robvisual - photography

Sounds a bit weird but there are many scenes in daily life where people aren't moving or just a bit to leave a trail in you photos. Yesterday I visited the "Planten un Blomen" park in Hamburg after work. I had my little Gorilla Pod and a 8ND filter with me. I wanted to take some long exposure shots of the little waterfalls and fountains there. After taking some nice shots I also discovered that some places cry out for a shot with people in it. Tourists and locals crossing the river and taking selfies The shot above looks better with people in it. I first captured the falls without any people and it looked nice but lifeless and dull. After waiting a for some people to enter the scene the shot reflects the purpose of this place better. The park was built in the sixties for an international garden exhibition and it was meant to be explored by visitors. I love how the guy to the left is not moving that much and the girl in the upper part of the image is moving faster. ...

A good question. Let us put the price beside and pretend you have enough money to buy every Fuji camera out there. Would you buy the GFX? It has a resolution of 50 megapixels and you can do different shots with a different depth of field and less noise etc. I know that there are some reasons to gain more resolution when it comes to product photography or fashion photography. But keep in mind that you can archive medium format like results for many occasions by using today's panorama algorithms. 35mm f8.0 / 50 megapixels by combining two images free hand - works even with street shots Just think out of the box. Aim your camera at a subject and think about the possibilities in post production. The next image was taken in London at the Barbican Centre (a nice socialist looking urban landscape) and I had my 35mm attached to my XPRO2. A wide angle lens was not at hand and I wanted more resolution so I can crop the images and print it on a larger scale. Barbican Centre London ...

When you're on the go with your digital camera you might enjoy the wireless LAN features it offers these days. Today's cameras have a superb JPG support inside producing great results in-camera. Fuji is well known for their excellent in-camera processing in terms of sharpness and color reproduction. I want to share my workflow with you. RAW At first I want to mention that I shot RAW and process the final results in-camera afterwards to get the final JPG file. That gives me more control about the applied color profile, sharpness and other aspects of the image. Maybe the image needs some shadow recovery or reduced highlights. You can't do that with a JPG file because there is no headroom in it that allows that kind of editing. my apps I use an android phone in conjunction with Snapseed. There are no other apps involved because I want to keep the editing process simple and get the most out of one app instead of creating more clutter. Snapseed is an easy but powerfu...

I always have a camera with me (at least my smartphone) and I took my X100s to a "the rifles" concert yesterday in Hamburg. The light was very dim and the room was small and packed with people from door to stage. The X100s has only a 23mm lens and I was standing in the sixth row. The challenge in this situation is to capture not only the artists on stage. In such a narrow space you can also create very close images to capture the magic of the moment. I set my cam to an ISO value of 6400 and a shutter speed of 125 of a second. And then I just fired away. I did not care about the results. When you shot low light and very high ISO the images become a bit blurry and grainy, but bear in mind that no one looks at photos in a hundred percent view. The contents of the photo are important, not the quality. This is not fine art photography! The photo above was shot with wide open eyes at f 2.0 to add some depth from the crowd to the stage. The light from the right creates a great ...

Some days ago I had an unpleasant experience with a security guy. I was taking photos of a skyscraper in a public area in Hamburg. After I aimed my camera at the building I heard him shouting after me from three meters away. After I turned around he came closer telling me that I need a permission from the owner to take a photo of this building. I asked him if he knows the German media laws and that there is no need for a permission for various reasons. He just repeated the same phrase over and over again. I had a bit of a short temper this day and told him that he behaving not in a polite way and that he is pestering me. I left the scene without listening to his angry voice anymore. This incident showed me how important it is to know your rights as a private or commercial photographer. Maybe you get into a similar situation with someone more important than the security staff or the police. When you know your rights you can argue better and stay cool. Cheers, Nils

My camera is always set to a distance between 2,5 and 5 meters and an aperture of 8.0 (Auto ISO turned on). From time to time I turn the shutter dial to match the situation (between 125 and 1000). For most situations the camera is ready to take a photo instantly having everything in focus. There are so many things that are suddenly appear in front of your eyes and most of the times there is no time left to make various settings and get the focus right. The composition and the right moment are enough work to do in such a short time-frame. Segways are nearly noiseless and the was a whole group of fancy dressed men passing by. This was the only usable photo I got in that split second. With this setup you can react very fast and it is easy to set the camera back to auto focus or other settings. Remember how good it feels when you hang your camera around your neck ready for action. When you own a camera with simple dials like the Fuji X100s, you can set aperture and shutter-speed ...

