Beater camera of the day. It took me a while to warm up to this one but now I want to use it most of the time.

Favorite camera hangs out on one of my favorite swim towels. 

So, what's a "beater" camera? That's the one you take everywhere, no matter what. It rides on the floor of the car, it's hanging off your knee by its strap when you sit at a restaurant or bar, it goes out when the weather sucks and it doesn't mind getting tossed into your swim bag when you head out the door to swim in a lake or a pool. It's not your best camera and probably not your money maker but it's the camera you get used to the most because it's always with you.

The Fuji X-E3 was the second Fuji X series camera I bought, after the X-T3. I meant to buy only one Fuji camera but then my working photographer brain kicked in and made me buy a back up body. I opted for the E3 because it was (relatively) cheap and it was just supposed to be for a secondary system; not part of my primary shooting gear. I didn't spend time looking at haptics or hold-ability as much as I did making sure the imaging sensor was a good one and the files looked okay.

Now I take it everywhere and the X-T3 spends most of its time in a drawer. If anyone bought a Fuji X-H1 with the grip and batteries during the recent $1299 sale and they have buyer's remorse because they are thinking they should have gotten the newer X-T3, I'm willing to make a trade. Right across the board. Low mileage X-T3 for low mileage X-H1. Let me know, Figure out how to e-mail me on my website. Only serious people need apply. (well, you don't really need to "be" serious. You can be jovial. I just want your camera trade intention to be serious...).

This afternoon I'm heading off to shoot behind-the-scenes on a TV commercial. We'll use the shots for social media, digital marketing, et al. I'm taking a couple of X-H1 cameras and all the good glass. I'll need to shoot under the lights the production company is setting up for the video production so I'm going to be leaning on the image stabilization in those cameras. But I'm also taking the E3 so I can shoot wacky stuff with the 50mm "Fujicron" and the Olympus 60mm f1.5. Nice to have a small and light camera hanging around your neck, with just the right lens at your fingertips. I'll take more chances with this camera. The bulk of the shots destined for the client's use will come from the bigger cameras.

The more I use the Fuji X-E3 the more I like it. But only with small, light lenses. That's its zone; its sweet spot.

Second most fun camera this year: the Canon G15. A wonderful, wonderful point and shoot. It's my permanent car camera now. Jostling with the E3 for dominance in my mind. Benefit? I.S. Con: smaller sensor. Reality: They are both great.

Get in touch if you have an H you need to convert into a 3. I'm game.

Several new additions to Lightroom might make it more fun for Fuji shooters and others.

Keep the corners nice and bright and make everything as sharp as it should be and you are doing photography correctly. At least commercial photography. 

Every once in a while Adobe tosses some really cool stuff into their routine updates. There is a new "Flat Field" feature which used to be an after market plug-in but is now a part of the software and should be in yours if you have the latest version. It's a tool that perfects vignette reduction and a thing the folks at Reid Reviews calls, "Color Shift." You can read all about it in the article: https://www.reidreviews.com/examples/flatfieldnew.html Reid reviews is usually a paid site but this article was requested by Adobe and it exists outside the paid firewall. It's worth a read and it's very well written.

I was interested in two different approaches to making sharpening from raw files more effective. The first tool I want to discuss is called "Enhance Details" and it represents (I think...) the first application of  A.I. or machine learning for Lightroom. It only works with Raw files from cameras. Once you've selected a photo to use it on you go up to the menu > photo > enhance details. A window opens (see below) and lets you know that your crappy machine with the lame video card is going to be slow at doing the function and it will give you an estimated time for the process. You can scroll around the image and see (at what appears to be 200 or 300 %) what effect the enhancement will have by looking at the preview. Once you hit enhance there is a progress bar in the window and once the process is complete LR writes a separate .DNG file with the enhancements. You get to keep your original raw file intact.

It seems to work best with scenes that have lots of fine detail combined with smoother areas but so far the effect, to my eyes, is very subtle.

Try it and report back. Some of you are better at this trial and error stuff than me, and your results and comments might be more enlightening than mine. So share.

There are several more additions to LR but what I am mostly interested in today is a methodology I just read about that helps with sharpening Fuji raw files to match or exceed those produced by Iridient Developer or Capture One. And it's been under my nose the whole time. 

I've been using PhotoShop since year two and Lightroom since beta but I've been a Neanderthal when it comes to using the sharpening tools in Adobe software. In the sharpening menus I've always understood "amount" and "radius" but I rarely touch masking and I never had a real clue as to what "Detail" did for, or to, the files. But I've been reading about deconvolution of raw files and it seems that I've been overlooking a subtle but powerful tool in the "detail" slider. Setting it to 100% causes the program to do a total deconvolution of the file. It more or less cancels out the effects of the color filter grid over a color digital sensor. I've been experimenting with moving the "detail" slider all the way to 100% and then adjusting any added noise with the next menu down the line. Interestingly, the "detail" slider at 100% can also affect the saturation in a file so you might want to finesse that as well. 

I don't understand all the technical reasons why the 100% detail slider works as it does but it can just shovel a new level of detail into some of your files with very few consequences in terms of added noise. And with Fuji raw files it does a great job of enhancing sharpness and detail without introducing the artifacts that people constantly complain about in Lightroom conversions. 

Give it a shot and see if it adds to your Lightroom enjoyment. 

That's all. Bye now. 

Photo Made with Antiquated Technology. Not as far back as film but.....

