I’ve used many old manual lenses on my Olympus EM5. It’s a great way to explore old glass, even if the lenses weren’t made for modern mirrorless digital cameras. One of my favourite lenses is the Clubman 28mm 2.8 – a mass-market cheapo lens that was made by a Japanese optical manufactuer and then rebranded to be sold in camera shops and department stores at the height of 35mm film photography in the 70s, when colour film rose to prominence and new artistic styles found voice. It can also be found under the Ensinor name and likely some others. Many cheap lenses from that era were equally cheap in performance, but the Clubman is surprisingly good.
Like all of the lenses from back then, it’s an all-metal build and features an aperture ring and manual focus – quite hefty when compared to the plastic lenses we often find today. One of the best things about it is that it has a kind-of macro mode where you can focus down to about 30 cm at a 1:5 ratio. The other surprising thing about the lens is that it’s quite sharp after stopping the aperture down to f 5.6-f 8.
The lens also benefits greatly from the small sensor size of the Olympus because the softer edges and corners are mostly chopped out on the Micro Four Thirds format. This lens wouldn’t be so good on a larger format, like APS-C or 35mm, because those mushy edges and corners would form a bigger part of the visible frame. On the Olympus, I get the central part of the lens, where it’s sharpest.
On a hike , Litchfield National Park – Olympus EM5 Mark 2 with Clubman 28mm lens and Circular Polariser
For the photo above, I stopped the lens down to F 5.6 – the sweet spot for this lens/camera combination. I also used a circular polariser to cut out stray light reflections on the rocks and the foliage. This also deepens the colours.
The effect of the polariser is obvious in the above photo when you look at the water. The reflections have been minimised, creating transparency and deeper colours. You can even see the cliff visible below the water’s edge and some of the rocks on the riverbed. This is when a circular polarising filter is most useful and helps to maximise the optical properties of older glass.
Here are some of my other most-used manual focus lenses:
It seems that during prior lyrical waxings on the concepts underpinning mindful/contemplative photography and Miksang, I came to refer to it as Quiet Photography. This, without thinking for a moment that Quiet Photography might indeed be a thing out there in the world – a concept already girded by philosophies and academic essays. As it turns out, it’s a definite thingin some academic circles and is mentionedelsewhere.
Old door and dappled light – Olympus EM5 Mark 2 and Sigma 30mm 2.8 lens
For me, quiet photos don’t announce themselves. They don’t add their voice to the cascade of loud photos that speak of ego, marketing, and contrivance. They step away from noise and action. Quiet photos speak of the small things and the ordinary things. I think the best of these photos imbues the mundane subject with an imaginary life, as though revealing a mystery in a quiet place unnoticed by the noisy hubbub of humanity.
Wood bench partly in shadow – Olympus EM5 Mark 2
As in contemplative photography, the necessary mindset inhabits a moment fully but may be distracted easily. The play of autumn light over the surface of an old door, a wooden bench in shadow and light – ordinary things that convey the passing of time and a feeling of history, with the photographer as quiet witness.
Lately, I’ve been contemplating ethical questions in photography. According to Wikipedia, ethics is the study of moral phenomena and “…investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behaviour is morally right.”
At the risk of being ultracrepidarian, I’ll just say this: I’m not an expert in ethics or philosophy, but I believe that self-reflection is an important part of not just photography, but also generally. It’s crucial to ask questions and seek answers to discover what drives our photographic practice. What beliefs inform our behaviour? What do we consider to be right and wrong and why? Where are the moral lines for us?
Bruce Gilden and Mark Cohen – well-known street photographers who hold the camera in one hand, the flash-gun in the other, and get right into the personal space of their subjects – may be at the behavioural far end of what street photography encompasses. Here’s a great video of Gilden at work: Bruce Gilden.
This in-your-face methodology has variously been called innovative, invasive, bullying, and unethical. There’s no denying it can produce some amazing photos of people doing everyday things on the street, but is it ethical? Ethics is about what behaviour is morally right. But just because something is legal, like making photos of people in public spaces where the law says there is no expectation of privacy, that doesn’t make it ethical.
