Q&A Part II: Gears & Shootings & Workflow

I've got quite a bunch of questions over the time from people who followed my works on Facebook, Renren and blogs. Some of them are very typical and I believe it might be a good time to put them altogether here. The answers for the following questions are purely based on my own shooting style and experience, so they might not be able to fit your needs if you shoot quite differently from what I did. In a word, these responses are for your references only, and I take no responsibility for your actions after reading these stuff. So think carefully before you made any new decisions that resulted from what you read here. Enjoy ~~~

Q1: What gears do you use and why?

A: I used Canon cameras for over a year and half, basically my 5D Mark II. I also shot with 7D, 1D Mark II before, but finally decided to move on to shoot with only full frame cameras due to their unique viewer angle coming from the lens (no crop factors!) and shallower depth of field when shooting wide open. At present, I also coupled it with a 5D Classic. After trying almost all Canon lenses below 200 mm focal length, my major lenses are:

1. EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS II: My favorite lens, as I notice I have a pair of telephoto eyes instead of wide-angle. The color and contrast of this lens is simply amazing! This is my top 1 portrait lens. 2. EF 35 f/1.4L: One of the best prime L lens I've ever used, sharp wide open and really contrasty. 3. EF 16-35 f/2.8L II: Excellent lens for landscape work, very brilliant colors right out of the camera. 4. TSE-45 f/2.8: For special tilt effects in some occasions, very sharp at wide open. 5. EF 85 f/1.8: One of the best 85 mm lens I've ever used, much better, faster  and more usable than EF 85 f/1.2L II in my mind. I created lots of close-up portraits out of this amazing lens.

Besides these 5 major lenses, I also equipped with the following ones sometimes:

1. EF 24-70 f/2.8L: nice zoom lens, good color, sharp at wide angle but sometimes becomes soft as it reaches over 50 mm. 2. EF 100 f/2.8L IS Macro: One of the sharpest lens I've ever used, used specially for ring shots. 3. EF 50 f/1.4: Very sharp even at wide open, and I can't tell why it sells so cheap comparing to the 50 f/1.2L considering how wonderful the pictures shot by it turn out to be.

For flash, I used 580EXII, 430 EXII coupled with pocket wizard wireless system as well as Lowell ID video light.

Recently I switched from Canon 5D series to Nikon D3s and feel quite happy with that.

Q2: Why you made switch to Nikon? Any specific reasons?

A: Yes, the reason is that Canon really pissed me off a couple of times and I just can't live with it anymore. As I mentioned above, I used my 5D Mark II most of times, the 22MP with its brilliant color tones right out of the camera is simply outstanding! I love how the images look like out of this amazing camera. But as a wedding photographer, I found the following problems are really annoying and can't be easily solved by staying in this family.

1. The AF system

The 5D and 5D Mark II share one of the poorest AF system in Canon DSLR family, and they kept you away from getting tack sharp images. For 5D Mark II, you almost always need to focus and recompose. The rim focus points are not reliable at all, especially when the lighting condition is not optimal. But if you shoot wide open, I mean normally larger than f/4, you will easily lost focus by doing this recomposition. Thousands of times I found at least 1/3 of my images lost focus here and there, and half of the rest were slightly front or back focused due to the recomposition. That's unforgivable! If I missed a shot in portrait session, that might not be a big problem as I can always find a way to make it up by picking up a similar frame to satisfy the clients. But if I missed it in a wedding, especially for a decisive moment, I would be in a serious trouble! Until now, I still can't forgive why Canon only put a single cross-type AF point in such a semi-professional camera body. They just had no idea what is important while other is not. That's an important reason why more and more Canon shooters switched to the Nikon side over the years after D3 came out, including the top wedding photographers like Marcus Bell and Jerry Ghionis.

2. The metering system

Before I tried to shoot Nikon, I never realized it was the 5D that messed up with my exposure. I only used evaluating metering (compared to Nikon, it's Matrix metering) as well as exposure compensations to achieve the right exposure for my subject. But when I exported them into Lightroom, I always found most of them were not well exposed as expected. At least 1 ~ 1.5 stop error exists over the time. But after my switch to Nikon D3s, I immediately realized that I no longer needed to adjust my exposure so often. 85% of the images were nailed in exposure right out of the camera! This blew my mind away!

3. The ISO performance

As a wedding photographer, I have to shoot in low light situation frequently, like the scenes in church and the last reception part. The old 5D Classic can only go up to ISO 1600, which certainly cannot satisfy my needs, while the 5D Mark II can go up to ISO 6400, which I normally used, but the noise is sometimes intolerable as the exposure might be in 1 stop off due to the metering system mentioned above. Nikon D3s has the best high ISO performance among the DSLR world, and the image taken at ISO 12,800 is simply amazing in details when you can get really accurate exposure.

4. The continuous shooting speed

I always shoot continuously to help me capture the best moment. Canon 5D and 5D Mark II don't have high continuous shooting speed and the shutter sound is really awkward in some occasions. Nikon D3s, in other hand, is super fast and silent compared to the above two.

