Point taken. No more politics on the blog (unless someone declares martial law...). More MTF and less WTF.

I hear you. I'll keep the politics off the blog.

All packed up and ready to head off on vacation. When I return we should have some information for you about the Sigma 45mm f2.8 lens used on the Panasonic Lumix S1, a first look at the Log upgrade to the same camera (4:2:2 10 bit 60p) and a review about two small tripods.

I'm leaving all my computer stuff at home so Studio Dog can keep in touch with me while I'm gone. She'll have her paws full supervising young Ben Tuck for the week. Since I'm only taking an iPhone for comms I won't be torturing myself trying to write anything for the blog on the tiny, tiny keyboard. Any brilliant ideas I come up with will have to wait.

This will be the first trip I've taken in a long time during which I'll be able to travel with only carry-on luggage. All the flights I took last year for clients required checking in lighting equipment and other support equipment in a large Manfrotto case (or two). How deliciously purging...

Belinda is warming up to the idea of actually carrying a camera along with her to Montreal but it's not one that will be very exciting to most readers here; she's taking a Canon G15. Fits in her small bag.

I'm taking one camera and two lenses. The camera is a Pentax K-1 and the two lenses are the 50mm f1.4 and the 28-105mm zoom. Oh, yeah. And some extra batteries.

We'll argue about my camera choice when I get back.

Finally, I want to thank the VSL reader who volunteered to drive up from central New York state to Montreal in order to pick us up at the airport and drive us to our hotel. I think he was kidding but I'm not 100% sure. I do appreciate the thought...

Hope everyone in Austin has fun (and stays safe) at the Austin City Limits Music Festival, and everyone else has a great week making photographs and video someplace quieter. I'm pretty sure I can hear Guns and Roses from the park right now....

Adios Mi Amigos.

I know all of you probably want a Pentax K1 so here's a link to one at Amazon:

Another black and white comparison. I just had to see which one I liked better.

In this case I prefer the color. I like the skin tone. It's got just the right amount of "eeriness" 

From our photographic coverage of the "Dracula" play at Zach Theatre. 

I was tooling around with a Lumix S1 this morning. I wanted to see how it "felt" with a Sigma 45mm lens on the front of it.

Sweaty and hot as Austin continues to set new weather records with temperatures 

nudging 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the first week of October...

I've had a Panasonic Lumix S1 sitting around the studio since the last week of September. It makes really nice photographs but the camera body is really heavy compared to just about every other mirrorless, full frame camera out on the market right now. Maybe not as heavy as something like a Nikon D5 or a Canon 1DX, or even a Nikon 850 but.... heavy enough. I compounded the size and weight issues by adding the  Lumix 24-105mm f4.0 lens to the mix when I acquired the camera, which follows the current full frame lens trend of being... bigger. And heavier. 

After using the camera in tandem with several other brands of cameras I'd pretty much decided that while it's a great "work" camera it might not be my first choice (or even my second choice) as a travel camera. With the zoom lens attached it would make walking around shooting in urban settings more of a burden than a blessing. Not quite as bad as spending the day with a Fuji GFX 100 + lens over one shoulder but close, very close. 

Belinda and I are leaving for Montreal on Saturday to have a little vacation, get ourselves out of the relentless heat, and to avoid the additional 100,000+ people who are coming into Austin for the Austin City Limits Music Festival, which starts this Friday (Good Lord, what is wrong with people that they'll spend hundreds of dollars for a ticket to sit on the hard dirt and open sun in 100+ degree heat, inside a chain link fence, to hear bands play their music over giant speakers in the least acoustically pleasant environment one could think of? And to pay outrageous prices for water and food into the bargain? Just stream the music on your phone and get a decent pair of headphones --- cheaper, more comfortable and better sounding).  Sorry, a person prejudice against large, outdoor concerts...

Back on the subject: 

On trips where I don't have to come home with salable images I actually have more of an issue deciding which cameras and lenses to drag along with me. "It's a vacation." I tell myself, and then I get into an argument with myself over why I need to take along something more than an iPhone. It's crazy to feel like I have to nail every shot, especially when we're mostly just going to do touristy stuff. 

When we first discussed going on a trip I immediately thought I'd be happy taking along a Fuji X-Pro2 and maybe the 23mm f1.4 and the 56mm f1.2. After thinking about it for a while it evolved into the two lenses and an X-H1 (for the image stabilization). Then I went on a little shooting spree with the Pentax K1 and bounced around the idea of the K-1 plus the 28-105 zoom lens. The body has great I.S. and the lens is more than decent. I still like the idea but that shutter is a bit loud and I might really miss the EVF-ism of the other cameras. Then I found myself messing around with the Lumix S1 and got all excited about the (absolutely killer) EVF and the amazing image stabilization and started thinking about taking it and the zoom. But the bulk of the zoom and the body together dissuaded me...

In passing, one of my photographer friends mentioned to me that Sigma (a signatory to the L-mount consortium) was putting out interesting, and quite good, lenses for the L-mount cameras. In particular he suggested I check out the small, light and gorgeously designed 45mm f2.8 L mount lens. It's certainly not the fastest option but it sure is an interesting one.

It's a  near normal focal length lens that's designed to have great character when it comes to the rendering of out-of-focus areas when used wide open and, when stopped down just one stop from wide open, it's supposed to have high sharpness and otherwise desirable imaging characteristics. The lens is built mostly from metal, has its own external aperture ring(!) and comes with a metal lens hood. The current price is $550 and I should mention that it's also available in the Sony E mount.

The lens is designed with eight elements in seven groups and includes two aspherical elements in its design. It's nicely light and compact and dramatically reduces the overall profile of the Lumix camera package.

