I do have to be honest as the scans were not apple to apple because even though both negatives were processed at the same photo store, the Ilford I used were scanned using my friend’s flatbed scanner & the Kodak was scanned at the store. I’ll need to scan some frames of the Kodak using the Epson flatbed to do a more thorough comparison later.  Despite that I was very impressed with the results from the Kodak BW400CN in terms of detail & contrast.

Here are some images from the roll of Kodak BW400CN…

Emerging from the Wall

The Fish Guy

More Fish

The Iconic Trishaw of Penang

Of a different era...

Draw the map as you go

By simply enabling the draw map feature on this application, you can contribute to the community by adding new roads to the map. The data gets saved & shared with the rest of the Waze users when they come into the area.

Reports & Events

This feature is great! I was driving along the expressway to town this evening & this nifty app said that there was traffic up ahead, including information like average speed & possible delays. I hooked my iPhone to my stereo & at one point, Waze alerted me that there was a road accident up ahead… and true enough there was, spot on where the app said it was! By simply turning on this app when you’re driving, you get accurate real-time traffic updates not even your local radio station can do. This of course works best when more & more users start installing this great app & using it!

Turn-by-turn navigation

What is a GPS software without voice turn-by-turn navigation? Just enter where you wish to go & the application will guide you there.

Connect to a community

What’s more? You can connect via Facebook & see where & what your friends are up to. Besides that, other unknown Wazers (if they allow it) can be seen on the map as they buzz along the streets where you are!

Candies, goodies & mini-games

Waze uses candies/goodies to further engage users, allowing users to drive over icons of candies and other road goodies located in certain locations to earn points. The mini-games encourage more user involvement and that means more valuable road information for the users and the database where those details are otherwise slim or lacking. It feels a little bit like Pac-Man!

All in all, I love this great little app & it has certainly spiced up my daily commute. Fun app & thumbs up to the creators!

This was taken inside the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain. The smack in the middle composition was quite obvious on this one. I stuck a tripod (which I later found out I was not supposed to do!) & took 3 exposures to create this HDR image.

Also an obvious choice for a center composition. Despite being dead center on the x-axis, did you notice that there is a 2/3 composition on the y-axis?

Here are more examples of compositions that work when placed in the middle of the frame.

“Converging in the middle”

…

“Circular Tracks”

…

“Spinning Top”

…

“Inside the train”

…

For some folks, the act of shooting using a film SLR or medium format camera may seem a tad snobbish. Perhaps they think that we people who shoot with film are in an era long forgotten; where gentlemen wore top hats & spoke Queen’s English while sipping Earl Grey!

When I go about street shooting with a 35mm camera, I still get odd stares from people as if I’ve got fungus growing on my head! Flashing question marks on their foreheads when they ask, “They still sell film for those?” or “You can still get film developed?” This really cracks me up & if I had a penny for each time someone asks me that, I’d be filthy rich!

With state of the art modern DSLRs like the Canon EOS 7D with 8 frames per second continuous burst modes you can very much shoot movies even if the camera didn’t have a movie mode! Large compact flash memory cards & the auto modes make it possible that you don’t need to think nowadays to do photography.

With only 36 frames on a 35mm film camera or worse, 10-16 frames on a medium format camera without anyway to preview what you just snapped… you learn to be much more careful with what you shoot & whether the shot is even worth taking ! It forces you to think & compose each frame with care… Check your settings & rechecking them to make sure. Well for good reason, it costs money to buy each roll of film & get them developed, scanned or printed. Even if you developed your own film, the roll isn’t going to magically recycle itself so you pretty much have to stock film in your cabinet.

What’s really interesting since I started shooting film again is that my years shooting digital helped me “transition” to 35mm film much easier. Back when I shot 35mm, I had a lot of problems due to my inexperience in photography & my poor understanding of light. The good thing about digital cameras is that they make the learning curve for photography much quicker. My experience made it easier for me to shoot in full manual on my Canon A-1 & AE-1.

