Earlier this week we celebrated our 5 millionth pageview since starting in January of 2009. Today I'm celebrating our first day of over 50,000 page views.

I know that page views and individual visitors are different but it's a metric that means some people read some things that I wrote over 50,000 times today. That flat out amazes me. Thanks for being part of the discussion.

That's a lot of coffee...

Why I think the Olympus OM-D, EM-5 is making so many waves.

You would think that, with the earth shattering performance numbers presented by DXO, that the Nikon D800 would be monopolizing the photographic conversation across the web-o-sphere but that's clearly not the case.  The camera of the season is the Olympus OMD.  But, in a disconnect, the cameras most existing professionals will use from now until the near future will be traditional, full frame cameras.  To be more precise, the overwhelming majority of existing professionals will buy and use the Canon 5Dmk3 and the Nikon D800 and it's because they have already bought into a commercial paradigm that is too scary for them to turn away from. And because they are not risk takers.

For the last decade the drumbeat of common knowledge has been to embrace two camera features:  One is the lure of full frame that came from not being able to buy cost effective full frame cameras from Canon until 2007 and not being able to buy any full frame camera at all from Nikon until the introduction of the D3 in 2009.  The other "must have" feature has always been massive resolution.  The more the better.  But crucially, for those with their noses pressed hardest to the paradigm, over 20 megapixels.

The reasons for this selection process are many but I suspect it goes back to the idea that being part of the pack is safer than wondering through the savanna alone. It also paid off in producing images that were high enough quality to pass the test for most clients, be they magazines, ad agencies or direct to businesses.  But part of the appeal is what always makes the Bell Curve relevant = most purchasers are not early adopters, are not on the cutting edge and seek the tried and true solution, vetted by the more adventurous. If they bought a Canon 5Dmk2 a year or two ago they would be able to tell clients that they were shooting with "an industry standard."

A current selection from the big two buys them the same cover.  So why all the noise about the Olympus?  I think that people have, for years, understood that it was possible to reduce the size, weight and costs of camera systems with new technology.  Nikon and Canon had lots of legacy lenses in the pipeline and a leadership position in large sensors so it didn't make sense for them to embrace new lens mounts and new camera sizing.  Olympus tried to compete with their four thirds cameras but their dependence on a moving mirror technology meant that the cameras couldn't be reduced in size enough to make a difference when viewed next to their competitors.

By removing the mirror altogether Olympus could now make (in the micro four thirds space) a line of cameras based around a much smaller lens mount.  That meant the cameras could be much smaller too. And the actual lenses.

The first few iterations were aimed in the right direction but issues abounded.  Especially for professionals.  The lack of a built in eye level finder meant sacrificing the hot shoe in exchange for viewfinder usability.  The focusing was too slow.  The response of the cameras was slow for professional work.  And the sensor they were using in the EP1, EP2 and even in the EP3 didn't perform at the level of the their APS-C competitors.

The demand for a small camera was clearly there.  At least for a huge number of non-professionals who didn't need big bodies to impress clients, giant lenses for sports magazine work, or the safety of the herd mentality.  The ones who would embrace a great, small camera system were the same ones who restlessly rotated between Panasonic LX-5's,  Canon G12's, Leica X1's and a series of small interchangeable lens cameras from Olympus, Panasonic, Sony and Samsung.  They were all looking for the same thing:  A cost effective package that, when used well, would create the same kind of results, on paper or on screen,  they were getting from a Canon 7D or a Nikon D7000 but in a smaller package with much smaller lenses.

Last year was a turning point for the micro four thirds systems.  Part of the momentum in their direction was created by the introduction of four new lenses that the segment desperately needed.
The Olympus 12mm 2.0 and 45mm 1.8 added critical focal lengths and lens speeds the market had been asking for.  The 25mm 1.4 added the normal lens mastery (hello HCB) that had been missing and the announcement of the 70mm f1.8 by Olympus signalled that they were committed to making serious camera equipment again.  Deep breath.

When the OM-D hit it became an instant hit (back-ordered everywhere) because of three critical features:  A set of lenses people wanted, at one third the size of similar lenses for traditional digital cameras.  Very fast and sure autofocus.  And the image quality that the market had been demanding.  The camera now achieves an image quality at parity with it's similarly priced competitors. And that is it's most compelling new feature.  Parity.

The market wanted the size reduction.  The market wanted the cool lenses.  The market wanted fast and sure autofocusing.  But they were not willing to give up perceived image quality of existing cameras in exchange for the benefits of the size and weight reduction.  When Olympus removed IQ barriers all of the other features were unleashed to become market drivers.