Setting up for a Kentucky Derby watching party at least a decade ago.

How do I know? The exif info tells me I shot this with a Nikon D80. 

The reds and greens look nice.

What an absolutely glorious day to be in the pool. Or out running. Or in the pool.

I got up a bit later than usual today and had my daily dose of 2% fat Greek Yogurt mixed with Muesli and a cup of blackberries. Drank a tall glass of water then capped everything with a small espresso. Towel and camera in hand I headed to the Western Hill Athletic Club to hop into the outdoor pool and bang out some yardage with about 40 of my good friends. 

I probably haven't done a good job of explaining how Masters Swimming works at our club so I thought I'd give it a shot. I know you all are dead tired of hearing about cameras and photographers so I'm sure that writing about swimming is a sure bet for increasing traffic here at VSL.. 

Masters Swim workouts are coached sessions lasting anywhere from one hour to two hours. Nearly every swimmer in the pool has been swimming since they were children. A few are competitive triathletes that are in the workouts to improve their performance in the open water swim section of a triathlon. The workouts are in no way "recreational swimming" or "lap swimming." The coaches are trained and certified. It's not a particularly good venue for someone who is out of shape and wants to giving swimming a try after years on the couch.

In nearly every Masters Swim organization I know of the swimmers are sorted by speed into different lanes. At our pool the slowest swimmers are in lane one and each lane gets progressively faster. We tend to sort by a swimmer's 100 yard repeat time. This is not how fast one can go for one 100 yard freestyle swim but the interval in which one can swim, recover and repeat anywhere from 8 to 10 100s in a row. On a good day I might swim a 1:10 minute hundred freestyle from a push off (not a dive). But there's no way I could repeat even two or three in a row on a 1:10 minute overall interval. Instead, I need to be in a lane in which the swimmers are able to do repeated 100s on about 1:30 or 1:35 (a minute and thirty five seconds).  While it would require exertion and a bit of mental discipline to keep my stroke from falling apart I could make the interval on a fair number of 100s on 1:35 and, if I elect to be in a lane in which the swimmers are swimming on a 1:45 interval per 100 yards I'm pretty sure I could keep repeating the set for hours. 

So, lane one swimmers might select to swim a set of 10- 100s on a two minute interval. Lane two might be on a 1:50 interval. Lane three on a 1:40 interval. Lane four on a 1:30 interval. Lane five on a 1:20 interval. Lane six on a 1:10 interval and, if we have a couple of our Oympians show up for workout they might lead lane seven in 1:00 minute intervals.  It's all subject to who shows up. Some days the workouts skew toward a more competitive composition of people and they might move the intervals to a faster pace in more lanes. Other days we might have more slower swimmers and we might spread them in the other direction. The point is that everyone finds a lane in which they can, with exertion, keep up with each other for all the sets we'll undertake in an hour or hour and a half. 

Within a lane there will always be people who are marginally faster or slower and we'll work out the order by consensus. Fastest first, slowest last. But everyone should be able to make the interval for that lane. Also, everyone in every lane should be proficient at swimming all four strokes. 

The coach starts the workout by putting up a warm-up set on a white board. If someone needs clarification they can ask for it. Otherwise you jump in and get going. Today's warmup set was a 400 yard freestyle swim followed by a 100 yard kick, followed by a 400 yard pull set (hand paddles for greater resistance and a pull buoy to keep the legs from kicking), followed by a 100 yard medley (all four strokes).  Once each lane finishes they consult the whiteboard to see what the next set is. If the set is complicated the coach may take a minute or two to explain his/her intention. 

Our first set today went something like this: 6 X 150 yards freestyle on 2:15 followed by 6 x 25 yard hard sprints on :30. Then right into 8 x100 years freestyle pull on 1:30 followed by 6 x 25 yard hard sprints. Then directly into 10 X 75s, the first 25 yards being a stroke other than freestyle with the remaining 50 years of each 75 being freestyle, followed by 6 X 25's hard sprints. Then directly into a set of 50 yard sprints on a 1:00 interval until your lane runs out the clock and workout is over. We did the math at the end of our one hour and fifteen minutes this morning and figured we'd gone about 3,500 hard yards. A bit more than two miles. 

Some mornings the coaches will add in more kicking drills and some mornings they peg as "long distance" days so the sets have a much different composition, day to day. Keeps it from getting too routine. The coaches are on deck all the time to encourage us, to call out times during sprints and to watch our stroke techniques and make helpful suggestions, on an individual basis. 

Our club hosts three coached workouts a day on weekdays and two per day on the weekends. That will shift a bit in the Summer as we make time slots available for the kids programs. The hardest workouts tend to be the earliest ones and they also tend to be the most crowded; often with four or five people per lane. Sometimes even six or seven.  More in the popular interval time slot lanes. 

Interpersonal problems are not tolerated and are sorted out either very quickly or very permanently. We also have a hard and fast rule to not discuss politics in the pool enclosure. Ever.  The program is open to anyone who meets the minimum speed and endurance qualifications and the masters program costs about $100 per month. Many of the athletes in our program competed in college and are still regulars at USMS swim meets in Texas and around the country. Our program is popular with some of the former Olympians who've located in Austin and several of our coaches are gold medalists. The most well known being Ian Crocker. The draw is the tenure of the program and the fact that ours is the cleanest, freshest and best maintained, year round, outdoor pool in the city.