What is even more interesting is that since shooting film, my digital camera skills improved because nowadays I don’t just trash the shutter button on my Canon 7D just as much as before.  Shooting film actually made me appreciate what hardship photographers go through in the past & made me think before I take any photo now. So digital made me shoot well on film while shooting film made me better on a digital camera!

Well for whatever reason don’t just hear this from me. Go give it a try & see. While it’s still available try it because Ilfords are awesome. Try it because when you pop open the film canister or remove a roll of 120′s from its wrapper, it smells good! Try it so that you can tell your children’s grandchildren that you shot with film before…. Try so you can tell people who never used film before what it’s like & then get them to try it!

Some considerations

Before you decide what camera you’re going to invest on, here is a very basic check list you’ll want consider…

• What is your budget? – Important this one because there really isn’t a limit to this!
• What do you want to shoot? – Family or holiday photos? Nature? Landscape photography or just a multipurpose camera?
• Is this your first camera? How serious are you going to be? – This matters a lot!
• Do you want a compact camera or an interchangeable lens camera?
• Are you expecting relatively good results out of the camera or are you going to invest time into learning digital post processing?

Having a camera to start with!

This I think is the most important thing about a camera you should really be worried about if at all. To be honest any camera will work…. Technically the best camera is the one that is with you when a decisive moment happens! It doesn’t matter if you have a Leica M9 when it’s tucked away in your dry box at home & then Paul the alien jumps out in front of you! If you’re really on a budget, get any camera off the shelf at the local camera store. With the technology of digital imaging these days, any compact will do. Heck even your iPhone 4 will work under most situations.

The controls

Now for some features that you will want on your camera. Any camera can shoot automatically nowadays. But not all cameras will let you have manual controls. Even fewer cameras will put those manual controls where you can get to them & make changes quickly & efficiently. Prosumer cameras claim to let you have full manual control but when you really dive into the user manual, most of these settings are hidden deep within the camera’s UI. This is why folks upgrade to DSLRs for serious shooting.
But not all DSLRs have the proper manual controls in the right places. I used a Canon 60D before & I made a decision to change to a 7D because of this. I needed easy access to my flash compensation, picture style & white balance… all 3 which are accessible on the 60D from within the menu UI but they were much easier to get to on the 7D in the form of a push of a button. The 7D also had a useful one time RAW photo capture which I liked.
When looking for a good camera, consider the controls & where they are. Work around what you can live with & what you really need. When looking for a new camera, always look for the quirks & problems with making changes to what you always tweek as a photographer. A bad camera is one that gets in the way of you trying to get the shot. The speed in which you make changes to your camera could be a matter of whether you get the shot or not!

Do the auto functions work?

After getting the manual controls out of the way, you need to check if the auto functions work like the manufacturers says it does. Most of us even when using a DSLR capable of manual settings will use some form of auto exposure, auto focus or auto white balance of some sorts. Check to see if they don’t get in the way of you making the shot.
You know you have a good camera when…

• The auto exposure is spot on & you rarely have to dial your exposure up/down in different lighting conditions
• The auto white balance can handle various challenging lighting conditions
• The auto focus spot on & is capable of giving you enough control to frame & compose your shots accurately

You may say that you can always fall back on manual controls. However I am a strong believer of if you can get the winning shot shooting in auto mode, who cares? Not saying that you should shoot full auto, just that when you need it, it’s there & it doesn’t fail!

The in-camera RAW to JPG conversion

This may be a surprise to some folks but each camera behaves different in this aspect. This is very evident to me when I was shooting between the Canon 60D, 7D & the 5DmkII. If you shoot in RAW & convert to JPG using Photoshop or Digital Photo Professional (DPP) you may not notice this. What separates a good camera from a mediocre camera is the in-camera RAW to JPG conversion.
Here are some examples…

• Sharpness/JPG artifacts – The Canon 60D produces sharper images using the default picture style compared to the 5DmkII… which in turn also produces sharper images than the 7D. However on the flip side you will notice a tad more JPG artifacts on the 60D JPG output compared to the other two cameras. Not much of a problem here, just dial the 60D sharpness down & the other two cameras (7D/5DmkII) up a little.
• Color balance – The 5DmkII auto white balance is slightly warmer than the 7D. The 60D outputs the “bluest” looking images of the three cameras. Again nothing your manual white balance settings can’t fix.

