A step up from the point-and-shoot universe but a step down in price. The 16 megapixel GX85 is currently on sale everywhere as a two lens kit. $477.

I read the reviews. I saw the gushing on YouTube. It was 2016 and the GX85 had just been launched. A new shutter mechanism fixed "shutter shock," a condition that reared its head in the much more expensive GX8. The new camera "featured" 16 megapixels on its m4:3 sensor and it was the first Panasonic Lumix camera to forego the anti-aliasing filter on the sensor, which meant it could (and does) resolve more detail than the same sensor as it was used in the GX7 and the Olympus EM-5 mk2.

The camera was never on my radar until about a week ago when my sales pro at Precision Camera, responding to my questions about a $900 point-and-shoot camera, steered me to this camera kit. It's the body and two lenses. One lens is the 12-32mm shown above and the second lens is the venerable 40-150mm kit-ish lens. If you consider the current retail price of the lenses alone the kit is a wild bargain. When you discover that the camera is really, really good it becomes an insane bargain.

I've been playing with the GX85 since yesterday and it's a great "carry everywhere" camera. You might need a couple of spare batteries to get through the day with it but Wasabi Power batteries seem to work just fine and you can get two and a charger for about $20 on the interwebs. Maybe it's just the nutty way I overshoot that makes me so battery sensitive.

If you're toting around a Lumix S1R and the Lumix 50mm f1.4 S Pro lens all the time (or a Nikon D850 and the 24-105mm) you might want to get one of these kits to make leisure time with photography just a little bit less daunting....

But then again, if you are training for the USMS National Swim Championship in San Antonio in April in 2020 then the weight training with the bigger camera, and the lens with the glandular problem, might be part of your training regimen.

I bought the kit partly because of the low price, partly to use as a platform for my beloved Pen FT half frame lenses (from the 1970's) and mostly to have something decent to shoot with while running out for groceries, to the pool, and in situations where discretion is called for.

At least this time it's all in the same (menu) family.

What did you get yourself for the holidays? Just curious....

I don't do links but if you want one of these you might head over to Michael Johnston's site: https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html
and order one from there. He'll get a small $$$ and that's cool because he does a wonderful job entertaining me with his writing about photography.....and diet....and addiction.....and (sadly) the game of snooker.

Work I did decades ago still drives my search for the right digital camera and lens. Odd how that happens. I'm finally narrowing it down.

L.L.

This was photographed in my favorite, old studio at 500 San Marco St., over in east Austin. I was renting about 3000 square feet of space which came complete with 20 foot ceilings. I got the space when the company that owned the building was converting it from warehouse space to office and studio space. I think my rent was somewhere around $750 a month and included righteously good air conditioning and electric power + water service. Now $750 would barely cover utilities on a space that size....

I still have a recurring dream that I inadvertently left a bunch of gear and paperwork in the space and also that I forgot to tell them I was moving out. I wake up worried that I've lost precious negatives and that I owe tens of thousands of dollars in back rent, starting from 22 years ago... But the reality is that I renovated a new space at a property we bought and settled out with the previous studio landlord with all the paperwork done nicely and properly.

But it was such a fun and expansive space in which to shoot. I could set up a portrait subject ten or 

twenty feet from the front of my camera and still have a space of 25 feet behind the camera for the background. With those kinds of distances one could use longer lenses and the focus fall off to the background was nothing short of exhilarating. I make due in a much smaller space now and for the most part it works out because: A. We own the space. And, B. The vast majority of projects I do these days are on location. Would I still like a studio with 60 feet of linear space to work in? You bet. Would I like to pay thousands of dollars per month to occasionally shoot a portrait with absolutely no constraints? Hmmm. Maybe not so much....

The image above was shot in the studio just for the hell of it. We went through so much medium format film in a month that burning through ten or twelve rolls of color transparency film photographing a beautiful subject was a tiny drop in the bucket, financially. 

This one was done during a test session. We were breaking in two new lenses for our Hasselblad system; one was the new just then 180mm f4.0 Zeiss lens and the other was the 250mm f4.0 Zeiss lens  (I was replacing the 250mm f5.6 version with the faster version made for the 201F and other F cameras). The image is a look that I liked (and still like) very much. A long, fast lens on a big chunk of film. 

