I’ve moved to: Dilesh Weerasuriya Photography

Well, like it or not, we are all now in a Facebook age. So anything beyond the template of Facebook is somewhat alien to us. And it’s natural I guess, considering how friendly Facebook is becoming when it comes to having your own page/site.
So I decided, I too will move there. So as pleased as I am to have you visit my blog, I would like to redirect you to my Facebook page. You’ll find a lot more current posts and more frequent updates there. So I hope you enjoy!
Dilesh Weerasuriya Photography

Product Photography (yes again)

Thats what I got when i put a fascination with some colourful peppers and some free time together.
Came out with some pretty nice photographs that I liked. SO thought of making it an opportunity of updating my blog.
A relatively larger collection of my product photography can be seen here

Singapore Grand Prix 2009

Yes, another awesome F1 shoot.  It never gets old!

I’ve been quite busy lately so havent been able to update the blog on the F1, but you can still check out the pictures on my flickr stream by clicking on the image above.
Enjoy!

On The Track @ Katukurunda ’09

Considering the security situation in the country and the direct correlation between racetracks and the military, the local racing arena has been quiet for some time. So when wind came that the Katukurunda Races were happening on the 1^st and 2^nd of August I realized I HAD to stay in Sri Lanka another few days for it. And this would be my 2^nd track racing photography experience, the first being the Singspore F1 races last year.

Put me, 2 DSLRs, a sturdy camera bag and a pit-pass and what do you get; Two whole days of sunburn, dehydration and a bunch of photographs that not only in my opinion are pretty good, but also quite memorable photographic experiences.

One of the coolest shots was of Darin Weerasinghe and Pasindu Pieris roaring down the starting stretch into the Mobitel Corner whizzing past me nothing more than 10 feet away from me. And I was telling myself ‘Now THAT should be an awesome shot’. Then mere moments later came Ashan Silva blazing by me followed by Rizvi Farook loosing control and starting a skid along the track. I have 3 shots of the entire sequence. Shooting at approx 2.5fps you see the first one here of Razvi’s white Evo loosing it. The next shot was of his car smack middle, unable to even fit into the frame at 18mm (considering it passed no more than 5-6 feet away from me). The next was of nothing but a cloud of white rubber smoke. As I dusted off the thin sand the car blew at me and my equipment all I was thinking was, ‘I SOOOO hope that I captured it’. As some of you might already have realized I like shooting at ground level; Hence most of my aiming is done on practice and judgment as opposed to using the viewfinder. After-all it’s not easy resting your face on a burning hot cement runway in the mid afternoon sun.

And on a more professional photographic note; something I really wanted to try was to capture the entire racing experience, and not just the speeding cars. So I spent an equally large time pointing my camera off the track, as I did at the track. The pits too tell a story; one about the races we would not normally see on TV or the papers. Unfortunately the Sunday afternoon heat had got the better of the spectators who were quite beaten down by midday, and not in the highest of spirits.

And the motorcycles didn’t fail to impress the spectators and make the photographers very happy with their speed and beautifully tilted cornering.

But all in all, it was yet another memorable racing experience indeed.

Product Photography

I recently got my very first food photography assignment from Red Dot Cafe, for some publicity shots of their range of servings ranging from cakes to coffees. Considering the lack of equipment and limited time it ended up being a pretty good shoot. Of course, it did have some shortcomings which I later realized and fixed in subsequent shoots, but overall it went well.

Its interesting what a simple off-camera flash, tripod and a couple of empty white cake boxes can do to control light.  One thing I did realize is, wide-angle rocks. Its just amazing how it helps emphasize certain aspects of the food while not looking like it was simply cropped out of a bigger picture.

Shooting high-key as opposed to simply using a shallow Depth of Field in my opinion gives the client more versatility and flexibility when using them, but of course there are times when the food isn’t everything, and the client wants more than just the product. For example some clients may want to show off their fancy new interior decorations along with their products. So its always best to consult the client on these matters.

