I read on Thom Hogan's site that the market for cameras continues to collapse. What does that really mean for me? For you? For commercial photography?

Ben, at a swim meet a long time ago.

We're living through a period of enormous flux and change. Everything we thought to be stable and routine has been more or less turned upside down. And while photographers moan about being sidelined by progress and innovations that allow most casual users to make really good photographs with convenient tools, like iPhones, the same convenience, coupled with machine competence, changes the very nature of our business, our personal business models, and our larger culture's engagement with our craft. And, generally, not in a way that we enjoy; either financially, or from our ingrained craft perspective. 

The latest news from the camera organization, CIPA, is that camera sales have once again declined, year over year. Sales of cameras slid nearly 20% in 2019 and that follows several years of nearly as dramatic contraction. It's a huge chunk of the market. To put it into clearer perspective, there are now more people around the globe living middle class existences than ever before and the population (and potential market for cameras) is growing at an ever accelerating rate. 

The problem is that the cameras nearly everyone chooses today are the ones in their phones. Most people just don't see the need to step outside that product for their imaging needs and most aren't interested in becoming more knowledgeable about the nuts and bolts of photography. I don't blame them, most of their uses are social sharing and family memories and the phones have provided such a frictionless and fluid way of achieving those aims. But what it means for us, inevitably, is fewer choices of new photography products in the future as well as declining production which will raise prices on the products that do sell. 

In a more existential consideration, the move to the phones and to photography as a consumable (not collectible) undertaking means that we've flattened and democratized the process of photography in pretty much the same way that technology made typesetting available to everyone. Or the way the web gave everyone the opportunity to become a publisher of written content via blogs while, on the other hand, decimating traditional researched and fact checked journalism --- to the actual detriment of our entire societies. Feelings replace fact. A quick Instagram photo replaces an archival print. 

I walked Studio Dog through the neighborhood with my wife this morning. We chatted about our work. She works in the art department of a large advertising agency that has, as a primary client, one of the large, international computer and cloud services company. Work for the agency is constantly moving away from print and traditional, broadcast TV, and is constantly increasing its reach into the social media realm, both in messaging and in visual content. 

Some of the staff at the agency spend their days mining through online stock photo sites looking for images that align with their client's messaging and brand standards. The average purchase price for the images they find is miniscule. The reason and rationale for paying low sums of money for large numbers of photographs (and video snippets) is that the images no longer need to have any "legs" at all. No need for staying power. No long term use. The images are the equivalent of an order of French fries or a diet Coke. Or a cup of coffee at Starbucks. The images are used, placed for a few hours of prominence on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, and then they fall back into the abyss and newer, fresher ones are inserted to take their place. 

What this means for commercial photographers (if we extrapolate from the business model of this one ad agency with 100+ people in Austin and thousands of people in offices around the world) is that commissioned, original photo assignments are now enough of a rarity to cause a palpable buzz through the agency offices for the days leading up to a shoot. Some of the newer, younger graphic designers have been in the business now for several years and have yet to be invited to attend a shoot. Lost to a generation is any experience with art direction in real time, or actual, commissioned art buying. 

As more and more work moves from technically demanding media (broadcast TV, four color printing, printed magazines and brochures) the rationale for using big, high resolution cameras declines, and probably at the same percentage rate as we're seeing in the decline of camera sales. If an image is an anchor for an Instagram post will it really make a difference if it started life as a 100 megapixel, medium format image? Not much. 

I understand that the majority of my audience here are enthusiasts and a good portion of you are retired from jobs outside the creative content industry and are pursuing photography with no risk to your income, your livelihood or your sense of self. I feel lucky to have survived and thrived through thick and thin but even I am rational enough to understand that we're heading deep into a fundamental change to the way photography works as a business, and a complete restructuring of how the next generation will get paid for creating new work. 

I feel like I've done my part to buoy up the camera markets (I've bought more than my share of new, expensive cameras and lenses) even as I see the number of "real" photography assignments slowly collapsing.   I could chalk it up to my age or my tenure in the market but I hear the same from photographers who are half my (venerable and wise) age. It's a real seismic shift. Intentionally or unintentionally progress has sucked much of the marrow out of the bones of the business and redeposited it into a different construct. 

