The diagram on the right illustrates this process in chronological order. Take note of the bar graph on the right, showing the balance between ambient and artificial light. This balance changes as the day progresses.

At 12pm (noon) the sun is directly above, creating short shadows directly underneath the objects under it. At 3pm the sun moves westward towards the horizon, creating longer shadows. At 6pm it prepares to disappear under the horizon, creating even longer shadows. Up to this point, the lighting ratio (ambient : artificial) doesn’t change much.

At 7pm the sun disappears under the horizon but still partially illuminates the sky. This is usually when people turn on the lights in their homes, and street lamps are lit. At this point, the lighting ratio dramatically changes. The amount of ambient light will match the amount of artificial light, creating a brief window of opportunity to shoot. This is the Magic Hour.

As the night moves in at 8pm, the ambient light diminishes even more, and artificial light becomes even more dominant. At 9pm, ambient light disappears completely, leaving the sky a black featureless space, and the only light source left is artificial light. At this point, photos of buildings would only reveal their lights, but not much detail in the architecture.

Very often, we take pictures without planning ahead. With digital photography, the temptation is to shoot first, then review the picture to see if we like it, then shoot again if we don’t. In the old days of film, photographers probably exercised more discipline in planning ahead than we now do, especially if they were shooting slide film. Nevertheless digital does have its advantages, as I will explain in later articles.

If we tried creating the final image in our mind before taking the picture, or what is called pre-visualization of the image, we can drastically improve our pictures. Pre-visualization helps us to form the intended image in our mind, discover lighting limitations that may hamper the creation of that final image, or perhaps even see opportunities for improving the image by shooting from a slightly different angle, or using additional lighting sources.

In landscape photography, the same scene can appear very differently on a different day. Cloud conditions, time of the day and direction of the sun are just a few of the factors that create these differences. If a scene doesn’t look too impressive on a particular day, try coming back another day at a different time. Understanding lighting ratios will also tell you why what you captured on your camera sometimes doesn’t match what you saw with your eyes.

Scene A (when the sun is somewhat behind the camera, on an overcast day)
The amount of light falling on the foreground (the plants and the banks of the lake) is slightly higher than the amount of light falling on the background (the sky and mountains). Estimated lighting ratio is about 6:5 (foreground:background). Lighting is a crucial component in any type of photography. Without proper control of lighting, it’s difficult to create truly stunning images. Taken from my Xieng Khouang (Laos) gallery.

Scene B (when the sun is coming in at 90 degrees to the camera)
The amount of light falling on the background (the sky and mountains) is very much higher than the amount of light falling on the foreground (the tree branches), resulting in an opportunity to create a silhouette image. You can use foreground detail (the branches) to help draw the focus of the viewer. Taken from my Annam Highlands (Laos) gallery.

When photographing people in a candid manner, we may not have time to plan in elaborate detail. But what we can do is to evaluate the lighting conditions in that particular location, decide whether to use available light from the window or room lights, or to supplement it with artificial lighting from flash units, or even use multiple flash units for creative results.

Scene C (using available light from the room). Taken from Ee Lain and Leng Hwee’s wedding.

Scene D (shot using a flash unit positioned off-camera)

Learn to find the best light, it can make a world of difference in your photography.

Dec 22nd, 2007 (Sat)

Jan 13th, 2008 (Sun)

Feb 16th, 2008 (Sat)

For more details, please see www.andylim.com/class

Yvonne & Gevin’s Christian wedding at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Penang. Their banquet at E&O Hotel in Penang had a refreshing sixties theme, hence the psychedelic table setting.

This is Ee Lain & Leng Hwee’s short portrait session followed by a banquet at Concorde Hotel, Kuala Lumpur.

Alternatively you can just pick up the phone and call me at +6 012 3788082.

