My leisurely, Saturday review of the little Sigma fp camera. TLDR? = Eccentric but brilliant. Not for everyone. Very much for me.

What is the Sigma fp? 

The Sigma fp is a small camera that looks like it was designed by an industrial engineering firm rather than a camera company (see plentiful images below). The design disregards most camera body traditions and moves away from the rounded corners and vestigial finder humps that grace a huge range of DSLR and mirrorless cameras. It's designed as a boxy little cog that's not really meant to be anything more than the centralized attachment point for lenses and accessories. No one agonized over the feel of the body beyond rounding the corners and edges so they don't poke into an operator's hand. It's the most minimalist expression of camera-ness on the market that I can think of. And, in terms of operation it's equally rudimentary. No custom function buttons anywhere. Hallelujah. 

Essentially your $1,800 USD buys you a very well fabricated "brain" of a camera and then invites you to outfit it to suit your purposes. The body feels very well made and all the controls are built from good, solid materials and are...adequate. There are only three reasons I can think of to own and use a Sigma fp. One is the very good sensor with its commensurate, wonderful color science. Sigma have delivered a sensor and processing package that makes beautiful raw and Jpeg files. The sensor is a full frame (24 by 36mm) device that is among the current state of the art 24 megapixel sensors in any camera brand. I have no idea whether it's Sony chip under the filter or a TowerJazz but whatever it is it's sharp and relatively noise free; I'd go out on a limb and say that the files it produces are currently my favorite of all the cameras I've tried. If all you care about it really great color, and you can do without fast and flexible autofocus, don't need in-body image stabilization, can adapt to using the rear screen for exposure evaluation and composing, and love small packages, then this might be the right camera for you. 

If you need great continuous auto focus, high frame rates with great AF, and an excellent eye level finder then this is profoundly NOT the camera for you. I can't imagine handholding with camera with a 70-200mm f2.8 on the front. Not for more than five or ten minutes at a time...

And, while I'm mentioning weak points of the camera for general photographers, I have to say that this is definitely not the camera for you if you often shoot with flash in the studio or EVER shoot with flash outdoors. This is because the camera uses an electronic shutter with a very, very slow maximum sync speed. Think about the fact that while using this camera with flash you'll be syncing at 1/30th of a second, or slower. If you want to shoot flash while using the .DNG raw setting at 14 bits you'll be looking at a sync speed of 1/15th of second. Pretty limiting for nearly every flash scenario of which I can think. You certainly would NOT want to use this camera, along with a flash, for events or weddings!

While we're on the subject of the electronic shutter you should also be aware that, like most other electronic shutters, you'll definitely see banding if you shoot under fluorescent lights or most non-professional LED light sources. The banding will get progressively worse the higher you set your shutter speed. So, not a great camera for catching available light shots in a corporate cube farm or a call center. 

If you are still reading and haven't thrown your hands up in the air and yelled "deal killer" at least once then I have one more negative thing to add to the mix: the battery life is mediocre when shooting photographs. Mediocre as in....maybe 250 shots if you've implemented the battery saving settings offered and don't "chimp" too much.

So, who in their right mind would consider this camera? I conjecture that it's made for very advanced users who already use a different and more fully featured system in their day-to-day work. I'll get to why I think it's a useful addition for someone who is already shooting in the L-mount system but I'll preface all the rest of the review by saying that this is not even really a photography camera but a very targeted video camera that, in a nice but limited envelope of capabilities, can also provide stunning photos. But you have to use it in appropriate settings. Only in continuous light and only with small and manageable lenses. But for video it's a whole different equation. 

Summing up what the fp is: it's a small brick with very few features and very limited photographic capabilities but blessed with a sensor that can deliver beautiful files over and over again --- if the use case is just right. No eye level finder, no super fast focusing, no in-body (mechanical) image stabilization. No real flash capabilities. And a body you won't want to hand hold with long lenses for very long because of its "primitive" haptics and small size. 

Who is the Sigma fp really for?