There is no remedy to discuss here; no prescription to "weather" this trend. If you were wise you saw this coming and marshaled your resources to either retire or transition into something else. 

There is still work out there and there are still clients paying for it. But I think it would be legitimate to suggest that the traditional work that we hung out hats on is declining at about the same rate as the decline of camera sales, worldwide. 

Thank goodness it's such a fun hobby, because I'd do it even if I never got paid to do it. 

My suggestions? I actually have none. Except that everything we think of, negative or positive, tends to become a self fulfilling prophecy so perhaps you and I should ignore everything I've just written and forge ahead with optimism and a gleam in our collective eyes. You go first, I'll watch and make sure it's safe......

Right. 

There's a certain pleasure in walking around with a camera in the "point and shoot" mode. Especially if the camera performs well that way.

I finished up a couple of post processing intensive projects one day last week, missed my swim due to work deadlines, and decided to head out for a walk; more with exercise in mind than any sort of photographic mission. But unless we're out for a run I just find it hard to leave home without a camera. You never know what you might see. 

My brain was overwhelmed with photo minutia and I was tired of being exacting and careful. I picked up the small and (relatively) light Sigma FP and the Sigma 45mm lens and took a few minutes to set up the camera as close to a point and shoot as I could. I put it in Auto-ISO (something I very rarely use!), put the color mode into "standard" and put the operational mode in program. AWB, of course. And to make it super specially informal I also put the camera's AF into the multiple point configuration.

One more nod to eccentricity was putting the aspect ratio is the 1:1 setting. A bit of nostalgia for the Hasselblad film days (and if those wacky bastards at H-Blad had any brains they'd immediately introduce a camera model designed completely around a square sensor!!!) and the sensor layout the photo gods originally intended....

It was brilliantly sunny on that particular afternoon. The skies were clear in the way skies get when rain takes the haze away and then a strong wind clears out everything else. Everywhere I looked people were out walking their dogs, walking their children and walking their spouses. You would have thought it was Spring time in Austin. 

I waved the small camera around at anything that caught my intention. If the shot didn't turn out well I didn't bother to shoot again and try to fix it. Not much photography got done but it was a good excuse, after hours and hours in front of the computer screen, to recalibrate my eyes to work at a distance again. 

I cruised through downtown and felt sorry for all the people who had to be at work that day. On the way home I picked up flowers for the house and treats for the Dog. The camera was, for once, a definite afterthought. And that's just the way it should be sometimes. 

One interesting note about the Sigma FP that I discovered today: In the playback menu the camera is set by default to only show stills. I shot some video and I couldn't get the camera to play it back. I went through every setting until I came to that arcane setting in the playback menu. You can filter the selection of playable file formats to include or exclude specific kinds of files and, with a broader brush you can select or deselect "only video" or "only stills." Once I switched to "include all" everything was fine. But I still think that level of specificity is a bit onerous and bizarre. Not sure why I would want to exclude anything in a playback menu. Maybe you can inform me.....

I do understand that the camera probably doesn't want to play back huge video files done in raw but......

Tacky material for a dinner jacket. But fun to photograph.

random images for Sunday night. Getting inspired for Monday.

I shot a theater production rehearsal solely with a Sigma FP today. It worked.

We swam 4,000 yards today in practice. The sky was clear and blue. The high temperature in Austin today was a little over 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

I thoroughly tested the video controls and output of the Panasonic Lumix S1 today, along with the audio adapter/interface and a. couple of my favorite microphones. I am now officially ready to hit sidewalks of downtown and do some "man in the street" (persons in the street?) interview for Zach Theatre next week. Got my reporter mic and my ND filters ready.

Brisk exercise has been shown to lower C-reactive protein levels; a key marker for imflamuation. Exercise may also help to stave off dementia...

I've re-charged the batteries for the Sigma FP and will beginning testing its video capabilities in earnest tomorrow. I have high hopes for the tiny rig......

All done for now. Please stay tuned.