In fact, it's been the gold standard I still use to judge how successfully a current camera and lens system comes to matching or even getting close to what we could do with MF film, without breaking a sweat. So, my system from 24 years ago drives me to look at particular cameras and lenses, in a particular way, even now. 

When I used the 180mm f4.0 lens on a 6x6cm square Hasselblad format the corresponding 35mm equivalent angle of view was about 100mm. It always seemed just right to me. The 250mm was equal to about a 135mm on 35mm which was wonderful in my longer studio but would be unmanageable in the current space. 

I'm currently trying really hard to fit the Panasonic Lumix S1R, coupled with the Sigma 85mm f1.4 Art lens, into the mix and trying to set up the smaller system to best emulate what I used to get from the bigger film system. It's tougher work than I thought it would be but with every model encounter I get closer and closer. The first big step for me was to limit the S1R to shooting in the square, 1:1 format. That makes the 85mm effectively about 10mm longer by comparison. The next thing is trying to find the right imaging parameters with which I can get deep, dark shadows but wide open, airy highlights. Not exactly trying to leverage the ultimate in dynamic range at both ends of the curve but mostly just at the lighter (shoulder) edge of the tonal range. It's all a compromise but then again, so was film and film processing. 

I'm in the studio today trying to reverse engineer my own lighting from the 1990s. I'm afraid I really will need to re-buy one more five by six foot soft box. Somethings just can't be substituted...

I hope you are making good use of your vacation. I'm re-branding and re-strategizing for 2020 and I'm working hard and locking down what I want to make. It takes new work.

A Non-Linear wrap-up of the last three days. And what I bought myself for an end of the year present.

Belinda creating table decor with free rosemary. 

On Thursday, early afternoon, Ben and I drove out to Dripping Springs, Texas to Emmett and Lisa's Christmas Eve open house. Lots of people who I swim with were there with their families and friends. Ben got into a long conversation with an old friend who makes his living as a child psychiatrist while I took photos of Emmett (famous chef and restauranteur) using a saber to pop the tops off fancy Italian sparkling wine. Emmett and Lisa are the owners (totally hands-on) of Asti Trattoria which is my absolute favorite restaurant in all of central Texas. 

I knew Emmett was going to do something like use a saber to decapitate wine bottles so I brought along a camera and appropriate lens. It was a Lumix S1 and the 24-105mm kit lens. The perfect choice for a sunny afternoon out in the Hill Country.

Ben survived his interrogation conversation unscathed in time for us to head back home and help Belinda get ready for our Christmas Eve Celebration with a family of close friends. We made a standing rib roast which I think was a tactical error. Oh, it was delicious and everything but if you have a nicely marbled hunk of beef you'll be shocked at the sheer amount of grease that ends up on the bottom of the pan, on the cutting board, etc. As designated cleaner I now have an appreciation of just how labor intensive kitchen work can be. 

A good selection of red wines and Champagnes was a nice antidote to the very thought of my impending role as head dishwasher....

I photographed Belinda putting together sprigs of Rosemary with the Lumix S1 and the Zeiss 50mm f1.7 Y/C lens, wide open. (it was such a "wide open" sort of day). 

We ate and talked and laughed and sang until late in the evening and then, after our friends headed home, all settled down for a long winter's nap. 

A blue Santa in the window at Toy Joy.

On the 23rd I took a bit of time to go walk downtown to see if any pretty baubles caught my eye and would make nice gifts. I came home almost empty handed but did manage to take one photograph that I liked. It's the one just above of a plastic Santa in a blue costume. I love all the lights and colors in the background and captured this image with the Lumix S1 and the Sigma 45mm f2.8 (shot at f4.0).

As we say in Texas: "This here is Emmett, fixing to whack the top off a bottle of wiiiiiine."

I've been carrying the big Lumix S1 cameras and the even bigger lenses around for a couple of months now and they've done a great job but they left me desiring a small and discreet kit to carry around with me on long walks and in social situations in which five or six pounds of big, black camera gear seems to be a little out of place.

You probably read my musings about the possibility of adding a Lumix LX100 ii to the herd but I swerved after conferring with my retail camera consiglieri and carefully comparing the LX100xx and its sister camera, the Lumix GX85. For $900 I could buy the little fixed lens marvel but, with a current Panasonic end of year sale I could get the GX85 and two Lumix lenses for.....get this.....$449. 