All smiles at midnight – Nikon D7100
Consent and ethical frameworks
Consider the photo of the two ladies above. You can see they’re happy and smiling. In fact, they saw me with the camera and posed for me, thereby providing consent. There aren’t too many people who’d have an ethical issue with this photo.
What complicates matters is that what we consider to be ethical, or morally right and wrong, is based on our ethical framework – a set of core beliefs, culturally embedded and varying across time and place – that inform the way we behave, the way we think and feel, and what we consider to be right and wrong. If all of my street photos were made with consent, such as the one above, my ethical framework might be Care-Based, where I consider the feelings of others, care for others, and my relationship to others.
Street photographers like Bruce Gilden may be considered unethical by a majority, but the truth is that their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are driven by belief systems that may not be in accordance with the mainstream. One might argue they work to a type of Utilitarian ethical framework that values a good outcome above questionable methods – art as the good outcome in this case. But if people that Gilden photographs are startled, offended, or unhappy with his method, is it a good outcome from their perspective? Should one set of ethics override another?
Perhaps it’s the goal of making good art that drives the photographer’s impulse to shove a camera into personal space. Or the goal to be well-known, with money in the pocket and exhibition space for the work. Would you think differently if you thought of Gilden’s work as great art? Or if you didn’t like his photos, would you find his practice unethical instead?
Kneeling with nothing – Nikon D7100
I thought for some time before posting the photo above. I photographed a vulnerable person and for many people, making photos of vulnerable people on the street is a big no-no and crosses an ethical line. What drove my behaviour here? Obviously, I feel uncomfortable posting the photo but do I feel discomfort because I fear possible bad reactions to it? I’m certainly not one to dive into conflicts.
The idea of a person with nothing, surrounded by people in a busy city, appeals to my sense of exploring the effects of capitalism and urbanisation – a fragile human being in a concrete and glass city, looking to survive the grinding day. The potential cruelties of modern life appeal thematically and drive an aesthetic. I’m driven to this as I’m driven to photos of decaying buildings and ruin.
It’s easy to be seduced by photo opportunities on the street in a big city where few people care about others with cameras. It’s easier still to exercise power as a photographer and frame a vulnerable person who gave no consent, telling a momentary story about them that can’t represent them in totality. Perhaps in making this photo, I also touched the edges of what I’m comfortable with. That, in itself, is a valuable lesson and self-reflection.
Charles de Gaulle at work on the streets – Nikon D7100
It’s important to understand that ethical frameworks vary across culture, time, geography, and individuals. The behaviour that one person feels comfortable with will not be in accordance with the ethical framework that drives someone else. We may argue that some ethics are universal, and perhaps they are, but prior civilisations have believed it a good thing to sacrifice virgins to appease deities, or have seen fit to expose weakling babies to create a stronger society.
Ethical frameworks are, in this context, subjective. The law seeks to be universal and pragmatic, but ethics remain separate and personal. And when my ethics disagree with yours, conflict may ensue, even though neither of us is wholly right or wrong. According to Descartes, we can never truly know if other minds exist since we can only truly know our own minds. We’re trapped within our own minds, and for all we know, other people are zombies, illusions, or mindless automatons. Slipping into Solipsism for a moment, we can never know another person’s ethical framework because we can never know if other minds exist beyond our own and we are therefore doomed to cross ethical boundaries at every moment and every step. In this context, it may be more relevant to depend on laws rather than subjective ethics.
Diving into Solipsism is, perhaps, at the deep end of the pool, but it serves to illustrate a simple point: ethics are indeed personal and subjective and we often can’t know the ethical framework of another person. We may minimise this confusion by seeking consent, and this is a perfectly reasonable solution, but we also change what street photography is by doing so: it then becomes a set of poses and forced half-smiles for the stranger’s camera, thereby losing the interesting spontaneity that defines the genre.