At the end of workout everyone heads off to work or whatever they do during the day. I grab coffee and head into the office. Work is just the stuff that happens between swims....

Ben (my son) is still a distance runner and tries to get as many long runs in as he can during the week. I've tried to get him back in the pool but he's not interested. I consider his reticence to swim to be one of my most embarrassing failures as a parent...

If you don't want to swim hard and fast you should head to Barton Springs Pool or Deep Eddy Pool and enjoy the scenery. There's some thing for everyone. 

Start them young. We always need more swimmers. 

Oh. I almost forgot: Camera, lens, printer, PhotoShop, Equivalence!!!

That about sums it up. 

Putting together the ultimate Fujifilm X Series Lens Kit. Kirk's case for overkill.

Don't screw around with making arcane and nonsensical choices in the lens world. It's frustrating and counter productive to limit yourself too much.  Just get every lens you think you'll ever need for your favorite system and then you'll never have to worry that you were such a cheap bastard that you hamstrung yourself on an important project just to save a few dollars to buy Sanka in retirement...

Never mind that my final exit strategy is to either swim out a little farther into the ocean than I think I can swim back (or, alternately, to build a raft, lined with full gas cans, grab a bottle of Milam Bourbon to soothe the transition, and then have friends and family take out lifelong frustrations with my eccentricities by shooting flaming arrows at the raft until someone gets it right. What a photo opportunity....). But..... 

...since we're all still here let's discuss a lens buying strategy for a person who makes photographs with Fuji X series cameras. 

First off, remember that life is short and we don't get as many second chances as we might want, so plunge right in and get what you really want. So many people who read the blogs are so financially conservative they're probably reusing teabags to squeeze out the most value. If you are going to buy into a system and you are serious about getting your work done. Just splash out the cash. 

Last year I thought I would buy the Fujifilm X-T3 as an adjunct to my rather fulsome Panasonic system and, since it would be a secondary camera, I would just pick up the well loved kit lens (18-55mm f2.8-4.0) and call it quits. I'd have a really nice "take everywhere" camera and lens that was light weight and which could be counted on to create great images and video. But after doing some side-by-side tests, couple with self-hypnotism, I convinced myself that the Fuji files had more promise for my style of portraiture and I rushed to throw myself down the Slippery Slope. 

Now, less than six months into my "Fuji Exploration" the Panasonics are out the door. Gone. Gracing someone else's camera bag with their unique charm, and here I am with a (literal, not figurative or virtual) shopping cart with twelve or thirteen different lenses I can hang on the front of five different Fuji cameras. Crazy? Sure. But what the hell? Altogether it's cheaper than buying a new German car or getting a mistress. And guess what? I can actually use at least a few of these to earn some money for beer and cigarettes. (No, I don't smoke. And I rarely drink beer. Or Ale.). 

But I do like having just the right lens for just the right subject matter and since I have no other costly vices I decided to sink the proceeds of my Panasonic sales into Fuji stuff. Could have been Nikon or Canon mirrorless. Not interested in the Sony stuff ---- I've already been there. My pinkies are still recovering....

I found that I don't really have to care if the lenses are stabilized or not because I much prefer to use one of my three Fuji X-H1 bodies for photography and they all have damn, damn, damn good stabilization built right in.... which means all of my lenses are, de facto, stabilized. 

Here's what I'm using, in no particular order......

I had a store credit at my favorite camera shop and Fuji must have known that because they put the 8-16mm f2.8 lens on sale at just the right time. I don't particularly like the whole idea of super wide angle lenses but then again I've never given the very best ones a good try. I got close with the Panasonic/Leica 8-18mm for the m4:3 cameras but I figured I'm playing out the clock here, society may just cancel traditional photography altogether and I might as well buy one top of the line ultra-wide angle zoom lens before I sign off or decide to abandon photography altogether to give Ian Rankin and John Sanford a run for their money as a brilliant novelist. Frankly, I haven't mastered this bad boy yet. It kind of feels like someone just handed me a fine violin and said, "Show us what you can play!" even though I've never had a lesson. But I did put the lens through my exhaustive, subjective testing and it sure seems super sharp and (with help from the cameras) very well corrected. 

"Oh, you'll never have a use for this lens..." Well, the first thing I thought of was the handful of times I had to shoot inside smaller, corporate jets. You know, "hard working" attorneys sitting in (cramped but..) plush leather seats, eager to show the world: "Yes. I fly in private jets. Doesn't everyone?" Then I thought of the hotel brochures we did in the 1980's and 1990's with the tiny rooms and the art director begging me to, "Show everything and make our guest room look as big as a suite at the Four Seasons! Please!" I also thought of all those tall buildings downtown and how, if I could just get high enough in a building across the street to be at the mid-point of the target building, I could make glorious architectural photos without the need for shift lenses or Photoshop correction. 

These situations reflect promises I'm making to myself for future projects. But hey, the 8-16mm is one of the "Red Badge" lenses so at least other professionals who shoot with Fuji will be somewhat impressed that I shelled out the big bucks to get something totally cool, and mostly unnecessary. 

If your camera bag feels a bit light you should get one of the these. It's heavy enough to keep your camera bag from floating away......

7Artisans 55mm f1.4 MF lens for Fuji. 