Of course all this doesn’t matter if you shoot RAW but this is just to illustrate there really is a difference in RAW to JPG conversions within each camera’s firmware. Not saying which is better than the other, just that you will have to see for yourself which suits you & which JPG output works for your workflow.
I chose the 7D because it had the least amount of sharpening of the three which allowed me flexibility when post processing my images. It also had a warm auto white balance which was not too warm (5DmkII) or cool (60D) but was just right for my tastes.

So these are the aspects which I think makes a good camera.

How I view composition

Many of us who started learning about photography have at one time or another done a google search on the term composition & photography. You will never find a shortage of articles about Rules of Thirds, shooting in threes & to not place the subject in the middle. Some folks have to work really hard to shoot something at is visually acceptable by the photography community, else others just have a knack for it!
Why is it that it’s so simple & easy for some people yet is absolutely crazy difficult for others?
I have a personal opinion on this…

How do I see things?

Let’s use an example of something I shot recently while I was out in the middle of the night trying out some night street photography.

Depending on how you look at the image above, you either see a window with the reflection of a lamp above it on the outside. You’ll see the glass & perhaps the grills on the inside of the window.
Sad to say to you, that’s not what I see. LOL!
I see squares, rectangles, circles, semi-circles & a lot of diagonal lines! To me everything is abstract & is never about the details that folks normally see. To me composition is about putting together what seems chaotic in the modern sense & arranging it so that it makes sense to me at least. It’s not about Rules of Thirds or anything of that sort. To me it is about the general arrangement of shapes which makes an image.
Let’s try another image…

When I took this shot in a church while I was in Barcelona, I had a problem. I only had an ultra-wide angle lens & a 50mm on my 5Dmk2. I was too lazy to swap lenses because I knew I was going to be shooting more ultra-wides that day once I left the building. So I zoomed all the way in to 40mm & shot what you see here with my exposure dropped all the way down by 2 stops.
Again what I saw was roughly the shape of Mary, straight lines behind accentuated by soft light behind. Remember that when you put an image onto a photo, everything reverts to 2D.
Technically everything about this photo was wrong! When composing usually you leave some space in front of the subject. You also don’t usually leave such a big gap in front of the statue & worse still behind it! The shot was also way underexposed…
But somehow through some unknown intervention, I decided to break all that & went with what I felt was right to me. Giving the subject space in the obvious place would have made many people happier… but I don’t shoot for other people’s pleasure but for mine alone. Call me selfish but that’s the way aha-aha, I like it! The empty space at the bottom is what we call negative space. My intention was to leave it there & not crop it out of the photo. The purpose of this image was also as a demonstration that you don’t need a superzoom lens for your travels. Think out of the box a little & you can shoot just about with any lens, anywhere.
What do you think?

What else?

If you haven’t yet noticed, the best composition is one with the fewest things for you to see! Less is better! A wise guru once said that composition is about Simplification & EXclusion… or SEX! So technically if you force yourself to think about SEX all the time, you’ll be a much better photographer lol!

Framing

Although framing adds to a composition, it isn’t composition per say. Framing is simple, you either use a zoom lens or crop using Photoshop during post processing. Sadly folks fail to understand that this rarely improves an image. The need to crop just screams that you weren’t careful when you clicked the shutter.
Switching to a telephoto lens only let’s you get closer to the subject. It doesn’t help you get a better looking photo.
What you need to be changing is the point-of-view… that means the position of your camera in relation to the subject you are trying to shoot. Move closer with a wide-angle lens to make an image seem larger than reality… or move closer to the ground to get a different perspective. Roll over & shoot upside down… climb over things… even move the object around you to get the best angle that you can. Simply pointing the camera in different directions with different lenses isn’t going to get you good pictures! It on the other hand is the best way to make bad photos!