Covid-safe and unhappy – Nikon D7100 and 55-300mm Nikkor lens
It’s clear the person in the photo above isn’t very happy. Was he unhappy with me pointing the lens in his direction or was he unhappy with something unrelated? I found his look interesting and decided to make the photo before moving on. I admit it’s not an especially good photo but I share it in hopes of provoking thought about the ethics of street photography.
If a person isn’t comfortable with me making their photo but I’m ethically comfortable doing so, should one ethical framework override the other? Should there be an expectation that within a time, place, and culture, where photographing people in a public place may be legal but sometimes morally questionable, the ethics that favours asking consent or not making the photo at all should always take precedence?
Ethical choices and geological wonders
In a previous post, I posted photos of Uluru – a magnificent natural wonder that started to form over 500 million years ago. There are parts of Uluru where clear signs forbid photography based on the cultural beliefs of the local indigenous Arrernte people. I didn’t make any photographs in the aforementiomned signed areas, choosing instead to pay respect to those local beliefs.
My belief system allows me to view the world around me as not owned by any single person or group. It allows me to view nation-states, governments, and fortunes as illusions in the sense they are consensually understood and agreed-upon narratives. These beliefs inform my ethical framework, but I understand that such frameworks are purely subjective and personal. For me, Uluru is an amazing example of geological processes that existed millions of years before any human being set foot on the shores of the ancient inland sea. Yet, despite my belief, I chose not to make photos anyway, partly because I also respect the value of indigenous culture.
Ethics in photography is like a huge bowl of spaghetti on a first date – you’re probably going to spill it on yourself and look awkward while slurping up the pasta. It’s a messy and often uncomfortable area that’s filled with subjectivity and declarations of universal moral truths by stubborn individuals. Perhaps the best we can do is our best in understanding other people, occasionally override our own ethics to get along better with others, and hope that we find people that share some of our own ethics.
In my previous post, I outlined a confrontation that had happened when revisting a ruined house nearby. In a world where the Silicon Valley business model is obsessed with surveillance capitialism, tracking online behaviour, harvesting personal data, and selling that data, it’s no surprise that a growing number of people become very touchy indeed when a lens is pointed in their direction or the direction of something they own.
Old shed on a dusty corner at sunset – Nikon Z5
Ethics is a branch of Moral Philosophy that concerns itself with morality and how people should behave and why. Despite the fact that we were on a public road at the time of the incident, doing nothing legally wrong, and making photos, was our behaviour ethical? Why were we confronted and what ethical framework, if any, should inform photographic practice?
It’s very easy to dismiss confrontations with a deft wave of the legal hand: making photos from public spaces of things visible from those spaces is not legally wrong. Yet, doing so can provoke a strong reaction in many people. It may not be illegal, but is it ethical? Is it right or wrong to make photos of a property owned by someone else? And how should we react, as photographers, when we’re confronted?
Keep Out – Nikon Z5
I think self-reflection is a useful tool for personal growth and change. It allows us to consider our system of beliefs, our thoughts and feelings, and our behaviours in the larger context of culture and society. What beliefs inform our behaviours? And when those beliefs are challenged by someone else who thinks, believes, and behaves differently, what should we do? I’ll be coming back to these questions…
I was a little way up the dusty side-road with my Nikon Z5 and Nikon D40 when a big white 4-wheel drive roared past me and stopped next to our car, dust kicking up from the wheels. I knew it was a bad sign. I’d been here before. A few moments later, the car belted away down the dirt and turned onto the bitumen. Everything was quiet again and I gazed in the direction of the setting sun, hoping we’d be left alone long enough to make some more photos in the best light of the day.
Covered in old vines – Nikon Z5
I went back to work with the Z5, dialling back the exposure to preserve the highlights and waiting eagerly for the golden light to bathe the dusty corner we’d chosen for some evening photos. The quiet didn’t last very long…
Another big vehicle pulled up next to the ruined building we’d been training our lenses upon. I packed up my gear and started to walk back up the road to my buddy, suspecting he’d have to deal with a mouthful of abuse from the locals. I wasn’t wrong.
