Self portrait with Lumix GH5S and the Panasonic/Leica 12-60mm lens.

The pool was closed for too long over the holiday break. Our last masters swim practice before today was way back on Sunday the 23rd. That was four long days ago. We're breaking in a new pool manager and we need to consult with her before the next holiday rushes up. In past years we tried to get in a workout on the day after Christmas in order to burn of some pent up holiday energy and to give dedicated swimmers an excuse to escape, if only for a while, from the glorious fun of entertaining in-laws and keeping everyone overfed.

Last night we had a huge weather front roll in from midnight till about 2 a.m. Studio Dog huddled in the corner of a closet, I checked for clogged French drains while the rest of the family slept soundly. By first light this morning the front had blown through, scrubbed out a lot of the cedar pollen that's been making people miserable, and ushered in lowered temperatures and clear, dry skies.

I grabbed a cup of coffee, my swim gear and a clean towel, and headed to the pool. I hit the second practice at 8:15 a.m. and we swam diligently until 9:30 a.m. We racked up about 3,500 yards; a bit over two miles.

Nobody but Ben seems to be working this week so I'm abandoning the office in favor of a walking tour of downtown coffee shops and some genial photography. Maybe I'll see someone famous. Or interesting. Or beautiful. Or nice. Or all of the previous things. I'll try to get a nice photograph. Otherwise I'll try to get in a bit more exercise and a lot of casual, walking observation.

Today's camera of choice is the Fuji X-H1 with the 60mm Macro 2.4. We'll see if the choice holds between now and my downtown parking spot.....

I hope your holidays are progressing happily. Did anybody get ( or get themselves ) anything photographically interesting for the holidays? Curious minds want to know.....

I haven't spent enough time talking about the FujiFilm X-E3. I can fix that....

It's been a while since I owned a "point and shoot" camera. For the last year and a few months my smallest camera has been a Panasonic GH5 and most people would not consider that to be a pocketable, diminutive, minimalist camera; even with small lenses attached. But since my initial seduction into the FujiFilm product universe I've been looking past the standout, new cameras and checking out the camera bodies Fuji offers to see what I might like. 

I bought the Fuji X-T3 on a whim but I've been pretty surprised at just how great that camera is as an all around, professional tool. I've taken it out into snow, sleet and rain in the little time I've owned it and shot under all kinds of lighting conditions only to find both its Jpeg files and Raw files to be wonderfully color accurate and to have very pleasing tonality with no glitches or stumbles from hard use. Anyone entertaining the idea that Fuji files deliver "pleasing color" at the expense of accuracy ought to visit the PDN tests of color accuracy, where cameras are tested with objective metrics and then ranked according to how color accurate they are. The top camera (tested) at the moment? Oh, yes, that would be the X-T3. See the test results here.

And tied for second place? Oh, yes, that would be the Fuji X-E3. I didn't know about the color accuracy scores when I bought the X-T3 or the X-E3, I only knew that I really liked working with my first, modern Fuji camera enough to want to take it with me on assignments out of town and that to do so I'd need to grab a good back up camera from the same family. The camera that fit my budget at the time was the X-E3. Fuji closed the deal by having a price drop, and it didn't hurt that both cameras took the same battery. While I would like all batteries to have stellar endurance having all models use the same battery model is always better than beefier batteries which almost proprietary to each camera model in a maker's line-up. 

I didn't do much research about the X-E3 but I did know that it shares the same sense as the X-T2, that it's a 24 megapixel X-trans sensor, and that most reviewers gushed about the image quality and high ISO noise handling characteristics of the sensor in other cameras in the family. I read a few reviews and then walked into the local store and splashed cash for one. It did exactly what I needed it to do on the last legs of my big assignment, which I'm now calling "The Endless Flights to Flyover Country." It fit in the gear case, taking up minimal space and adding very little additional weight. It hovered just in reach should my main camera become overwhelmed and quit working. And it came back home safely. It fits into that mental space, thinking of a camera as both a "point and shoot" because of its size and weight but also as a proficient back up for pricier cameras.

To get right to the point, the X-E3 is capable of making superb images as its sensor yields very accurate colors, very nice and easy to work with tonalities, ample dynamic range and good white balance. It focuses relatively quickly and when used with the trinity of reasonable f2.0 aperture primes from Fuji it makes a dandy, modern analogy of shooting back in the 1980's with a Leica rangefinder and a 35mm, 50mm and 90mm set of Summicron lenses (although the longest one of the three in the Fuji set is, at 50mm, just the equivalent of a 75mm and not a 90mm (sad for me)). 