I need to shoot some more images with the combination of the S1 + the 45mm this afternoon in order to convince myself but the camera and this one lens are my current leading contenders to make it onto the Montreal trip with me and Belinda. I'll stick a 128 GB V90 card in the #2 slot, set the camera to large, fine Jpegs and try to disconnect from being too technically involved.

In other news I'm finding that the Fuji X-H1 is highly competitive with the Lumix camera when it comes to shooting video. A quick test shows me that I'm happier with the Eterna profile in the Fuji than either the Flat or Cine-D profiles in the Lumix. When I get back from Montreal I'll load up the Log functionality in the S1 and do a direct comparison against the Fuji F-Log (that comes free in the X-H1) and we'll see who is really the boss of 4K video.

Currently packing for the trip. The goal is to get everything I'm taking into one smallish, lightweight carry-on. I'm going back and forth about which shoes to take. Hopefully the cameras will get sorted out after a bit more experimentation with the S1+45mm. I may give up entirely and just take my new-ish iPhone....

A final note for today: If the political environment gets any more crazy here, with a full-on dictatorship blossoming as we speak, we may just stay in Montreal and send for Studio Dog. Just sayin. 

Showing off a short, short TV Commercial we shot with a Fujifilm X-H1.

We started out aiming for a thirty second TV spot but ended up

downsizing the run time because of downsized placement budgets. 

It's a fun, little spot for a kid's play that we shot in an afternoon

at the Theatre 

I did the camera work while Joshua Cummins 

directed and edited the piece. 

Go see it on Vimeo rather than looking at the small frame here....

Fujifilm X-H1 with various Fuji lenses. 

Shot in 4K, edited down to 1080.

Getting to black and white. From a raw file out of the Pentax K-1.

My formative photography years were spent learning to shoot, develop and print black and white images. Color was too expensive, too complex to do on my own. I still spend time trying to make conversions from color digital raw files to monochrome to see if I can get close to the feel of the images we used to make on some of the premium papers (loved graded Ilfobrom paper) back in the days of the wet darkroom. 

These two images are the same file but imagined in two different ways. I like the black and white better.  But I think a propensity for liking one or the other is generational. And even within my generation there were those who were confirmed Kodachrome (color slide) shooters and the contingent of black and white shooters so there's also a divide there. 

Curious how it breaks down amongst VSL readers. Anybody want to chime in? Which do you prefer and why?

The more "colorful" side of downtown San Antonio. Assisted by the original Pentax K-1 and the HD 28-105mm zoom lens.

Who doesn't want a flaming scull to decorate their home with?

I've traveled a fair bit over the years and seen lots of amazing places, mostly with a camera over one shoulder. I've been in and out of Paris and Rome at least a dozen times each. Lived in Turkey for two years. Did a two week long project in St. Petersburg, Russia in the dead of winter back in 1995. Back packed through "classic" Europe for months and months back in the 1970's; slept in tents and hostels, cooked eggs nearly every day with a small frying pan that hung off my pack and a little Blue Gas burner. But over the last few years travel has become more crowded, more frenetic, more....mundane. I traveled 22 times out of Texas on business last year. Not much of the actual travel was fun... 

That's what I love about having San Antonio close at hand. If I feel the need for a break from the  "exhausting excitement" of being in Austin, Texas I can hop in my car and more or less reliably be in San Antonio in about an hour and fifteen minutes. 

What I love about San Antonio is that it has not (yet) been destroyed by a steely-eyed core of highly entitled groups hell bent on making it into the next Yuppie Paradise. There are many more working people and solid, middle class families than there are denizens of fortified enclaves of flashy wealth. Which means that the downtown area hasn't been made over as a hipster vacation spot, replete with avocado toast and an Aston Martin (or two) on every block. Which further means that the city has retained some authenticity and some of its historic vibe. Which means more street festivals, more diversity in public, less expensive attractions and dining and, a more welcoming disposition. 

Sure, you can find expensive hotel rooms and pricey restaurants in The River City but you'll have to try a bit harder than you would in Austin. San Antonio depends on a different kind of tourism. Instead of executives flying in from some place chic to sit in posh hotels and plan the next disruption in their industry, or the pampered children of the upper middle class flying in from around the country for a three day ($$$$) concert in the park you get many less affluent people who drive in to San Antonio from towns and cities across Texas to see the Alamo, buy giant margaritas and take selfies in front of the giant dinosaur at Ripley's Believe-it-or-not. For the most part these tourists are: not big spenders, not obnoxious, not destroying as much nature (flying = massive carbon footprint) and, seemingly, more likely to be having fun. Not a gritted teeth, latest Patagonia outerwear, Let's run a marathon across the glacier and then have a bottle of Cristal at the lobby bar to loudly celebrate sort of fun but just casual, walking around, looking at stuff, eating gorditas and churros, hanging out in Tex-Mex restaurants, listening to mariachis, and buying Bart Simpson piñatas kind of fun. 

All of which makes it a great city to visit if you just want to walk around taking photographs with a big, little, or phone camera. 

Yesterday I posted images of mostly buildings from my time there last Saturday but I also wanted to show the silly, fun, zany, weird stuff that just seems to crop up when walking from the Alamo to the Mercado and back. All shot with a Pentax K1 and the 28-70mm zoom. No muss, no fuss. And home in time for dinner...

Make up your own caption...

Above and below, the Ripley's Believe it or Not across the street from the  Alamo. 

The workers depicted are also part of the mural. The car is the car.

One above and two below: Altars at the entrance to one of the most popular, 

24 hour operating Mexican food restaurants in the center of the city. 

I should have gone in to look and see if the big altar to singer, 

Selena is still there.

After all these decades I still love taking photographs of the ticket office

at the Majestic Theater on Houston St. 

And they've done such a nice job keeping it maintained.