Why I buy lots and lots of older, Nikon Ais lenses, and use them in the business of making photographs and videos.

There are many people who would not even consider a lens that didn't autofocus, and I can understand their position. Some have poor vision and are unable to achieve sharp focus with today's DSLR focusing screens. Others feel as though technology is the salvation and advancement of every field and every pursuit. A pervasive belief that every new generation of lenses is, logically, better than the last. And a fair number of folks just haven't been exposed to the idea that some of the finest lenses are still available in somewhat good supplies on the used market.

Photographers can be an odd breed and seem always ready to choose the "idea" that a super sharp or super fast lens is innately superior to a lens with "character." Or that there are limits to how sharp a lens has to be to make a convincing and attractive photograph. But consider this: Most lens and camera development is not aimed at making stuff better, it's aimed at making stuff cheaper to make and more profitable to sell. 

While it's true that new lens coating technologies can be better, and, as regards cameras bodies, new sensors can offer better performance but, the critical thing about making great lenses is creating a process to enable and maintain tight tolerances, parallel planarity from element to element, and to use materials that ensure both precision and long term reliability.

It seems that most lenses coming from camera makers are

The Daily Double. Portraits in the morning and a video production in the afternoon. "Don't cross the streams!"

From: "The Grapes of Wrath" at Zach Theatre. Photo: ©2013 Kirk Tuck

Multiple shoot projects make for long days. Here's my Thursday saga:

I committed to two projects today and they were each a bit unusual for me. The first was to go to the offices of an advertising agency I do work for and make portraits in their small, all purpose photo/video studio. We'd be photographing four people from an accounting firm, individually. Now, most of the time I shoot in my studio or we go to a client location, commandeer a biggish conference room and shoot there. Doing the job in someone else's studio was a new wrinkle.

In keeping with my recent LED hysteria I packed up four of the big, new LED lights, appropriate light stands, two soft boxes, tripod and a bag of cameras. I went with the Nikon cameras for two reasons. First, the in-house photographer (who is also a too busy creative director) shoots with a Nikon D800 and I didn't want to spook him or create an atonal vibe by interjecting

The weather changed. I stayed in today. Well, that was because we were shooting in the studio.

It was a dark and stormy night. The winds blew through like the hounds of hell and small children cried as the thunder was so loud... It was the best of times. It was the worst of times....

So, quite a bit of feedback about my penchant for shooting under blue skies but really, I can't help it if I'm living in paradise. On the other hand, we do have the traffic...

When I was out walking and shooting yesterday the weather was perfect. Until it wasn't. The clouds started rolling in as I walked back over the pedestrian bridge away from downtown. The video shoot that had been working on the bridge was wrapping up and the models and production people were doing the mandatory selfie coda to the whole thing.

By the time I got back to my car and headed toward home the wind was starting to pick up and the temperature started dropping. Around one in the morning it got crazy windy and we got a jumbo drop sized, dramatic, inch or two of rain that swirled around and seemed to bang at every window. This morning was windy and cool.

We were scheduled to shoot in the little studio today and my client

A much needed walk with a fun lens. The Sigma 50mm f1.4 Art(sy) lens. And some ratty, old Nikon body.

I enjoyed my commercial photography project last week. Three full days of making fun photographs at a school, followed by two packed days of really intense post processing. I stayed busy over the weekend with a marketing project, two great swim practices and a lot of book reading. By the end of the workday today I was ready for a little break from the business of photography so I grabbed some toys and headed out to pursue my long overlooked hobby ---- photography. 

As a balance to my recent, near worship of the somewhat diminutive Sony RX10ii camera I chose my oldest full frame Nikon, the D610, with a battery grip attached, and the densest lens I own; the Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art lens. My primary intention was a brisk and meandering walk through the ever-changing downtown area and my secondary pursuit was to grab a few frames with the 50mm to see some apparent indication of optical quality and thereby help me justify its thousand dollar price tag. 