While people can argue the relative merits of OVF versus EVF for as long as they have breath, the tipping point for the entire mirrorless catagory is the adaptation of high quality EVFs.  It is so for Sony, Panasonic and Olympus. And, as the fastest growing category of serious cameras it will drive EVFs into the other segments of the market at a much greater speed. The EVF makes all the cameras all terrain photo tools.  From high sun to no light.

The OMD is nicely designed and feels good in the hand.  The finder works well but it is not this camera per se, that is moving the market, rather it is the confluence of technology, the desire to physically downsize systems and the desire to lower costs that make the camera an important mile stone.

Another aspect that is rarely mentioned is the relatively open standard of the lens mount.  Something that is not currently lost on Canon users.  I've read statements by quite a number who would like to get into the Nikon system in order to leverage their perception that the performance of the new D800 is a must have for their market niche.  The barrier is the need to totally exchange all of their Canon lenses for Nikon lenses.  They will lose money.  And, sadly, when Canon comes out with their 54 megapixel, full frame camera in a year or two the same users will lose money switching back.  If you limit your system choices to variants in the micro four thirds segment you can freely invest in bodies from different makers and still use the lenses you've selected.  And, for the most part, they will be lenses optimized for the sensor size.

The reality as I see it is this:  Most of the cameras on the market right now, that have recent sensors of 16 megapixels and more, will do a good job creating the files we need for most of our uses.  In web advertising, most print, all newspaper, high res monitor display, etc. the 12 megapixel cameras dating back to the Nikon D2X are all perfectly capable.  The newest cameras offer lower high ISO noise.  Fees are flattening for most professional work.  It could be because people's approach to photography is pretty much homogeneously aligned.  (and that is not necessarily a dig at the capabilities of the photographers as so much work is driven by client desires, comprehensive layouts and expectations.)  It could be because of market forces.  But clients now understand, perhaps better than their suppliers, that tour de force photo tool inventory isn't nearly as important as it once was and, that by any measure  even the less expensive tools are of such high quality today that, practically, they are interchangeable.

Once professional photographers catch up they will return to the time honored marketing tradition of selling their personal vision instead of their technical inventory.  At that point they'll consider the same cameras that their hobbyist counterparts are embracing today.  And for all the same reasons.

It's good to remember that in the age of the Nikon F2 and the Canon F1 that the most popular professional photographer tool was the Nikon FM or the Canon AE-1.  Both were small, light and capable. Neither were originally aimed at professionals but were quickly adopted for many of the same reasons m4:3rds is in ascendency today:  Smaller, lighter, easier to use, cheaper and just as good image quality.

The Olympus is selling like hot cakes not because it is so good (and it is a very good camera) but because it represents a tipping point into a sea change of camera buying by most serious amateur photographers.  The fact that it has been anointed by no less than DPR is a testimony both to the camera and also to the prescience of the uber-marketers that the dam has indeed broken for a whole category and that the lines between camera types are being erased.

If you can't imagine them prying your hands off your "full sized" body or your eye from your optical viewfinder, and you can't imagine not hearing the clickty clack of your mirror banging around as you shoot photographs then you may be the newest iteration of all those people who, in the early part of this century, were still resisting any experimentation with digital imaging and  predicting that it would be years at least, and maybe decades, before digital technology would be as good as film......

The OM-D is the lighting rod.  It's the shot over the bow that says this (the sector)  is both good enough and, in many ways, better.  The real alternative?  Big ass medium format.  But that's a whole nother blog.

The traditional, big DSLR?  Quickly becoming the Firebird Trans Am of an older generation.  Wearing their Members Only jackets and revving up their engines... While the world drives by in a Prius.  Or, are you still using your Motorola Brick cellphone instead of an iPhone?

Finally, everyone I know has asked if I have an OMD, if I have one on order, if I'm getting one from somewhere.  And if not, when?  The reality is that while I like the camera just fine and would love to own one I'm intrigued by rumors of a new Panasonic GH3.  I'm still having fun with the Sony's and I'm in no rush.  It's all fun.

Additional reading: http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2012/01/its-new-year-im-playing-with-new-camera.html

Beauty and the Beast.

Noellia

Me.

We have hit our 5,000,000th page view. Yippee ! Another milestone.

I thought I'd celebrate with a gallery of my most popular images.....

www.kirktuck.com

Austin's Portrait Photographer.

Mother and Boy at Street Festival.

Sony a77 camera. ISO 50. Hasselblad 80mm Zeiss Planar lens.  f4.  Click on the image to enlarge.

