A tree on the Capitol grounds. Taken between work shots.

I found the perfect commercial use for the Panasonic fz 1000 camera. A client that I just finished shooting 30 beautiful, environmental portraits for followed up the portrait assignment with a request for artistic detail shots of corners of buildings with dramatic skies behind them, abstract urban and construction photographs and other images that would make wonderfully engaging backgrounds for the main pages of their website. Since it's the kind of work I also love to shoot for myself I was very happy with the commission. It sounds to me as if someone just said, "Walk around downtown Austin and shoot anything that catches your eye. Be sure to leave a bit of clean space in the top left corner for our logo treatment."

The only impediment, currently, to full scale fun is the weather. We're having zany weather in Austin this Fall. Lots of cloud cover and lots of on again, off again rain showers. The photographs that the client and I have in mind are more likely to work with some deep blue sky peeking around striations and puffs of clouds. And I very much want direct, slanted sunlight on the buildings to jack the saturation and contrast to the right levels, without having to go nuts in PhotoShop.

I found some great structures over near the state capitol building ( actually, just south) and I shot as much as I could until the gray sky cover rolled back in to douse the sparkle. I looked up the weather report on my phone and it suggested that the clouds might burn off. Since I was near the capitol grounds I strolled on over and planted myself on a bench on the main pedestrian thoroughfare and indulged in some people watching while keeping part of my brain committed to the task of observing the weather.

As the clouds moved around and suggested that more visual opportunities may be nigh I gathered myself together and started walking back toward Congress Ave. and the promise of downtown. Over to my right I spied this little tree and, though I am not a landscape photographer by any means, I decided to give it a shot.

During the course of my first day out shooting the abstractions and buildings I have come to appreciate the true value proposition of the fz 1000 camera and its one inch sensor and gorgeous (for the money) EVF. The camera is fairly light (east to carry)  but it's big enough to provide a stable platform that encourages good handholding techniques. The one inch sensor means Panasonic could design a really long and good lens for the camera --- one that's perfect for shooting outside in daylight. I could go from 25mm to 400mm (all equivalent focal lengths based on 35mm) and get the perfect crop for every shot I saw.

While I'm not sure the image stabilization in this camera is quite the equal of the vaunted, Olympus EM5.2 it's no slouch. When I push the shutter button half way down the image in the finder becomes very stable and still. Having examined hundreds and hundreds of stabilized files at this point, from this camera, I can say that I have yet to find a photo that was shot at a reasonable setting which is not tack sharp. Since the lens is well corrected and since these kinds of scenic shots don't call for very narrow depth of field I am happy to leave the lens set at f5.6 for almost everything. Again, looking through the take each afternoon, I am happy with the detail and sharpness of the lens. The only thing it requires in post processing, to be totally competitive with my other cameras is a boost of contrast and a little nudge on the clarity slider in Lightroom. A little correction and the files pop.

So far the camera meter and I agree almost all the time. There are instances where I want my image to be darker and moodier but my thumb falls right on top of the exposure compensation dial and the amount of correction is displayed in the finder. I am certain that (barring camera boredom syndrome) I will be able to handle the whole project quite well with just this Panasonic camera.

And the other attributes speak for themselves: A full range of focal lengths in one. No need to carry any extra accessories or lenses in a bag. I brought along an extra battery in my pocket but even after shooting over the course of three hours yesterday I still did not need to grab that spare. The one accessory I did take with me, attached to the camera at all times, was a circular polarizing filter. It makes the skies more fun.

It was cloudy most of this morning and, while we have a break now, it's supposed to cloud up a bit later on. I'm not concerned, the client understands the nature of this kind of shooting and is the picture of patience. I'll shoot until I have a nice catalog for them, then we'll know when the project is really over.

I'm not saying you personally need one of these amazing bridge cameras but I'm pretty sure if I didn't have an fz 1000 I'd be working harder and not getting anything that would please me more, as far as the files go. An alternative? The little Sony RX10.2. I've been playing around with one and it is at least as nice as the first version I owned. Each camera has its strengths and weaknesses. Right now I'm just appreciating that wonderful reach of the Panasonic's Leica designed zoom lens. It's really well done.

Hope you are having a fun Wednesday. I'm spending the rest of my day retouching portraits. But nice portraits of interesting people...  I'll share with you when their site goes live.

A Collection of Really Good, Used Photo Books has Come to My Attention. I'm posting the link to a classified ad on the Rangefinder forum. I can vet the seller personally...

