How am I shooting now? What's changed in the past few years? Months?

hardly looks like hydrogen to me...

I'm nothing if not flexible in my adaptation to new toys and tools in my business and hobby. For years I worked mostly with big Nikon and Canon cameras and I would buy "point and shoot" compact digital cameras for fun shooting, or in situations where the image was secondary to the actual experience. I bought into that paradigm for the same reason we all do; it was the prevailing thought structure for photographers, reinforced by advertising and group reinforcement. A perpetual motion machine, stuck in place by its own inertia and centrifugal force. For me the walls of the construct began to change with the introduction of really convincing point and shoot digitals like the Canon G10 (which I sorely regret selling a few years back), and various, similar cameras like the Panasonic LX-5. I even went through a dalliance with long zoom range bridge cameras and my equipment cabinet was littered with Canon SX20's, 30's and 40's until Ben and his friends sacrificed a number of them to the vagaries of kinetic video production or random skate boarding accidents. We still have one or two hanging around for "high risk" situations...

But the cameras that broke the big camera hegemony for me were the second generation of Olympus Pen micro 4:3rds cameras and their subsequent Panasonic cousins. With the Olympus EP-2, and later, the EP-3 I experienced comparable image quality (compared to my previous bigger cameras, not exactly to contemporary big cameras) which allowed me to embrace the smaller cameras and do work that was very satisfying for me. The proof of value for me of the new, small system cameras became evident on a spur of the moment trip I took to Marfa, Texas (and points west) in the Spring of 2010. On that adventure I took only EP-2 and EPL cameras and assorted lenses. My images were everything I'd hoped they would be and the 12 megapixel files were fine and dandy for prints up to 15 by 15 inches. (Go print something from a small frame camera like a Sony RX100 or a Nikon V1 and you'll likely end up questioning your previous cache of beliefs about quality and camera cost/size equations. Really).

As of the beginning of this year I had only one remaining prejudice/long held belief/precept of faith and that was the firm and tenacious religiously held belief that I could not and would not use a camera that had no eye level viewfinder. Just wouldn't do it. Interesting that for the last month I've been coming up to speed with a camera that has......no eye level viewfinder. It's a Samsung NX 300. And in the spirit of total disclosure I must state that the camera was sent to me by the folks at Samsung for free. They have given me the camera. The tenuous string they attached (but without a legally binding contract...) was a request that I post 4 images a week to their Facebook page between now and September. Considering that I tend to shoot four images in any given hour of the day I thought it would be an easy mark to achieve. 

My finder prejudice made me a bit reticent to accept the offer but only a fool turns down a free camera with lots of potential so I decided to put aside my own self induced moratorium re:  this class of camera and give it the old college try (but without the faculty politics).  Long story short the casual viewfinder style of shooting is so different and even purging to me that this has become my de facto carry around camera. While it might have seemed churlish and challenging for me to bring my full frame Sony cameras to Chris Archer's grand video project it seemed natural for me to bring along a small and inoffensive, tourist-style camera with which to capture behind the scenes images. And  truth be told it was remarkable facile to use in the low light and dusty environment. Since I have only the kit lens I wasn't about to change lenses with the sand flying around and I found two ways to hold the camera (by using tension on the neckstrap) that allowed me to hold the camera without much shake at all.

What initially drew me to use the camera more and more were the very clean files and the very neutral look of the color. Very nice files with a high degree of sharpness. The second thing that cemented my daily, casual use of the camera is its innocuous look. While it's nicely designed it does scream "consumer product" in its very contenance. 

On my first outings in bright sun I had all the viewing problems I'd anticipated, the screen was all but invisible to me without prodigious efforts to screen it with my hands, black baseball cap, part of an discarded garbage bag. As a result I started taking a large Hoodman loupe around with me when I knew I'd be shooting in the sun. The other detriment to anyone in my age group will be your ability to focus on the screen with acuity. I can do it well enough for casual images but I work better if I stick a pair of reading glasses in my pocket as an assist. Now that I do that I've started to leave the training wheels (the loupe) at home and work with more confidence in the field. It may also be that I've narrowed down the feature set I like to work with and don't need to hit the menu as often.

The fruits of my labors...

Now I'm comfortable using the camera like a hipster. Eventually I'll find a small screen protector that folds out and shades the screen a bit. I'll keep the glasses at hand. But it all started me thinking today as I was reviewing images I'd been making with the camera. Beyond my own weaknesses (proximate vision) what was at the heart of my prejudice against using the camera in this fashion?  Afterall, I'd spent the better part of 20 years staring down into a reversed, ground glass screen on my Hasselblad (the big difference being that the H-Blad screen was much darker, much less resolved and much harder to see without popping up the magnifier and essentially sealing off the viewing system from outside light). And it was the same manner of viewing for the many Rolleiflex and Mamiya twin lens cameras I owned and used promiscuously over the years...

So really, all the Samsung NX 300 needs to make me love it without conditions is the equivalent of the Hasselblad waistlevel finder with pop up maginifier that worked so well for so long.

Once I jump that hurdle there is really nothing I like less about this camera's interface or image quality than what I get with my Sony Nex cameras. In fact, the menu in this camera is much, much cleaner and better! The images are different. The Sony's seem to have a bit more color and tonal bite than the Samsung but the Samsung files are more open and don't have an oppressive or heavy feel to the colors.

Here's something I didn't expect when using the rear screen...I've reverted to a much more careful compositional rigor than I employ when I use an eye level composition method. Much more rigorous! I look for the out of focus stuff in the background and I'm much more aware of juxtapositions of shapes and people. I'll admit it, I'm kind of hooked. 

Note to Samsung: Send me a couple more bodies and three or four juicy lenses and I'll trade you for my Nex stuff. I'm learning a new way to shoot and, yes, I could do the same with the screens on the back of the Sony's but I have to do it this way with the Samsung. Maybe I needed to be pushed more...

At any rate the Samsung is a hands down winner in my book and I'm adjusting quickly to my hipster/dirty baby diaper camera hold....well as much as I can. I still look around to make sure no "real" photographers are around before I do it. Old habits and pretensions die hard.

Kirk Tuck tries the "retro" setting and is mildly pleased.

Ahhh. Caffee Medici. A variation from coffee on a hot summer afternoon. Loving the out of focus areas in the background.

Muted color and long dynamic range means lots of room to play in post...

It's Friday morning and I'm procrastinating because I have two writing assignments due by the end of the day. I'll make it.  By the skin of my teeth....