Border

Border (Gräns, 2018) tackles the two most pressing phenomena of our time, trolling and border security.  The film opens with a shaky medium shot where protagonist customs officer Tina is seen looking out from the shore, doubles as her parking lot, at a cargo ship moored at the harbor.  She clumsily picks up a cricket from the dirt and gently puts it on a blade of tall grass, with the car parked she is ready for another day at work.  She is extraordinary ordinary and alarmingly ugly that perhaps not even a mother can love.  I was watching lots of Youtubers opining on IBIS as in in-body image stabilization being the standard of modern filmmaking.  Ha.  It was a bit of a disappointment seeing that opening shot so shaky that any self respecting Youtuber would not approve.

Border is based on a short story by John Ajvide Lindqvist who also pens Let the Right One in.  Both are set in the mystic Nordic Sweden with wacky storylines and even wackier characters who are ostracized by society.  The two stories center on characters that are almost mirror reflections of each other; they are simultaneously the same and yet different.  In Border the woke character is Vore who stays woke and helps Tina woke and discover who she really is, sexually and otherwise.  There is no growth without pain as Tina plays detective at work and her own origin story.  By the end of the film, Tina has transformed.  Instead of gently picking up a cricket and rests it on some landing, she has no qualms of just treating it as food.  The film shocks and awes in its own quiet and subdued way, especially on the sexuality front which is as unpredictable as it can get.  Nothing seems obvious underneath the clothes.  The handheld shaky camera work and the overall art direction seems to suggest documentary and a very much down to earth aesthetic, but the story is just anything but or like the late Lagerfeld says (Border) is very much down to earth but just not this earth.  The movie is rated R.

The Curious Case of Olympus OM-D EM1-X ... and Fuji XT-3

I have not paid any attention to any mirrorless cameras until very recently.

The E-M1X certainly catches my attention.  As I am a fan of vertical grip and what's better than a vertical grip except for an integrated vertical grip.

The Nikon Z power grip is a joke, it's designed by some high school kid who cheated his way through classes.  It's not a a "motor drive" or anything except to hold extra battery.  It's for people who shoot portrait orientation and still use the primary shutter release even they are shooting with a D5 or D4s or with a genuine vertical with shutter release.

The price tag f the EM1-X comes in at $2,999

I will wait for the next iteration when everybody says the AF tracking is as good as any camera out there.

The Fuji XT-3 is about half of the price and allegedly has better image and AF than the EM1-X.

Maybe two years from now if I am not dead yet.

Nikon 20-35 f/2.8

LR never has a profile for this lens.  Now that I can't even use it it is not a concern any more.  Ha.

Quality vs Quantity

There is no quality without quantity.
-- Daidō Moriyama

I don't know how true this attribution is, but I remember it's attributed to Moriyama san.  And I further wonder if he says that in English or in Japanese and got translated.

I think I can get behind this nevertheless.

Back in post war Japan, he must have burnt through tons and rolls of film.

Event Photography

I just want to talk about shooting settings that I use.

I used to shoot almost exclusively on aperture priority.  I guess it's the topic or subject.  I set the aperture which controls the opening of the lens and let the camera take care of the rest.  Back in film days that's the setting I used the most and that's the only auto mode my Nikon FE has anyway.

When I picked up my camera again about a decade ago I faced with more varieties and more flexibilities.  When you shoot film you almost always got stuck with a single ISO and single WB film unless you really shoot professionally and change film back when you see fit in the middle of the shoot.

When I shoot cycling I tend to shoot with shutter priority and let the aperture float and sometimes even let the ISO float.  I don't bother so much as white balance.  Auto white balance is or was my friend.

When I shoot event I'd like to shoot manual, i.e. I fix the aperture and shutter speed and let the ISO float.  I set the base ISO the lowest first or some ISO I think won't go lower.  If I need to freeze people who are walking, 1/250 is the minimum, 1/500 should be ideal but then if you are shooting indoor with low light, you are lucky to get to 1/250 of a second.  If people are just standing there talking 1/60 or 1/125 can certainly freeze the subject.

If I shoot with flash or strobe, I tend to shoot manual but with fixed lowest ISO possible, it could be ISO64 or ISO400 but I'd like to have it fixed.  If the ISO is auto, it's essentially auto exposure and with the flash going off the picture is gonna overexposed for sure.

Event photography can be challenging as it could be outdoor, it could be flash and then it could be indoor with lots of tungsten and mixed lighting; all in one event.  I don't know other brands of camera, but Nikon tends to not auto white balance that well when it's indoor tungsten.  I tend to manually white balance it otherwise it comes out super yellow and orange.

With indoor, outdoor, flash, invariably something is going to screw up.  Like I forgot to set the ISO to not auto.  Or I forgot to set the white balance to auto when I went outside in the middle of the shoot.  I think it's then I appreciate on RAW or NEF format.  The file is certainly savagable even if over or under exposed and with the wrong white balance.

So event photography can be a challenge even I carry two cameras with a combined focal length between 16 to 200mm.  Thanks to high ISO and LR noise reduction, a f/4 max aperture is not as limiting as possibly ten years ago.  I am no Light Room and certainly not a Photoshop wizard but even armed with minimum knowledge I can savage a problematic picture.

Sunpak 120J full blast on silver reflective umbrella on light stand on camera left and right.  1/100s and f/8 at 25mm WB at 5500.  I don't think the skin tone is that great but I tried.  No Photoshop.

Note: as a photographer, there should be no excuse as you should really take control and ownership of the situation. That should be in theory as well as in practice.  Ultimately you are the one responsible especially when things go bad.
Control the situation:
Make sure both eyes can see the camera
Do not use a wide angle setting, I think 35mm should be the widest used as people look wider on the sides if the focal length got wider.  If you can shoot with a 85mm for group go for it but rarely can you shoot like this indoor with that much space.
Keep the camera focal plane parallel to the plane of the subjects.  Use a tripod if you can.
Keep the subject in a straight line across the focal plane or just mildly curved if you must.
Do not mix lightings.  If you can shut off ambient use 100% strobe, do it.

Often times, I don't heed my own advice.

Gel my Flash

Usually I don't shoot with flash in the temple.

This is shot bounced flash to the ceiling.  The ambient is always too yellow and red.  There is no way I can shut out the ambient.

I gelled my SB-800 with a 1/2 CTO.  Manually set the white balance to 2900 or there about.

I am sure the front and the back or the center of the hall has different WB as the left has sunlight streaming from the windows, while the back of the room has more tungsten light from the ceiling.  Then the middle has some fluorescent tubes.  The red lanterns add some orange to the mix as well.  I think gelling the flash is a must if you use flash in this setting otherwise the WB is even more difficult to correct in post.

This is shot with my 16-35 f/4 with the Nikon D700.  IS0640, f/5.6, 1/100, WB2900, flash CTO gel.  Light room adjusted.  I am quite happy with the skin tone overall.