You can put any Fuji X lens on this camera and be reasonably assured that the output will be identical to that of any other current  X camera. Perhaps the X-T3 has a few different processor advantages but, as I always point out, the advantages are rarely as discernible as the manufacturers and some click-happy reviewers would have you believe. There are situations in which you will be better served, ergonomically, by a bigger and more traditional styled body, such as the X-T2 or X-T3, or, even the X-H1. These situations become obvious when you start using bigger and heavier lenses on the X-E3. It's a small body and not heavy at all. It balances gracefully with the three smaller primes I talked about above but much less so with bigger and heavier zoom lenses. I find it awkward to use with something like the 55-200mm lens and even the 16-55mm f2.8 lens dwarfs the body such that you end up holding the assemblage by the lens instead of depending on the body's almost non-existent grip. 

After getting spoiled with direct, analog controls for all the major parameters I most frequently change on the T3 (shutter speed, aperture, and ISO) I resented having to go into the "Q" menu or even the regular menu in order to quickly change the ISO setting. But I am thankful for the exposure compensation dial which resides on the top plate of the camera and is easy to use (but which went missing on the X-H1...).  While I'm being cantankerous I'll go ahead and complain about the smaller, fiddlier buttons... 

If you love flippy screens or even flip-uppy screens you'll dislike the X-E3 as its rear screen is fixed into the body and does not move. By the same token, the EVF, while good and information rich, is not particularly comfortable for eyeglass wearers. Not enough optical relief. But I'm finding that these two things are more preferences ingrained from using different cameras. If this was my lone camera I think I would easily become comfortable with the screen and EVF in short order. 

The camera has nearly all of the good, settable color profiles you'll find on the X-H1 and X-T3, including the Acros black and white settings and lacks only the "Eterna" setting which is a flatter and less saturated profile mostly intended for video footage that you might need to deliver quickly, and straight out of camera, without having to color grade. In fact though, the eterna profile can be a beautiful profile to use for portraits. 

So, what you have is very much akin to the original Leica CL from the 1970's: A small, light and nicely designed camera body that can be a bit awkward to hold for long periods of time and which has a smaller EVF eyepiece than the bigger cameras in the system. It's a small camera that works best with smaller zooms (18-55?) and comes into its own with the three small, f2.0 prime lenses (23, 35,50) that Fuji offers. It's the perfect companion for long walks, and tight packing in situations where you are still trying to get within 95% of the quality levels of the best full frame and APS-C crop cameras on the market. 

The video is not earthshattering but if your main requirements are good, clean 1080p video it does a decent job with the visual side of the files. There is no headphone jack and so no way to monitor audio even though there is a microphone jack. But why the microphone jack uses a 2.5mm size instead of the much more standard 3.5mm industry default is beyond me. I guess I'd buy adapters if I thought I'd use the camera much for video. But I have other tools for video production...

One thing you have to be okay with if you think you are in the market for this camera is the fact that there's no built-in image stabilization. You have to depend on the stabilization in various lenses. I like to use this camera body with one of the three primes I mentioned and none of them have I.S. either so you're either okay with that or you need to look at a different camera. The only interchangeable lens camera in the Fuji system right now with built-in image stabilization is the X-H1 but I consider that more of a heavy duty pro "banger" camera and less of a discreet, demure and beautiful street shooter....

After I used the X-E3 for a while as my back up and second camera I added an X-H1 body to gain the option for (worked related) image stabilization. But a walk on Christmas Eve down and around the Barton Springs fresh water pool re-convinced me that the kind of photography I do with cameras like the X-E3 can be done just fine without that feature. Image stabilization is nice to have and does improve some images but it's nice to know I can still handhold a camera without that particular set of training wheels.

So, to sum up. A small, light and beautifully designed camera that easily fits into the niche for which I used to use "point and shoot" cameras, like the Canon G10, and for which many other people use the Sony RX100 series.  A near state-of-the-art imaging sensor with a competent imaging pipeline. Access to some of the best lenses in the business. A fairly quiet shutter. Lots of really well thought out color profiles and a form factor that helps (with smaller lenses) create a discreet and almost all purpose photography machine.

The detractions: smaller buttons, fewer direct/dedicated physical controls, an EVF that's less pleasant to use for wearers of eyeglasses, and a camera body that's not a great match for heavier and bigger lenses. For me, it's the perfect backup camera for locations shoots where an X-T3 or X-H1 are the star cameras. It's also the perfect primary camera for personal shooting/street shooting art photography when paired with the trinity of f2.0 prime lenses that Fuji has designed to be small, fast, weather resistant and nicely sharp. 

