The Accidental Angle

For most photographic subjects, you have the freedom to choose from infinity numbers of moment and take the photo. In scenery photography you may choose from different weather and different times in a day. In portrait photography you may ask the model to post differently and capture the moment you think best. In wildlife photography you can choose to 'live' in wild and wait for the best moment if you wish to.

For most photographic subjects, you have the freedom to choose from infinity numbers of photographic angles. Move the camera a few inches left or right; Standing or knee down; switch to a different focal length... you can have a different view point to the subject. For some special lens or sheet films, you can also have the liberation of lens movement to alter the perspectives and DOF of the photo.

For most photographic subjects, you will also have certain degree of control on the lighting. You can choose the time-of-day for scenic photos. You can choose the shooting angle or decide to use a fill-flash in portrait. And you have the total control of lighting in studio shots.

It's all different in snap shots.

In my opinion, snap shots is to freeze the sudden moment with a photo: at that moment, at that angle, with that lighting, that everything. Since it's the photography about what's happening, it requires the photographers to have extremely fast response. You have to aim the camera, focus, control the exposure, and press the shutter. Even with modern day automatic cameras, you still have to aim and shoot.

Even thou you have practiced your skills, you still have to train you observation skill. Everything you come-across in your life is from an ACCIDENTIAL ANGLE, and you have to identify what's photo worthy.

At best, you should be able to predict what will happen, and have your cameras all readied when thing happens. In Robert Capa's Famous photo "Death of a Loyalist Soldier", he knew the poor soldier will get shot when the young soldier charged forward, BEFORE the shot in his head - according to an interiew with Robert.

It is so difficult to do snap shot, and therefore it's difficult to get a truly good snap. And that's why I am so fascinated about snap shots. I never been able to produce really good snaps, and that’s what keep pushing me to do it.

My not very successful snaps of accidential angles are here.

Golden Section / 黃金比例

note: an old article written 2 years ago, in Chinese.

在看攝影書時, 構圖一節總少不免提及黃金比例或黃金分割, 教讀者幻想畫面橫直各分三等份如九宮格, 並將主體放在幻想線的交叉點上. 但幾乎所有的攝影書都沒有進一步說明甚麼是黃金比例. 我對黃金分割的建議並不熱衷, 但看多了其他的書本, 有一點的了解, 擬文道出我所知的. 由於看的都不是科班用書, 如此文內容有錯, 請予指正.

首先, 黃金比例嚴格地說是 1:1.618; 亦可說成 0.618:1. 說成三分一, 只是為了簡化. 有龜毛的廠商對此很執著, 賓得就曾出了一個有黃金比例格線的對焦屏, 當中用的是真正的黃金比例而不是1/3.

單從上面的數字看來, 1.618 這數字夠特別, 1:1.618 = 0.618:1 = 1:(0.618+1), 即 a:b = b:(a+b), 數學上實在夠美. 這數字如 pi 一般, 是不盡的, 來源就是一個數字系列: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, ...... 當中每一個數字都是前兩個數字之和. 當這系列一直向上, 每兩個相鄰數字的比例就是1.618! 我試用 Excel 計算, 在第 25 行以後 Excel 便投降了, 算出了的黃金比例值為 1.618033989.

確是一個特別的數字. 但很多數字如圓周率 (3.14159265358979323846264...), 自然對數 (2.718281828...) 等都很特別, 為甚麼 1.618 會被視為黃金比例? 為甚麼數字的遊戲又會跟攝影拉上關係?

那可有點邪門.

原來這樣的一個數字, 廣泛存在於自然界之內. 你肚臍到地面的距離, 跟你的身高的比例, 正是0.618. 你的前臂長度, 正是你手臂全長的 0.618 倍. 腳的長度跟手臂的情形一樣. 在很多不同的生物上, 情形也是一樣, 很多的長度比例也是 1.618是 1.618. 最出名的例子是鸚鵡螺: 那螺旋狀的螺殼相鄰的兩層的半徑比例就是 1.618. 甚至於某一些昆蟲族群中, 雌雄的比例也是 1.618.

這奇怪的現像於文藝復興時期發現, 很多的學者都醉心於這數字, 如達文西就偷了大量的屍體量度各骨骼的比例並發現很多地方都是 1.618. 但人類知其然, 卻不知其所以然, 直至今天, 人類仍不能解釋為甚麼這數字在自然界中是這樣普遍. (會不會 chaos theory 可解釋一二? 我不清楚.)

當時的人認為這數字是天上來的, 並十分推崇. 很多的藝術家, 在其作品中嚴守黃金比例, 作品包括有繪畫, 石像, 建築, 甚至音樂. 我不懂藝術, 就由懂藝術的人來舉證吧.

大抵因為自然界中普遍存在著的關係吧, 人類早習慣了看依照這個比例的東西, 故看見嚴守黃金比例的藝術品都感到舒服. 而今天的攝影書上, 亦都會認為依黃金比例構圖的作品看上去較為舒服而不呆板.

istDS X Combo mono-rail 45

My friend Ken Tam got a made in China 45-camera-to-Canon adaptor, modify for PK mount, and manage to mount his Pentax DSLRs on a Combo 45 camera. He uses it to shot simple product shots with the advantage of lens movement.

What a poorman's digital back!!

Will post some sample shots here later.

Russian Jupitar-9 85/2

@f/2:


This lens is quite soft at large apeature. A wide open, it's really like a soft-lens, which gives a very interesting effect. A friend told me that this lens is designed to behave like that, but I cannot confirm if this is really the design intention or not.

@f/11:


The lens starts to give reasonable sharp image at f/8 or smaller apeature. Even at small apeature, the bokeh is very nice thanks to the 18-blade apeature structure. Having said that, don't expect the sharpness of this lens is comparable to that of the modern lens - it's 'enough' sharp, but it's not razor-sharp.

Color-wise, the lens is a little pale and cool-tone. Will post some sample to exhibit these color characteristic when I can find some.

Broken DA70/2.4

A friend send the follow photos to me, showing a broken Pentax DA70/2.4. The story is like this: the lens shown a little bit jam when manual focus, so the user try to use "some" force to turn the focusing ring... then the lens can screw-out into 2 parts.