Merry Christmas 2017 - & Happy New 2018!

Christmas has been and gone for another year, and a new year is just around the corner. But it's not here quite yet, so I figure I can sneak in a Christmas post just before 2017 ticks over to 2018!?

Christmas Angel. Olympus OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ lens. f5.4 @ 1/3rd sec, ISO 200.

Every year, a week out from Christmas, Greymouth holds a Christmas Tree Festival. Local businesses sponsor a tree and decorate it, and then the public give a gold coin donation to come and have a look at all the trees decorated - and to vote on their favourite. It's a local fundraiser and a very popular event. It's also an excuse every year to get the camera out and have a 'play'.

Christmas Light Painting. OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ lens. f10 @ 1sec, ISO 200.

A very dark room, with very brightly lit trees, is just crying out for some long exposure experimentation. Last year I concentrated on shooting out-of-focus lights (see the post here), whereas this year I decided to go for long(ish) exposures and camera/lens movement. With the Christmas Angel I zoomed the lens out while taking the exposure. For Christmas Light Painting I simply used a 1 second exposure and moved the camera while taking the shot. Both simple, yet effective techniques that I don't do all that often.

Blue Icicle. Olympus OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ lens in 'macro'. f6 @1/100th, ISO 640

I don't just experiment with long exposures. I also try to shoot some of the lights and decorations as they appear. The macro function on the 12-50mm EZ Zuiko lens is great for this. It allows me to get some very detailed shots - hand-held - with the aid of the amazing IBIS (in built image stabilization) that Olympus is famous for. Even at f6, ISO 640 was giving me a hand-holdable 100th of a second exposure time. Even so, the RAW file was quite dark when I opened it in Light Room. But a quick move to the left of the shadow slider and a fantastic amount of detail appeared in the shadows. And ISO 640 is pretty clean on the E-M1, so no noise reduction was necessary.

Christmas Bell. Olympus OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ in 'macro'. f6 @ 1/20th sec, ISO 3200 

This ornate Christmas bell also caught my eye, but it was in a very dark corner of the display. I had to go to ISO 3200 to get this image, and even then it was only giving me 1/20th of a second shutter speed! But it's pin sharp (where it should be at the front edge of the bell), thanks again to Olympus's incredible IBIS technology. Image stabilization isn't a cure-all for everything, and is certainly not an excuse for sloppy camera technique. But when you need it, in situations like this bell in low-light, it can be a miracle worker! Hand-holding a camera in low-light, with a 100mm equivalent focal length lens, and shooting pin-sharp images at 1/20th of a second was practically impossible in the film days. IBIS technology not only makes it possible - it almost makes it easy!

Christmas Town. OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ. f7.1 @ 1/10th sec, ISO 3200

In every town and city up and down the country (and indeed in any country where Christmas is celebrated), decorating your home with Christmas lights is a much loved tradition. And some people go all-out! As well as going to the Christmas Tree Festival, we also drove around to check out some of the more spectacular home displays.

Christmas House. OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ. f5.9 @ 1/4 sec, ISO 3200 

Here's another great example of Olympus's superior image stabilization in action. At 1/4 of a second, hand-held, everything is still nice and sharp. The E-M1 has 5 axis image stabilisation, while the new E-M1 Mk2 has an even better IBIS system. Apparently people are hand-holding for anywhere up to 10 seconds and still getting sharp images! That's just plain crazy talk!!!

Christmas House ultimate winner. OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ lens. f5.6 @ 1/15th sec. ISO 3200 

Our final stop for the night was the truly impressive 2017 Christmas House winner. There was a lot of light to shoot by, but even so I was still at ISO 3200. The RAW file needed to be opened up in the shadows to bring out some of the light, and in doing so, there was definitely some noise at ISO 3200. But dialing in some noise reduction in Light Room cleaned everything up very nicely, and I'm very happy with the final images at high ISO's from the E-M1.

Ho Ho Ho! OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ lens. f5.6 @ 1/15th sec. ISO 3200

Boosting shadows and lowering highlights has given a slight HDR quality to some of the images - especially after adding a little noise reduction and sharpening. I like the effect, since it looks very similar to what my eyes were seeing at the time. Our eyes can take all the detail in, our sensors can't (without a little help later on in software). It's a balancing act to get enough detail in the highlight so that they aren't too burnt out, but still look like points of light - and enough detail in the shadows so you can see what's there, but it still gives a sense of depth and darkness. As much as people worry about dynamic range and noise in the smaller micro four third sensors, I think the E-M1 pretty much nails it!

Santa Clause. OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ lens. f5.6 @ 1/15th sec. ISO 3200

Would a full frame camera like the Canon 5D Mk3 give a 'cleaner' file at ISO 3200? Of course it would. But so what? It would have also been a lot heavier to lug around for the evening - and I may not even have bothered? Am I unhappy with the files from the E-M1? Absolutely not! In fact, I'm thrilled with them. I've owned a lot of DSLR's in my time, both full frame and cropped sensor (admittedly from a few years ago), and I wouldn't have been comfortable going past ISO 800 with any of them. The E-M1 (and E-M5 MkII I had previously) is the first camera I'd happily shoot at ISO 3200 if I needed to. The results above show why.

I hope that Christmas 2017 was good to you, and I pray that 2018 will be even better! Father Christmas was good to me this year and I managed to get quite a few photographic goodies that I will be testing, using, and blogging about very soon! I also turned 50 at the end of 2017, and my family surprised me with a new monitor for my computer! So I will also be writing about my new office space and using a dual monitor set-up at home. Looks like 2018 is getting off to a good start already! :-)

Food Photography Assignment

Let me just say right off the bat that I'm not a food photography specialist. I don't really know the first thing about 'styling' a food shoot, and don't have a studio with a wall of lights or specialist equipment. I'm just a guy, with a camera, and 25+ years experience of shooting a variety of subjects.