I'm happy with the camera when used within the right parameters. So happy, in fact, that I also bought a Fuji X-E2 as a back up for the X-E3 for those times when I want to go completely minimal but still have an extra body lurking in some crevice of my suitcase; just in case. YMMV.

Barton Springs Pool is a bit more than 1/8th of a mile long and is constantly refreshed by clean spring water from deep below the Hill Country. Since the water comes from underground it stays a pretty constant temperature = about 70 degrees, Fahrenheit. There are no chlorine or chemicals in the water so if you swim laps there you aren't likely to get the itchy skin and dry, bleached hair you get from an over managed YMCA or country club pool. The facility opens to the public at 5 a.m. most mornings and stays open until 9 p.m. In the Summer the pool gets large crowds but in this period between Christmas and New Years you can show up anytime, swim some laps and not bump into anyone. It's really nice. Perfect time for swimmers who are also loners....

Recently I've become interested in all the different ladder rails used for getting in and out of the pool. Maybe I should make a book. A very, very short book. At any rate these were photographed on Christmas Eve morning. I was out for a walk and enjoying the calmness and quiet of the center of the city at a time when everyone else seemed to be scurrying to the malls or headed out to parties or to see family. The hike and bike trails were relatively vacant and the pool was host to two swimmers while I was there. A great way to get ready for the holidays. 

Tomorrow I'll swim early and then take another big walk. 

It's a great way to keep holiday stress at bay.

Death Match!!!! Olympus versus Panasonic. Which all purpose zoom lens wins the title: Best.?

Photo courtesy "dirt cheap" lens. 

This (above) photo was taken with 

a 7Artisans 25mm f1.8

Brand new it was +/- $70.

When I bought back into the Panasonic system again I took a chance and purchased the Olympus 12-100mm f4.0 Pro zoom lens and figured it would be my standard, do everything lens for the system. It's a big lens and has something like 60 elements in 50 groups; all either aspherical or ED (not really, just: 17 elements in 11 groups (1 DSA lens, 3 Aspherical lenses, 5 ED lenses, 2 Super HR lenses, 1 HR lens). 

It's a wonderful lens and does everything I want it to. It handles wide angles of view out to the equivalent of 24mm on a full frame camera, and on the long end it reaches out to an equivalent of 200mm. It does all this while maintaining high sharpness and resolution at every focal length and at every aperture, from f4.0 (wide open) to about f8.0 (that's where diffraction kicks in). In addition to being satisfyingly sharp it's also blessed with in lens Image Stabilization that works not only on Olympus cameras but on all the recent Panasonic cameras as well. No, you don't get dual I.S. with it on a G9 or GH5 body but you do get at least 4 stops of image stabilization, and maybe a bit more at the longer end.

I've used this lens for all kinds of projects, jobs, assignments, dalliances, walks, etc. and I'm always happy with the results. So, what possessed me to buy the Panasonic/Leica 12-60mm f2.8-4.0? Besides reckless spending and mindless product duplication? Well, to start with the Olympus lens is bigger and heavier. Sometimes, when you're out strolling, it's nice to take along a lens that's almost half the weight. Then, especially with the G9s, there was the alluring idea of dual image stabilization which promised to put the stabilizing performance of a Panasonic body and lens in close competition with that offered by Olympus. It was tempting. I almost plopped down the credit card just to test out the image stabilization marketing hype.... No, the thing that tipped the scales was a video job on which we used two Panasonic GH5s and wanted two good lenses, with the same basic range of focal lengths, to have two camera angles on each scene of the project. If I was a purist I'd have bought a second Olympus 12-100mm so the lenses would match exactly but I saw this need for a second lens as an invitation to spend less money and try a new lens without feeling apprehensive, or spendy. 

The Panasonic/Leica 12-60mm has fourteen elements in 12 groups with four aspheric elements and two ED elements so as far as construction goes it's no slouch. I've also owned and extensively used the Panasonic/Leica 8-18mm lens and have come to trust the line of Panasonic/Leica lenses because of the exemplary performance of that particular lens. 

We used both standard lenses for what turned into an extended project and I thought that by the time we finished up I'd have divined which lens was the "keeper"; and which lens was going to be thrown out of the nest... But each has a different look; a different visual style. The Olympus feels a bit more clinical and profoundly sharp. It's the lens I use most (after the 40-150mm Pro) for live theater documentation and any video project that requires tremendous lens flexibility. 

