Will Robb Photography » A journey through a lens

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I am a professional photographer based in Tokyo. I was born and raised in Scotland, I used to work as a cognitive neuroscientist, but I never really felt like it was me so to speak, so I packed a bag, grabbed my camera and headed to Japan and I began to teach and use all my spare time to take photos. Soon I began selling my work and traveling a lot, mainly in Asia. I have a contract with Lonely Planet, I've shot covers for them, I'm the chief photographer at Whisky Magazine Japan, I regularly cover all the big fashion shows in Japan for Tokyofashion.com and I've worked for and the Japan Times, Metropolis magazine and I have been published in books, magazines and newspapers around the world. I've covered stories from Tokyo fashion week to the rebuilding of Iraq. I've been lucky enough to see life as it is and share what I see through me lens with others. Here I hope to share a bit more.

canon 24-70mm f2.8L: The best all round canon lens.

8.28.11

 

Recently for each job I’ve been very strict on myself in terms of what I pack in my bag, I’m very job specific, if it’s a store review, I’ll take a couple of wide lenses, for travel work, a few zooms to cover all bases, for portraits, my 50mm and a medium length telephoto. I’ve noticed that for all these jobs there is one lens that I pack for every single job. For one of my assignments in Korea, I used this lens solely and for most of my other jobs, I probably use this lens at least 75% of the time. There’s no perfect lens for absolutely every situation, but for my money, the canon 24-70mm f2.8L is by far the best all round canon lens you can get your hands on. It’s not cheap (193’000 yen around 1500 pounds or 2500 dollars), it’s pretty heavy (950g) to lug around all day, but these are the only negatives and if you are relying on a lens to deliver great results time after time this lens really is a must buy item, especially if your pay cheque for a job is riding on results.

So what’s so good about this lens? Well, as I said before, I use it for almost every single job I do, it’s always in my bag, regardless of assignment. It goes through the range most people really need to use for any shoot, 24mm is wide enough for most group portrait situations and it’s perfect for landscapes. Go up to 70mm you have a decent amount of zoom that allows for great cropped portraits, you can shoot action that’s not too distant from you and everything in between those ranges that you could think of is covered. For most sports or runway fashion, it’s a little lacking in length, but other than that it really is an all rounder, and with the option of f2.8 for any length and the beautiful canon L series glass, this is an extremely fast and sharp lens that delivers absolutely stunning results time after time. It’s the only lens in my kit that if it ever got broken (unlikely as it’s solid as a rock and has been dropped many times on the job without damage) I would go out and replace immediately. If you go to places like the Digital picture review or the DP review you can get all the info about how many elements are inside it, why there is little CA etc, I’ll skip the technicalities and get into the nitty gritty of why I love this lens so much and back up what I am saying with the images I have used it for on a variety of different jobs. Below are some photos of my lens mounted on my 5DmkII, it’s been in use for a few years now and has long lost it’s “just out of the box” sheen and a few scratches are on the lens hood. It’s maybe lost it’s outer beauty, but for me that’s a good thing, I haven’t been overly gentle with it in the course of my work but it’s still going strong:

First up, for travel photography, I always have this lens attached to my 5DmkII and the vast majority of the travel shots I take are with this lens. It’s great for wide landscapes, when I rack the F value up to F10-f16 I get beautiful results, crisp all the way through. For any interesting objects I can across I can dial down to lower F values as low 2.8, get pretty decent macro images (another useful function of this lens), even when it’s pretty dark and I don’t have a speedlite on me, it’s great for getting sharp images at f2.8 that you wouldn’t get with a 24-105 F4L lens. Here are some examples:

Next up, portraits. To be honest, if I have plenty of time on my hands I use my 50mm f1.2L just as much as my 24-70mm f2.8L for portraits, but when time is of the essence, I have no prior time to scout the location, I always go in with my 24-70mm attached as I know it will cover every base, whether it’s a close up portrait of someone’s face, a cropped body shot or a wide whole body shot. Down at f2.8 you can add some amazing blur the background as well. For portraits, it’s a good solid lens. With a prime you do get more background blur if you really want to isolate your subject, but like I said, for each portrait shoot I go in with my 24-70mm attached to my camera as I know it will deliver, if time permits then I’ll go with the prime as well. Here’s what the lens can do:

