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If you’d like to find out more about how I took up photography, my inspirations and my thinking processes behind the camera, check out this interview by Tristan Jud over at RAW, with a part reproduced here for your viewing pleasure. Visit RAW: Interview with Weizhong Deng for the full interview
Many thanks to Tristan for the awesome questions~
And also Happy Chinese New Year to those who celebrate it! We have entered the new Dragon year, and I hope this year will be a meaningful one full of peace and happiness for everyone!
Original source: RAW: Interview with Weizhong Deng
What inspired you to get started in photography?
My very first contact with photography came when my father bought me a compact digital camera for a summer program to Japan in 2004. I started snapping at everything that caught my interest or at things which I wanted to preserve as memories.
However, I officially picked up photography when I went back to Japan for a 1-year exchange program in 2008. While I was there, I was mesmerised by the many beautiful Japanese landscapes and scenery that I came across in magazines and posters. At the same time, my buddy happened to introduce the digital SLR to me when I was contemplating getting a new camera. I had no intention of getting a dSLR at first, but I am glad I did.
What’s your favourite photo that you’ve taken and does it have any significance?
This has always been a very difficult question to answer as I have many favourites, but one of the most satisfying piece has to be “First light”. I recall seeing a photo of Moraine Lake in a magazine and was instantly captivated by its surreal colours and glassy reflections. From then on, I have always wanted to capture it in a different light and when I finally did, it gave me a huge sense of satisfaction.
Select a photo you have taken, explain how it was taken and how did you edit it?
This location is quite a popular spot for people looking to capture the iconic image of Singapore. Faced with the challenge of the popularity of the location, I thought of capturing it with a slightly different twist rather than producing something similar to what many have already done.
Since the buildings were lit up with different coloured lights, I planned to capture all of them in one shot to give a sense of the rainbow spectrum. The biggest issue here was that most of the lights were orange, and each of the other coloured lights were programmed to change colour after every predetermined amount of time. Green and pink were the most gruelling as their sequences were very random. As a result, I had to put in quite a bit of effort to anticipate the exact moment when the lights changed into the correct combination of colours that I had in mind. The fact that I had to do this before the golden hour is over adds to the complexity of the shot.
For post-processing, all I did were some minor adjustments to the white balance, brightness and sharpness in Lightroom. No other fine-tuning was required.
What processing tool do you use and do you believe in the camera doing all the work or in post?
I stick to Lightroom most of the time for basic retouching (white balance, contrast, shadows etc). I always strive to do everything right in-camera and reduce the amount of post-processing work. I have received feedback from viewers wondering if I use HDR techniques, but I would like to clarify that no HDR processing has been done on all my work. Instead, I always attempt to present my work as close as possible to what I witnessed. That said, I do use graduated neutral density filters to balance the high and low contrast areas to try to reproduce what the human eye actually sees.
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In this post I wrote briefly about the different autofocus types of AF-S and AF-C (also known as One Focus AF and AI Servo AF on Canon systems).
If the explanation there is too overwhelming for you, there is another setting available where you can leave it up to the camera to select the appropriate autofocus type for you. It is known as AF-A on Nikon systems, where the “A” stands for “Auto”. Canon calls it AI Focus AF.
Basically under this AF-A mode, the camera switches between AF-S and AF-C automatically. If it decides your subject is stationary, it will select AF-S. On the other hand, if it thinks your subject is moving, it will switch to AF-C focus mode.
As mentioned above, the camera tries to detect and guess whether your subject is stationary or moving based on its artificial intelligence. As such, wrong decisions leading to off focus images do happen. This is also one of the reasons why many photographers prefer to select the focus mode manually rather than leave everything up to the camera, especially when on an important shoot.
On the camera body, there is either a switch (higher level bodies) or a setting in the menu (lower level bodies) to allow the user to change the autofocus type of the camera to either AF-S or AF-C.
What’s the difference between AF-S and AF-C, and when do you use each of these functions?
The “S” in AF-S stands for “Single”, and the “C” in AF-C stands for “Continuous”. These abbreviations are used on the Nikon bodies, but other brands have the similar functions, albeit named differently (for instance, C-AF or AI Servo AF instead of AF-C, and S-AF or One Focus AF instead of AF-S). Basically speaking, AF-S is used for subjects that are relatively stationary and AF-C is used for subjects that are active and their distance to the photographer is constantly changing. An example subject for AF-S could be a landscape scene. On the other hand, AF-C is more suitable for birds in flight.
The reason for this is that for AF-S, the focus on the subject is only carried out once by the camera and does not change after that unless the user presses the shutter button halfway again. However for AF-C, focusing on the subject is done constantly as long as the shutter button is depressed halfway.
Subjects suitable for AF-S:
- Portraits
- Landscapes
- Architecture
Subjects suitable for AF-C:
- Wildlife/Animals
- Sports
However, these are general rules and the photographer is free to select whichever autofocus type he/she deems is able to produce the best/desired results or based on personal preference. Personally, there are some occasions where I choose to use AF-C for portraits and macro work, mainly to ensure that the focus point I select will be in focus at the instant when the shutter is depressed fully. This is especially so if you are using a lens with a wide aperture setting such as f/2.8 or lesser, as the shallow depth of field could result in a slight out of focus image if the subject changes his distance to the camera.
One tip to taking sunsets is to use the “Shade” white balance. When the sun is low, the light is much warmer (with an orange hue) than when it is high up in the sky. However, the human eye is able to adjust the colours that we see such that they do not look very different from other times of the day. With “Direct sunlight” or “Auto”, the camera may attempt to over correct at times and the overall photo looks too “cool” and bland with a bluish tint. In other words, adjusting the white balance is not “manipulating” the original colours of the scene, but in actual fact, the colours at sunset are actually much warmer than how we perceive them. With the “correct” white balance selected, the camera is able to compensate for this to reproduce these colours more accurately.
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This photo was taken using the “Shade” setting. When “Direct sunlight” was used, it produced a slight bluish tint and the image looked too “cool”.
Try the “Shade” white balance setting when you next photograph the sunset and you will be surprised at how much better your photo turns out!