The Leica isn't quite as ferociously sharp (still better than almost any other mid-range zoom on the market!) but it seems to do a better job on portrait work. For the recent project on which I shot the first part with Panasonic G9s and the last part with a Fuji X-T3 I tended to gravitate toward the Panasonic/Leica whenever I photographed people with the Panasonic camera system. It has a slightly softer or perhaps more graceful flow between tones but still resolves good detail. It also seems slightly warmer than the Olympus lens. The more elegant tonal transition is subtle but makes the Leica lens render more like color negative film and good lenses from the film days. 

You would think that I'd take one or the other on a series of projects where space and weight were essential to good logistics but from Sacramento, California to Reykjavik, Iceland I ended up always making space for both lenses in my backpack. In Iceland I took the 12-100mm instead of the Olympus 40-150mm; I wanted something that was long enough but more flexible than a resolutely telephoto zoom lens. I grabbed the Olympus whenever I knew I'd be shooting in snow, sleet or the kind of driving winds that make lens changing problematic. I'd grab the Panasonic/Leica lens when I headed out to shoot in the streets, slightly (very slightly) preferring its color rendition and not needing the last 40mm of reach. There was also the security of having a perfect back up lens no matter which one I chose to shoot with in the moment. If you bring a back up camera then why not also a back up lens?

The difference between the two lenses is really very subjective. If you photograph people, gravitate more to wide angle use over telephoto, and shoot with Panasonic cameras, I'd push you towards the Panasonic/Leica 12-60mm with no hesitation. If you are more of a portrait and long lens shooter, or an Olympus camera user, or both, I'd push you toward the Olympus. 

If you could only have one I think it would depend on the way you use lenses and your tolerance for size and weight. If I worked only in the studio I'd end up with the Olympus because the vast range of focal lengths would allow me to use the lens for nearly every project. But if I was out roaming the world and shooting in a wide-to-normal-to-slight-telephoto documentary style (and I shot with Panasonic cameras) I'd select the Panasonic/Leica because it's smaller and lighter. Less burden/more good shots. 

Don't take the apertures into consideration if you shoot as I do. The f2.8 is only available on the Panasonic/Leica lens at its very widest focal lengths and quickly heads toward the f4.0 as you zoom in. Since I shoot in manual exposure a lot of the time I choose to think of the P/L lens as an f4.0 lens and just use that as my maximum f-stop. Same as on the Olympus. Then I never worry about variable apertures.

If you only consider the image quality at focal lengths between 12-60mm, and exclude the extra reach of the Olympus lens, you'll find very little measurable (discernible) quality difference between the two but you will find a big difference in pricing. The Olympus lens is around $1200 while the P/L 12/60mm is usually $1,000 (but available for a limited time over the holidays, at Amazon, for $750). 

It's a bit crazy to have both. For my use, experience and comfort level I should probably sell the Panasonic lens and keep the Olympus but it's never that easy. Once you've found the sweet spot and the perfect use profile for each lens one comes to think of each lens as a different tool for different looks. Same reason I seem to own so many "normal" focal length lenses, across systems. 

My bottom line advice is to be rational. If you have a marvelous long lens like the Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 you really don't need the last 40mm of the 12-100mm. If you are logical you'll snag a good copy of the 12-60mm P/L and be very happy. If you don't have a longer lens and you don't need the reach then the 12-100mm can cover most of the range that most photographers use without having to slip into a two lens system.

Here's my desert island conclusion: If you could only have one lens it would instantly and without question be the Olympus. More reach, the manual focus clutch with hard stops at close focus and infinity, and amazingly good optical performance would allow me to spend my days completely satisfied with my singular lens. If I was a working photographer with more income than common sense I'd make up some nonsense about being able to depreciate the lenses and then I'd add in some self-serving crap about how the lenses will pay for themselves in no time and I'd end up with both. But no one ever claimed I was a brilliant business man. 

I can look at it in one more way: if you shoot only stills then the Panasonic/Leica 12-60mm is for you. It's bright, sharp, easy to use, well behaved, and less a burden to carry around. If I shot mostly video I'd choose the Olympus lens for the better manual focusing implementation and wider focal length range, which would mean stopping less for lens changes. 

Oh well, I guess I haven't really come to any final conclusion. Sorry to have wasted your time....

Jeepers. Do I really need more dynamic range? Should I drop all other considerations and rush towards the camera with the biggest dynamic range?

Lighthouse via Panasonic G9.