“What the FUCK do you think you’re doing???!”
I get it. There we are on a normally quiet road and we’re loitering outside his property. I made it there just in time for the tirade. My mate was very calm in the face of it, de-escalaing the situation and rightly pointing out we weren’t trespassing on his property and had no intention of entering or wrecking anything. Some minutes of back and forth and the property owner was still gruff but calm enough to take some mouthfuls of beer from the bottle he was swinging about.
Collapsing shed – Nikon D40 and Nikkor 35mm 1.8 lens
I contributed the odd word or two, reinforcing the argument that we were innocently making photos in great light and staying outside the fence-line.
“Yeah…I s’pose that’s OK if you’re into photography…”
Clearly his own mate was just there for moral support, as he’d said not a word the whole time. The golden light was fast fading and we were still locked in heated discussion about kids stealing copper from the old house and cutting the barbed wire fencing. The anger’s understandable, of course.
“Next time, ask me for permission! I’m just up the road, there.”
The problem with so many of these ruined places is that you just don’t know where the landowners are. Properties beyond urban areas can be big and it’s not always obvious who owns what. So, we stick to the public areas – the pathways and the roads, usually. Legally, you can make a photo of just about anything if you’re in a public space and you can see the subject from that public space. Permission isn’t required unless you’re planning to enter the property. I’ve never needed to say any of this to an angry onlooker or property owner, mostly because it doesn’t result in calm conversations.
A sea of cactus – Nikon D40
Finally, we made our peace and drove off. We’d missed the best light of the day. It would have been amazing too – pink clouds and soft golden highlights bathing all the dusty old corners and abandoned places.
I’ve been trying to get out for shorter photo sessions in recent weeks because it’s not always possible to find a free day for an organised day-trip. At the very least, it gives me a chance to find some new locations and subjects. I can also pack a few older camera bodies and lenses without placing much pressure on myself to come back with plenty of photo winners. So, what do you do when the clouds are heavy, time is limited, the light is failing, and interesting subjects are lacking? Well, I happened to spot an interesting looking tree by the side of the road:
Twisting against the failing light – Nikon D200 and Tamron 17-50mm 2.8 lens
I don’t usually convert colour photos to black and white but sometimes it’s a good way to explore other qualities of an image. Black and white emphasises tonality, texture, and geometry. Just look at all of the twisting branches in the photo above. Even at ISO 800 in dull light, the Nikon D200 produces little noticeable noise. I didn’t bother to apply any noise reduction at all since the digital noise pattern is quite fine.
Here’s another version with more contrast, blue shadows, and warm highlights:
We looked up at the huge rocky dome, in awe of the ancient geological processes that had created it. Over 500 million years ago, before dinosaurs wandered the lands around the ancient sea that would one day become a national park and tourist attraction,Uluru and Kata Tjuta started to form. At such times, you realize the scale of the world around you and feel very small indeed.
Looking back in time: Uluru – Nikon Z5 with Nikkor 40mm F2 lens and Circular Polariser
Doing the 10km base walk is the best way to appreciate the vastness of Uluru. We were already exhausted from our 8km hike through Kata Tjuta the day before – those rocky slopes and winding pathways can be unforgiving on cheap hiking shoes! I once climbed Uluru in about 45 minutes, back when it was commonly known as Ayers Rock. No-one is permitted to climb it now, but you can still see the old climber’s entrance and the worn path that millions of tourists braved over the years.
From a distance, Uluru looks like it has quite a uniform surface, but up close is where you get to see the details – weathered sections of grey stone, streaks of white, dark caves that seem to make recognisable patterns, and the iconic red rock that signals high iron content. Both Uluru and Kata Tjuta were formed over millions of years as the soft parts of the Petermann Ranges were eroded, leaving only the boulders and rocks.