And, at the opposite end of the spectrum, I am a sucker for a fast, cheap, normal-esque lens that I can play with and affect the nonchalant attitude of a "gifted photonic artist who just doesn't give a shit about brands...." Like every super fast, super cheap, manual focus lens coming out right now for mirrorless cameras it is not super sharp when used wide open but.... like every competitive offering it's plenty fine when used at f5.6 or f8.0. Which begs the question: "Why?" I would answer: "Because you can only buy so much coffee with your spare change...." And, I am an absolute sucker for anything fast and near normal. I just like the look. Especially when I convert to black and white. But I'm pretty well covered when it comes to the 75mm equivalent focal length (again, based on FF hysteria), I've got that focal lengths (55mm) on both normal zooms, two cheap MF lenses, the short end of the (extremely great) 50-140mm f2.8 zoom, and nearly covered by a converted Zeiss 50mm f1.8 as well as the Fujicron 50mm f2.0 WR. No real possibility that an art director will ask for this focal length and find me unable to deliver...

Cute and small. 

I'll explain my compulsion to buy all three of the current "Fujicron" f2.0 WR lenses. It's because I have the silly notion that one day I'll buy a bus ticket and travel coast to coast on a Greyhound bus, taking images everywhere I end up,  and I'll carry just a backpack, one small camera (X-T3 or X-E3) and three carefully chosen but very low profile lenses that are clustered (by focal length) around some classic, old, popular film standards. Like the Jack Kerouac approach to traveling "On the Road." I tend to like a 50mm equivalent (normal, normal) lens better but everyone, EVERYONE, always tells me that the 35mm is their favorite focal length so for the last four decades, no matter what system I'm shooting with, I try to always buy the 35mm lens for that system so I can try as hard as possible to have an epiphany and learn why this focal length/angle of view is so damn popular. So far I am striking out. But you can't fault me for continuing to try. 

This lens is nice and small, well behaved, sharp and docile. It's always in the bag but rarely responsible for prize photos. I do love the aperture ring on all three of the Fujicrons, it's tactilely happy. 

and then there is: "AHHH. THIS FOCAL LENGTH IS JUST RIGHT!!!!"

who would need anything else?

The 35mm (52mm equiv.) goes in the bag all the time and it's the lens that will be on the camera as the bus pulls into Norman Oklahoma and I make embarrassing photographs of the people who live near and  around the bus station, before moving on to Salt Lake City. When these lenses go on sale you should buy one so I know that other people feel the same way. 

14mm = 21mm Super Angulon. Pretty much. 

21mm is the (equivalent) shortest focal length I was ever able to get cozy with in my old film days. This lens promised me the same look and feel and it has delivered on the implied promise. I bought it because I was able to get a very, very good price on a brand new one and everyone in the world spoke highly of it's on-sensor performance (native vignetting aside). When I bought it I was absolutely not considering buying anything wider but then the 8-16mm came along and scuttled my plans and aspirations for being practical, logical and thrifty. But I'm keeping the 14mm because it is small and light, has a manual focus clutch mechanism, and it really is just sharp as a box full of Exacto blades. If you like to shoot with Fujis you might want to grab one of these as well. It's a cult-y focal length, and product, and all the other kids will think you are really cool when you use it as your "walk around" lens. 

The is the lens that started it all but I'll leave it to the thousands of others who have reviewed it over the years to give you the technical low down on its performance. I keep it because it is optically great, small and light, and has built-in image stabilization which makes it a perfect anywhere for fun lens on a small and light camera like the X-E3 or the X30. Usually cheap when included in a kit and pricey when bought alone. Best to rummage through the used market if you don't need a new camera too...

the 50-140mm f2.8 "Red Badge" zoom. 

This is the lens (just above) that initially opened my eyes to just how good the pricey lenses from Fuji could be. I bought it when I made the decision to replace the Panasonic stuff with all Fuji all the time. I used it for live theater work and was blown away by the resulting images mostly since I was getting stuff at the widest aperture that I thought was sharper and more nuanced (tonally) than the Nikon or Sony equivalents I'd shot with when I was younger and wiser. I love using it in the studio for business portraits because I end up working around f5.6, the lens is sharper than snake's teeth, and the tripod mount makes working vertically a treat. After using this lens a lot I started drinking the Kool-Aid about the Red Badge series of f2.8 lenses. That led me down a slope so slippery you'd think it was lined in Teflon...  It has: a focus limiter (yay! less hunting). A removable tripod mount (yay! nothing in my way when I shoot handheld). And, it has image stabilization that works in conjunction with the I.S. in the X-H1 body (just a general, "yay!"). 

the Silliest Lens I've ever bought. But it also turning out to be one of the most fun....

the Fuji 100-400mm zoom. 

Big, heavy, expensive and expensive. It's everything we ever wanted in a lens; right? But, I had the idea that I wanted to shoot more swimming competitions and more compressed landscapes and this is really the only long zoom in the Fuji line up. It's something M.J. and others would never think of buying but...at a swim meet I can be on the other side of the pool and get almost a tight head shot of a swimmer racing when I'm zoomed out near the longest focal length. This thing is a 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 zoom with three dozen or so rare, radioactive glass elements (kidding, kidding) that works well and delivers great, compressed telephoto shots. I don't use it often (yet) but when I do I'm impressed by the images I'm able to get out of the lens. It's normally one of those lenses that you think long and hard about getting but recently Fuji temporarily dropped the price on it from $1999 to $1399 and that was a big enough drop to make me sit down and consider all the ways I could use it. Sad that Ben is no longer running cross country....