For fashion shows, my first choice is my 70-200mm lens as usually I’m at the back, or somewhere in the middle of the press pit and the runway is more than 5m away, but then sometimes you arrive and find the venue is small and crammed, there is no room at the back of the press are and you find yourself sitting cross legged in front of everyone, the best light is right in front of you and the 70-200mm isn’t going to get you the full body shots you need, so in some circumstances I just sit there with my 24-70mm hand held and shoot the whole shot with it. Also, for each show as well as getting full body shots of each model, I also take some wide shots to show the venue and with the low light levels the 24-70mm is the lens for the job every time:

Next, events. Most events I shoot are corporate gigs, speeches, dinners, presentations, entertainment, products on show, groups portraits and so on and so forth. 100% of the time my 24-70mm is on my 5D mk II and my 7D has the 70-200mm or 50mm prime attached to it. From an event I shot in Osaka the other night, I had about 1400 photos from the 5DmkII 24-70mm combo at about 250 images from the 7D with the other lenses, quite a difference. A lot of the time at events I can’t use flash as it disturbs performers, annoys guests etc, so I need a fast lens and as always my 24-70 is the one I turn to:

Lastly, for all our wedding shoots this is the lens of choice once again. For weddings we have to do portraits, we have to do candid, we have to do more group shots, we have extreme time limits, we have to shoot in low light, we have to capture the moment, so once again we turn to the 24-70mm to deliver the results:

So, in summary, although this lens does have two negative features, the price and the weight, I do think the positive points far outweigh these. Price wise, you could get something a lot cheaper, but this lens has amazing build quality, it will last you for years. I’ve been using my relentlessly for four years without any problem. If you are using this lens for work, it’ll pay for itself a hundred times over in it’s life time, if you are just taking photos for yourself you may well get a lifetime’s use out of this lens. Price wise, it’s worth it. The weight you can’t do much about, but if you are a positive thinker you will realise it’ll help keep you strong and you’ll save on gym fees, again this lens saves you money. On the positive uses of this lens, you can use it in almost every situation, from portraits, to landscapes, travel, events, weddings. The build quality is superb, the images are amazingly sharp and it will just blow your mind in terms of results. Although I have all my bases covered in my kit bag and anyone of my lenses could get bust up and I would be able to handle any situation with my other lenses, if anything every happened to my 24-70mm lens the first thing I would do is go out and buy another.

Filed in: Equipment reviewsTagged in: |

What photo gear to pack when traveling?

7.27.11

 

July has been another busy month. Just finished up our Japan based work for this month, was in a bookshop yesterday and found a Lonely Planet guide to Tokyo with 8 of my pics in it which was nice (I completely forgot it came out last year). Summer in Japan is never pleasant, too humid for my Scottish DNA, so as of tomorrow we are off to South Korea doing a bit of work for one of our UK clients, visiting friends and family, enjoying the summer and eating lots of grilled meat. Probably just as hot and humid as Japan, but it’s always nice to have a change of scene.