I recently made some portraits on a remote location. The light was interesting. We were on the verge of a winter storm and the thick, swirling clouds acted as multiple diffusers. There was little difference between the quantity of light in the shadows and that in highlight areas. What was missing was not dynamic range but rather interesting light for portraits. The prevailing light was great for all the foliage and mountains (and fog) in the background but rather flat on my subjects' faces. I added a light from one side in order to provide some directional illumination which made the portraits much more interesting. But I never thought for a second that the solution to getting a great image was dynamic range. In fact, in situation after situation, over six weeks time, I might have faced bright sun, rainy days and the golden glow of magic hour but I never stopped and said to myself, "If only I had a stop or two more dynamic range."  

I'm speaking from experience as a portrait photographer, not a landscape photographer, but the thing I find in just about every photography situation is the need to add light or control the direction of light in order to control how the images look. If your main concern with dynamic range is your desire not to burn out highlights I suggest that you engage the blinking highlight indicators in your camera's menu and use them as a guide to set the right exposures. Problem solved. Aha! But what about blocking up detail in the shadows? In most situations you can fill the shadows more convincingly with a reflector fill since bringing up all the highlights via a slider control in post opens the shadows everywhere in the frame. That kind of manipulation creates a flatter file overall which is contrary, I think to the way we imagine photographs should look. Just because you can pull up shadow areas with sliders doesn't mean you are adding any information in those darker areas, you are just flattening the overall file and creating a contrast curve that, to my eye, appears unnatural.

In the days when most cameras had dynamic ranges of 7 to 8 stops the mania for increased range was understandable. Now that we have cameras which can capture more range than a monitor or print will be able to even show it's become as much of a red herring as demanding 16 bit files for images that will mostly be displayed on 6 bit phone screens. You can already map your current 11-14 stops across the 6 stops of your monitor in any way you please. Do you really need to condense down even more discrete tones in order to be happy? I don't. 

At the top of this blog post is an image of a lighthouse. It's lit by the sun. One side is in shadow. Nothing got lost. No burned highlights. No crushed, black shadows. There are so many controls to help you get the contrast curve you need in camera for success, it's just up to you to practice good exposure technique and make sure you are putting your rich supply of tones into the correct exposure slots in order to reproduce them the way you want them. Most extra dynamic range is lost in process. 

Get everything right in camera and your file will be better than those from someone who depends on the available "slop" in a raw file to compensate for lack of technical discipline. 

Don't get me started on white balance......

Some blacks are blocked up in this shot. That's intentional. It adds to the graphic quality I was aiming for in the black and white file. Deep, dark shadows are NOT evil. They are graphic elements. 

Another sunny day in urban paradise. Another perfect walk with a camera. Another perfect camera and lens combination.

It's been a pretty nice day around here in Austin, Texas. I got up and went to swim practice and our coach put up a whimsical "12 Days of Christmas" set. As you can imagine we swam sets of 12, 11, 10....etc. distances until we finished with a leisurely 600 yard semi-sprint. We didn't get too much yardage in over the hour and a half but we did get in a lot of zany sprints. At coffee one of our long time swimmer/coffee klatch comrades handed out Starbucks gift cards to everyone in attendance. My swimmer friend Nancy brought everyone ample, pre-packaged servings of her rightly famous bourbon balls. John brought a treasure trove of witty bumper stickers and encouraged everyone to take a few. 

After our coffee I headed home to check in on Boy, Mom and Studio Dog. We headed to our favorite hamburger place for a fun Saturday lunch (a twenty year tradition). Yes, the parents (mostly me) interrogated Ben about the progress of his job..... We're only human. But he takes everything in stride and managed to share a few nuggets (of information, not "nugget" nuggets). 

Since the sun was shining and the thermal measuring device showed 81 degrees Fahrenheit I figured it was high time for a cleansing walk through the streets of downtown Austin, Texas so I grabbed a camera and lens and headed out.

Having spent far too much time glorifying the Fuji cameras and lenses lately I decided to revisit one of my favorite and most quirky cameras, the Panasonic GH5S. It's the version without image stabilization and with only 10 megapixel files. Most people just presume it's for video.  But it's also the camera with the perfect viewfinder, and the only Panasonic consumer camera I know of that generates true, 14 bit raw files. When I open the files via Adobe Bridge the info panel tells me they are 16 bit files but I know better. I think. At any rate they always seem to look very, very juicy and swank.