Bad reviewers tried to give the lens a reputation for being "soft" at the long end but they were, of course, wrong. Like all those people in 2010 who told me that LEDs could never be useful to real photographers. Or the people who told me in 2009 that mirrorless would never, ever replace DSLRs. They either have different criteria or they don't know WTF they are doing with their gear. The lens is nicely sharp everywhere. Just be sure to pick a high enough shutter speed to hand hold this well and make good use of a tripod if you really, really want to see what the optics can return. Everything else is a user fail. 

90mm. f2.0. Simple. Elegant. Alluring. Frightfully expensive.

Sharper than any 135mm you've ever used on full frame;

Leica and Zeiss included. 

I was sitting here one day trying to organize files. What to keep and what to throw away. A lot of the work was on film. I came across a box marked, "Rene".  I looked inside and it was filled with dozens and dozens of contact sheets and pages of 35mm negatives I'd shot of Rene Zellweger a long time ago. I also found a few work prints of one image of her that had always been my favorite. It's (of course) black and white and the composition, compression and focus fall off were just ---- perfect. (I was so much better at photography thirty years ago....). I flashed back to the day we shot the image. She was lit by one 500 watt tungsten light pushed through a yellowing, tattered white umbrella and I shot it with a 135mm soft focus lens that Canon made for FD cameras. You could use a ring to go from soft to sharp but I liked it somewhere in the middle because of how that setting affected the out of focus areas.

Anyway, I looked at the prints and at the contact sheets with adjacent, similar images and loved the look. After a short bout of consideration and a quick bit of research I stood up, walked out of the studio and headed up to Precision Camera to purchase, at full price, the 90mm Fuji lens. I don't regret it even for a moment. It's wicked sharp but does beautiful out of focus areas. I use it as a reminder that at one time I had portrait mojo and if I ever re-captured my mojo I wanted to make sure I had the ultimate portrait tool close at hand. I pull it out when I want to shoot stuff that's perfect. Even at f2.0 everything that's within the depth of field of the focus plane is tantalizingly perfect. It's the kind of lens you just want to carry around looking for things that you want to render perfectly. Addictive? Yes. All terrain? Nah. It's more of a specialty lens. But if I spent all my time taking portraits this lens would probably never come off the front of my camera.

I have the "kit" lens; the standard zoom, but I figured, "what the hell?" I've heard so much about the 16-55mm f2.8 I might as well buy one. Here's my take after using it for several events and three national advertising shoots. It's better than any standard lens I've used since the amazing, underrated, under appreciated Nikon 28-70mm f2.8 from the early years, near the turn of the century (a much better lens than any of the later Nikon 24-70mm lenses. Believe me. Why would I lie to you?).  It's chubby and heavy but it goes from somewhere near 24mm to somewhere close to 82.5mm (based on full frame speak) and it's sharp at or near wide open at every one of those apertures. 

this is a really good lens. It's the 60mm Macro. 

It's a slow to focus lens. I don't care because it paints an image as well as

Leonardo da Vinci.  It's beautiful. Everything is detailed without beating one over the head with the concept of sharpness. It's got nano acuity everywhere and harshness nowhere. 

It's my constant second choice (after the perfect 90mm) for portrait work.

If you need very fast focusing or good manual focusing then this lens is not for you. It's a bit slow even with the latest firmware and the latest Fuji cameras (also with the latest software). But it does eventually get what you want in focus and when you do the lens is delightful but not in the way that lens testers seem to love. It's all sharp enough and detailed enough but instead of drawing with hard edged acutance the lens seems to have an endless range of tones between colors and steps of tone. Not the overly accented intersections between colors but an almost neutral rendering that seems more... lifelike. 

It's one of the older lenses in the Fuji line but I am glad I grabbed one and tried it. My first job with it was a promotional marketing shoot for the "Hedwig" play at Zach Theatre and the close ups were worth the cost of purchase. The client agrees. It also does "macro" but only to 1:2 size, not 1:1. No tiny ant legs today. 

There are three lenses missing from this list that I use with the cameras but I forgot to photograph them and I'm running out of steam to write more about these things. The lenses are the Contax 50mm f1.8 I previously mentioned, the Fujicron 50mm f2.0, and a quaint and squirrelly 7Artisans 35mm f1.2. I'll write about them separately. Unless I'm having too much fun with the 90mm --- and then all bets are off...

It's Mother's Day. Go buy yourself something really nice (a lens?) and give it to your spouse as a gift. Maybe she'll let you use it. Maybe she'll consider it such a thoughtless gift that you end up divorced. Look at the bright side, you'll probably get to keep the lens. Well, wait... never mind. 

Lackadaisical 21mm f2.8 Photographs. Sharp. Strange and completely black and white.

Creek bed study #1. The Full Frame. (Fujifilm 14mm f2.8, E-X3)

Creek bed study #2. The 100 % crop from the bottom right hand quadrant. Same camera and lens info.

"OMG!!! Is it sharp enough? How will I know when it's sharp enough?"

Bridge study #2,031,645. Same Camera and lens info. 

A reportage of the Google building on 2nd Street in downtown Austin. 

Same camera and lens info. 

Restaurant study #31,965. On Second St. in downtown Austin. 

Same camera and lens info. 

Non-Linear visualization. Crowdsourced brain surgery. 

Same.

Why is everything falling over to the right of the frame?

It must be the lens! Right?