• Website, corporate profile and photography for Seaswift Group
• Corporate identity system for NPS
• Website, content management system and corporate identity system for Hasil Karya
• Product identity system for Toptools and Mastika
• Promotional materials for Toyota Capital
• Brand identity for Fiery Kitchen Restaurant

Recently completed websites include:

• Art of June and Michael, a web gallery for a local Malaysian artist
• Hasil Karya website and content management system

RAW or JPEG?
Depending on which format you choose, the image takes a slightly different route to arrive in its final form. In the case of RAW, the image is captured by the sensor (typically in 12-bits, which is a lot of data) and goes directly into the memory card, without any further manipulation by the camera. For a JPEG image, the image is first captured by the sensor, then the camera processes the image by applying a contrast curve to it, sharpens it (unless you turned off sharpening), converts it into 8-bits and then stores it in the memory card by compressing it. When this compression is performed, a little bit of image quality is thrown away, in order to achieve a smaller file size.

Post-Processing
When you shoot in RAW format, the camera does not perform any processing at all on your images, unlike JPEGs. It also means that in order to bring out the best in the RAW image, you will need to do what the camera normally does to a JPEG. This is called post-processing (and not cheating, as some people may think). Post-processing is what you do to the RAW file, which is your digital negative, to bring it to its final form in JPEG or TIFF format, ready for printing. For background information, here is a breakdown of the various stages involved in the creation of an photographic image:

The blue areas indicate where the post-processing happens, for film as well as digital photographs. As you can see, post-processing has been done since the days of film, and is not exclusively the domain of digital photography. Post-processing gives digital photographers the ultimate control over how their images will look. Shooting in RAW format gives the photographer the best starting point.

JPEG is good enough, sometimes.
In some situations, we find that shooting in JPEG format already gives us very high quality images. These situations are usually when there is perfect lighting. However, in high-contrast lighting, we may find that our JPEG file loses certain details in the highlights (Photo A). This is due to the camera’s internal processing, which applies a contrast curve to the image. Many digital SLR cameras allow you to load custom contrast curves, letting you optimize the JPEG image to cater for the lighting conditions. This is akin to loading different films for different photo-taking situations.

Photo A

Highlight recovery in RAW enables a photographer to maximize the potential of an image.
If we had shot that same image in RAW, we would have a much better chance of recovering the highlights (Photo B). This is because a RAW file contains a tremendous amount of data in it, typically 12-bits of data on digital SLR cameras. The wider exposure latitude allows us to do 2 separate RAW conversions in Adobe Photoshop: first a regular one, and then a darker conversion to recover the highlights. Layer these 2 conversions in Photoshop, with the bottom layer being the darker one. Using the Erase brush, remove portions of the top layer that have burnt-out highlights, revealing the areas which contain highlight detail from the bottom layer, and voilà ! You have recovered the missing highlight details!

Photo B

Post-Processing Shortcuts
So what happens after you open up a RAW image? A RAW image is, well, raw. To get a sizzling image, you need to cook it to perfection. How do you do post-processing on a RAW image?

In the Adobe Camera RAW dialog box in Photoshop, I do not adjust the default settings, instead preferring to open up the RAW files as they are. After that, I have 2 steps which I routinely perform on my RAW files. One is what I call a “Mild S-Curve”, which performs a contrast curve adjustment to my image. The other step is called Local Contrast Enhancement.

The “Mild S-Curve” that I use is basically a gentle curve that looks like Diagram 1, performed by the Curve command in Photoshop. A Local Contrast Enhancement is done using the Unsharp Mask command in Photoshop. My settings are: Amount 20%, Radius 60, Threshold 0.

Diagram 1

I save these 2 steps individually as Photoshop actions, assigning the F10 key as a shortcut for the S-Curve, and F11 as a shortcut for the Local Contrast Enhancement. I also have F12 saved for a common Unsharp Mask command with these settings: Amount 50%, Radius 1, Threshold 0.

My typical workflow from RAW file to finished JPEG or TIFF would be:

1. Open the RAW file (no adjustments here)

2. F10 (season to taste, ie. do it twice if necessary)

3. F11

4. F12 (optional) and there you have it, a final post-processed image! This creates predictable results with every image, without having to fiddle with the settings on the RAW dialog box.