Often I am in a bit of a dilemma before traveling, what should I take, what should I leave behind. This time, I’m opting for traveling light (by my standards anyway). I think recently I’m quite good at being sensible when it comes to what equipment I need for jobs. I just find it’s best to pack the bare essentials, you can bring a mountain of gear, rarely use some of it and just end up carrying it everywhere for no reason, so unless you want to sweat off an extra kilo or two and get exhausted, just take what you need is my advice.This time out client for Seoul is Stylus in the UK, we have some reports on the rejuvenation of Seoul as a tourist destination with three venues to cover, some pieces on visual inspiration and possibly a piece on “The floating islands” of Seoul which are due to open September if we can get a writer on board. For these jobs, where it’s mainly going to be from a tourist perspective and I know what I have to cover, I actually only need one lens, my 24-70mm f2.8L would do the job. It’s wide enough at 24mm to do architectural shots, it can zoom up to 70mm for portraits/close ups. For interior shoots in buildings or long exposures at night we need the tripod, possibly a speedlite as well on occasion for a bit of fill light. I won’t be doing many portraits, no events on I will be covering, so I’ve dispensed with the battery grip on my 5DmkII as well. Seeing as how up to now I’ve never had a single problem with the 5D mkII I am banking on it being good when we are in Korea s well, so I am not taking the 7D as a back up either. With the one camera and lens, I know I actually have all the work bases covered, seeing as how I will no doubt be taking some travel shots for stock, I’ll take my 70-200 mm f2.8L as well, but I’ll be lucky to use it 20% of the time, so even now I am tossing up about bringing it as it weighs 1.5kg and carrying that about all day gets tiresome sometimes. Other than that, just the macbook, spare batteries for the camera and flash, camera battery charger and some filters. More than enough, fingers crossed everything stays in good working order. Doesn’t look like much at all:

Anyway, here are some pics from the last trip. I think then I took my 17-40mm lens, my 50mm prime, my extra speedlite, but all the shots here just needed my 24-70mm lens and my old 80-200mm f2.8L.

Filed in: Equipment reviews | Photo tips | Travel photographyTagged in: | | | | |

Portrait photography in Edinburgh

7.21.11

 

Usually Sue and I do portraits sessions with a lot of fore thought about location, how to light things, different looks for whomever we are photographing, but sometimes it’s good just to keep things nice and simple if people aren’t wanting anything too complicated. We did that earlier on this year when we were staying with my best friend Richard and his girlfriend Mihika in Edinburgh. They wanted a simple portrait session, nothing too fancy to draw attention to the shoot which we decided to do outside, literally just a walk round some of their favourite spots in Edinburgh with the minimum of fuss and the minimum of gear. A very pleasant change for us compared to the more elaborate shoots we do in Tokyo, but it also did well to remind me that sometimes simple works best and there is no need to over do things unless it’s a fashion shoot.

So, all Sue and I packed was one speedlite, a reflector board, the canon 5D mkII, a 24-70mm F2.4L and the 50mm F1.2L. Habit dictated I had my 7D as back up as well though. It was literally a walk in the park, well several actually. The meadows, Princes Street Gardens, a path by the river in Deans village and the gardens of the Gallery of Modern Art.

A big difference between shooting in Tokyo and shooting in Edinburgh is the changeable weather in Scotland. In Tokyo, you basically know what’s going to happen, in Edinburgh it just keeps changing, we had sun, wind, cloud, but it didn’t actually rain this day, so not a problem. First off, when we were in the meadows the sun was out nicely, there was some nice cherry blossom on the go as well, so we did some shots under a cherry tree to begin with. Them just standing in front of the tree was a bit dull, I liked the idea of getting the blossom and the blue sky to feature prominently, so I put on the 24-70 lens to get a nice wide shot, literally lay down on the ground below the tree, got them to lean slightly over, Sue held the reflector camera right, just to the left of their faces which gave them a nice bit of a glow and we have our first shot.

Next up, just a case of taking a few steps into the meadows and getting a nice full portrait of them both standing holding each other. The most simple shot, but on of my favourites. Richard and Mihika just holding each other, no lighting, just the 50mm lens stopped down to F2 to give a nice bokeh, I shot from about 5m away to get them nice and focused and have everything else slightly blurred. Simple and worked well.

After that, a stop in a pub for lunch and a pint and a good old chat before heading down to Princes street gardens for a shot with Edinburgh castle in the background. By this time it had clouded over a bit, but the ambient light was a bit harsh. In this situation, without artificial light, you are either going to have a situation where the sky is dark and the couple even darker (thus making it an awful photo) or you are going to compensate the lack of light on the couple by over exposing to make the light on hem good, but then you’ll blow out all the details in the background and make the sky pure white, again not a good photo. So, I want the sky darker and them lighter, I need the shutter speed fairly fast, after a few test shots I found 1/200th of a second with an under exposure of 1 1/3 was pretty good, then to fill in the darkness on Richard and Mihika I just got Sue to illuminate them with the speedlite camera right, triggered with the ST-E2 transmitter and shooting fairly wide with the 24-70 lens again. Again, very easy.