Photographer emulates older, down-on-his-luck, drifter in a

search for relative anonymity. 

Don't try this at home. 

The decelerating photography market. On all sides now.

It was interesting to skate around the web and look at not just what pundits and experts are saying but also how they are saying it. The general tone, and even the defensiveness of some commentators. I was over on YouTube and clicked onto one of my favorite camera review/camera tutorial sites; that of ever cheerful, Maarten Heilbron. His latest video wasn't a review or a camera tutorial but a six minute segment suggesting buyers take a breath and consider before lungeing into yet another camera purchase. Yes, he was actually counseling visitors to his site to sit back for a moment and really try to understand what they want to use their cameras for and how they are using what they've already got. It was almost an anti-buying episode. His suggestions were spot on and when I left his channel I clicked over to Amazon and emptied my "wish list."

There is a pervasive mantra on the web that we've hit a hard and long plateau which means "all current cameras are more than good enough." 

DP Review made a splash, not with another "amazing pre-pre-preview of the latest Sony MILC" but with news of Nikon's recently released financials; which don't look good where their photography products are concerned. Another 18% drop in their imaging business revenue since just last year (which was NOT stellar). Sony had a drop in operating profit of 73% last quarter; according to (well informed) Thom Hogan. Makes one wonder if Samsung just did their homework a lot quicker (and better) than the rest of the companies in the camera market and got out first. Stopped digging deeper into the hole. Stopped the bleeding early...

The perspective I hear from nearly every working photographer I encounter in day-to-day life is this: "The cameras got so good a few years ago that there's really nothing I need in the new cameras that I can't get out of the stuff I bought two years (or three, or four) ago." Followed by, "I'm pretty happy with what I have now I think I'll skip this generation and wait for the next set of introductions."  Online reviewers are still touting the latest products but they are still making their YouTube reviews mostly with  Panasonic GH5 cameras; a three year old product with a smaller sensor, etc. (Examples are: Tony and Chelsea Northrup, and Jordan Drake and Chris Nichols over at DPReview).

If the guys who are charged with marketing the latest stuff to consumers are still using older gear with great results then one has to pause for a moment and wonder why. The on-screen guys surely have access to the latest stuff but....... is it possible that three years after its introduction the only real competitor to the GH5, in the hard specs (60p 4K, 10 bit, 4:2:2 with high data rates of 400 M/bs), is the Fuji X-T3? And even it falls short since there is no audio adapter for professional microphones, no waveform indicators, etc.

Sales of Nikon's new mirrorless products are being bedeviled and curtailed by the sheer strength of the two year old D850. Based mostly on an eight year old D800. Nikon would probably sell more of their mirrorless stuff if it was demonstrably better than the D850 but it's not. And they can't risk killing the main cannibal in their line-up or they'd lose too many sales since their mirrorless offerings have fewer unique selling points versus the MILC competition. Sad times for Nikon. And even sadder is that those new cameras are so good, if considered on their own...

So, what's driving the market down? It's probably the same thing that's making commercial photography jobs harder to come by: Fear of the next recession looming in the near future. That, and declining real incomes in mature markets. And maybe new product launch fatigue.

Recent surveys by business magazines and websites show a pessimistic trend among CFOs where the economy is concerned, and indicate that they are already taking steps to trim unnecessary costs. That's starting to be felt by freelancers and might soon hit contract workers as well, in spite of the historically low unemployment numbers. Someone has to be the "canary in the coal mine."

I finally also believe that phones with great cameras, and even better internal imaging software, are more and more responsible for a growing proportion of the photographic images (and video) we're seeing in social media and web advertising. There are still plenty of situations in which traditional cameras are needed for professional (or even acceptable) results. It would be tough-to-impossible (now) to get great live theater shots with long focal lengths and lots of movement in low light. Architects still need raw resolution and (for now) optical perspective correction. The list goes on but it's shrinking. And the styles of advertising imaging have changed. Now, more often than not, all but in the top, top end of advertising the imaging being used is most often a result of "PhotoShopping" together disparate elements (mostly free stock shots) to create a final image. Cheaper, faster and more than adequate for banner ads and ads that will appear (with a 65% likelihood ) on a person's phone screen.

Survey photo bloggers and you'll hear tales of woe and despair. Affiliate clicks are following the general downshifting of the overall camera market and income from in-blog ads for photo products are falling month by month. Some bloggers are turning to crowd-funding via resources like Patreon on which interested readers can make direct financial contributions. I can only surmise though that the decline in camera sales also reflects, to a certain degree, a declining interest in the blog content in general since most of the stuff written is (inevitably now) a rehash of the same old tropes and topics.

Samples being: Which lens is best? Comparisons between two current, popular cameras. Which camera is best? Which cameras are the top five ever produced? Why the making of prints will never die? Why printmaking is dead? Mirrorless versus Traditional. Canon versus everyone else. How I use one light to photograph hot models. Are Camera Makers Lying to Us? How we did (everything) this in the good old days. Why I hate video? Are Sony Cameras the Best in the Universe? Do Fuji cameras have worms?

I've written over 4,000 blogs. I'm now waiting for the next big thing in photography. Except....there may not be a "next big thing" in Photography. We'll see.

I'm getting more calls for video these days than for traditional photography. I hate to say it but client taste in videos is pretty basic. Occasionally we get clients who just watched "Avengers: Endgame" and they'd like their $3,000 video to look "just like that." But most are looking for basic "talking heads" and the clients have done a good job pushing their cost of videos down (rushing to be first to the bottom) which means fees are also falling. I'm just a few steps away from selling off all the cameras, buying two iPhones and offering nothing but available light iPhone video with iMovie editing.... But that's just my cynicism talking.