Batch Processing
Imagine this. You’ve just photographed a wedding and ended up with 800 images. All of them are in RAW format. Do you go through them, one-by-one, opening up each RAW file, adjusting RAW parameters, tweaking Levels and Curves, and then saving each one in JPEG format for the client? You’re kidding, right? There’s a much better way. Using Adobe Bridge (on Photoshop CS2) or the File Browser (on Photoshop CS), browse through the images that you have taken. Some of them may require exposure adjustment, because weddings usually happen so fast that sometimes it’s more crucial to capture the moment than to get the exposure perfect. Let’s say you have several images that are underexposed. Double-click on each of the underexposed images, adjust the Exposure slider on the RAW dialog box, and Save the settings. Do this for every image that is underexposed. After tweaking these individual settings, select all the images and set the conversion parameters like Contrast, Saturation etc for them. Once done, you can run a Batch Process command (File -> Automate -> Batch) to convert all 800 images into JPEG with just one command. All 800 images will have perfect exposure (or at least near-perfect) and ready to be sent to the client.

RAW Quality
You might ask, why not shoot in JPEG from the start, if you have to convert RAW files to JPEG later? Well, if you had to brighten the image considerably, RAW files allow you to maintain the quality of the image much better than JPEG. It also allows more natural-looking images, which would be harder to produce if you had to considerably brighten JPEG images using Levels and Curves. The reason for this flexibility is because RAW files contain a lot more image data than JPEG. RAW files contain 12-bits of data, while JPEG files only have 8-bits.

RAW files are also stored in a lossless format, while JPEG files are stored in a lossy format. A lossless format is one which does not have image data thrown away, usually resulting in a larger file. This means that the image quality is preserved, no matter how many times the file is opened and saved. Typical lossless formats are RAW and TIFF. A lossy format is one which has some image data removed with the intention of achieving a smaller file size. Each time you open a JPEG file and save it again in JPEG format, you lose a bit of image quality. Opening and saving a JPEG several times will result in a visible loss of quality. Typical lossy formats are JPEG and GIF.

Truly customized white balance control
Usually when we are faced with a tricky lighting situation, eg. mixed light sources in the same scene, we can do a custom white balance measurement on a digital SLR to set the optimal white balance for that particular shot. This is done by pointing your camera at a white piece of card, with all the light sources turned on, and measuring the white balance with the camera. This is very useful when you shoot in JPEG, as it saves you from the need for color correction later on.

Shooting in RAW format gives you the ability to change your white balance AFTER you have taken the shot, letting you do color correction without any danger of degrading the image quality. The white balance information in a RAW file is set when you take the shot, but you are free to change this white balance setting in the RAW dialog box during post-processing. This is different from adjusting the color balance of a JPEG in Photoshop, which results in a slight loss of quality. I find this especially useful for underwater photography without using flash, when it is difficult to do a custom white balance measurement while diving in a strong current, 60 feet underwater. Without custom white balance, underwater photographs would have an excessive blue color cast.

Should I shoot RAW?
Personally, I shoot in RAW format when my intention is to sell my images to stock photography libraries. This lets me enjoy the absolute maximum quality possible from my digital SLR camera. Once you understand the benefits of shooting RAW, you will find that it is worth the extra effort. On the other hand, I usually shoot in JPEG for family vacations, parties, and general photography. In these situations, I sometimes prefer to just bring my pocket point-and-shoot digital camera, which still has some degree of creative control.

Ok, I suppose with some experience you can get a pretty accurate guess. But if you’re a perfectionist like me, you’d feel way more comfortable if you knew you nailed the shot with the perfect exposure.

Shooting RAW does give the photographer more latitude in making exposure errors, but lets not use that as an excuse for sloppy exposure judgement. When we shoot in RAW format, we should be even more critical of our exposure choices, in order to bring out the maximum quality possible from the RAW file. Histograms allow you to just do that. Histograms are usually found in digital SLR cameras, or high-end digital cameras. You can also get a histogram reading of your photo in Adobe Camera RAW or other RAW conversion software. What it shows you is a distribution of values from the lightest to the darkest. It tells you whether you captured enough image information in the areas that matter most.