Uluru up close – Nikon Z5
Uluru takes on different colours, depending on the time of day and season. It can be bright orange at sunset one moment and then pink with purple and blue shadows the next. I posted a sunset picture in another post, though it was a rushed pull-over to the side of the road and the local police weren’t too happy we’d parked in a no-park area as they beeped us on a drive-by! You take your chances when you have a camera in-hand. There are some designated photo spots in the area for tourists, but they can be quite busy, and I’m not always best pleased to make photos that everyone else does.
The red bones of ancient Australia – Nikon Z5
I was more prudent in my use of the circular polariser on this trip. Hiking around the base of Uluru, I was mindful of the location of the sun. The polarising effect is strongest when the sun is at a 90-degree angle to where you’re pointing the camera – so either on your left or your right. I dial it up so that the effect is strongest, and then dial it back a bit to add more natural stray light reflections back into the scene.
A polariser is fantastic for cutting out stray reflections on foliage and rocks and for deepening colours, but it can also make a scene look flat and darken clear Australian skies to the point of ultra-violet. It’s important not only to be mindful of where the sun is but also whether a polarised photo is what you want. Great for foliage and cutting out reflections on water, but not so useful when you want to preserve all the golden colours of a sunset. It’s also not useful in shady areas, so there was a whole section of the base-walk where I put it away.
Uluru detail: weathering and streaks – Nikon Z5
I’ve often thought of Uluru as the rocky heart of Australia, located not too far from Alice Springs. Amazingly, this monolith extends up to 6 km underground, so it’s much like a rocky iceberg. Absolutely worth visiting if you’re ever in a position to do so.
Some years back, I remember making photos of an Australian White Ibis – a wading bird that’s native to the country. It was a very sunny day and there was lots of light and shadow. In other words: lots of dynamic range for the camera to manage. Fortunately, the Nikon D7100 manages dynamic range pretty well and still stands up as a solid crop sensor camera today.
By my own admission, I was rushing and didn’t choose settings carefully enough. Here’s what the original photo looks like:
Australian White Ibis (original) – Nikon D7100
You can see how much dynamic range is in the photo – the feathers are bright white in the sun, and the interesting part of the photo – the head of the bird – is mostly in shadow. I probably should have switched to Spot Metering and focussed on the head of the Ibis to lift those shadows and preserve detail. That would also have blown out more of the bright parts of the feathers, so there’s a choice to be made. The other option is using a tripod and bracketing the shots to find a better exposure or stack them for an HDR edit to preserve as much dynamic range as possible. But it’s a living creature, and messing around with settings is not always ideal.
I had a stab at editing this old photo in Lightroom to see what could be done with it:
Ibis in blue – Nikon D7100
As you can see above, I was able to pull an impressive amount of detail from the Shadows. Despite the feathers looking blown out, I was also able to recover a lot of detail by pulling down the Highlights. I cropped to a 16:9 ratio to emphasise the length of the Ibis and the beak. Cropping out part of the highlights on the feathers brings more attention to the head of the bird and lessens the visual distraction of the bright white. I think it also balances the serpentine curves of the Ibis as the eye is drawn up the body, over the head, and down the beak.
I masked the background out and made the exposure, shadow and highlight adjustments seperately on the Ibis. By using a mask like this, my edits didn’t affect the background at all, and enabled me to duplicate and invert the mask and then alter the hue of the background through a colour dropper selection. Additionally, I applied a colour mask to the head of the Ibis and raised the exposure slightly, just to bring out even more detail. Finally, I converted to black and white and then applied a global colour in the Split Toning panel to create the cyan look. This is a simple way of emphasising texture and tone, and hiding stuff like chromatic aberrations or visually distacting colours.
When I decided to dive headfirst into photography as a hobby, I was anxious about the technical jargon and understanding the myriad camera settings. The good news is that it wasn’t all that bad. I read and watched and learned a lot through trial and error.
Owning up to failure is always important. Being able to move on from a mistake to the next moment is even more important for continued growth in any field. I’ll tell you something, honestly: I still make plenty of mistakes!
Falling down – Nikon D40 and Nikkor 35mm 1.8 DX lens
Here are some of the most common photographic errors I continue to make:
Not resetting important camera settings: All too often, I’ve forgotten to change ISO when entering different light situations, or I’ve missed resetting exposure compensation.