It was getting a bit chilly by this time, so we made a brisk walk down to Deans Village, did some shots down by the river using some barriers and fallen trees as props and backgrounds, just using both lenses without any artificial light as it had brightened up a bit again and we were getting nice soft light through the trees.

Finally we arrived in the grounds of the Gallery of Modern Art. The gallery is housed in a beautiful old building, a nice staircase leading down to a garden in front of it, so a nice place to shoot. A lot of people walking about, so once again I got down on the ground, got a nice low angle to shoot up from to just get Richard, Mihika, the stairs and the side of the building in without getting any of the crowds. Again, nothing fancy, just the 50mm lens with no reflector or speedlite. Sue was having a laugh at me rolling about on the ground again, so she took a shot to show what I looked like…very bald, but as my (equally bald) dad used to say, “grass doesn’t grow on busy streets.”

So, this was a really nice shoot, just a fun day out with some friends, no having to lug bags of lighting gear around, taking everything as it comes, nice and refreshing. As of April next year we will be using the backdrops of Edinburgh and many of the local villages for a lot of photo shoots, then we will be lugging about more gear, getting more dramatic effects for those who wish them, maybe some will be chilled out like this shoot, whatever happens I’m really looking forward to it. Already my mind is racing with ideas, new challenges await.

Filed in: PortraitsTagged in: | |

Wedding photos in Edinburgh and Scotland!

7.16.11

Shooting in the rain is something we will be doing a lot of in the not to distant future, after spending 10 years here in Japan we are moving our base back to Scotland from the end of spring 2012, so come rain or shine we will be delivering the best possible photos to a new set of clients there and adding to our happy customers in Japan. We can’t wait.

I love wedding shoots, it needs a real mixture of skills to pull the whole day off an get it right. You need to be good at portraits, you need to be good at events, you need to be good with people, you need to follow a schedule, be ready for the unexpected and you have to re-think on the spot when things don’t go according to plan. Recently we had a wedding just like this, the forecast said it was going to be sunny, on the way to the shoot the sun was out, but when we were about 30 mins from the venue it clouded over and the heavens opened. Luckily we were prepared for this and in our lighting bag where we have our light stands and umbrellas, we also had some real umbrellas which not only shield you from the rain, but can also be used as props. In advance we had discussed with the wonderful couple, Sey (from Japan) and his lovely wife Kim (from Hawaii) about the possibility of rain on the day and what they wanted to do, luckily for us they were really keen on doing a portrait shoot pre-reception (they had already had the ceremony in Hawaii), they said rain or shine they would go with what we suggested to get the best photos and we are always up for the challenge.

Anyway, seeing as there was a lot from the whole day, I decided to blog about the portrait session now and the reception another time. Sey and Kim were having their reception in Yokohama, so the venue had to be near there. We met with them to discuss their plans 2 weeks before the event, which despite being a much shorter time notice than we were used to (usually we know months in advance), was plenty of time to come up with some ideas of venues to shoot. Kim and Sey met for the first time at Yokohama station when they had their first date, so hey wanted that included in their wedding photos. They were also very fond of Rinko park, and the Osamubashi pier building, both a short drive away. For a bright sunny day, Rinko park would have worked best, but with the somewhat rainy day, it was decided that Osamubashi would work best.