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost-classifieds/showproduct.php/product/48429/title/great-film-photographers/cat/20

Our friend and fellow photographer, Dave Jenkins (a long time part of the VSL family) collected photo books for most of his career and is now selling them. Dave is still a working photographer and his collection of books includes many titles

 that I have on my own shelves. There are some real gems in his list and he's selling them at incredibly low prices.

While the web keeps trying to kill physical books there is tremendous value in sitting down in a nice chair, with a cup of coffee or tea, or a glass of wine, and looking through a well curated collection of images all in one place. All well printed and made to exactly the right size for immersive viewing.

I am posting this list because I think you might find a lot of value in these books. I already have the Skrebneski book but it is so good (and Dave's price is so low) that I may have to pick up a second copy unless someone beats me to it.

disclaimer: Dave is not affiliated with VSL. I am receiving no payment in either financial instruments or gifts of books to post this on VSL. There is no affiliate commission  to be earned. Dave Jenkins is totally responsible for each transaction and fulfillment. Given my long tenure of friendship with Dave I can recommend him wholeheartedly as a person and a vendor. 

Treat yourself and buy some books. The classifieds at Rangefinder are very well done and I think you can burrow down into the offering and see the cover images. Get reckless. Buy some history in the art that you love.

Testing a cheap lens under the conditions I would normally use a lens like this... A Rokinon 85mm f1.4 on a Nikon D750 body.

Please don't rush to help me select a "better" lens. I've owned two versions of the Nikon 85mm 1.4 (MF and AF-D), I currently own the very good 85mm f1.8G and I've owned literally dozens of Canon, Leica and Zeiss 85mm lenses. This article is not a plea for anyone to step in and "guide" me. I am not woefully undereducated in what is currently (or previously) available in this focal length, for Nikon. 

I was curious. That's why I took the particular lens out to shoot in the near dark. About a year ago, just after wedging myself back into the Nikon system, I came across a used Rokinon 85mm 1.4 lens in the used case at Precision Camera. They didn't think much of the lens and sold it to me, willingly, for around $125. I had owned the later, "cine" version of this lens for the Sony Alpha system so I was more or less familiar with its general characteristics but I was happy to have this lens instead of the cine version for Nikon precisely because this one has click stopped aperture settings and it also has a chip that transmits f-stop information to the Nikon cameras, as well as enabling focus confirmation. 

What that means is I can focus wide open and when I hit the shutter button the lens stops down to the aperture I've set using one of the control wheels. In short, the lens works just like one of the regular Nikon AF-D lenses ---- minus the auto focus. 

I've done a little bit of work with this lens and, like most modern, short tele lenses in play since at least the 1960's it can be very sharp and contrasty at f5.6 and f8.0. It was difficult to focus the lens on an APS-C body but I no longer have any of the smaller sensor Nikon bodies and I'm finding that I have a better chance of hitting sharp focus on the D810 and D750 focusing screens. 

What I wanted to find out is whether or not the lens is good at its widest f-stops in real shooting situations to which I can relate. I headed out the door for a walk on Saturday evening, just as the sun was setting. By the time I got to downtown there was only an afterglow of sunlight. 

Then I saw the space aliens try to kidnap Madonna from her Bentley and..

If you have not yet read "The Lisbon Portfolio" I've put up a small excerpt with which to entice you. It's from the last section of the story.

http://thelisbonportfolio.blogspot.com/2015/11/henry-white-hero-of-lisbon-portfolio-is.html

A Gallery of Sixth Street, SXSW images from earlier. A small, Friday portfolio.

flowing through the streets of downtown Austin watching the swirl of people.

Small, black OMD EM5.2 + Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8 X

You can click on any of these and see them in a gallery 2100 pixels wide...

The Olympus EM-5.2 and the Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8 lens. A very nice combination to shoot with everyday.

The beauty of owning several camera systems, one big and super high res, the other nicely sized and brilliantly portable, is that you can select the one you feel aligned with in the moment and leverage both the emotional connection to the camera as well as the technical attributes you feel you need in the moment. 

I've owned a couple of the Olympus EM5.2 cameras for many months now and find them to be wonderfully compatible with my nature when it comes to ambling around aimlessly, waiting for unexpected images to fall into my lap. I use the camera with the optional battery grip and find the combination just right. Without the battery grip parts of my right hand just don't fit anywhere and hands hate to exist without good operational boundaries. The grip with the extra battery also provides that existential calm and reassurance that one's camera won't become useless halfway through a walk, presaged by the orange, blinking battery symbol. 