The camera mis-pack: I’ve packed not enough when I needed extra gear and packed too much gear when I should have packed less.
SD card woes: Yes, I’ve filled up an SD card and forgotten to pack a backup. The only solution is to go through the recorded files and be brutal about deletion decisions.
ISO stubborn: Have you ever been stubborn about pushing your ISO in poor light situations? Base ISO is optimal for less digital noise in a photo, but a blurry photo just isn’t worth the stubborn refusal to UP the ISO a bit more to force a faster shutter speed! It’s better to have a noisy photo over a blurry one. Digital noise can be dealt with far more easily now using software tools. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve stubbornly refused to move from base ISO in fast-fading light, standing there with my arms tucked and not breathing just to cut as much movement as possible to achieve perfection at a too-slow shutter speed in hopes of a sharp image.
Reverse dialling: Older Nikon bodies dial positive and negative exposure compensation values in reverse to other cameras, so when my muscle memory becomes accustomed to the opposite dial movement of another camera, I find myself cursing the over or under-exposed photo on an old Nikon camera. At worst, I just forget the reverse dial motion completely until I’ve long moved on from the scene, at which point I sigh. Thankfully, the new Z-mount Nikons have changed both the exposure value dial direction and the reverse F-mount lens twist they had going for decades.
The old green gate of J. Martin & Co. – Nikon D40
I’ve been tough on myself in times past when it comes to making photographic mistakes. I think part of that was not feeling comfortable with the equipment and not believing I could learn enough to make good photos. In fairness, I still make plenty of stinky photos, but every poor photo teaches me something new, even if it’s a lesson I thought I’d already learned.
We can always improve our photography, but learning and living isn’t some easy linear path. It’s full of twists and turns and ups and downs. There are rocks of many different sizes littering the paths we walk. One of the hardest things to develop is self-compassion. We’re often kinder to strangers than we are to ourselves. But, why? We’re just as fragile and just as prone to mistakes as anyone else. All that truly matters is that we experience and inhabit the moment meaningfully, in whatever mode we choose: Auto, Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, or Manual.
It was the perfect afternoon for us to ramble along a walking trail through century old goldfields nearby. I’d decided to pack the Nikon D40 and the Fujifilm S6500fd. I totally forgot about the Sony RX100 sitting in the zipper pocket of my camera shoulder-bag – the usual go-to in case an old camera flakes on me. I’ll say this about the Finepix S6500fd: the combination of the tiny Super CCD sensor – ancient in digital photography terms – and the long, sharp lens, produce some really interesting photographs at times.
Ghostly gums – Finepix S6500fd
Setting the camera to the Fuji-chrome setting and Fine JPG seemed to enhance the blues and purples in this photo. Maybe it was the combination of the cloud, sunlight, shade, subject, and white balance, but there’s a really strong look to the image. I haven’t added additional colour in editing.
Gum trees along the trail – Fujifilm Finepix S6500fd
For the above photo, I decided to set the camera to generate RAF files – CCD-RAW in the settings menu. I wasn’t even sure they’d open in Lightroom, but they did, and I’m pretty pleased. This provides more latitude and flexibility during editing. As you can see above, I was able to draw out pretty good detail in the shadows and sharpen the image in specific areas. It’s not easy to see without magnifying in Lightroom, but there’s some beautiful detail and tonality in the bark. Hard to believe from this piece of old gear.
Beneath the bark – Finepix S6500fd
Finally, one of my favourite features on old bridge cameras is the Macro and Super-Macro modes, at the touch of a button. It’s so handy for getting up close when there’s good available light for a decent shutter speed. I usually wander handheld, so there’s no tripod involved. Steady hands and good light are a must under these circumstances. It’s a JPG (wish I’d set to CCD-RAW), but the colour and range of tonality is still impressive. The best photos from this camera, like the S7000, seem to have a versimillitude about them. Note to self: set this camera to make RAF files from now on!
The Rusty Ruin Journal 