The odd thing is that after all the changes in the markets, the tools, the audiences and the publishing venues, I still love photography more than anything (except swimming) that I do in the realm of work and play. There's still a magic to it and I'm sure that no matter what happens to the business end of photography I'll still enjoy lacing up some hiking shoes, grabbing a camera, and heading out the door to see what the world looks like through a lens. It's addictive. I like it. I can quit any time I want...(ha. ha.).
I hope you do this for fun. It's a bright future for artists and the truly smitten. I'd just hate to be a camera sales person right about now.... And I'd never, ever suggest to my son that he take up photography for a living.

A Gallery Moment. Ep. 1. "Everybody gets a trophy."

From the Zach Theatre production of "Matilda." Jimmy Moore as Ms. Trunchbull. 

Fuji X-H1
Fuji 50-140mm f2.8 (at 129.5mm)
ISO 2000
Handheld. 

Latest Amazing Product Review. Light up my life. And one thing that really sucks!!! Cue the music....

Last Sunday was Cinco de Mayo. A Mexican holiday celebrating the exit of France 

from Mexico. I just happened to be at a rocking good party at the memory care

residence with my dad. Sadly, no margaritas were on offer.....

But the mariachis were surprisingly good. Some of the best I've heard. 

Before we leap into the review of the incredible new product I thought I'd talk about all the weather excitement here in Austin. We're having some record rainfall this Spring and all the lakes, streams, creeks and shallow spots are full of water. These are no gentle Spring showers... we're getting pounded in some instances by up to 4 inches per hour. This depends on where in the area you live but on Tuesday we got our share of super heavy rainfall at VSL H.Q. Ground Zero. 

I was working at my desk in the office at around 8:30pm when the wind picked up and the tree branches started thrashing around. It's been raining off and on for weeks now and the ground is saturated all the way to the center core of the planet. There's no where else for the water to go. Fortunately, we're up in the hills so flood waters would have to crest over 400 feet to totally cover our property. Still, temporary water with no place to run is... interesting. 

As I sat typing and watching the 1200+ lightning flashes (as reported by the Weather Channel) I noticed a growing pool of water seeping from the east wall, adjacent to my desk. On the other side of the wall is a low spot and I've had trouble with it before. We have a French drain there but it's been in service since 1998 so I think it's permanently clogged up. As the pool of water grew on the inside of the office I grabbed the (priceless) Shop Vac out of the closet and fired it up. In seconds we were sucking up floor water with all the power of the turbo charged vacuum. In minutes the five gallon container was full and I emptied it out on the side of the studio that doesn't flood (smart, huh?). I repeated this exercise for a while until it dawned on me that I hadn't check on the French drain in front of the house. If the intake gets clogged up with leaves it forfeits all responsibility and if the flood waters go over the side walk and into the garden under the kitchen window then we have RED ALERT and water seeps onto the hardwood floors in the living room. 

I rushed outside, battered by the wind, and rain that felt like spiteful bullets, only to find the drain well stopped up and in full dereliction of its purpose. I cleared the drain cover and then pulled it off entirely and watched for a second as the water rushed in fast enough to make a whirlpool. But I was too late. The water had breached the last lines of defense and was just starting to spread in the living room. I called out to Ben and he cast his headphones and game controller aside and grabbed a mop and bucket. We shouted out to Belinda and she started pulling Turkish carpets off the living room floor and finding old swim towels with which to aid in the water soaking-up operation. With the big Shop Vac we made short work of it and, with the drain re-opened and fully operational, the leak/intrusion stopped. 

I rushed to empty the Shop Vac and head back out to the studio. The water had spread a third of the way across the floor and showed no signs of retreat. Again and again the mighty Shop Vac sucked until it was full and then, emptied, it sucked again. Some time after 10 pm the rain slowed down and the water stopped its attack on my studio floor. 

No major harm done. The studio has concrete floors and is covered with 3/8ths inch foam tiles (the kind used in exercise areas...). We'll mop up and replace the tiles as some of them are nearing 18 years of service. But it sure showcases the wonders of home ownership and studio ownership for me. Oh Boy!

Oh Shop Vac, you are my hero!!!

We had more rain yesterday and it was also a doozy but I spent some time in a dry spell working on the drains. We've got more work to do with the ones for the studio but they held the line during yesterday's squall, and today we have some actual sunshine. And the attendant super-high humidity. Lovely, all just lovely. 

Coffee on the way to swim practice. Feeling down? Feeling overwhelmed?

Nothing a good, fast 3500 yards with friends can't fix. 

Goggles? Check. Suit? Check. No lightning? Check. 

Ready, set, swim. Yay!!!!!

Moral/take-away from my tale of water woes? Buy yourself a Shop Vac and keep those drains clean and operational. 

Now, on to our review of the latest "Amazing Product" to appear in the studio, courtesy the hardworking delivery drivers from Amazon. 

The product we're writing about today is a simple LED light. It's sold by Godox. 