The perfect all around lens to mate with this particular camera is the Panasonic/Leica 12-60mm f2.8-4.0 as it has Panasonic's version of lens based image stabilization and it's nicely sharp and well behaved at just about every setting. 

As I walked in the warm sunshine I was feeling a bit guilty after reading Michael Johnston's column yesterday in which he goes into detail about his arduous toil on his estate. Mowing, leaf mulching and all sorts of manual labors. Even bringing his lawn mower into his house so it will start on frosty days... His post made me feel as though I should get off my lazy butt and get some yard work done. 

But then I remembered that I'd had a run in with a particularly vicious tree saw nearly 20 years ago and at that time, after damaging the hood of my wife's car, destroying a $1,200 pair of Armani eyeglasses and giving myself a cut on my temple that required medical attention, all in the space of about a minute (my very first attempt at tree pruning!) Belinda forbid me to ever work with yard tools, and especially powered tools, ever again. As a result, I've never owned a lawn mower, edging equipment, anything that might mulch something and, of course, no power saws!

We've got a yard guy who has a helper. They come about every two weeks during the verdant months and PRN (as needed) in the winter. They do work around Austin so they've got a good sense of how fast grass is growing and how the leafs are falling at any particular time. While I have had to pay for this service for several decades the secondary benefit (after not having our big yard look ratty and unkempt) is that I am free from spending the time it would take me to do this myself. Time I use to take walks around the city and to play with various cameras. My yard guy also does nice rock work and built us a beautiful retaining wall. He also has all kinds of other gear, including a pressure washer. 

I've hired him to drop by on Friday next week to pressure wash the chimney (exterior, of course) because we had all kinds of issues trying to make efficient fires in the fireplace which generally resulted in lots of smoke and a sooty coating on the exterior rock work, and a relatively recent rationale with which Belinda and I convinced ourselves that burning firewood was increasing our carbon footprint and that we should cease and desist for the sake of the planet. That, and the fact that there are only a handful of days in Austin when a fire might really be appreciated. 

I will think of Michael Johnston the next time my yard guy pulls up in his white truck and I hand him a check on my way out for another leisurely walk; which may or may not include good coffee.

So, how was the camera? Did it live up to my memories of its previous grandeur? Yes. It's the current "cult" camera (wink, wink, nod, nod, secret handshake, etc.) for the Panasonic m4:3 system. Coveted by those in the know as much as a seven element, dual range, Leica 50mm Summicron was in the days of yore.

Swimming, eating, drinking coffee, walking and playing with cameras. Nice vacation. Happy Holidays.

Below: all are from the GH5, shot raw in 14 bit, with the 12-60mm f2.8-4.0 P/L lens. Actual sunny skies.....

Predictions about photography and video for 2019.

Cameras in the wilderness. 

Seems like we always end up the year with a blog post of predictions for the next year. Some of them actually pan out. Some are the stuff of hopeful fantasy. Most predictions are obvious because most of us can't imagine things that don't exist yet. But with that said, here we go: 

The business of photography. 

The world will enter a recession in the first quarter of 2019 which will drive down sales of cameras, lenses and accessories and delay or kill some (unannounced) new product introductions. Stuff that's already in the pipeline will get to the market but overall sales of dedicated photography equipment will decline. This means camera makers will emphasize the products they already have in place in lieu of investing in upgrades. Expect to see Nikon advertise how easy it is to adapt F mount AF lenses to the new mirrorless cameras; they'll need continuing sales of their current lens line to prevent a sharp decline in their bottom line. Look to companies like Fuji, Canon and Sony, all of whom have deep pockets, to try to increase or consolidate market share at the expense of the other players in the camera industry. Coincident with these trends I think we'll see price drops on more luxe products in order for each company to try and cement the loyalty of current customer and to try and effect trial by new customers. The price drop on a camera like the Panasonic G9, and the aggressive pricing of some Sony products shows the way...

The new and improved video and photographic quality available on cellphones like the Apple iPhone 10 XS will erode more and more sales from the bottom tier of dedicated camera makers product lines. More importantly, the capabilities and ubiquity of the phones coupled with the lowered bar for production value on YouTube will make video crew less important for marcom departments nearly everywhere. I predict 2019 will see a decimation of even the idea of an in-house video crew; at most, companies will keep bright young staff as editors and group source most non-critical content from a bevy of phone P.O.V.s. Editing is the one position that's currently safe because good editing counts on lots and lots of work, good decision making and, at least, a modicum of good taste and education. This contraction of professional positions and expansion of corporate "citizen" content creation has been going on for years and will only accelerate, especially when one