Remember back when cameras were all manual? Gosh it took folks years to learn how to master everything. Those days cameras didn’t have any light metering built into them so there was no auto exposure. You needed to adjust every single minute detail from aperture to shutter speed & ASA. You can’t quite turn out repeated good photos unless you really knew what you were doing!

Fast forward to this day & age, even cell phones have very decent auto exposure auto focusing cameras with CPUs probably smarter than the average monkey! Digital cameras these days are so automatic, you have to go through considerable effort to turn the auto mode off!! The good news is that because of this, photography became more accessible to people who never quite got the chance to learn photography the old fashion way. The kid next door or average Joe can now enjoy photography thanks to modern technology on a digital camera.

No longer do you need to understand much of the basics of photography to use a digital camera to snap some family portraits or gatherings. All that’s needed technically is to just point the camera at your subject & press the shutter release on the top. All that exposure & focusing is reduced to just having to frame the image & hold still while you press the shutter.

Is that a bad thing?

Hell no! The fully automatic digital camera is the best thing since sliced bread! Because of this, photography opened its doors to the masses & folks old or young are now able to enjoy what previously was only available to the niche market.

Should we be learning photography the old fashion way?

Why should we? Back in the days of manual film technology, it’s true that you need to learn all the ins & outs of a manual camera before you can do anything. That process took years to master.

Today, the way to learn photography is to focus on your pictures. Take a photo. Look at the result on the LCD. Stop to ask if you should take the camera off the auto settings because you’re not getting the results you want. When you become more experienced & know how your camera behaves, you can skip the looking at the LCD bit. Even after years of shooting photographs, I still rely on the LCD not to ensure I’m getting the results I want, but simply to ensure that there was minimal camera shake when I took the photo. I do this by reviewing the image at approx. 100% crop by zooming in & ensuring that the image I took was sharp.

Focusing on framing & composition is far more important these days than learning manual exposure the hard way. I too use Aperture Priority mode 95% of the time when I shoot. In those rare occasion when I need full control over the camera do I switch to Manual mode. Paying attention to your composition & subject will help you advance quicker because to get the desired results that you need, simply make changes to the camera settings to get what you want.

If you wanted to learn how to master your camera & software like Photoshop or Lightroom before going out to shoot photos, you will probably never shoot anything! Constantly worrying about mastering everything & worrying about your gear will prevent you from ever having any opportunity learning about photography itself. Falling into this category of photography… I call these people cameramen because they own lots of stuff but not really do any kind of photography… well this makes companies like Canon, Nikon or Adobe very happy because they’ll sell you all kinds of cameras, lenses & software you think you need & make huge bucket loads of money in the process.

If Picasso had a broken brush…

So what if Picasso really had a broken brush? Maybe he had… we wouldn’t have known. A great artist of the modern era… could have painted the Three Musicians (1921) using a bad brush… who would know? Not sure if that was ever documented!

Any great artist can get what he wants with any sort of tools. The quality of a brush for example would determine how easy it is for him to get the results that he wants. Even with a bad brush, an artist sees the final image on the canvas before he even begins to paint. The final result will always be as the artist imagined it to be because he keeps working on it until he got what he wanted. A bad brush will not stop him from doing that… it will slow him down no doubt… but as I said, if he were a great artist like Picasso, do you think he gets defeated by a crooked or somewhat imperfect brush?

How should we be learning photography?

In photography, no matter what sort of camera you are using, if you are focusing on the final result, you will naturally figure out how to get there as you progress from shooting photos. Your vision will drive you to improve & make tweaks to your settings whether they are in-camera or off-camera to get there.

If you want to learn everything about Photoshop for example, it may take you months or years even to master every available function that was built into it. Instead if you learned only what was essential to get the results that you want, hence finding your photographic style, you can get the results much quicker. You don’t have to stop there, you can continue to learn as you go along… a bit at a time.