I'm pretty sure Sigma designed and outfitted the fp to be the leading edge in the L-mount system for high end video. Really high end video. That's where the camera shines. But you have to understand what kind of video production this camera is really aimed at. 

Video production has two forks. On one hand you have what we used to call electronic news gathering or ENG cameras. These cameras are meant to be used in the field by TV camera men and documentary film makers who need a solution that can handle lots of scenarios quickly and easily. The average news gathering camera used today is basically a very nice camcorder with a fixed lens that offers a fairly fast maximum aperture and a nice zoom range. It uses a smaller sensor so it's easier to keep everything a cameraman needs to keep in focus in focus. (That also helps when it comes to making fast, long range zoom lenses). These cameras have every bell and whistle you might need to get the shot including professional microphone inputs (XLR) and built-in neutral density filters to handle outdoor lighting scenarios. Most of the current cameras used for this type of work offer autofocusing and good image stabilization. 

But those kinds of all in one, ENG video cameras not made for what is generally called narrative film making. This is a totally different animal with a different set of artists' preferences. High end digital video cameras for film making (TV shows and movies) are almost never equipped with smaller sensors, in fact, over the last few years film makers have moved from using super 35 (basically APS-C) formats to full frame and even larger formats. When these cameras are used for making movies and commercials the directors of photography are selecting very specific lenses for their projects with a current preference for extremely well corrected, very fast aperture prime lenses, although there are a number of cinema zoom lenses that are also superb. The average prime lens for the interchangeable movie cameras is generally two or three times the price of an entire ENG camera set up and can frequently cost more than a nice car.

What these film makers want from their cameras is a beautiful, full frame (or larger) image that doesn't use a consumer, low data rate, compressed video codec. Red Digital Cinema created a stir in the movie production community a little over ten years ago by introducing cameras that output huge raw video files. Just as in still photography the raw files offer a much broader range of color correction capability as well as the possibility of rescuing either over or under exposed files. The cameras also shoot at very high bit depths like 14 and 16 bit which means they don't suffer from banding in skies or weird artifacts in shadows to mid-range transition tones. But the very few cinema cameras that shoot raw mostly come just like the little Sigma fp; they are little more than a box full of processors and an imaging sensor to which any number of accessories can be attached. 

The downside of raw cinema files is that they require very fast processors and very fast memory to recorder and process  the data gushing off the sensor. While a typical ENG camera writes to an SD card and delivers .MP4 or .Mov files that are between 50 and 100 megabits per second of data, the cameras that can do cinema raw deliver files that can be as big as 2700 megabits per second; some even more. The end result is files with amazing color detail and amazing color discrimination. The video from raw files also offers pretty tremendous dynamic range too. The cameras are essentially writing 4 or 5k raw files in the DNG format 24 times a second, or more. Each frame is a fully encapsulated, stand alone raw file. 

A current, middle of the road, Red Digital Cinema camera (with no lens, no finder and no battery or memory) runs about $25,000 and up. The top of the line Red Digital Cinema camera is currently around $80,000. It's fan cooled and weighs a ton. There are other brands, like Arriflex, that offer similar solutions at even higher prices. 

I write all of this by way of trying to clarify the value proposition of the Sigma fp. It's one of the very few cameras under five or ten thousand dollars that offers a cinema .DNG raw file and which can be highly configured for cinematic/narrative projects. With fast Leica L-mount lenses on the front, an outboard digital monitor for composition and exposure evaluation, and an attached, fast SSD drive attached to the USB 3.1 port the Sigma fp can rock cinematic, raw video at 12 bits @23.98 or 29.97 fps, outputting data at up to 2500 megabits per second. And it can do all of this without overheating. 

The weak point of the camera for video production is audio. The input is a standard 3.5mm jack and the controls for gain are pretty rudimentary but certainly adequate for "scratch" audio. Most high end production crews are recording audio to digital audio recorders like the ones from Sound Devices which offer great limiters and a lot more control and redundancy than the ones you will find in just about any standalone camera. But in narrative work and movies you have specialists on the crew to handle each shooting and recording parameter. They would use the scratch files to sync the externally recorded audio to the video clips.