The invitation to coffee that will almost assuredly cost me $1500.

This is the new OM-D with a Leica 25mm f1.4 Summilux hanging off the front.

I should have used caller I.D.  I should have feigned some contagious illness but I didn't.  I accepted an invitation to have coffee with my photographer friend, Frank, and now I think it's going to cost me.  Big time.  You see, I've been trying to avoid looking at the OM-D EM-5 directly.  When I go to Precision Camera I avert my eyes away from the Olympus case and chant, over and over again, "Sony. Sony. Sony."  I've been an Olympus Pen fan since the 1970's and I've been a digital Pen fan since the first day the EP-2 hit the stores.  Especially with the grace note of the elegant VF-2 electronic viewfinder perched regally but functionally in the accessory shoe.  I rushed out to buy the first EP-3 in town and it's so good I thought I'd never want to upgrade to a new Pen so quickly.

But there it was.  Unassuming but gaunt and with hip understatement.  Frank knew how to play me.  Like a sommelier showing off a wonderful vintage bottle of Petrus.  Almost daring me not to try a sample. He reached into his Domke bag and pulled out the OMD and presented it to me with the ultimate, modern Olympus lens cleverly clicked into the lens mount.  It was the 45mm 1.8, a lens that compels me to never sell a Pen body again.  Not even to make room for a new one.

I lifted the camera up, switched on the power and brought it to my eye.  I was expecting the same electronic viewfinder performance I got with the VF-2 because the specs are similar but it was nicer.  More refined.  The optics in front of the screen were clearer and cleaner.  The image was so well calibrated that I could move my eye from the finder then to one side to directly observe the object I'd focused on and the effect was almost identical.  The finder easily rivals the clarity and color accuracy of the Sony a77 or Nex7 EVFs.  

At this point you can head over to DPReview and read all the specs.  You can also read their test reports.  They'll tell you that the OMD is on par with the best of the APS-C cameras, like the Nikon D7000 or the Canon 60D.  That the high ISO is clean as fresh laundry right up to 6400 ISO.  That the buffer is quick to clear with the right cards.  That the frame rate nearly twice as fast as a D800.

But here's the one thing they won't tell you and it may make all the difference in the world to you if you are a camera sensualist:  It has the nicest and quietest sounding shutter I've heard since the Olympus e1 camera from 2004.  But it's even quieter and more refined than that high water mark of shutter elegance.  It may be the perfect camera shutter from a auditory point of view.  The sound of the the shutter is what I imagine the door of a Bentley car feels like when it shuts.  Reason enough to own the camera even if it were only as good in the files as its predecessor...

But as the web at large will tell you, the images are wonderful.  

I don't have any first hand information (yet) about the images.  But I trust some of my friends who got their cameras early and have been raving about them ever since.  No one is bothered by the much discussed noise from the image stabilization, in my crowd.  I put my ear to the camera while sitting at an uncrowded Starbucks at the end of the day and I couldn't hear it at all.  If the noise bothers people they must be living in anechoic chambers and shooting with the cameras right next to their ears.  The camera had me at......'snik'.

If you plan to get one I'm recommending the black body because it looks so stealthy with the Leica 25mm mounted on the front.  It also looks really good with the black battery grip attached. More advice?  If you don't already have a collection of Pen or Pan lenses then forego the kit lens and select the 12mm Olympus, the 25mm Leica/Panasonic and the 45mm 1.8.  You'll have the important bases covered and the whole kit will weigh less than a Canon 24-105mm L lens (without body attached!!!).  If you want to branch out you'll find a good mix of lenses between Olympus, Panasonic, Leica and Sigma. Not to mention the millions of other brand lenses you can press into service with the right adapter.  It's an amazing leap forward for Olympus.  Did I mention how much I liked the EVF?  Oh?  I did?  Okay.

How fast is my camera? How fast is my brain?

Sometimes beautiful people zoom into and out of your field of vision very, very quickly. Few things are as frustrating to a photographer as missing a good shot of a beautiful stranger.  Mostly I miss things because I don't anticipate events very well.  Sometimes I miss a shot because mycamera wasn't ready.  It was turned off, or "asleep" or the lens was capped.  Sometimes I miss shots because the camera's exposure settings aren't set right.

I was holding my camera in my right hand when I saw this beautiful person in my extreme peripheral vision.  She had slowed down at the intersection to check for cars.  I brought my camera to my eye while giving the shutter button a nudge.  The camera sprung into action, I framed as she accelerated by, I manually focused and snapped one shot.  And then she was gone.