Your interest in photography will drive you to do more of what looks good & less of what does not. Shoot first & ask questions later. And when you do ask questions, ask the real experts… not the snobs! The best people to learn from is from photographers who take photos that you personally like. So make sure their portfolio has the type of images that look good to you.

If you are unable to achieve the result that you want, don’t ask “What should I upgrade or buy now?” Ask yourself, “How can I use what I have to get what I want?”

I was invited by a friend to a photography exhibition at the Galeri Seni Mutiara, The Whiteaways Arcade over at Beach Street. This place is located right above Old Town Cafe… just head on up a small spiral staircase from within the cafe. The exhibition was titled “Portraits of Penang : Little India” by Dr Ooi Cheng Ghee.

Looking at images from the past, especially places that you know & where you grew up is like a journey I hadn’t imagined before I walked into the exhibition hall. It not only takes you on a path of rediscovery but it was more like a journey through time back when things were much simpler. While for some of us, a photograph is but a flat 2D image, to me it was simply a moment in time when Penang’s Little India was in its full glory. Imagine yourself immersed in that moment in time, the smells of Indian spices, the hustle & bustle of traders along the narrow streets… it must have been truly a spectacle. I was but a boy that time & remember going to Little India in those days. What Dr Ooi captured with his Leica M4 with a 35mm lens is something quite extraordinary & none like I remembered nor imagined it would be seeing his photos for the first time.

On our way out, we bumped into Dr Ooi himself coming in! It was truly a privilege meeting him in person, something we had not expected. What was even more fascinating was his friendliness & generosity… he was ready & eager to share with us the history of the making of this remarkable photo essay on the life in old Little India. Wow! A personal private tour of the exhibition by Dr Ooi himself!

He went on to explain about how he took up photography & how he came to take up social documentary photography as a very unique form of photography at the time especially in Penang. For the course of an entire year in 1979, he captured some 4000 images in this place of which 160 are seen restored in a sepia like black & white prints in his book, Portraits of Penang : Little India.

He pointed out to us the little things that we missed the first time around. From things like his own reflection on one of the images he captured, to the meaning of why he used the image of the man holding the glass of tea as his book cover. What really dumbfounded us was the 5 years he spent tracking down the people in his photographs in hopes of putting meaningful captions for them. And here I just wrote an article about the Words that matter in a Photograph!!

The afternoon spent there was awe-inspiring & it was truly an honor meeting Dr Ooi in person. I got myself a personally autographed hardcover of Dr Ooi’s book. It retails for RM100 but I think it’s money worth spent! For serious photographers, I truly recommend this book to them.

The exhibition will run from May 13 until May 31 from 11am to 6pm daily. Admission is free. I highly recommend it to friends & family!

I leave you with some links to learn more…

http://www.ooichengghee.com
http://www.arecabooks.com
http://www.thinkcity.com.my
http://www.galerisenimutiara.com
Link to Facebook page
Link to The Star Online article

Perhaps my favorite photo from his entire Little India collection. Called, “By the light”… you need to see the original print to truly appreciate it!

Words that matter

“A picture is worth a thousand words”… We hear that said quite often. That may be true but at times it’s difficult to know how each individual interprets an image. Our different personalities & life style or even upbringing alters each individual’s perception & interpretation of things that we see, touch & hear… subtle difference in mood & timing will change the impact of an image. So sometimes it’s good to “steer” or guide the viewer towards the intended meaning of your interpretation of a photograph. A title or a caption helps in the story of the image you are trying to convey. Simple words or sentences, sometimes in the form of a question even, adds to the image. This is why in many photography competitions, there is usually a section when you submit a photo that asks you to talk about the photo & how you captured it. I’m not saying the EXIF information! It’s more about what went through your mind when you took the photo. Some of us may think that’s lame, but it means the world when you get it right in the way it hits the emotional bulls eye!

What kind of words?

Well…. Something is better than nothing! If you shoot a dog & call it “A Dog”… it’s better than leaving it blank, I feel. But when I shot this photo, I just felt like giving the little guy a voice…

I called this, “Lazy Dog“… the caption I used was “Dude… please point that lens at some other dog’s face will ya?” Not ground breaking but rather than leave it as Dog, I added a little humor & gave the little fella a personality.