5.  Ergonomics

This is another "crucial" reason that why I switched to Nikon. Over the years, no matter what Canon DSLRs I used, 5D or 1D series, the ergonomics is just awful! I mean it! The 1D series is designed for professional use, but for adjusting important parameters like ISO, AF mode, you have to use two fingers to press two little buttons simultaneously and then use your other hand to turn the wheel. That hurt my fingers and made the adjustment really awkward and slow from time to time. For Canon 5D series, you have to press one button, and then use one of the dials to adjust the parameters. And sometimes you might accidentally turn the wrong dial to change the parameter that you don't want to change. I kept thinking why Canon can't just put more simple flat buttons to make these adjustments more straightforward. And the small 6-axis button is the worst design in the world in my mind compared to the one on Nikon. Very very hard to press unless you have very small thumb and not comfortable at all! For Nikon, you only need to press one flat big button and turn one dial at the same time, very fast and very comfortable and "reasonable", no need to even think about it!

6. Build quality

I am really disappointed at the build quality of my 5D Mark II. I only shot a bit over 70,000 frames but have already had several serious AF system failure and needed to send the camera back for repair. And recently I found my main dial sometime stopped working when I adjusted the ISO. The only way to recover is to turn the camera off and restart again. I really doubted the quality of Canon DSLRs due to these experience, and the latest light leaking issue of new 5D Mark III made me believe Canon never learnt their lessons and listened to customers seriously. This pushed me back to NOT get this new camera and finally made me do the switch.

Besides these, Nikon also has quite a few advantages over Canon, including the two CF card slots and more stunning back LCD screen that could show images in more details and "higher" resolutions (at least in my eyes) .

Q3: What are the most advantages and disadvantage of Nikon gears in your mind once you made the switch?

A: The advantages of Nikon gear includes the ones I mentioned above, like ergonomics, accurate AF system, more natural color tones, accurate metering system and far better ISO performance as well as good build quality. However, I also found quite a few big disadvantages for my Nikon D3s compared to Canon 5D Mark II. The relatively low megapixels really pushed me hard to think twice before I pressed the shutter button for composition. And the noticeable slower AF made me possibly miss some moments under low light situation. Besides these, most of top-level Nikon lenses are also more expensive than Canon.

Q4: What do you think about Leica M series?

A: Leica M8 or M9 is simply a piece of junk in my eyes, seriously! I didn't mean Leica is bad, what I mean is it's not the right tool for me, as well as for most people. For wedding photography, you simply can't use any manual gears to do the work, not to mention its poor ISO performance and CCD sensor compared to the normal DSLRs. I don't think any work that created by Leica can't be done by a professional DSLR, instead quite a few frames could never be done by Leica at present. People who used Leica have various kinds of reasons, most of them have no ideas why they picked Leica over the DSLRs but only believe shooting a Leica will make them more "elegant" and "respectful", which is totally nonsense. I do believe you can use Leica coupled with its gorgeous manual lens to create some stunning works, but if you have that same amount of time, money and energy, I believe you could get far more out of a Canon or Nikon DSLR.

Q5: What do you think about Carl Zeiss manual lens for Canon (ZE) or Nikon (ZF)?

A: Carl Zeiss is really famous for their optics and these lens are just pieces of gems in both image and build qualities. The only drawback, which is really really seriously big, is the lack of AF. For wedding and event photography, this is fatal! We can't afford to lose a single shot at the right decisive moment, and you even can't rely on your feel of Manual focus under low light situation. For most people who played these lens on a big day, I would think he/she had not taken their clients seriously. After all, they might only be more appropriately used in studio work or landscape shot.

Q6: If you can take one lens with you for a project, what is it and why?

A: I will take 70-200 f/2.8L IS II (for Canon) or 70-200 f/2.8 VRII (for Nikon) as I believed everyone looked beautiful in a longer lens. For myself, instead of having a pair of wide-angle eyes, I found my vision was always telephoto more or less. That's why I shot 85% of my frames out of this awesome lens.

Q7: How can you make your pictures so crisp, brilliant and colorful? Were they done in PS (photoshop)?

A: I din't use PS quite much as I really don't know how to use it. I only used PS for skin and final logo work. I dealt my Raw files in Lightroom (LR) 90% of time by using my own presets. The careful choice of shutter speed, aperture, ISO as well as the lighting condition coupled with the lens that I used contributed most to the look of these final products. My personal taste of preset settings in LR gave my frames a relatively unique and consistent look, which also plays an important role in my photography style.

Q8: How do you do the post-processing work?

A: I shot Raw all the time and I did all my photography work on Mac platform. The 1st step of my post-processing is to use Photomechanic selecting my Raw files that needed to be post-processed. Then I moved those files into LR and did the batch processing by using presets and basic adjustments. The final step is to export them out in my blog frame size and use PS to do the final toning and logo work.