I spent an hour at the store today, going back and forth and walking around shooting stupid stuff with each camera. The GX85 was the definite choice. Don't get me wrong, I loved most of the ethos of the LX100xx but the GX85 stepped up when I reminded myself that I had saved my complete collection of Olympus Pen FT half frame lenses from the chopping block during my last studio equipment purge. 

The GX85 can use those lenses (easily) since the mount (with lens adapter) is perfect for them. So, for less than $500 I end up with a body, a 45-150mm G Vario zoom and a 12-32mm G Vario zoom lens. I came right home and put the 40mm f1.4 Pen FT lens on the camera and I've been walking around, happy, ever since. 

Guess what? The GX85 menus are so similar to the S1 menus that I had the camera set up and ready to go in about 10 minutes. Bonus. 

I have time for a few more blog posts in 2019 so stay tuned. Or not. Your choice, but I won't be changing editorial content to please you.....

Love. Actually. Is so much cooler than cameras. I can't believe I just wrote that....

What's on my wish list for Santa? What are my chances?

From "Christmas Carol" at Zach Theatre.

So, here we are, the day before Christmas Eve. I'm having six or eight people over for dinner tomorrow evening and we decided to buy an eight foot collapsible table to handle the overflow. Belinda found one at Walmart.com and ordered it online for at store pickup. I haven't shopped at Walmart....ever. But I had a huge load of prejudices against the chain of stores: They've ruined small town retail, they have a huge employee base and many of them are on Medicaide because they aren't paid enough to buy health insurance, the majority of their inventory is cheap crap from China, they are a shopping nexus for all the people with MAGA hats, and so much more. But here's the deal, the store nearest us was clean, modern and well appointed. The waiting area for online pickups had nice chairs and pleasant employees. Everyone was helpful. The service was prompt. Someone even offered to carry the table out to my car. I left with a much modified impression of my most local Walmart... Go figure. Not going to be a regular stop on my shopping agenda....but....

We went to our local grocery store to pick up our grass fed, organic, standing prime rib roast for tomorrow's dinner and I found myself thinking I could have bought a new lens for the same price. Odd; food and lenses priced in the same range. Of course, it would not be a pricy lens, nor would it be organic but still... Might not be wise to shop often at a store where one fights for a parking space with Bentley and Maserati owners.....

I got stuff done today that had nothing to do with photography. I bought a few last minute presents for family. I cleaned the main bathroom (and I mean I cleaned!!! Scrubbed the floor, scrubbed the toilet, scrubbed the sink, made the bathtub look brand new. I also washed the kitchen floor (Saltillo tile) and did a couple loads of laundry. I hit the wine shop and impoverished myself rounding up something for everyone on our dinner list. 

But the most important thing I did was to ignore all the other things on my "to-do" list and hightail it over to the Deep Eddy pool for a frosty, refreshing, noon swim with my friends, Emmett and Julie. The water was a brisk 72 degrees but it was made more manageable by an air temperature around 70 degrees and a beautiful, sunny sky. I was in a hurry so I got in my 3200 yards and got back to (domestic) work.  (Our regular pool is closed---much to our chagrin---from now until Friday!!!! Grrrr.). 

As I was swimming along, trying to keep some feeling in my freezing toes, I started to think about what I might want for Christmas.... if there is a Santa Claus.

I made a list just in case someone out there has been torturing themself trying to figure out what to get me for being such an adorable and entertaining human. Let's go through the list. It's short. Call me if you need the shipping address. Okay?

I've been thinking of getting a new compact camera and I've narrowed my choices down to the Lumix LX 100ii or the Lumix LX 100ii. Either will do fine. My rationale? A good lens range, a small, nearly pocketable overall package, and a menu that's similar enough to the S1s that it won't cause my headaches. Reviews tell me that the 4K video is actually decent (no mic or headphone jacks) and that the color is a good match for the S1s and G9 in the Panasonic family. It's not ruinously expensive like a Leica and it's kind of on sale for about $100 off. If you decide that this is what you'd like to send along, Santa, then can I also request a second battery? I love back-up batteries.... 

I don't know why but after using some of these enormous lenses I've purchased for my Lumix S1 and S1R cameras I'm desiring one more big and over-engineered lens. The one I'm looking at right now...two days before Christmas.... is the Sigma 40mm f1.4 Art lens for the L mount. Sure, I have the 35mm Art lens and the breathtaking 50mm Lumix S Pro lens (which they sell by the pound...) but for some reason my avaricious brain is trying to convince me that it would be great to have something somewhere in the middle. You know, when your camera bag just isn't heavy enough and you're paralyzed trying to decide between the 50 and the 35. 