This I called, “Hey You!“… as if the statue was coming alive out of the wall & called out to you. Rather eerie the churches in Barcelona… lol!

This was taken by a friend who was fiddling with my camera while we were at a cafe for drinks. She never used a DSLR before so this was one of the very first shots she fired with my camera that day. Hence, I called this photo “Through another person’s eye“.

Some simple words can make wonders for some of your images. Choosing the right ones can be challenging at times, but used wisely it will make the photo stand out a little more.

Words to avoid

I found that the choices of words to use as the title or caption for a photo can make or break the intended meaning of your interpretation. If we are not careful, it is possible to spoil the beautiful sunrise shot by making remarks that don’t add to the image. Let me give you examples of how this can happen.

Putting the EXIF/gear information in your caption

Some may disagree with me, but EXIF data as a title or caption does not enhance the image. It’s technical terms which adds very little artistic value to it. While you are required to ensure an image still has the metadata information when you submit it for a competition, it does not influence the judge’s decision to award it with a winning vote. It is there merely to satisfy that you are within the boundaries of the competitions rules & regulations. Gear also almost never determines a winning photograph from another. No sane judge will rule in favor of a photo captured by a L lens simply because the photographer used a better piece of glass versus a better composed, more captivating & emotional photo taken using a cheap plastic lens.

Random shots!

This is quite classic… and I see a lot of people using this term to name their albums & photos! It cracks me up to think how exactly do you actually take a “random” photo? Is it anything like giving your camera to a trigger happy chimpanzee Joe who has Parkinsons after 5 shots of espresso? Jokes aside there are bigger implications to this than just a word. As a potential client, I may be browsing websites like Flickr or Facebook looking for potential photographers for jobs & recommendations. If I were say someone who wants to hire a wedding photographer, I am most certain never going to hire one who calls his photos “random”! The word simply suggests you do not care about your photos & couldn’t care less what people think about them. Another term used which closely relates to this is “simply shoot”… it’s basically the same thing. All I can say is *facepalm*… sigh!

Captions which demonstrate lack of confidence

This is quite similar to saying that you are shooting random shots. Comments which say, “Mine isn’t as good as what Jack shot that morning…” etc doesn’t help. You can perhaps say that yours is a different interpretation of some of your friends photos. Let the audience decide which they like more. You don’ t have to admit defeat even before people have seen your photo. You may never know, you might have a masterpiece with you!

Leaving the filenames as they are

This happens I can see on Flickr accounts. Folks upload a photo but leaves the title as the original filename in which the photo was captured. It’s funny that people spend time going on outings to take photographs, come home to upload them onto their PCs & perform all sorts of HDR rendering & post processing… all that creativity, but they can’t spend 10 secs to name a photo. Very odd indeed!

Indeed those who know me know I have an array of good glass & equipment. They are there because of years of accumulation & some good management of gear & finances. The one thing is I will never let a situation which challenges me resort to the need of having to buy new gear to compensate for it… not without a fight that is. In fact less is often better because it forces you to compensate for the lack of equipment to make the best of the situation. Very often it will make you a better photographer because it forces you to previsualize the outcome of an image before you capture it, making your images much stronger & more captivating for the audience. Therefore you will find means & ways to get to the solution you want before you resort to going to the camera store & succumb to spending on more gear.

But I don’t have the flash trigger to do strobe?

I don’t have a macro lens, I can’t shoot macro…

I need that steadicam so I can do those cool “flying” video shots…

If only I had that lens, my photos would have looked better…

Let’s step back for a moment here. Part of the reason you don’t have the things listed above probably means they cost quite a bit of money & you don’t quite have the cash in hand to get them just about right now. But whole notion of, “I can’t do something because I don’t have something”, really sickens me!

So I don’t have money… What can I do?