So, one tip I’d give to someone who’s interested in similar styled shots, go wide. VERY wide! And another is, dont be afraid to experiment with lighting. It’s everything that makes the photograph unique!

Rally Photography

We’ve all most probably seen photo collections of amazing rally shoots. As simple as it may seem it really isn’t. There’s a lot more to it as I recently learned at the Kukuleganga Rally 2009.

OK, to those who aren’t familiar with the concept of rallying, it’s basically a race where the drivers all drive along a marked road though not all at the same time. They’re timed and the fastest man across wins. So each driver goes past a single point only once.

So, as a photographer you get only one chance to shoot a single car. And this being my 1^st rally I was a bit worried about this and ending up having a set of monotonous shots (from being positioned in one place).

As the cars drove by, I ended up repositioning myself as each car drove past. Its quite tiring, but the result is worth it.

Another thing I learnt was to shoot wide angles. It really does capture the essence of rallying with a stunning backdrop of a cliff, waterfall or even a group of enthusiastic spectator.

I really should do more such shoots. Kukuleganga was a tarmac race, but I foresee a gravel rally being much more entertaining considering the rising dust and flying debris.

Its interesting how much you learn at every shoot and pick up a lesson or two. Interesting indeed!

Clicking Away

By habit when I’m doing a shoot which is a ‘first’ I switch to continuous and snap away with the expectation of having multiple shots hence a good few to filter down to. But the thing is it’s not that easy. My fist assignment shooting a wedding, was of a friend’s, where she wanted me to be a photographer at the wedding and not merely someone sitting in the audience and clicking the occasional photograph.

So nervous as I was, I ended up shooting over 3900 pictures. Though I must say, the wedding was more a string of ceremonies and events spread throughout 3 days… so naturally the shots accumulated.

Returning home after a wedding and a pretty good overseas experience, I spent a lot of time filtering all this down. A lot more time than I expected. Surprisingly I ended up choosing around 25% of all the shots. Though it did go through over 4 rounds of painful filtering and post-processing.

So what’s the lesson I learnt, I asked myself. Click less! Because, the more shots you have (naturally) it’ll take a while to go through in multiple rounds. In addition, when you have 3-4 shots of the same scene, you are torn between the choices.

So in the next wedding soot I did, I indeed watched my trigger finger and presto, a number of reasonable shots easier to work with, with similar good results.

And as I recent learnt from my friend Masitha, each shutter has a life. A life expectancy of around 50,000 shots, though many cameras easily last over 100-150k. it really depends on your luck, I guess.

At the same time, a bit of patience and mentally restricting your shutter count, in my opinion also helps improve on your skill. And if you’re shooting in RAW it really will help!

Yes, so that’s an observation and opinion I thought of sharing.

Happy photography!

Get the best Black & White you can

Just thought of sharing a small post-processing tip… We’ve all enjoyed looking at a nice black and white photograph. And we’ve all tried our own attempts at taking a B&W photo.. But they don’t always come out as nice or dramatic as we want. May it be taken using the B&W mode on a camera or a photograph converted to B&W in post-processing, its not as easy as it would seem. Instead of the contrasting black and white we sometimes end up with a unclear grayscale photo. So how can one fix this?

Firstly, do NOT take on-camera black and white. The reason is, when done on-camera the camera simply takes every colour and maps it to its respective grayscale value. So may it be a 50% blue or a 50% red they’ll both end up blending into each other. Let me demonstrate.. Save this image of the block of colours and open them in even a simple photo-editing software such as even MS paint or MS photo-editor. Now turn it into grayscale………. (take a break go do that, and come back ) Amazing isn’t it? And THAT is why you should not photograph in B&W on camera. So different and vibrant in reality but so similar in grayscale.