The 40mm Sigma Art lens is supposed to be made to cinema lens standards (whatever that means) and according to those guys over at LensRentals.com it's wicked sharp and has an MTF curve that would pop the pennies off a dead man's eyes. Gotta have it. It will go well with the featherweight Sigma 45mm f2.8 and will allow me to select middling primes in 5 mm increments. What could be more artistic? (Tuck as never heard of cropping!!!?).

For all those times that I want to travel without the massive density of the assorted primes I thought I might also like the new Panasonic 24-70mm f2.8 S Pro lens. I handled one recently and it's less than half the weight of the 50mm f1.4 and is right snappy when it comes to focusing and handling. Yeah, I know it seems a bit over the top. Especially since I already have the 24-105mm f4.0 kit lens and have found it to be really, really good. But what are you going to do? The Think Tank rolling case knows what it wants to coddle....

If you had a banner year and you're just splashing cash all over the place you could impress the hell out of me with the gift of a Leica SL 90mm Apo Summicron. Really, for as good as that lens is the folks at Leica are basically just giving them away. Sharp and imbued with enormous character it could be the "break through" lens I've been searching for (in vain) for all these many decades. It might help me unleash my (until now) hidden talent as a photographer. If that doesn't work it will still look good when I saunter into those ASMP meetings or dangle it over my shoulder at a Photo Expo. 

I'll probably leave the price tag on it just so people who don't know the brand will understand just how cool it is.....

Oh heck. If we're looking at getting me 90mm Summicrons from Leica we might as well just pull the Band-Aid right off and go for the sweet pairing of the Leica SL2 and the 50mm Apo Summicron. No. No, it is not possible to have too many 50mm lenses. Let it go. It's my fantasy. Maybe I'll sell some under-performing lens in the inventory to make room ---- but probably not.

I realize that $10K is a bit much to ask for but I'm sure a couple of you might want to pitch in together and make it happen. Just don't ask Belinda to contribute to the fund; I've already made that mistake...

So, Then reality kicks in and I tell you what I'm really looking for at Christmas: A new, winter swim cap. That's really about it. All I can handle right now. 

Anybody out there getting something great (camera or lens-wise) for the Holidays? It's the perfect time to rationalize raiding the retirement account... No. Really!

Following the black and white film image is a color one from a Leaf Afi 7 medium format camera.

Cherie.

This photograph was made as part of my second book project, the one on studio lighting. I did it in my small studio with a Leaf 40 megapixel medium format camera and a Schneider 180mm f2.8 MF lens. It was a beast of a camera to shoot since it was manual focus (and hard to nail focus) and ate through batteries like crazy. But when I went back to examine the original files in detail the color and resolution were really, really great. Which made post processing flesh tones much easier when compared to the 35mm type digital cameras of the day (2009). Now, while the resolution of the sensor has been eclipsed, I find that I still like the look of the files from this camera since they were a legit 16 bit raw image with lots and lots of latitude. The image is still competitive with current camera output. And the lens.....let's just say few, if any, makers have come out with anything better.

Interesting to think that this combination cost somewhere north of $40,000 at the time and now you can buy into a more capable 100 MP camera for around $10,000. That seems like progress to me....

Just posting a favorite, old photo from the Hasselblad film days. No, it's not a fake frame edge....

B. Reading in the sunlight.

Hasselblad film camera

80mm Lens.

One of the things I was thankful for this year was my dog. I call her "Studio Dog" to preserve her anonymity but she really has a different name. She's pretty amazing.

I think the nice thing about dogs is their chipper attitude and their ability to be affectionate and positive no matter how grumpy or overwhelmed I might be feeling. She turned 11 years old this year and I hope she goes on barking and chasing squirrels for years to come.

I asked her what she wanted for Christmas this year and she licked my hand. She's already given me my Christmas present; she was there for me every day this past year, bringing a big smile to my face and adding a very happy presence that made our home a cheerier place.

All I want for Christmas is what I've already got. A Happy Family. 

The second most incredible lens I have ever used.