Don’t have a flash trigger? Do something else, use a 50mm for your portraits. No macro lens, well… while your friends are off shooting bugs, take a moment & observe your surroundings & shoot nature at a more manageable distance. Think out of the box. No steadicam? Think of alternative solutions, use your existing tripod. Open the legs & balance it using the center column. It’s doable & it works.

Know your gear

One way to stay away from obtaining new gear to compensate for your short comings is to learn to know & understand your gear. Understand what your equipment can & cannot do will help you compensate for its weaknesses allowing you to make fine adjustments to your shooting style to make the final image work. It’s like knowing that your sedan can’t go off-road, you’d like to but you don’t. So instead of taking the trail roads, you take a less challenging route & go on some safe but at the same time scenic routes for your trips. It’s the same thing with your camera.

Let me share with you some personal experiences

We were out for a morning sunrise shoot at the quay a couple of years back. One of my friends recent got a spanking new tripod & wanted to get some good morning shots with it. Just as we arrived & everyone was setting up their tripods, he could not figure out how to extend the center column to increase the height. Decisive moment was coming… decisive moment came… decisive moment gone… everything gone! All the gear in the world is not going to get you anything if you didn’t spend some time to learn about the piece of gear you obtained & read the manual.

I got myself a 50mm couple of months ago & was pretty happy with the results. While test firing it one night I discovered that in low tungsten light, the AF would sometimes back focus slightly. Under normal circumstances it would focus normally & you would not notice anything. Also at the widest aperture, it is given that any slightest moment will render the image out of focus towards your intended subject. Without a tripod at times I need to compose, focus & shoot… a couple of times before I can capture an image I can be truly satisfied with. Also at the largest aperture, it wasn’t very sharp.

Since I am aware of some of the “issues” with this lens here is how I compensate for them…

1. AF back focus – Since this happens only in low tungsten lighting, I don’t worry so much about it. In the event I need to shoot under such conditions, I activate the fine tune focus function on my 7D to add a +10 to the AF. Worst case scenario, I activate live-view & manual focus with a digital zoom x5 so I can fine tune the focus manually.
2. Out of focus due to shallow DOF – Easy… I preview the image after each shot & zoom in to approx. 100% crop. If the image is not in focus, I’ll delete it & shoot again.
3. Sharpness – If this is such a big problem for you, then shoot using a smaller aperture! At f/8 pretty much all lenses are tact sharp. Sharpness isn’t everything & a sharper lens doesn’t mean a better lens. Folks use prime lenses because they offer an aperture of f/1.8 or greater. The whole idea shooting using a large aperture prime is to get nicely blurred background & a dreamy effect or soft focus.

Some common questions…

Why would you settle for a lens which has AF problems? Shouldn’t all lenses be perfect?

I think the fact that there is a focus fine tune setting on the pro level DSLRs speaks for itself. No lens manufacturer, especially large aperture lens makers will ever able to make their lenses focus 100% accurately in all situations especially at their largest apertures. It is foolish to think that this is possible. We are talking about manufacturing variables for both the lens & DSLR bodies.  No camera manufacturer would dare proclaim that their lens mounts on all their DSLR & their lenses are exactly identical 100%. Slight shifts in even the reflex mirror, viewfinder or even the usage of filters will alter auto-focus systems one way or another by perhaps a micro millimeter. It’s just not realistic to expect lenses especially large aperture lenses to be perfect all the time.

Shouldn’t 50mm primes be super sharp? I heard from articles over the internet that primes are usually sharper than zooms?

They are! At equivalent apertures! You can’t expect the prime to be sharp at f/1.2!! We still have to work within the boundaries of optical physics. If you want sharp, shoot at f/8.

Don’t blame your gear for your inexperience

My lens story is just an example of the importance of understanding the limitations of your own gear. An inexperienced photographer would have just write it off as a bad piece of glass & then went to buy a new one to replace it. Later on will he realize his foolishness & find out the hard & expensive way that it really had nothing to do with the gear, but his own ignorance. I’ve been in these shoes believe me. I feel foolish now, believe me. I’m sharing this piece of experience in hope that you would not do the same yourself. Whether you will listen, that really is your choice.