An exercise in using a counterintuitive camera for a live theater shoot. The Sigma FP goes wild.

Finally. A double boxed shipment with lots of padding. 

I love it when suppliers pay attention to the quality of their packing.

I hate to send back stuff that arrives busted up...

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Disclaimers: 1. I bought the Sigma FP with my money and am not in any way shape or form supported or compensated by the folks at Sigma. 2. My blog contains no links or advertising to any vendor so if you think I write for clicks and $$$ you can go pound sand. 3. I'll be photographing the dress rehearsal of this play on Tuesday so no clients could have been potentially harmed by my using the "wrong" camera for today's adventure. 4. If you don't like what I write then go read something else.

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I've been playing around with the Sigma FP for the last week or so and I have to say that I am impressed by the image quality. Very impressed. But the body and functionality are never going to compete with conventional cameras for operating ease in fast moving, low light situations, leading many lazy practitioners to use the dreaded, "Dealer Killer" phrase. I decided to see if I could make the camera work in one scenario that I think is pretty challenging; photographing a play in a small, dark theater that "features" black walls and a high, black ceiling. The play is called, "Every Brilliant Thing" and is a one person production with lots and lots of movement and changing light cues. 

I decided to give the camera a trial by fire using one lens (the Panasonic 24-105mm f4.0 S L-mount) and shooting every shot at ISO 6400. I have been waiting for the Sigma FP hood/loupe to provide a magnified view of the rear camera screen but it seems to be on eternal back order. I thought a hood or loupe might make my use of the camera in this scenario more effective and I was bummed at the lack of a Sigma product solution. But a cursory glance in the equipment case reminded me that I had a Hoodman 3.2 inch loupe that could be adapted. 

Purists will bitch and moan but I was able to secure the hood to the camera with several elastic bands. The hood had to be adjusted from time to time but it did fulfill its purpose, which was to give me a magnified view of the rear screen and to block light from the screen from disturbing the small audience we had. Yes, essentially rubber bands. Next time I might ruffle even more "purist feathers" by adapting the loupe with duct tape. And then, in a flash, the Sigma hood will arrive and we'll get serious...

I chose to shoot with the 24-104mm lens because, while the camera has a vestigial electronic image stabilization "feature," it's a bit dicey and the Panasonic lens provides a more conventional and usable in-lens image stabilization. The smaller theater doesn't reward the use of longer lenses and the fast action of the play meant that using primes with only one camera body might be a bit cumbersome.

My basic exposure triangle was ISO 6400, the lens wide open at f4.0 and the shutter speed set to between 1/125th to 1/250th of a second. I wanted that shutter speed range to freeze subject movement and the other two parameters came along for the ride. But what I quickly found is that the  camera's autofocusing mechanism was not up to the task of nailing sharp focus on a moving target under low light reliably. Hmmmm. That was momentarily vexing. 

So I switched to manual focus. I already had the camera set up to show a magnified view in a PIP (picture in picture) frame and I had peaking engaged. It was a little tricky at first to get stuff into focus because the magnification was so high. Also, there is no option (as there is on the Panasonic S1 cameras) to change focus ring angle of turn or linearity with the lens so things jumped in and out of focus very quickly. I'd call it "twitchy."  But with a little practice you learn where to start the process and when to take your hands off the controls and rely on the actor's stationary pose and the lens's depth of field. 

I shot about 900 images. Some in a blaze of action and some very considered. Of the 900 images fully 400 of them were critically sharp and had the actor in a pose or position that worked. It's just a one person play so I decided to edit down a bit further and ended up with about 250 really nice photographs. I color corrected the raw files and converted the whole edited take to large, fine Jpegs and uploaded them to a private gallery on Smugmug. 

What I found was that the tiny Sigma FP does a great job as far as image quality is concerned. I find the files a bit sharper, out of camera, than the S1 camera files but they manage to be sharp without feeling or looking over-sharpened. Hard to describe but nice to see. 