But, don’t they all matter? In most cases, yes, you’d like to have a lot of image information throughout the sweet spots of the image. This is usually from around the lightest highlight areas on the right-hand side to just before the darkest shadow areas on the left-hand side (Photo A, taken from my Phi Phi Island gallery). For many types of images, this is a nice histogram shape to have, with the peaks taking up most of the center area. This indicates a well-exposed image, as there is plenty of image information in the midtones. Usually for these types of images, the shadows and highlights have relatively less image information.

Nevertheless, a nice shape is subjective. If you are shooting a high-key image, you would like to have most of the image data bunched up on the right-hand side of the histogram. This is because the right-hand side represents the lightest shades within the image. A high-key image is only so because the image consists of mostly light tones. Therefore, a typical high-key histogram would look like the one below. If you tried to force the histogram of a high-key image to look like the one in Photo A (using an image editing program) you would actually cause the image to look unnaturally dark. That’s because the peaks in the histogram are already where they should be, towards the right-hand side of the histogram.

When I take a photograph, I aim for the “foot of the hill” to just touch the right-hand side edge of the histogram. This is called “exposing to the right”. This will give you an image with the best “signal-to-noise” ratio, meaning you get the maximum quality and the minimum noise.

The danger with letting the peaks go this close to the right-hand side is that the image might have some highlight portions burnt out. When this happens, there will be a thin vertical line (or a spike) that appears at the right-hand side edge. This indicates that some portions are burnt out.

No need to fret, because this is not a problem when you shoot in RAW format. In Adobe Camera RAW software, you can bring the Exposure slider a bit to the left so that you gradually lower the vertical line until it totally disappears. If you had shot it in JPEG format, you would not be able to eliminate that vertical line because the highlight information on the right-most edge would have been thrown away during JPEG compression.The ability to correct slight exposure judgement errors is one of the strengths of the RAW format. By looking at the histogram, an experienced digital photographer will be able to tell if the image has been properly exposed. In certain images, some spikes may appear near or on the right-hand side edge itself, but is that a badly exposed image? It depends. If the image has a background that contains bright lights or very light-coloured portions, that could be the reason for the right-hand side spikes. If that same image also has got peaks in the middle which are generally more substantial than the right-hand side peaks, those peaks represent the main subject. In Photo B, the lady is the subject, and the histogram peaks in the middle represent her. The spike on the right represents the out-of-focus trees and highlights behind her.

Using the Adobe Camera RAW dialog box, we can open up all our images from one folder, evaluate the exposure of each image based on the histogram, and make quick exposure adjustments to each image if necessary by moving the Exposure slider to a point where the histogram looks just right.Within Adobe Camera RAW, there are three separate histograms, one for each color channel, ie. Red, Green and Blue. This enables you to check to see if a particular channel is burnt out, which means that the highlights have been clipped. This detailed overview enables the photographer to quickly adjust exposure to bring back the clipped highlights.

We can then either decide to save these settings in each RAW image (actually Photoshop saves the settings in the Sidecar XMP file, a companion file to each RAW image) by clicking on the Done button, or we can also convert them all into JPEG or TIFF files with the Save button.Modifying the White Balance can also affect the histogram. If an image was shot in Daylight White Balance and the photographer carelessly overexposed certain highlight portions, they may still be able to be recovered using a different White Balance setting, for example, Tungsten. Dragging the Temperature slider (which determines the White Balance setting) to recover lost highlights is one the strengths of the RAW format. Once the spikes on the right-hand side of the histogram disappear, you will have safely recovered your highlights.

Apart from the utilitarian purpose of getting good group photographs, shooting wide angle lets you portray the scene in full detail with unusual and sometimes, exaggerated perspectives. This is especially true of super wide angle. Small objects can be made to appear larger than larger objects within the same scene, effectively shifting the balance of the image composition. When used well, it can bring attention to the subject of interest in the foreground, at the same time preserving the context of the whole image by showing the location or event in the background.

Taken from my Central Bali gallery:

Choose your foreground interest wisely

Wider Options
Lenses are categorized by their focal lengths. Typically, lenses fall into one of these categories:
· super wide angle (10~24mm)
· wide angle (24~35mm)
· standard (about 50mm)
· telephoto (70~300mm)
· super telephoto (300mm and beyond)
These numbers indicate the focal length, which describes the field of view achievable using that lens. Incidentally, the field of view of a 50mm lens is considered to be an approximation to what the human eye sees. For the DSLR owners, they can choose from a variety of lenses ranging from a super wide lens all the way up to a super telephoto. But what about the rest of us?