Coconut Pumpkin Soup with Prawn Wonton. Canon 40D with 50mm f1.8 STM lens; @f2.5, 1/200th, ISO 200

Recently, I was asked by the marketing department at Tai Poutini Polytechnic (where I work) to photograph the Tutoro Restaurant's evening service. The Tutoro is the polytech's student restaurant, and every year the chef trainees and food & beverage service students team up to run a night service open to the public. They plan, prepare, cook and serve a three course meal to those lucky enough to book a table for a night of gastronomic delight!

Waldorf with a Twist. Canon 40D with 50mm f1.8 STM; @f2.8, 1/60th, ISO 400

The brief was simple - turn up and take photos of the food once prepared - and some of the action in the kitchen. Images that can be used later on for promotional and marketing purposes, and as teaching aids for the course tutors. Sounds easy enough. But the challenge comes with trying to achieve all of this in a working kitchen, in the middle of a real service. I had a job to do - but more importantly so did they - with paying customers. So it was important that I move fast and not get in the way, but still come away with great food images!

Tai Poutini Tartlet. Canon 40D with 50mm f1.8 STM; @f2.8, 1/50th, ISO 800

I knew I was going to want to get in fairly close, use a fast lens, and create as much shallow depth of field (background blur - bokeh) as I could. As such, my newly acquired Canon 50mm f1.8 STM lens was going to be perfect for the job. Attached to the 40D it gives an equivalent fov (field of view) as a 80mm short-telephoto does on a full frame camera. And the fast f1.8 aperture - even stopped down one stop to f2.8 for a touch more sharpness, was going to give me just enough light to hand-hold the camera and work quickly.

Seared Salmon Fillet. Canon 40D with 50mm f1.8 STM lens; @f2.8, 1/50th, ISO 400

The general rule for achieving a 'sharp' image is to not use a shutter speed below the lenses focal length. With the 50mm Canon prime, this means not going below 1/50th of a second. In the artificial lights of a commecial kitchen, in the evening, at f2.8, I was there or there abouts with the shutter speed. Hovering around 1/50th and occasionally getting up into the dizzying heights of 1/100th of a second. To help with my 'keeper' rate, I shot in 'continuos low' drive mode so I could shoot a short 'burst' of shots. When you do this in low light, it's more likely that at least one of them will be in sharp focus.

Farm Raised Lamb. Canon 40D with 50mm f1.8 STM lens; @f2.8, 1/50th, ISO 640

I also set the camera in auto ISO - to range between 400 and 800. With the 40D, ISO 800 is the top number that the auto ISO will go up to, while its 'default' is apparently ISO 400. I don't use auto ISO all that regularly - preferring instead to choose the lowest ISO I can get away with. But inside, at night, under artifical lights, I was always going to have to ramp up the ISO anyway - so why not let the camera take care of it for me? One less thing to have to worry about - right?

So how is the noise at ISO 800 I hear you ask....  and it's a good question. Noise is certainly apparent at ISO 800 - and can be quite obvious in the shadows if the image is underexposed. The 40D is, after all, a 10 year old camera! But if you get your exposure right then noise isn't a major problem, and can be controlled nicely even with the basic noise controls available in Lightroom.

BTW - the Farm Raised Lamb was what I ordered at the end of the night when I was very knidly offered a meal. And it was amazing! A Rack of Lamb served with rosemary polenta, cauliflower puree and seared asparagus. Yummmm! Delicious.

Seasoning Asparagus. Canon 40D with 50mm f1.8 STM lens; @f2.8, 1/50th, ISO 640

I wasn't just there for food shots though. I took a lot of photos of the students themselves preparing, cooking and serving the meals. I obviously can't show these on my blog since I don't have model releases etc - but the above image is one of my favourites of the evening and gives some indication that it was truly a working kitchen in full service mode. I now also know where the saying "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" comes from!  I've never sweated while taking photos so much in my life!

Fungi O'Bean. Canon 40D with 50mm f1.8 STM lens; @f2.8, 1/50th, ISO 500

Clafoutis. f2.8, 1/100th, ISO 400

As I said at the beginning of this post - I'm no Food Photography expert (far from it). But I did know the 'look' that I wanted to go for - and the steps I needed to take to get there. I had to work fast, stay out of the way, but get close in to get the shots - all in a very hot, frenetic, working kitchen environment. So yes - I'm very please with the images of the food that I was able to take with my old Canon 40D and 50mm STM Prime lens.

Panna Cotta. f2.8, 1/60th, ISO 400

The Canon STM f1.8 is a joy to use. Fast focusing, accurate, quiet and super sharp - especially stopped down to f2.8. It's because of this lens alone that I use the 40D as much as I do. A 'fast' 50mm is a lens that is missing from my micro four thirds arsenal at the moment - but this is something I hope to rectify early in the new year.. I've got my eye on the Panasonic 25mm f1.7 - the micro four thirds version of the Canon nifty fifty. The Olympus 25mm f1.8 is also a stellar lens, but just that bit more expensive.

NZ Cheese Selection. f2.8, 1/100th, ISO 400

Overall I'm very happy with the food images I captured on the evening.  Boosting the ISO, using a fast prime and shooting RAW gave me the flexability I needed to take half-decent food shots in less than ideal conditions. Perhaps more importantly - the polytech cooking tutors were also very happy with the results. Not bad for 10 year old kit and a cheap prime lens.