Hi, I'm Doug McKinlay and we're here for
AdoramaTV in Greenwich Town in London
with Mark Wallace.
What we're going to do today is a
Photo Challenge.
That's right Doug.
So my challenge to you is for
you to sort of teach me some things!
We're in Greenwich Town, which has a lot
of people, and places, and reflections and
colors. And we've got London behind us
and the Cutty Sark over here, and so my
approach to that would just sort of find
little scenes here and there. But you're
a photojournalist and have that background
and so you're mainly looking for story,
Is that right? Of course, now I was taught
that a picture is not a picture, unless there is
a person in it, not always true, but today
we're going to see what we can do with
that. All right, so let's go see what our
styles look like, you can teach me some
things and maybe I can show you some of
the things I do. Excellent. Let's go for
it! Excellent.
Is that a 50 mm lens right? yeah
This is the Canon 1.4 50mm lens
now the reason why I chose a 1.4 over
its bigger brother the 1.2 is mostly due
to cost but also quality This is a 1.4
and the quality is so close to the 1.2
that's not worth spending three times
the amount of money. Right! I see you got a
your 21mm? Yes, I'm going with the 21
and I love this lens for doing this or
the environmental street not
environmental portrait but street
photography, because I can set it to
hyperfocal so I'm shooting at f/8 maybe
at 5/6 and then I just set it to
infinity here at the end of my depth of
field guage. It's basically a
point-and-shoot camera and then all I'm
doing is basically looking doing all my
composition and shooting without having
to worry about focus, because on Leica
you can't focus, very very quickly, like
this guy. I'm guessing your auto focusing
Auto focus, now I'm on auto focus
cause I'm getting older, my eyes aren't so
good anymore, but so basically what
you've got, is the world's most expensive
point and shoot camera! This IS the world's most
expensive point and shoot camera.. ha ha..! But I
think that the key there is, it's
important to know where to point it and
when to shoot it. That's really the heart
of photography. The other thing we have to
mention too is the guts in a Leica are
fantastic, so it's producing amazing
images, it's not just your you know your
300-pound $300 point-and-shoots almost
throw away camera. Yeah, this has got
amazing resolution, I mean not not
talking about megapixels we're talking
about how the lens resolves fine details
and the contrast, there's a lot
going on here so it's it's not really
fair to say it's just a point and shoot
camera, but it is, it's a point-and-shoot
camera! Ok I'm going to go point and
shoot today. Ands I'm going to
point and auto-focus today and see what we get!
Ok lets do it!
Ok, so explain to me Mark, what you're,
what you're doing there. Ok I was
actually just taking a picture of the
guy that walked behind me. Right, Ok. So
one of my favorite things to do in a
city is to take sort of multiple layered
images and that's what this does for me
here we have this window. It's really
clean, but it's got a really nice
reflection of the cityscape behind, plus
we have some layers, some chairs, and
bottles and a bunch of things inside, and
so basically what I'm doing, because this
is hyper-focal. Everything's in focus, I
can turn my back to my subject and
because I have a rangefinder, I can see
things coming into the frame before they
actually get there, and so I'm waiting, so
like these people right here, click. I
just took their picture and they have no
idea that I did, and so I get depth, I get
layers I get people, and without even
being intrusive at all, so that gives you
that almost spire like quality. It's a
rangefinder camera? Yeah I'm taking
pictures of things behind me. Interesting
so we're coming into Greenwich Market
here, so why don't we go in and continue
our challenge and see what these cameras
can produce. Lets do it. Ok Cool.
Yeah. If you usually shoot, you're
shooting 1/4 right now, is that right
I'm shooting it 1/4 because I really like the
creamy textures behind, when I'm
shooting portraits with it. Yeah I like
the way that it renders the background
of the line of my portrait, behind the
eyes, behind the nose, behind the ears, there is a
nice creamy, sort of blurry. Background.
'Bokeliciousness' in it. Yeah!but if
you're shooting with the 50 and you're
shooting some, like a person you don't
know are you like filling the frame with
their face? Are you doing sort of a
medium shot? I think well it really
depends on the person too. How their
dressed, what kind of, if they're
in a foreign country, they've got a
traditional dress on, maybe I step back
but if not, I want to get a nice and
close. How do i do that? I usually have a
word or two with a person, even if you
don't speak English. I still try to, to
try and make that that connection, you
know, make it easy for them to
allow me to do it. If they don't want it
then I'll walk away, do something else, but
you know they say that the 85 mm is
the perfect portrait lens. Yes, it's a
great lens, but the 50, I just find the 50
to be fantastic for portraits. It's nice
and small, it's obscure, I can, you know
it's not as small as, the body's not as
small as your Leica, but this is about
the smallest I can get with my Canon.