Digital compact camera owners are not left out of the picture. There are a multitude of wide-angle adapters for digital compacts; both made available as accessories as well as by third-party manufacturers. These can be attached via lens threads or bayonet mounts on their bodies. There are also some from third-party lenses which can be attached magnetically!

Focal Length Multiplier
Note: The ‘focal length’ of the lens determines the ‘field of view’, which is the angle of view seen using this lens. ‘Field-of-view crop’ is often referred to as ‘focal length multiplier’ for the sake of simplicity.

Digital photography, from the hardware perspective, is based on principles of 35mm film cameras. For a photographer who shoots with film, there is no such thing as a ‘focal length multiplier’, because to them, everything is 1x. This means that a 50mm lens is a 50mm lens. Not so for a digital SLR. A 50mm lens virtually becomes a 75mm lens, when attached to a Nikon D200 digital SLR. This is because the ‘focal length multiplier’ of 1.5x causes the 50mm lens to have a field of view equivalent to a 75mm lens.

Shooting wide angle is basically one way of depicting a scene using a wider field of view, which in turn is achieved by using a lens with a focal length of less than 50mm on a 35mm film SLR camera. These days, with the proliferation of digital SLR cameras, there might be some confusion to how focal lengths are calculated.

To keep things simple, we can use this rule of thumb. If you are using a 35mm film SLR, your focal length multiplier is 1x.
If you are using a digital SLR, your focal length multiplier could be any one of these, depending on the model of DSLR camera: 1x (eg Canon 1Ds Mk II), 1.3x (eg Canon 1D Mk II), 1.5x (eg Nikon D200 or D70) or 1.6x (eg Canon 30D).

To get the actual focal length (and hence field of view achievable) of your lens, multiply the lens focal length with the multiplier.

Example 1
Nikon D200 (multiplier is 1.5x) with a 17~70mm lens
The actual focal length range of this combination is 25.5mm-105mm, achieved by multiplying the lens range with 1.5

Example 2
Canon 1Ds Mk II (multiplier is 1x) with a 70~300mm lens
The actual focal length range of this combination is still 70-300mm.

Example 3
Nikon F5 (35mm film camera with multiplier of 1x) with a 15mm fisheye lens
The actual focal length of this combination is still 15mm.

The reason behind the focal length multiplier falls to the size of the recording media, the CCD or CMOS. Different cameras use different sized CCD/CMOS for different reasons eg. to make a smaller camera and for better power efficiency. For compact digital cameras which do not fall under the digital SLR category, focal length multipliers are rarely used because they don’t have interchangeable lenses. What they do have are wide angle adapters or telephoto adapters. A wide angle adapter may be referred to as a 0.7x wide adapter. What this number means is that this adapter shortens the focal length of the built-in lens by multiplying it with 0.7, effectively creating a wider field of view.

Super wide angle shots sometimes appear distorted, but they do show a lot more in the background, lending context to an image

Focusing with Wide Angle Lenses
An inherent characteristic of camera lenses is that wide angle lenses come with more depth-of-field compared to telephoto lenses. This reduces focusing errors to some extent, which means that you can focus on almost anything around the center of the frame and get an acceptably sharp image. In this case, a small aperture further increases the chance of a sharp image. For best results though, we can use the “1/3 of the distance rule”. Look inside your camera viewfinder, estimate the distance from the nearest point that is visible in the viewfinder, to the furthest point that is also visible in your viewfinder. Focus on a point that is roughly one-third of the distance away from you. If you cannot use autofocus effectively on that point (perhaps due to very dim light levels or low contrast early in the morning on a mountain), you can estimate the distance and manually focus your lens, using the distance scale on your lens. A small aperture (eg. f16) gives you more depth-of-field, so use it if possible. That’s why it’s good to carry a tripod, which will let you use smaller apertures without camera shake.