So how can you fix this?  If you are a Adobe Photoshop user you might already know this. But if you’re not, Adobe Photoshop allows you to choose the strength of each color’s grayscale individually. This would let you differentiate between colors by increasing or decreasing a color’s brightness. And Bravo! You have yourself a good B&W photo.

Motorsports Photography

Having tried my hand at this only once before, back in early 2006 when I was still getting used to a D-SLR, when I heard that Formula 1 was coming to Singapore this September, I thought, ‘hmmm, should be quite interesting’. The event being a night race (first of its kind) brought one main questions to my mind. ‘Will there be enough light to photograph something moving at 100-200kmph?’. But the organizers had promised everyone enough flood-lights to make the track as bright as day, and having seen the lights a couple of weeks before the races gave me confidence that I probably get a few decent captures.

 

And then came race day. The many other support races being held before the highlight F1 race, it gave me enough time to practice my panning skills etc.  Another slightly annoying problem with the Marina Bay Circuit was that it had 3-4 meter high metal fencing going all around the track, hence obstructed cars. Auto Focus was indeed a terror. At one time it would the high speeds at which the cars were moving, posed a problem for the camera, as it wasn’t able to auto-focus fast enough for the continuous-shooting mode I was on. Adding to the complications was the fence itself! Often the fence ended up being the undesirable subject of focus. My remedy for this was to switch off auto-focus and manually focus on one point on the track (probably right before or right after a corner) and shoot. Though it produced a number of captures that were ‘not so much’ in focus, those that were in focus, were simply stunning.

 

Looking back now, I guess I could say that I had 4 main formats/styles of photographs. Let me elaborate.

 

One (probably one of the best) is to get as close to the fence as possible. This would mean the fence could be lost in the shallow Depth of Field  (DOF). But this would also mean using a high focal length, hence a narrower region which severely restricts the capture of the fast moving object. A perfect example was my BMW Formula capture at the Esplanade Corner. I had moved to about 4 feet from the fence with the focus point being the cars at about 30 feet away from me (and lens at its maximum 200mm). And as they drove by I tried a slight pan, though it didn’t show much due to the 1/500s speed.

 

Else one could just step back a fair distance and zoom in as much as possible.  But now a fairly significant amount of fencing would be showing in the photo.  If you’re new at this, you can shoot with a wider angle and crop the photo later. One of the plus points is that your panning doesn’t  necessarily have to be top-notch. They won’t be the best, but your photos wont suffer from motion blur ‘too much’. Hey, if you feel confident enough you can zoom right in on the car and try some panning. I tell you the results will be simply stunning! One of my favorite such shots was the RedBull Racing car from the Bay Grand Stand. The panning was so precise that the car simply looks like it was sitting still despite traveling at around 160kmph. The panning has also helped cut out the fence by 50%. What do I mean by 50%? Well, all the vertical fencing-wires have simply been ‘blurred out’, while the horizontal ones look like simple streaks of white light.

 

If you don’t want to deal with any sort of fencing the only place you can photograph the cars is from above. Having found myself a f few nice corners at different points of the day, I was able to capture some very good unobstructed cars. But this would mean except for the car, the background would be just be dull tarmac. It helps to include maybe a bit of the road markings, or fencing to give a sense of movement. This is a trick/style I have always used (To include a known static object to give a sense of proportion/movement).

 

Another photo that I liked was the one I got through a 10mm wide angle lens. In this the camera is pretty much stationary at about 50cm away from the fence at a corner where the cars drive by leaving a gap of no more than 1m between themselves and the fence. The converging lines of the fence gave a sense of distance to the photograph, which I liked very much, even though the car would suffer from motion blur.

 

In addition to the technicalities, one important attribute I have noticed is, when photographing motor sports is ‘Don’t always take the same photograph’. If you take 14 pictures of th 14 cars taking the same corner while using the same framing style on all the photographs, the chances are that the viewer is going to get tired of the photos by the time he reaches No.5 and probably might not even go on to look at the rest. The best is to walk around and try different angles. Yes, its very VERY tiring, considering the fact that if you don’t walk/run pretty fast, race would be over before you reposition yourself. If that’s too hard, try framing the shot differently, position the car in different places in the frame, or crop the frame in to shapes other than the conventional portrait and landscape. Believe me it helps.