So tell me how close, like if I'm a stranger
on the street and we've had that
interaction, and you're going to shoot me
at 1/4. I'm at 1./4 and I'm going to get in
as close as I can with the, in terms of
the focal distance of the lens allows me
to. Yeah I'm going to get down
a little bit because... I'm
Gavin Hoey! A little bit tall, okay now
the other thing with the 50, when I mean
close like this, unlike a 24 or a 21,
is I'm going to get less,
distortion. The 50 gives you less
distortion, so your pictures look more
natural. So that's what we got here,
and that's how it looks here. Oh that's
awesome. Nice and tight. So I'm a little, so this is
a 21 and I'm at f8 right now. One of the
things that people ask about is its manual
focus and how slow is that. Right? So you
just shot that and had a little bit of a
focus, so here's me shooting you, with the
21! So that's super quick, super quick
yeah, because everything is in focus of
course I didn't compose or anything I
just clicked, but that's sort of
we won't show that picture..ha ha! But
that's the, the argument is constantly
manual focus on the Leica is so slow,
but if you're shooting at a 28 a 35, a 21
you, you're focusing is very minimal and
what f-stop are you at there? I'm at 8
Here I'm at 8 and I'm shooting at ISO
400, but it's basically old reportage
photography, f8 and be there! Exactly, yeah,
you're just sort of show up and beat it.
Now if I'm shooting with a 50, I do have
a 50 that I love for the same type of
thing, then it is a different story, then my
focus is very deliberate, very slow, and
with the 1.4, 1.2 kind of aperture if you
move any then you're out of focus. It's so
tight, yeah, and so I'm just going to ask
you if you're shooting at 1.4 do you take
a few pictures to sort of give yourself some
coverage, generally speaking, I'll
sort of blast off a few, because this
camera will shoot, five, six frames a
second. Am.. but really important though,
when I'm shooting this close with, with
the 1.4 - focus on the eyes, always, always
on the eyes, nose out a little bit, ears
are a little bit, it doesn't matter, the eyes
are sharp, it's a good image. All right,
well let's keep going to Greenwich
Market, and see what else we can get here.
So the 50 is a good portrait lens for
shooting something you don't ever know,
but how do you approach that? Can you advise?
I think it's all about trying
to create that, you know, instantaneous
connection between yourself as a
photographer and your subjects. Now I'm
going to try with this lady here, and see
how we get on ok? Ok, I'll just let you do it.
Hi there, I love your stall. Do you
mind if I get it shot or two? Can I use you
as a model, so just just relax and I'll
try and get a picture. If you look right
in the lens that's it, that's it, just like
that. Look at me, smile, that's great
really natural. So that, that's it in a
nutshell. It's a 50 mm shot for
portraits. Now one of the things about a
wide lens, is it's a little bit different,
than the 50, is this is sort of a stealth
camera, and so you're really intentionally
being in close. I was actually shooting
pictures of you while you were shooting
pictures, and doing some portraits, but
nobody knew! You didn't even know, that's
sort of the joy of having a really wide
lens.It doesn't matter if it's for a
Canon or Leica, or whatever, this is a 21
so everything's going to be in focus, so
you have a lot of freedom to do that, one
of the things that you have to do, is get
to watch your composition. You know I was
sort of shooting from the hip, so I was just
praying. So you've sort of
like a scattergun approach, kind of hoping
you'd get at least one of the images
that's going to look good? Sort of, it went
like I know that there's some hats in
the foreground, and you know I was sort of
taking a couple of looks to try to get a
portrait of her in the background, to set
sort of a sense of space, but any time
you're with a 35 or 28 or 29 anything
wide you're not just saying here's the
the subject, you are saying here's a subject
and everything around it, so that with,
in terms of composition, so are you aware
of those little bits of information
within the image? To try and find some
balance within a shot? Trying, yeah, but if
you're shooting fast like I just was
not so much it's sort of by instinct, and
by practice, and the more you do it the
more you can sort of see that. But if I
was doing a professional shoot shooting
somebody at work or whatever, then yeah
I'd be really intentional and probably
place things and, but for street
photography, it's practice, practice,
practice. Exactly, that's great, great!
You've done a lot of photojournalism and
telling stories for magazines and
newspapers and things like that, so how
do you take something like this, where
you've got all these things that are
competing for your attention, and, and
pull a story out of that, are there some tips that
you have? Well this is why the 50 mm
1.4 is such a great lens for this
kind of work. Because of the narrow depth
of field, I can choose a certain part of
the image to be the main focus. Now by
doing that, I can change, I change the
focus, I can change the story, so this
great latitude, and how you're going to,
how you're going to approach the picture,
remembering that one picture can tell a
story, so for instance, we got this group of
maps beside us. It's not saying much really
but if I shoot it at 1.4 it's going to
allow me to throw the background out, and
therefore make the picture that much
more interesting. Yeah it's like a little
spice, to say come to the market, and here
are some of the types of things that
you'll see. Exactly. Yeah I want to see what you can do
with this. Right, ok, now don't forget
shooting these kind of images, the whole image
can change depending where I put the focus
Now so one of the things with this is
depending on how I shoot, if I shoot this
way my depth of field is here, so I've
sort of got everything in the sign in
focus, if I just turn my camera here my
depth of field is here, so my letters are
going to start falling out of focus, so
just changing the camera angle changes
the composition, and the storytelling of
this image. Let's see what we get.
Beautiful.
Well Doug, thanks so much for hanging out
today and teaching me some things about
photo journalism. It has been a really,
really fun day, and thank you for having
me along I learned some stuff especially
with the Leica, fantastic piece of kit.
It was a great day, and I hope you can
do it again. Absolutely! Don't forget to
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