This one sentence you will read often on the web in lots of articles. The problem is that I can't follow that rule (and a lot of others). I mix black and white with color and love to change the camera and the focal length like I change my socks every day. ;-) I tried to stick to one format, focal length or whatever, but it doesn't work for me. My eyes are detecting a scene and my brain screams out for a certain look or focal length. I found out that I am not this consistent type of photographer who does a series of photos that all have the same look and feel. It is nearly impossible for me. But if you are a careful reader of this blog you know that there is nothing wrong with you. Don't follow any rules and take everything to serious. Many good tips and thoughts from other photographers can help us getting new inspiration and getting better every day, but you know what's best for you. Just follow your inner voice and do what your love. That is the key to ...

Lines and shapes guide us through our life. The horizon is a line and the sun is a disc shaped object in the sky. A street leads into the horizon and the sun is setting behind it. We all know that we can use these lines as visual elements in our photos. The following images are all full of lines and shapes that are used by me as guiding elements in the composition. Some of these elements frame the subject and some other lead the viewers eyes to it.

When you ask photographers who are using old rangefinder cameras and what is so special about using them they will respond that you can see the things coming into frame what gives them a better aid to release the shutter at the decisive moment. This is why Fuji is doing the right thing (in my opinion) with the X-PRO and X100 models. They have a hybrid viewfinder where you can choose from looking straight through the glass or the sensor with just one flick of a switch. With the optical viewfinder you have a great composition aid when you shoot reportage or street photography. There is no lagging or other disturbing things between your eye and the scene in front of the lens. You see frame-lines that help you composing your shot. You can see people, cars or whatever moving in and out of the frame waiting for right moment. I don't think that the OVF is some kind of a retro-thing like many people say. I think it is a serious way of helping you getting better photos in certain si...

Are you complaining about sensors, lenses and how sharp they are in the border areas wide open and other details of the newest gear? I am at a hotel at the moment enjoying some spa and the frozen beach of the Baltic Sea. The hotel has a little library where you can browse through different kinds of books. I found two photo books about China from 1985 in the shelf and the photographer did a great job in capturing landscapes, people and architecture of this beautiful country. Analogue But compared to the photos today most of the photos looked a bit dull, under exposed (false colors) and not tac sharp like digital photos today. Most photos are lacking shadow or highlight details. But they are still great. Because it is the content that counts. Today we can do so much more with super sharp glass, 14 bit sensors and ISO up to 50.000 (automatic without changing a roll of film). But we are not satisfied and want better quality nearly every year. Digital Here is a ...

The snow outside (yes...real snow) tells me to stay inside the house and have a good cup of hot tea and some chocolate. So this might be a good reason to share some links with you: a great video about Vivian Maier I found on youtube - it tells her story and thoughts with a voice that could be hers. The video is well made and full of her work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDewAU-rgIM street photographer Fabian Schreyer - a great portfolio full of colorful photographs http://www.shootingcandid.com Kevin Broadberry - a street photographer from Denmark doing raw and close shots http://www.broadbery.dk Max Martino - and his great real life review of the new born Fuji X-PRO2. I am always looking for real reviews without unboxing and hours of talking (while holding the camera in hands). https://maxdemartinocom.wordpress.com/ NEOPRIME Mag - I love people who try to curate things and put them together in a high quality print. I like the concept of this magazine. They gather tag...

When I´m out in the streets I am not hunting for shots. I just walk around and try to go with the flow. There are days without an acceptable street photo. But if you just follow the visual path that is already there for you, you might end up with some shots without any people in it. Don´t put too much pressure on photography. Everything could be interesting. Maybe a shot without people in it will inspire you for other photographs to be taken in the future. Here are some examples from the last three weeks:  

is that there is a new tool coming today that will deliver great images. The name of the tool? (drum-roll!) creativity! Yeah! Creativity is always there if your need it. You can trigger it with a second feature that is on the list: inspiration! "But from where can I get that inspiration you are talking about?" That is easy. You can gain it from nearly every place and time you can imagine. Just look around you. What can you do with the things that are surrounding your at the moment? What can you do with the camera you actually holding in your hands? Don´t think too much about it. pssst! want to buy some inspiration? Instead of dreaming of cameras and other gadgets you can go out and get some inspiration now. Even at a nice café or at work there are thousands of ideas waiting for you. And you don´t need the latest shit to make something great out of your new inspirations. You can even use your phone to take some nice photos that are worth to be hanged to a wa...