You may have noticed that I don't like to carry multiple lenses with me on these unstructured walks; usually I select an normal focal length, which for me is a 50mm to 90mm equivalent, but I am equally happy with wide to short telephoto zooms. On the day I took the image above I intended to walk into downtown to see what was happening in the streets around the SXSW conferences and musical stages. A light rain had been falling all day and I decided to use the 12-35mm Panasonic lens on the camera to take advantage of the weather sealing provided by the pair. 

The camera function perfectly and, when I was immersed in non-photographic moments, hung almost transparently by my side.

Emotionally I love the little Olympus and Panasonic cameras most of all my gear. Intellectually, I like the Nikon D810 and the 85mm f1.8 best of all my gear. I'm sure people who have reconciled the two sides of their brains, and the emotional versus intellectual frisson can be happy with one well researched choice. But it certainly is fun to order up something a little different every day. 

After shooting the flowers I trudge downtown and shot on the slick streets. But that's the next blog...

I saw this video on PetaPixel and thought it was so frustratingly fun. Been there, didn't do that....

Spending the day printing portfolio photographs with the Canon Pro 100 I recently bought (dirt cheap...). Success.

I've been guilty, over the last few years, of not printing nearly as much as I should have been. Partly, I avoided printing because my older printer had seen many miles on the print head and it just wasn't giving me the quality of prints I wanted. But even more probable is my (perhaps misguided) idea that prints had lots their cachet and their primacy.

My older printer, a Canon Pro9000, temporarily gave up the ghost about three weeks before the start of the one job I do each year where I need to print a bunch of prints overnight. While a reader supplied the magic fix to revive the printer the next day, I had already pushed the button on my computer and bought a replacement. The older printer, full of brand new ink, got passed along to a younger photographer who desperately needed any printer she could get her hands on.

I bought a second set of inks and plenty of paper and one stormy Saturday night, two weekends ago, I sat in the studio at a little after midnight and started printing out 70-80 color prints to deliver a bit later in the morning. I was printing right out of PhotoShop and I got the color and density dialed in pretty quickly. The client spilled Diet Coke over some of the prints which required a quick reprinting but that's a different story.

The new printer, a Canon Pro 100, was good for seven or eight dozen 5x7 inch prints and a handful of invoices and it still was running on the original ink cartridges.

In the second half of the week things finally slowed down and I was able to start thinking about marketing once again. I decided that it would be good to update my printed portfolio and show off some of the work I've been doing in the last year. This would give me something interesting and new to show to existing clients; a reminder, if you will.

Looking around the studio I realized I had several empty 13x19 inch, leather portfolios as well as a nearly full box of 13x19 Moab Lasal Photo Matte inkjet paper. Now it was time to really zero in the new printer and get some work together to show off. I've spent time today, between swimming, napping and lunch, printing twelve different images. Some came out of the printer just perfect and some required a print or two more to get just right. The printer is not fast but it's also not slow. It takes three or four minutes to print out a 13x19"  print at the highest resolution.

The colors seem to match what I'm seeing on my 27 inch iMac screen pretty faithfully. And, looking at the prints, I realize how much I like the ritual and pleasure of looking at prints. Holding the large prints in my hands and walking over to the good light coming through four large windows makes me realize the actual improvements in the cameras I've been using. The prints are remarkably noiseless and there's no banding anywhere.

My goal between now and next Monday is to have 20 beautiful prints done, sequenced and in the portfolio binder. I can hardly wait to go around to the various agencies and clients I provide photographs to in order to share this new work with them. It's so different than sending a link on an e-mail and hoping that someone clicks through and sees the work. Often, I think, people get an e-mail like the one I envision and, while sitting over coffee at the local coffee shop, open up the link and quickly scroll through the work on their phone. Sitting in a conference room flipping outsized pages and being able to really look into the details of a printed photograph should be a totally different marketing (and viewing) experience.

The printer is nice. So far it's problem free. It does like to eat the gray inks more than anything else but the complete ink sets aren't too expensive and I doubt I'll evolve into a "power user," going through $$$$ worth of ink each month. We generally only update portfolios once or twice a year.

If I were printing fine art prints for sale (wishful thinking?) I'm sure I might have been better off getting the new Epson 800. I'm pretty sure it's a great 17 inch wide printer but I'm equally sure that, if I made that big of an investment in a printer, I'd quickly be off in the tall grass, spending hours and hours trying vainly to make each print perfect. In the end I would end up with a big, big stack of wonderful prints but a big, big hole in both my wallet and my diminishing store of spare time.

Still though, it felt great to be printing again. I will say, I think the Canon consumer printers are for people who just want to push a button or two and get a really decent print. The Epsons seem like printers for people who love to fuss and chase that last 5%. In the end any direction you go with these ink sponges is a compromise.