I shot 12 bit DNG files and was happy to be able to get through the entire rehearsal with one battery. By the end of the performance the camera was warm to the touch but never showed a temperature warning and, of course, never shut down. I'm comforted by the presence of the big heat sink on the back of the camera, underneath the screen. One benefit of having available both 12 bit and 14 bit DNG files is the fact that the camera was ready for use with Adobe products right off the bat. No waiting for the raw converter catch up game. 

While this experiment was a guarded success I will admit that this kind of work is not the real strength of the Sigma FP. When I go back to the theater to shoot the final images at the dress rehearsal I'll likely take the camera with which I've had the most success with when shooting live theater. That would be the Lumix S1. In fact, two of them, along with a small selection of prime lenses. Maybe just the 50mm f1.4 and the 85mm f1.4. The sharp, fast aperture lenses will buy me a higher "hit" rate along with lower ISOs and a wider range of shutter speed selections. But my real mission was to rebut the argument that lacking certain features renders certain cameras unusable. 

With a bit of diligence and elbow grease just about any camera can be made to create good, competent photographs; even under less than optimal conditions. I actually enjoyed the operational friction the camera provided; I'll put up with a lot if I like the look of a camera's output. Sometimes proceeding in a seemingly obtuse fashion brings a different point of view to a project. That, and the Sigma FP is just so damn cute. 

Acknowledging the vital role that the standard 70-200mm lens plays in my theater photography.

My theater work for main stage shows at Zach Theatre has me thinking in two opposite ways. On Sundays we generally have technical rehearsals which are the last chance to fix technical issues. Since we may stop and start the run-of-show for one of the technical crews to fix something we do not have any sort of audience or media at that run through. 

While everything is not as perfect and nailed down as it will be two day later for the dress rehearsal, for the purposes of still photography it's more than finished enough. The benefit of being close to the launch of the show and not having an audience in attendance is that I can range all over the venue; from the front row to the rafters. So, for a show like "Janis" I can shoot it more like a concert than a seated auditorium show.

On Sunday I like to explore angles from both sides of the stage and I mostly work in the first three rows and within 45 degrees of the center of the stage. Obviously, wide angle shots are going to be more immersive and show a lot more of the stage context. But it's not always the case; sometimes it allows me to get in close with a lens like the 85mm and experiment with shooting wide open or, maybe at f1.6.

I get a lot of my best shots this way and, as long as I don't use a flash or wear a white jump suit (stick to bright colors so the tech people who are carefully watching this very important performance don't get visually distracted. If you hair turned white you might consider putting it under a black ball cap....) I can move through the rows without causing shifting the focus to me. With mirrorless cameras and loud, live audio, there's so little noise from the shutter that it's not noticeable by the actors. 

Usually, I've dropped by one or more rehearsals so the actors know who I am and aren't trying to figure out why some strange guy is roaming around, unleashed, with two big cameras in his hands. In any event an Actor's Equity notice goes out to cast and crew whenever we're going to be in the house making photographs....

So the Sunday rehearsals, shot close to the stage, are the times when the wide angle zooms come into their own. My current one is the Panasonic Lumix S 24-105mm which is a constant f4.0 aperture. The lens is more than sharp enough, even when I use it wide open ---- and so I usually do. While I always would love faster lenses, now that I have a brace of cameras that work really, really well all the way up to ISO 6400 those fast apertures have fallen down the priority scale for me. Besides, I don't know of any companies that make wide-to-short tele zoom lenses that are faster than f4.0. The f2.8 lenses all tend to be 24 to 70mms and that's just too short a range for my needs. 

I try to get as much great stuff as I can on Sundays but I never miss a Tuesday dress rehearsal because 95% percent of the time every bit of the production is finished, and perfect, and ready to be shot without caveats. 

The only consideration is that we always have an invited audience. Usually a broad, family and friends audience. It's a good thing for the actors because they get to see for the first time where the audiences will react and how to time deliveries and pauses. The audiences gets energy from the actors but the actors get even more energy by having that audience to play to. And, by extension, the actors are more "on" and more "dynamic" than at any other time leading up to that first attended show. And I think it's reflected in the expressions and gestures of the cast. Since it's the "big test" of the show they aren't holding anything back. They're there to give it everything they've got. 