 

Like me, if you are deeply passionate about cars just as you are about photography, in some cases, at time you can imagine the type of photograph you would like to see, and then all you have to do is capture it. Besides that, there are many many more little tricks you realize and learn through hand on practice. Like I have heard from a number of photographers that I personally admire, the best way is to simply keep on clicking. You can only get better!

Buying a Digital Camera?

 

OK, this is probably something I have typed countless times in many many MSN/Gtalk (and painfully enough, even FaceBookChat) conversations. So I figured I’ll type it out plain and simple and the next time someone asks me, just direct them to this post. So if you’re reading this, yes you probably got directed here by me. Hehehe!

 

OK, before we start, your requirements shouldn’t be a ‘nice small 7megapixle camera’. First look at what you’re going to do with it. Are you going to use it to take photographs at home and maybe family/friends’ trips and outing? Are you a bit more keen on starting photography as a hobby but unsure on your 1^st purchase? Or are you going Pro? Once you know what you’re going to be doing with your camera it is so much easier to get a recommendation that will suit you.

 

In my opinion highest resolution of the sensor really isn’t the most important factor when purchasing a camera. I have seen some photographs taken with 3.2mp cameras which are in fact clear than some 5.0mp cameras..

 

I’d say it’s the sensor’s actual quality that matters, and that’s something you probably wont be able to judge unless you have used the camera or spoken to someone who has. Of the cameras I have used I would say most brands have a few model ranges that shoot very well.

 

A friend of mine bought a Canon A580 about a year and half ago, and that has been one of the best camera’s I have seen of that range/class. The clarity of the photographs and the sharpness can compete with a semi-pro camera or even a SLR in some cases. I saw one for sale at a store for S$200 few months ago, and thought WOW! Now thats a steal! The 580 is probably out fo production now, and I doubt if its successors have dropped in quality.

 

Then there’s Kodak. A brand I would probably advise someone to stay away from. Probably because of my C340. Though some photographs came out well,  in some cases they have been quite disappointing when it came to sharpenss and image quality. And towards the end of its usage (Its still working, but not with me) I was getting quite disappointed with it. Even slightly dysfunctional batteries (AA) would cause the camera to go bonkers (even if you use a good pair right afterwards). But a friend bought a C360, and that showed quite an improvement over the predecessor but not THE best.

 

Sony! A brand I was particularly impressed with due to my DSC-V1.. It just blew me away! Crisp clear photo quality and mpeg video recording! And the video quality really was unbelievable! Oh, and not to mention VERY effective night-vision! The problem I had with that was battery life. Since it used its own unique battery and not rechargeable AAs it had its limitations on usage time.

 

But all these attributes that I prioritize me may not be that important to another camera buyer. For example I have a friend who spent about $400 on a camera that would otherwise be around $200-250, simply for its small size and extra large screen. She was even looking at a camera with a touch screen, before she bought this. Now these qualities are ones that I personally really don’t care about. When buying a P&S I would prefer to get one with a smaller screen (and preferably a viewfinder) simply because it consumes less power, hence longer usage hours. And I would always choose photo-quality over compact size of a camera. I don’t mind carrying something big as a shoe if it gives me the best quality photograph.

 

So always take into note that asking ONE person for a recommendation is not the best idea! Chances are he probably hasn’t even heard of the camera you’re asking about. Google the model. A simple search can give you a LOT if forums and sites that give you reviews on multiple aspects. So go through them if you have the time. It’ll be worth it.

 

Summing up, what camera should you buy? Well, like I just said it really depends on the user. Understand what you want, see which brand gives you exactly what you want, do a bit of price surveying, and you probably wont look back on your purchase.