I usually don't chimp much.  This time I was anxious to see if I'd gotten anything. This was my frame (above).

When I'm out shooting I don't turn my camera off. Ever. I turn my cameras off when I get into my car to go home.  That's why I usually carry an extra battery when I head out.

I never use a lens cap when I'm walking around.  Why put barriers in the way of getting a good shot?  I put my lens caps back onto my lenses when I get into my car to go home.

If I'm shooting in manual exposure I try to keep tabs on changing light and keep my camera operationally current. Then, if something cool happens I have a better chance of being ready.

If I'm using a manual focusing lens I tend to pre-focus the lens for the kind of work I'll anticipate doing.  As I was walking I had the focus preset for around fifteen feet.  When I brought the camera to my eye I only had to fine tune the focus. Not start from scratch.

I'm not that sharp and my reflexes have slowed down so I need to give myself every advantage in situations where things crop up quickly.  My camera is only faster than me if I don't handcuff it with my own bad habits.

This was taken on Saturday.  Shot with the Hasselblad 80mm Planar lens.  Aperture f4.  ISO 50.  I was able to get good focus by using the focus peaking feature in my camera.  Sometimes you get lucky.  Most of the time you make your own luck.

Street Musicians and their dog.

They played with an ernest honesty. 

I put a few dollars in their case.  I liked the way 

their little dog "owned" the violin case.

It's a rough way to earn a living.

I wish them good luck.

Techno-Babble: Sony a77 with adapted Hasselblad 80mm lens. ISO 50. Lightly post processed in SnapSeed.

WAA. WAA. LEDs can't be good until they are over 90 CRI. Oh yeah? We've got that right now.

I know, I know.  You tried a tiny little battery powered LED panel a few years ago and it didn't put out enough light and the light it did put out needed to be color corrected.  That means they'll never, ever change and you'll never have to consider LED lights ever again. Ever.  Cause nothing ever changes.

Sadly, reality is about to intrude into your lighting world view.  I was researching new products from notable manufacturers and I've found that there are a number of new LED lights that are just now hitting the market and they've all crested the 91+ CRI threshold.  That means they are getting close to pure daylight rendering in imaging applications.  One of the companies I watch is Lowel.  They've been making lights for still photographers, movie makers and videographers for decades.  Their founder, Ross Lowel,  wrote a great book on lighting called, Matters of Light and Depth, which I've read through so often the pages are raw. (He was a cinema lighting pro).

Lowell jumped into the LED market with a small panel that blended lights between tungsten and daylight just a couple of years ago.  It's called a Lowel Blender.  It's a small light that mainly used camera mounted by electronic news gathering, ENG (read: video) guys but also, increasingly, by cinematographers.  It's metal, tough as nails and bright for the size.  Turn a dial to go from 3200K to Daylight, or anywhere in between.

The engineers at Lowel bided their time until the LED bulb makers started supplying the markets with higher accuracy bulbs.  Their new Prime(tm) line are all rated at 91 CRI (Color Rendering Index) which is a gold standard for professionals in a number of imaging fields.  Here's the webpage for their Prime(tm) panels: http://www.lowel.com/prime/

In one fell swoop the folks at Lowel have vacated the one niggling problem with the previous generation of under $2,000 panels, the tendency to have color spikes or a color cast that photographers needed to correct for best results.  The lights are available as either tungsten fixtures of daylight fixtures and feature a 50 degree light spread angle.  The chassis are all metal and have a functional yoke system for adjusting them around one axis.

The lights are available as 200 bulb fixtures or 400 bulb fixtures.

The interesting thing to me is how the improvements came about. I don't mean the engineering but the marketing that drove the engineering.  We creative people think that we drive the industries that we buy from but apparently nothing could be further from the truth.  When I spoke to a product manager at Lowel I guessed that movie and video professionals demanded better performance and that led to the development of more color correct LEDs.  The real story comes  from the retail sector.  Apparently major retailers found out that higher CRI lights made products look much, much better than the typical mixed store lighting.  They're the ones who started demanding better and better color performance.  It started in the higher end retailers and it's relentlessly trickling down into the mainstream, big box stores.  It's all about retail sales.

Humans like to see colors clearly and cleanly and marketing tests showed increased wallet response from consumers under improved light sources.  We benefit from the big store's massive retail buying power. But Lowel isn't the only manufacturer who will incorporate the new technology.  I'm sure that current bulbs with lower CRIs will be phased out as economies of scale come into play and the new bulbs will become an industry standard.  Give the science guys five more years and every LED will approach 100 CRI.  Except my own custom LEDs.  They're 110 CRI. (just kidding, the scale only goes to 100).