My new portfolio is online since the end of the last week and I am in love with Koken. I searched the web and tried a lot of things to get a simple portfolie webpage to present my stuff without loosing control about content and functionality. The most solutions were either expensive or limited in freedom. The street photographer Andreas Ott gave me the great tip to use Koken to create my portfolio page. Koken is a online photo library and site creator with blogging function. You can also add plugins to add comments, password protected albums (for your customers) etc. There is even a plugin to help you sell your stuff. The main modules and themes are free of charge and you can start in a short time. And it comes for free. It is not a cloud service. You have to install it on your personal webspace. But that is not the difficult. Maybe you can ask a more skilled friend to that if you are afraid of installing it by yourself. Installation Installing Koken is easy if you have little sk...

Business cards are great. I wrote a little article some time ago about this topic and as I mentioned before your should always have them with you. I just ordered some new ones from a well known print service. Because I discovered that they are cheap (I did some hand made before). You get 100(!) cards for under 15 Euros. And they come double sided and (if you wish) on recycled paper. Come on. That´s not expensive. Not for someone who owns a camera and some lenses today. my actual design For the design I decided to chose a simple street shot that reflects what street photography is all about: people in a certain situation or environment etc. On the back of my card you will find links to my portfolio , 500px and my email. This is enough information for everyone to find their own photo or just get in contact with me. I don´t want to stuff the card with more information like twitter, my mobile number, quotes or other distracting things and 500px is good to keep my actual stream o...

A portfolio page. Why is it so important? The answer to that is easy. It is like a self-curated gallery that shows some hand picked photos to make a certain impression or show your special topics. You can´t do that on sites like flickr or instagram. There is too much distraction. At the moment I am working on my new portfolio page. That means that you have to think of a own domain name and a template that is optimal to present your images the right way without being to fancy or technical, because the content counts. your portfolio-wall? Think of your personal photographer webpage as a good way to practice constraint and simpleness. How can you reduce your work to a small selection of images and written lines. What counts? What is the inner core of your work and what are the topics or the projects you want to show to the world. It is like to hang some of your work on a wall to show it to the public. You have to go through a similar process of sorting and reducing. At the end you h...

Life has so many surprises for you. You just have to see them even in the small things. Me and my wife were in Munich for the weekend to see some friends. As we walked out for a coffee (what else?) I saw an umbrella laying in front of very colorful door. There were also some reflections from the glass I was taking the shot through. It looks like someone did this just for me! Try to forget that this is just life as usual. Just pretend be at the Tate Modern in London doing an installation for a modern art exhibition. If you look on usual things this way they can become true art.

No. I don´t want to talk about certain brands and give you some affiliate-links to follow. If you are new this topic I want to share some thoughts about three different techniques you can use to have your camera always ready for action. There are three simple ways to use a strap to protect your precious tool and have it where you need it: 1. around your neck: most bigger cameras are used this way 2. around neck and shoulder: you need a longer strap to do this 3. a wrist-strap: good if you like to hold your cam always in your hand I personally prefer variant two . I love to have my cam hanging at the waist area. I don´t want to have that bulky thing hanging in front of my chest. I never understood why camera manufacturers and many photographers like it that way? I love to grab my camera with my right hand and switch it on (the power-switch is mostly on the right) while dragging the whole thing to my eyes. It looks better and in packed situations or light rain you can cover the...

Out in the streets there are many situations were you have to act quick to get the photo you want without fiddling with too much settings. A simple technique is to use zone focusing. When you own a mirrorless camera like I do, it is simple as 1-2-3. After you set the camera to manual mode you notice a new scale on the bottom of the viewfinder: the distance scale of my trusty Fuji X-PRO1 This little ruler at the bottom gives you a scale from 0 to infinity (greetings to Mr. Möbius). The red line will show you where your actual focus is set to. And the white bar will tell you what will be in focus at this specific aperture/distance setting. That is the "zone"! ;-) When I go out with my X-PRO1 I put the 18mm on and set the aperture to f8 and the focus manually to a range between 2 to 8 meters or 3.5 to infinity. It depends on what you want to have sharp and crisp in the focus range. In dense urban environments I use the short setting, because there is no far away backgrou...

Tomorrow I will visit the exhibition of a well know photographer Siegfried Hansen. I follow his inspirational paths since I first discovered his profile on flickr some years ago. He did a lot of great street photography and also has a good eye for geometry and putting things into relationship. The exhibition will cover some selected prints out of his sujet. Location and details: http://www.freelens.com/galerie/vorschau/ Homepage: http://www.street-photography-hamburg.siegfried-hansen.de/ it´s all about lines (my photo)