Many years ago I saved up some cash and bought a Zeiss Planar 110mm f2.0 lens for my focal plane shooting Hasselblad, a 203FE. I loved that lens but never quite figured out how to really leverage the advantage of f2.0 on a 6x6 cm frame. But the lens had character. Lots and lots of character. And when you stopped down to f2.8, or even better, f4.0, it was monster sharp. And it was the fastest lens made for that entire system. It might sound funny but at the time I owned the lens I think I still had a lot to learn about the subtleties of photography/portraiture and I probably didn't appreciate the lens enough.

For many years it held a place in my brain as the sharpest and finest lens I'd ever owned.

About a month ago I took a chance and bought another lens that was a little outside my comfort zone. I don't necessarily mean that in a financial sense (although the price tag did give me pause) but rather I thought I might once again be buying a lens for which I hadn't quite developed the chops to exploit well at my current level of photographic comprehension.

I wanted a great lens to use with my new Lumix S1R bodies. Something that would show off the quality and resolution of the 47.5 megapixel sensor. Since I seem to shoot a lot of photographs around the 50mm focal length I hemmed and hawed between buying the Sigma 50mm f1.4 Art lens and the much more expensive Panasonic Lumix 50mm f1.4 Pro S lens. The Sigma has consistently gotten rave reviews from technicians and artists alike so I wondered if the difference in cost between these two lenses was unmoored from any correspondence to quality differences. In the end I decided to take the gamble and go with the largely enigmatic Panasonic.

I've shot with it out in the street and also at rehearsals for various plays and musicals but until yesterday I'd never shot it in a more controlled way; with flash, a tripod and a non-moving subject. But that's what was on the menu for yesterday's shoot. I was commissioned to photograph the lead partner in a Downtown accounting firm. We'd be mixing the light pouring in from floor to ceiling windows with directional light from flash and I'd spend the entire afternoon moving from one interesting interior space  to another, finally capturing 12 different scenarios, multiplied by dozens of gestures, expressions and poses.

The Sigma 85mm f1.4 Art lens got a good workout, as did the 35mm Art lens but I tried to lean most often on the 50mm since it was tight enough for a good environmental portrait but loose enough to give me a lot of atmosphere and ambiance. I'd discussed a style with the art director and agency art buyer and it consisted of shooting between f2.0 and f2.8 to get the most dissolved background possible. The effect was perfect with the 85mm and I'll admit that I pushed the boundaries occasionally by using the 50mm S Pro all the way open at f1.4, in addition to f2.0 and f2.8.

I could tell we were getting good stuff by chimping a bit, and punching in on the review images to see how my focus was hitting, but nothing really prepared me for my post processing session today. I went through something like 500+ raw image files from a 24 megapixel S1 and the two longer lenses just floored me. But as sharp as the 85mm was the 50mm is in a whole different class.

It's literally the first lens I've shot with that, when the focus is exactly on the money, even at f1.4 the Adobe Lightroom image from raw is too sharp. The default is set to an amount of 40 with a radius of 1 and I needed to bring the amount slider down to 15 in order not to have the image be so sharp that the detail of my subject's skin, pores and hair was outright distracting. Again, this was at f1.4!

At f2.0 and 2.8, when I punched into 100% in Lightroom the images were so analytic and revealing that I wasn't quite sure how to handle them. I did play around with negative settings on the clarity slider as well as adding noise reduction to the files to take the edge off.

It was an amazing effect. I can't recall having a lens that was so sharp I might need to reduce the contrast of my typical lighting and develop a Lightroom preset to match.

Don't get me wrong: the files weren't overly sharpened by the camera and the final results weren't harsh..., it was more the effect someone would get from needing eyeglasses for years but not having them and then finally getting proper glasses and seeing the world with clarity for the first time. It would be a bit jarring. A bit revealing.

So, these attributes of the new lens are interesting to me. I don't see the difference as profoundly when I've handheld the lens, even in good light, but with the flash and a tripod in play I think I may have actually over-optimized my "shot discipline." The lens is pretty darn miraculous and I can hardly wait to do more and more with it.

The Sigma 85mm is a pretty good match as well. I guess 2020 is the year I go ultimately sharp. Some of my portrait subjects might not like that but isn't a situation like this just crying out for a makeover in Portrait Professional software?

I am still pretty amazed. I just went out to the office to take one more look to make sure I wasn't inadvertently shifting over into hyperbole, but no. The files are amazing and endlessly detailed. A very 3D look. I am very impressed. I guess Panasonic gave me some good value for the price.