You can find out more about LED lights and applying LED lighting to still photography, here:  The Ultimate LED book for photographers. 

Need to know more about lights and lighting equipment in general?  You could do worse than to pick up a copy of the Lighting Equipment Book......

To see a wide range of LED product that's pounding and stomping into the general photo market check out B&H's website (no affiliation).  Try here: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/LED-Light-Sources/ci/12248/N/4294551085  Warning, there are many, many pages of LED light/candy to look at...

Street Shooting at Cinco de Mayo. Photographer as anthropologist.

I'm still breaking in the Sony cameras so I walked through the thong with the camera set to face detection, zoned autofocus, single shot mode.  I put the camera in the "A" mode and worked with the Sony 35mm 1.8 DT lens, set to f3.5.  I would see something interesting and bring the camera up to my eye and shoot.  I took the strap off the camera.

Go see my post about EVFs over at The Online Photographer. Please.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html

It's a fairly long article about why I use EVFs and why I think they will be the future of camera designs going forward.  You might as well get to know them.....

 But you've got to have the "skull and cross bones" strap.  That makes it all official.

Great Piece about Art on A Photo Editor Today.

I'm posting this because it's interesting and germaine to our recent discussions about art.  Ooops.  ART.


http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2012/05/07/you-dont-always-get-art-but-we-still-need-more-of-it/

Have a read and see what you think...

Post coffee world.

Sony a77.  35mm 1.8 DT lens.  ISO 50.

Did your parents have a Chevy when you were growing up?

I'm pretty sure that most of my European and Asian readers did not.  But in Texas the various full sized Chevrolet sedans, like the Impala, the Belair and the Biscayne were all over the place.  We had a brown, four door Biscayne that eventually became the car my older brother and I were allowed to drive in high school.  After my junior year in high school I worked a Summer job so I could buy my own car.  It was a normal thing for boys to do in Texas in the early 1970's.  I made just enough money to buy a 1965 Buick Wildcat with an enormous V8 engine and an equally big set of bench seats.  If you were my height you could comfortably sleep in the backseat.  And on the occasions, when vast numbers of my fellow high school students flocked to the Texas Gulf Coast for vacations and long weekends I often did, choosing to spend what would have been "motel money" for food and fireworks.  I fondly remember the bottle rocket battles on the beach.  Always fun...until (according to someone's mom) someone gets their eyeball shot out.

We'd finish school on Friday afternoon, skip swim practice, fill up our tanks with thirty-two cents per gallon premium gas, try to cadge $20 of spending money from our indulgent parents and then head south with a pair of surf shorts and a couple of T-shirts.  We brought our flip-flops so we could go into the Whataburger restaurant in Port Aransas.  We'd live on burgers and Cokes.  Some of the kids would live on beer.

After spending the weekend slathering our half naked bodies (and the bodies of our wonderful girlfriends) with Johnson and Johnson baby oil---to promote tanning, and eating trash, and trying to look cool and getting stung by little jelly fish we'd wait until the last ray of sun bounced off the water and then get back in our cars and head back to San Antonio Sunday night.  We'd be cranking the Moody Blues or Jethro Tull or Led Zeppelin on our cassette players and drive 80 miles per hour with the window all down so we could feel the warm, salt air wrap all sticky around us.  We were American kids from comfortable families. It seemed like it would be this way forever....

Those are the memories that flooded into my brain when I walked into a Cinco de Mayo festival on 2nd Street yesterday and came face to face with a beautifully restored Chevy Impala.  One look at the tail lights and I was humming the Beach Boys, Good Vibrations, all over again.

I saved a telling memory of my high school vacation history in one snap of the shutter.  I'll print this one and put it next to my desk to remind me that there's always something more fun to do than work.

Tech notes: Sony a77 camera.  ISO 50.  Big and Meaty Jpeg setting. Hasselblad 80mm Zeiss Planar lens at f4 with the Fotodiox adapter.  Post processed in SnapSeed for a bit more "structure."

"Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world."

Austin Texas Portrait Photographer.

My camera likes to shoot bright colors. And optimistic visual propaganda..

I like the juxtaposition of the wide shot of the alley way with the building in the background in the top shot and the close up arrangement of flowers and beads in the bottom shot.  I wasn't away of the vertical blue in each shot until I edited the images later.

These were taken within minutes of each other downtown at the Pecan Street Festival this afternoon.  In each case I used a Sony a77 camera, liberally "pre-chimping" and using the same 35mm 1.8 Sony DT lens.  Nothing was planned.  It's all happenstance.