Composing with Wide Angle Lenses
Wide angle photography has its own set of challenges. While it lets you show more of the scene, sometimes less is more. If not properly framed, a super wide angle image may include distracting elements which detract from your image, because a wide angle lens sees a wider field of view than a normal lens. Therefore it’s good to fill the frame well, composing it in such a way that only the necessary elements are included. Landscape photography is a classic candidate for using wide angle lenses. In order to shoot great landscape photography, foreground interest is important. Wide angle lenses let you include a sizeable portion of the foreground in the frame, so use it well by choosing a foreground that is actually interesting.

When shooting super wide angle, we can also get away with a slower shutter speed because the shorter focal length downplays slight camera shake errors, opening up new possibilites with photography. One example is hand-holding your SLR camera in a busy street downtown, capturing a sharp image of your subject while rendering the pedestrian traffic as a blur, due to the slower shutter speed.

Wide Angle Care
Exercise more caution when handling your DSLR or digicam with a wide-angle lens/adapter. Some wide angle lenses have protruding glass which is more exposed and susceptible to accidental contact with dirty fingers or worse, it may end up getting scratched. If your lens accepts a UV filter, get one. It will protect your lens from countless dangers. Many wide angle lenses allow you to focus closer than a telephoto lens, so a lens hood helps to some extent to protect your lens from your overzealous attempts to get a closer shot.

Wide angle photography is exciting, go forth and experiment!

By the way, an image from my Bali collection was used to illustrate the grand prize.

USD150 per book

To purchase this book, please contact me with your location for shipping rates.

The key to achieving web usability is by having a graphical user interface that is simple yet elegant. Why is elegance important? Because it matters how your website looks. If a website is highly functional but ugly, visitors might not click beyond the home page. Unless you are Google (whose value is obvious), your website should look good. Otherwise, your business will risk losing visitors.

Recently a friend asked for some advice on what she should do if her client refuses to pay her for design services rendered, as she did not ask for a deposit for the project. This is the reason why I always ask for a deposit before commencing a job. Genuine clients will understand the designer’s request for a 50% deposit. The deposit confirms the clients’ commitment to the project, indicating that the clients have done their research and have chosen the right designer. The deposit also provides a safety net for the designer in case the client decides to abort the project due to no fault of the designer. Time spent on an aborted project is time that could otherwise have been used for another paying project.

Imagine for a moment that you were looking to purchase a new house, and have found the house that you really want. If you (the buyer) refuse to place a deposit for the house, would the seller reserve this house for you? The seller will reserve the house for the first person who places a deposit. The deposit indicates that the buyer has committed a certain some of money to buy this house, and is unlikely to abort the transaction.

Designers have no reason to run away with clients’ deposit money. They have their professional reputation to protect.

www.andylim.com/gallery/CameronHighlands
We also made a side trip to Pos Brooke, Kelantan to catch a glimpse of the rare Rafflesia flower, the largest in the world:

www.andylim.com/gallery/PosBrooke

It was a pleasant surprise to discover that one of these portrait images was chosen to be used as a visual on page 81 in the June 2007 issue of Reader’s Digest.

See the accompanying website:
www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/malaysia50.jsp

In Program/Auto mode
The camera will choose this combination for you.

In Aperture Priority mode
You set the aperture and the camera will set the shutter speed based on your choice of aperture.

In Shutter Priority mode
You set the shutter speed and the camera will set the aperture based on your choice of shutter speed.

In Manual mode
You set both the aperture and shutter speed. The camera will let you know if it’s underexposed or overexposed, but you have the ultimate control.

		Aperture
		f8	f11	f16
Shutter Speed

The metering system in your camera measures the amount of light in the photo and tells you the aperture and shutter speed needed for a correct exposure.

The examples below show the various results of using different exposure compensation settings.

Multi-Segment Metering
Most cameras use multi-segment metering as the default metering system. This metering system measures the brightness in several areas in the photo and finds an average (emphasis varies depending on the camera). This type of metering can be fooled by more challenging lighting conditions such as strong backlighting.