The compromise for me is that I can't move through the rows of seats and I really don't feel at all comfortable moving around the edges of the house, distracting the audience and the cast. What we've worked out over the years is that I shoot the dress rehearsal from the cross through row in the middle of the house. The house blocks off that center row and aisle and I share the entire row with a guy named, Eric, who shoots two camera video for show documentation.

With the whole row reserved for me I can move across twenty or so seats to get a position 20 or 30 degrees to the left or right of center. What I can do is move closer to the stage or further away. It's a bit constricting but I rationalize that I'm seeing the show exactly as an audience member would see it. 

But since I can't get closer to the stage I need the longer reach of the 70-200mm to get tight and dramatic shots. Since this production has a catwalk on the stage, at the very back of the stage, I would have loved a lens that goes all the way out to 300mm. I could have gotten a bit closer on the shot at the top of this post. Most of the time the 70-200mm is fine. Just fine. With all the 24 megapixel, full frame cameras, it's easy to crop in a bit and tighten up a good frame. 

I've been using Panasonic's Lumix S Pro 70-200mm f4.0 and it's really great. But, over the years I've also used the Nikon, Canon and Sony 70-200mm f4.0s as well as a collection of f2.8s and they are all very sharp and very well designed lenses that all deliver the sizzling steak to the clients. I'll test the f2.8 from Panasonic but I probably won't replace the f4.0. It already does everything I want it to...

As you may have noticed, when I change systems (and I do change my underwear much more frequently than camera systems; thank you very much!!!) I always buy the two holy theater lenses first and foremost, the wide-to-tele zoom and the 70-200mm. Can't leave the store without them. The fun stuff, like 50mm f1.4s and 20mm f1.4s all get added in as we go along. 

The nice thing about 70-200mm zooms of all varieties (non-entry consumer....) is that you know what you've got in your hands and if you've been photographing theater for long enough you know what your composition will look like at every focal length. You'll also know, the moment you see a great wide angle shot that you can't do it with the long zoom and you need to toss that camera into the maw of the open case sitting on the chair next to you, grab the camera body with the wide angle lens on it and blaze away. 

On dress rehearsal evenings I tend to get to the theater at 7:15 p.m. before an 8:00 p.m. show. This means I can always find a convenient parking place in one of the theater's lots (I have a staff hangtag on my rearview mirror that grants me free parking....). I get into the auditorium as quickly as I can get through the knot of staffers chatting each other up in the lobby. I want about 15 minutes of quiet time in my center seat so I can pull out the cameras, check for sensor dust, pop on lenses and then set all the menu items to the same settings. It takes the guess work out of everything when I need to quickly switch cameras. At most I end up making a quick shutter speed or ISO adjustment to match. 

Once I'm set and ready I head back out to the lobby for a quick bathroom break and then follow the audience back into the theater. I spend the last ten minutes in my seat, surrounded by seat with "reserved for photographer" signs on them because there are always people with excessive feelings of privilege who will actually take the signs off the seat back and plunk down. I move them out quickly, and I keep a small stack of reserved signs in the pocket of my roller case.....

I used to grab a glass of red wine at intermission, mostly because I could get one of the premium red wines at a discount if I'm wearing my name tag. But, since the beginning of the year I've been abstaining so I spend that fifteen minute gap catching up with the lighting designer or sound engineer. It's like we're all old school alumni. 

I used to worry about running out of space on my memory cards because I like to overshoot to make sure I've gotten just the right moment and expression. Now I buy bigger, faster cards; like 128 GB and up, and I find I simply can't run out of space. The downside of overshooting is the Herculean task of working through the next day's edit. 

I usually get home from a rehearsal shoot around 11 p.m. and drop by stuff by the office on the way into the house. In the last 11 years of shooting I've never experienced a single shoot evening that doesn't end with Studio Dog greeting me warmly at the front door and checking in to make sure everything smells good and that I'm okay. That's nice touch. 

So. The TLRIA (too long, read it anyway) is this: Two nice cameras. Two nice zoom lenses (with one being the 70-200mm) and you're ready to start shooting theater production photographs. Thanks for reading and leaving a pleasant comment...