We had a couple of hours, including 30 minutes taxi time to and from Yokohama station to Osamubashi, so as usual we set time limits. 15 minutes at Yokohama station, then taxi to Osamubashi, spend about 45 mins to one hour there, then get the taxi back to their hotel pre-reception. We were packing our usual kit, canon 5DmkII, 7D, 17-40mm F4L, 24-70mm f2.8L, 50mm F1.2L, the 70-200mm f2.8L, our speedlites, two light stands, soft box, shoot through umbrella, transmitter, tripod and even a ladder (which we used for the group shot at the reception). First off at Yokohama station we had already decided on the concept, Kim and Sey together outside and inside the station, people walking about and slightly blurred to add a sense of motion whilst leaving them the center of attention. To start with, we shot them outside the station, at the spot where the met for the first time. There is a walkway under that spot in a shopping mall, with the rain most people were using that so there weren’t too many people walking about and it wasn’t quite the image I had visualized before the shoot. In these situation you do what you can, so I did some 3/4 body shots of them with the 24-70 lens, some wide with the 17-40 mounted on the tripod with a slow shutter speed (1/15th of a second) and all the time Sue standing camera right in amongst some bicycles holding the lights as Kim’s father kindly held an umbrella over me.

First up, I have to make sure I can get some detail in the sky and do test shots without the speedlites to work out my ambient light. These test shots just look nasty, no details on skin tones or clothes, sure you could edit it to look a lot better, but we never do this, we’re just performing quick tests to work out what ambient light we will use before adding in light from the speedlites to make our subjects “pop” in the photo. Here’s a test shot:

We have our settings then when we add in the speedlites and everything looks a whole lot better:

After about 5 minutes, it was clear we weren’t going to get a decent crowd walking past outside, so we went down into the station area where we knew there would be more people and we were right. I quickly set up the tripod, kept the 17-40 on and shot wide at 1/10th of a second to give a nice sense of motion. This time Sue was holding the lights just over my left shoulder, we did this at different places in the station for a few minutes with this one being my favourite, more like the image I had in my head that I wated to get compared to the one outside:

Next, quickly pack up the gear and off to Osamubashi pier where we had already obtained permission to shoot. This is quite a big building down by the sea in Yokohama, very modern, lots of good backdrops for shooting in. We started off at a spot outside but covered from the rain where we could easily set up lights. First off, some test shots to make sure I can get some nice detail in the sky with the lighting, again an awful photo as it is just testing for the ambient light, I’m not thinking about the couple yet. Seeing as how we are in a covered area with heavy shadow, you can’t see any detail at all on them, but I now know that at a shutter speed of 1/160th of a second at F5.6 and underexposed by 1.3 of a stop I am getting a pretty dramatic sky:

After adding in two speedlites into a softbox camera left (literally at the edge of the photo on the left with Sue holding it all), things got much better. I decided to stop under exposing by 1/3 and over exposed by a 1/3 after reviewing some test shots and I got the shot we were after:

Then after that, we did another couple of poses in the same spot, some just candid as Kim and Sey were having a break as well. It’s always good to get some of these candid moments as well as the posed shots. AS always, Sue was there giving direction and noticing things about the brides hair or jewelry that I didn’t. without my lovely wife helping the shots would just not be so good:

So basically, I’ve explained a bit about the principles of how we go about getting the portraits for weddings (much like we do for all our portrait shoots). For the rest of our time we just kept repeating these principles in a variety of different spots and also adding in the prop of a veil for some of the shots as well, sometimes adding in some candid images as well. Most of the time it was raining outside, not terribly heavy, but enough for Sue and I to work without umbrellas, the top of the range canon L series lenses and speedlites are sealed so slightly water proof, ideal for rainy days in Japan and especially in Scotland when we get there. Here are some more shots:

At the end of the portrait session we were pretty soaked, I looked like I’d just come out of a shower with my clothes on, but we had a pile of really good shots that we were very happy with, more importantly though when Kim and Sey got the photos they were overjoyed and that’s why we love every wedding we do, because we get to create a lifetime of memory.

Filed in: WeddingsTagged in: | |

Quick portraits

7.2.11

The best portraits are the ones where you have a lot of time to think about set up, choose locations, spend time getting lights set up, deciding a concept, having someone do hair and make up….but that rarely happens. Sometimes on assignment speed is the name of the game, you only have a very short time frame to get someones photo and then you just have to work with simple options to get the best results. Recently I had just this situation on an assignment for Whisky Magazine Japan at the launch of the “Spirit of Unity” charity auction to help victims of March’s earthquake. For the event, Kabuki actor Somegoro Ichikawa san was lending his presence (and signature to one of the bottles) to the proceedings and well as covering the event I had to get a portrait of Somegoro san and time was short.