Strong backlighting conditions are where the amount of light on the background is far more intense than the amount of light on the foreground area. This usually happens when you shoot a subject indoors, with a brightly lit outdoor background.

Ideal lighting conditions are where there is a similar amount of light illuminating both the background and foreground. Ideal lighting is where the camera’s multi-segment metering does a good job.

Spot Metering
For pinpoint control on the area for which the camera measures brightness, use spot metering if it’s available. This metering system only samples a point within the photo (usually in the center) instead of several areas. You can press the shutter release halfway to meter the desired area, and then re-frame the shot.

Alternatively, take an exposure reading with spot metering, note the aperture and shutter speed, and switch to manual exposure mode. This enables you to focus on a subject which isn’t what you measured the exposure on.

Using Multi-Segment Metering	Exposure Compensation Setting
	-2 EV	No compensation	+2 EV
Ideal lighting conditions
Strong backlighting, no flash
	For comparison purposes. This setting shouldn’t be used.	Camera meter is fooled by the bright background sunlight. Background is correctly exposed but subject is underexposed.	Subject is correctly exposed with the photographer’s exposure compensation. Background is overexposed.
Strong backlighting,fill-in flash is used
	For comparison purposes. This setting shouldn’t be used.	Background is correctly exposed. Subject is correctly exposed with fill-in flash, which corrects the lighting imbalance.	For comparison purposes. This setting shouldn’t be used.

• Aperture (larger apertures give you less depth-of-field, smaller apertures give you more)
• Focal length (telephoto lenses have less depth-of-field, while wide-angle lenses have more)
• Distance between subject and camera (the closer you get, the less depth-of-field you’ll have)

Aperture:  f2 Focal length and distance is constant		Aperture:  f8 Focal length and distance is constant		Aperture:  f22 Focal length and distance is constant
Low depth-of-field (background and foreground is blurred)		Medium depth-of-field (background and foreground sharpness is average)		High depth-of-field (background and foreground is sharp)
Area of focus is small		Area of focus is average		Area of focus is large
f2 is a large aperture		f8 is a medium aperture		f22 is a small aperture
The range of apertures differ from one lens to another.

Some digital cameras use digital zoom exclusively, because they lack an optical zoom lens. On such cameras, the photo will be at its sharpest without using the digital zoom at all.

Other digital cameras have a combination of optical and digital zoom. On such cameras, I would turn off digital zoom entirely, and use only the optical zoom. This will ensure that I get sharp photos all the time.

	x 1	x 2	x 3
Optical Zoom
	Usually equivalent to a 35mm lens. Details in the photo are captured by the lens.	Usually equivalent to a 70mm lens. Details in the photo are captured by the lens.	Usually equivalent to a 105mm lens. Details in the photo are captured by the lens.
Digital Zoom
	Usually equivalent to a 35mm lens. Details in the photo are captured by the lens.	Camera adds pixels to make the photo larger. Details in the photo are artifically added via software in the camera.	Camera adds pixels to make the photo larger. Details in the photo are artifically addedvia software in the camera.

In film-based cameras
The ISO rating refers to the film’s sensitivity. Lower ratings like ISO100 mean that the film is less sensitive (needing more light), but able to produce photos that contain less grain and more saturated colors.

In digital cameras
The ISO rating refers to the camera CCD sensitivity, since digital cameras don’t use film. Most use CCDs to capture photos. Lower ratings like ISO100 mean that the CCD is less sensitive (needing more light), but able to produce photos that contain less digital noise and more saturated colors. In most digital cameras, ISO100 is the setting which enables it to produce its best images, because the CCD doesn’t need to boost its sensitivity (which results in noise).

ISO 100 Photo quality is very good		ISO 200 Photo quality is average		ISO 800 Photo quality is rather poor
No digital noise Camera doesn’t need to increase CCD sensitivity		Digital noise is noticeable Camera increases CCD sensitivity to cope with less available light		High levels of digital noise Camera increases CCD sensitivity to cope with less available light
But… Camera needs a lot of light. Works best outdoors or with a light source, such as flash.		But… Camera needs only half the amount of light that ISO100 needs		But… Camera needs even less light, only one-eighth the amount of light that ISO100 needs