My walk was successful. The combination of tools (both bought used) cost me about $1700 and holds up well. I was considering jumping on the recent medium format bandwagon but realized that for about $48,000 more dollars I might (might!) get about 3-5% more usable, handheld quality out of the investment. An investment that will dive down in value faster than thirty feet per second, per second.

My eyes may be getting old and tainted by years of compromise but frankly I'm not sure I would see much of a difference between the latest cropped frame medium format camera and the mundane Nikon full framer when we post their respective images on our websites at 2100 pixels wide.... But I sure would miss the money and the opportunity loss...

So, cool (used) lens+recent (and still pretty cool) camera = happiness x 2

You can click on these images if you want to see them bigger....

A link to my Studio Portrait Lighting Class with $25 Off.

Food Photography. by Andrew Scriviani

Off Camera Flash Photography. by Neil van Niekirk

One of the original Craftsy Photo Classes and 

still one of the best! 

Night Photography. by Lance Keimig

I met Lance a couple of weeks ago in Denver

and found him to be really fun and knowledgeable 

this class reflects what he teaches in hands-on

workshops in Ireland and Iceland, as well as 

cool places around the U.S.

Narrative Photography: Storytelling with Photo

Essays. by Mike Hill.

How to make what we shoot into a cohesive

train of visual thought.

Perfecting Photoshop Portraits. by Lesa Snider

Every once in a while I find a post I've written years ago recirculating on the web. I always want to score how well I prognosticated...

https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2014/05/terminal-ubiquity-when-everyone-offers.html?showComment=1399543931722

Read this one and let me know how I did.....

Take a class: Become more skilled and knowledgable. Have more fun.

A link to my Studio Portrait Lighting Class with $25 Off.

Food Photography. by Andrew Scriviani

Off Camera Flash Photography. by Neil van Niekirk

One of the original Craftsy Photo Classes and 

still one of the best! 

Night Photography. by Lance Keimig

I met Lance a couple of weeks ago in Denver

and found him to be really fun and knowledgeable 

this class reflects what he teaches in hands-on

workshops in Ireland and Iceland, as well as 

cool places around the U.S.

Narrative Photography: Storytelling with Photo

Essays. by Mike Hill.

How to make what we shoot into a cohesive

train of visual thought.

Perfecting Photoshop Portraits. by Lesa Snider

There is a scene....

...at the very end of Federico Fellini's masterpiece movie, "La Dolce Vita" in which Marcello Mastroianni, having been up all night drinking and carousing with his friends, is down on a beach, walking along in his dinner jacket. He looks across a small inlet and sees a young, blonde girl. It is the same girl he met on a sunny afternoon at a small, beachside cafe. She was setting tables and listening to music on the radio while Mastroianni tried to write on a mechanical typewriter.

In the final scene the young girl looks at him across the inlet and the camera zooms in to show her in a head and shoulders close up. Her expression is very similar to the expression on the woman in my photograph above.

For years the expression above seemed familiar to me but I couldn't place it. It was like a reverberation or echo of an older memory.

When I saw La Dolce Vita again, recently, the connection

RPS LED Lights Assembled in preparation for Tuesday's still life assignment.

A small forest of LED lights brought together for an upcoming assignment. 

The mythology of photography as it appears on the web would have everyone believe that working photographers are wedded to their flash equipment to the exclusion of any other type of lighting gear. And, of course, the common "knowledge" of the web would be wrong yet again. Not all of us are on an endless search for TTL flash triggers that can control monolights or smaller battery powered flashes from a hundred yards away. Not all of us spend every photographic moment worrying about high speed sync or flash duration. Some of us actually want to have as much control over the nature of the light we use as we can get. 

I am prepping my studio for an assignment we'll be undertaking on Tues. Sunday is a great day to clean up, sweep and tidy since the phone isn't ringing and there isn't a growing queue of texts to which I should respond. It's also enough lead time to really think about how I will want to light the products the client brings along and also the best lights with which to work. 

I'll be shooting medical products that will, for the most part, be positioned on mannequins, but will also be photographing some prosthetics and even a wheel chair or two. All will be photographed on a white background but, joyously, the client's