The event was held in the plush setting of the lobby in the Park Hotel Shiodome. Somegoro san was to arrive just before the auction and we had about 5 mins to do a portrait/interview session with him before he appeared at the auction and then had to go act immediately after. With a busy schedule, celebrities can usually only spare a very short time, but sometimes their presence can make a huge difference and for charity events their presence is always a welcome bonus.

Anyway, as the lobby where the auction was being held was full of Somegoro fans it wasn’t an option for a portrait shoot. The only option was one of the Hotel Rooms. Somegoro san arrived with his PR people, we were quickly ushered into a room so as not to alert his fans to his presence and we had a short time to shoot and interview him. The room was fairly small and there wasn’t much room to move around as there were 6 people in a small area, the only real option was to have Somegoro san sitting/standing next to the window where a bit of light was coming nicely through camera left. I quickly put up a light stand camera right and locked my 580EXII speedlite inside a softbox. I had about 2 mins to get some shots and then the writer had to ask some questions, so the pressure was on to be done within a very short time.

First up, I did a body crop shot of him sitting down, using only the ambient light to see what the image looked like, not great, nice light on the right side of his face, but no detail on his clothes as there was too much shadow and the contrast in the background was nasty, not a good shot and one I wouldn’t use:

Next up, use some fill light from the speedlite on the softbox to lighten the shadows on the left of Somegoro san and show the details on his clothes. With no time to go through manual flash settings, it’s just a case of shoot on ETTL and let your canon magic help you out. When time is short I am eternally grateful for canon making such an easy to use system. A much better lit image overall, the background looks a lot better and the shot is much more usable:

After some body shots I want some head shots. Fist up another shot using only the ambient from the window. Now the focus is on the face, so it doesn’t matter so much the details on the clothes aren’t there so much. An OK shot, I like the light on the right of his face, but a light on the ceiling is really shining on the top left of his head just before the hairline, so I don’t like it so much:

Once again, I use the speedlite on the softbox as I know I will get some nice fill light that will illuminate the left of his face and negate the ceiling light. It works in that respect, but it’s too much like a passport photo for my liking, so no good as a head shot. Not an interesting photo when he is looking straight at me either:

For the last shot, I wanted something between the previous two shots, I want the left of his face lighter than the ambient only shot and darker shot with the softbox. I have options for this, move the softbox further away (as the distance between subject and light increases, the strength of the speedlite will be less), but it’s already nearly at the door so that won’t work. I could power down the speedlite manually, but because the previous shot was on ETTL (so the speedlite automatically sets it’s power) I don’t know what the previous power output was so I have no time to waste finding out, so I go for another option, get out my reflector board and ask the writer to hold it. I know the strength of light reflected will be lesser than that coming in from the window as it has to travel a bit further, so with liiterally 30 seconds remaining of my 2 minutes alotted time I have to be fast. I asked Somegoro san to slightly move his head, set the 50mm lens to f2 which gives a nice bokeh and focus on his eyes and I get a result I am happy with:

Several different looking shots in a couple of minutes, if I’d had 5 mins, or 10 mins I could have probably come up with something better, but when time is an issue and you have no choice over where you are shooting you just have to go for some sure fire usable shots rather than make something mind blowingly artistic I guess.

After that, just shoot the event. Somegoro san’s signature made a big difference, I think the previous highest bid for one of the charity bottles was 30’000 yen, but the bottle he signed went for way over 100’000 yen, so good for him for helping out. Great work by the different distillers from Scotland who got together and donated their product to be blended into this special edition charity whisky. Each distiller send a special signed bottle which was silently auctioned and went a long way to raise more money for the charity.

Filed in: Photo tips | PortraitsTagged in: | | | | | | |
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