So, if you look at the fp from that perspective then it starts to make a lot of sense to production companies that require the right "brain" or bare camera,  but will plan on supporting the camera with all the peripherals that they already use. At $1800 per camera the fp costs about what a professional compendium lens shade for a cinema lens retails for. The need for small, inexpensive but gloriously file capable cameras like this on motion picture sets is endless. While you might still use a very expensive Red or Arri camera as the primary camera you could use multiples of Sigma fp's shooting raw as b-cameras to capture different angles simultaneous with the primary camera. But there's no reason you could not use the Sigma fp as a primary camera either. Most narrative project crews won't be flustered at its lack of scene modes or face detect AF as they prefer to manually focus their cameras and lenses, want to shoot raw, and are used to working with SSDs as camera storage. 

But why would I buy one? 

I'll admit that I get a lot more use out of a more generic camera like a Lumix S1 but there are things about the Sigma fp that intrigue me. And I've come to realize that many of my camera preferences are eccentric (to say the least). 

First of all the size, for a full frame camera, is wonderful. When you couple the fp with a Sigma 45mm lens it's a great package to walk around solo and shoot with. It's fairly light (though dense) and I've yet to hit an exterior situation in which the camera and lens together didn't excel. 

If you are looking for ultimate image quality in a scene and you can use a tripod and long exposures you can put the camera in the raw DNG still mode and set ISOs as low as 6. Yes. 6. At all the ISOs below 100 the camera takes multiple frames and builds the file by a form of file stacking. This was a feature in the Kodak SRL/n that I loved but it wasn't as nicely implemented as it is in the Sigma. When you shoot this way the camera is assessing the noise in each frame (and electronic noise is essentially random) and comparing with with the other files generated in the stack which allow the processor to separate the noise from real data and kick the noise out of the resulting, final file. 

While Panasonic, Olympus and other's use multiple framing with movement between shots to create files with more resolution Sigma is opting to use multiple frames with no movement between shots to create noiseless very color accurate files. A trade off I personally like. Of course, this feature is not usable with flash. 

It's these wonderfully eccentric additions that make the camera so interesting to me. 

I also notice (from cases where the camera has obviously failed) that the digital image stabilization is also a combination of separate frames which are analyzed and combined for correction. If I'm moving too much I can see overlaps in some parts of the files which the camera is unable to correct. That's okay because the camera does interface perfectly with the Pro lenses from Panasonic's L-mount inventory, and both the 24-105mm f4.0 and the 70-200mm f4.0 offer really good, optical image stabilization. 

The fp also provides me with a different color and tonal look than my other cameras and I like being able to select those "looks" when I want them. A lot of the presets, like "teal and orange" or "cinema" are too strong or over the top but each color profile can be blended back with a control slider in the menu that will mostly get me into the ballpark I want to be in. 

The biggest argument for my owning the fp is that it's control interface and operational controls are all very minimalist and very logical. It took me all of two days to master the camera and compared to other cameras that's a highly compressed time frame. There were still one to two operational things that threw me but I've figured them out and now the camera seems wholly transparent to me, which I love. 

I've tried the raw video files (with the help of video guru, Frank) but to really use them to their best potential I'd have to be much better colorist/color grader than I am. Abject laziness had me ending up shooting some of the lower data rate files in video (1080 10 bit All-I @ 200 Mbs) and converting them in DaVinci Resolve to a more workable file format. But when that huge art project comes rolling around and needs to be shot in the ultimate codec at least I'll be ready. 

I will also say that I like a number of the lower data rate files in the .Mov space. They're fine for most of my current projects but for on camera interviews I would use this camera as a "B" camera since the Lumix S1 with the V-Log update is a more complete solution for that kind of video. 