I've been using Aputure LED panels for several years now and I like the sturdiness and color integrity of their more professional series of Lightstorm fixtures. But I have had my eye on their COB (chip on board) lights, the 120D and the 300D, for quite a while. These are set up with one monolithic LED chip (about 1.5 inches by 1.5 inches) so they make a harder light source and work more like a  traditional electronic flash than a panel light. You are able to use them with speed rings and that allows you to use them with modifiers like soft boxes and octaboxes effectively. I hesitated to buy the Aputure products because they seemed expensive and I didn't really have a pressing need for them. I was doing just fine pushing panel LED light through a diffusion screen for most of my work. But in the back of my mind I knew it would be nice, if they worked well, to use different lights, along with speed ring friendly modifiers because it would mean the whole assemblage could be put onto one light stand, effectively cutting in half the number of C-Stands or light stands I would have to bring on location. 

A few recent video assignments brought that idea back into my brain and I re-started my investigation into the Aputure models. But interestingly, each time I looked at a review of the Aputure 120 (around $650) I would also read about another choice; the Godox SL-60W. The color specs and basic mechanics are pretty much the same but the Godox sells for (right now, today) about $159, delivered. I continued reading. 

Both are fan cooled. Early Godox units had a reputation for being loud. More recent reviews point out that when both units are warmed up and have been in operation for about 15 minutes the fan noise is the same. Obviously, the Aputure model uses a thermostatically controlled fan which ramps up the final RPM as the heat increases toward its equilibrium while, apparently, the Godox just runs the fan at speed whenever it's turned on. The Aputure is rated at 120 watts while the Godox is 60. The difference, theoretically, should be about one stop. 

While the Aputure is more robustly constructed and has more "air" holes for ventilation there are some things I like much better about the Godox unit. The biggest is that the Aputure ( like the Lightstorm LS units I already own) separate the control box from the light unit itself. The control box is connected via an almost proprietary LEMO cable to the light and dangles underneath it. The control box has its own dangling accessory in the form of a power brick to convert the A/C from the wall to D/C. You'll need to remember, every time you pack to leave your studio and go on location, to pack: the light unit, the LEMO cable, the control unit, the power brick and the removable power cord for the power brick. That's a lot of stuff to remember. That's a lot of stuff to pack. 

The Godox SL-60W is set up like a last century appliance; there is one power cord that goes from your wall socket into the back of the unit. The cord is removable and replaceable (standard computer cable) but it's just one, standard electrical cord. Done. 

All of the Aputures can be configured to run on batteries. The Lightstorms I have can be purchased configured to work with either Sony "V" mount batteries or Anton Bauer cinema batteries. If you want to use the $159 Godox in a battery powered configuration you really ....... can't. I'm sure you could get an external battery, with an inverter, and make that work but you're back to hauling around more stuff. Godox does make a battery powered version of the SL-60W, with an internal lithium battery but that unit can't be used with a wall plug so you've got two units from Godox that are both somewhat less flexible than the Aputure 120D or 300D. Except that you'll already be hauling all those cables and brick with the Aputure units...

I bought my Godox SL-60W knowing full well that I'd be using it as a "plug-in-the-wall" only unit and I'm fine with that. 

Most of the time I intend to use the light for video work, in the studio and on location. If I want to work free from the wall plugs I've got a number of battery powered options to use in my inventory. But this is the only LED light I have that can be used in conjunction with speed rings and their associated modifiers.  Something I would mostly use for interviews. 

So, how does the SL-60W actually work? Pretty well. I opened the box, glanced at a tiny owner's manual, plugged the light in and turned it on. The light output matches the output I get (color, hue, and color temperature) from the Aputure LS units fairly closely. More than close enough to use both brands in tandem to light a shot. The interface on the back is incredibly simple; more so if you choose to ignore the small remote that comes with the light. 

I'm currently testing the light with a 42 inch octobox that has two layers of diffusion. I'm happy to say that at ISO 400 I can do portraits with the light in my usual configuration at 1/125th and f4.0. That's a perfect spot for portraits taken with the Fuji cameras. (I use my boxes in a bit closer than some...). 

I left the light on at 75% power, with the octobox mounted, for two days. The temperature (there is a readout of operating temperature on the rear panel. Put the setting dial for two seconds to toggle back and forth between centigrade and Fahrenheit) never exceeded 90 degrees F. I like to burn stuff in. I've been told that most electronics will either fail at the beginning or the very end of their useful life. This one seems to have survived. 

The light is adjustable in tiny steps. The analogy is a lens with a very long focusing ring throw. 

The only control, in addition to the temperature readout and a power knob, is a button that will allow you to "program" the unit to work on various channels or groups with the supplied remote control. While remotes always sound like a great idea I have about six of them for various Aputure lights and all the remotes are in a drawer together. I never use them. I can't understand the allure. Or the need to put up with more operational complexity. 

I'm sure someone will trot out the argument about the light being all the way up near the ceiling and how they desperately and immediately need to make a "critical" change in the light's output level but I don't use lights in the same way and am almost never in such a rush that I can't take time to lower a light and make an adjustment. 

For me, the light has two controls. One is the power switch. The other is the power control knob. That's about as simple as you can make things. 

So, to sum up: Great light for the money. Good color and output. Wickedly cheap. Lots of plastic in the construction (although the body seems to be made of metal). Did I mention the price? 

Here's the logic: One light in a soft box (or equivalent). One light on the background with a grid over the reflector. Done. Less than $400.   Nice. I think I'll buy two more. Still cheaper than the Aputure 120D. 

Buy one here. 

Large and bright rear panel with simple and obvious controls.