To end my review I would say that most people who are interested only in photography will (and probably should) reject the Sigma fp out of hand. For around the same outlay of cash there are cameras that offer a much more complete feature and capability set. And for someone who shoots photos with a Lumix S1 or S1R it makes more sense to shoot day-to-day video projects with one of those cameras. For everything but raw files they'll yield the same quality (but with a different overall look) as the Sigma fp. 

It's a camera that requires you to have some nostalgia (as a photographer) for a time when camera controls were simple and straight forward and didn't require massive "customization." Unless you shoot only art for yourself you'll want to have a back-up system for professional work or for those times when someone begs you to shoot graduation photographs of a kid from kindergarten in a big, fluorescent lit auditorium. 

If you are making a film though, a couple of these and a little basket of great lenses would get you into the same technical arena as the big players. You'll need to know your stuff for fully manual film work, and you'll grimace at the micro HDMI port every time you plug in your monitor, but you'll get great files to work with and your editor will be happy with you. 

Or, you can be like me and buy one because it's.....intriguing... and you hope it will be the magic bullet that will make all your work look better (but my rational brain is NOT counting on it in my case). I've already gotten ten or fifteen images from the camera that I really like. I might not have gotten them or even shot them with a different camera --- so there is that. I'd love a second one. And when/if I ever retire it would be fun to see how long I could stand just using this camera and a 45mm lens. Maybe I'll try it.

This is the unadorned camera with the 45mm Sigma lens on it. The whole package is small and light for a full frame camera with a great 24 megapixel sensor. It's extremely likable too. One point I forgot to mention above is that now three of my favorite cameras all take the same Sigma/Panasonic battery. The Sigma fp, the Lumix GX8 and the Lumix fz2500. Nice that they are all interchangeable.

The 45mm is long enough to put backgrounds well out of focus. The white balance is superb.

If you look at the space between the back of the camera and the rear screen you'll see a little grating. The entire back of the camera, under the screen, is a huge heat sink that allows this camera to blaze away at amazingly high data rates without overheating. No overheating means no noise. But the downside is that the sensor needed to be anchored to the heat sync for the best efficiency and that ruled out in body image stabilization.... Also, the camera is weatherproof, splash and dust resistant.

The anchor points for the camera strap are engineered as standard quarter inch screw sockets so you can actually use the socket on each side or the bottom of the camera to attach it to a tripod. This view shows the camera with a small hand grip attached. It works well and the grip provides socket so you can still attached a strap lug. While the grip isn't big and chunky it provides a good hold and has a nice thumb pad to rest your right hand thumb on. 

Close up of attachment point for strap. The company makes a number of useful accessories. Allegedly they make a magnifier hood for the rear screen but I've had one on order from B&H Photo since last year and have yet to see one. I think it's a unicorn product that will only come once I've moved on to the next model.....so sad when production lags demand. But, at the moment it's saving me three hundred dollars... so there is a silver lining.

The rear screen is great and easily viewable in every situation except when full sun is striking the screen directly. A magnifier hood would come in handy. Or you can use your hand to shade the screen. But that seems so "old school." Okay Boomers. Use your hands.....

The menus are logical, straightforward and well laid out. In fact, the menus are one of my favorite things about the camera.

When you switch between the "cine" setting and the "still" setting on top of the camera the camera brings up the right menu. Notice just above that it's showing me time code (top left), a waveform meter on the bottom right and along the bottom of the screen it's showing me shutter angle and fps. You can hit the second button on the bottom row to change the display for more or less detail and clutter. 

Finally, an easy to operate camera with no infernal nest of custom function buttons to confuse or distract a real photographer. Notice the grill at the bottom which gives a better illustration of the heat sinks. That's about as calm a camera top as I could wish for. Ah....

Two of the compelling reasons for me to own this camera are the really, really good 24 megapixel sensor and the L-mount lens mount. I'm saving up so I can put some outrageous Leica SL lens on this camera. Just because it's possible. Works with all my Sigma Art lenses and my Panasonic S Pro lenses. 

This is about as discreet and unobtrusive as I think a full frame camera can be. And, of course, the shutter can be absolutely silent. If you are composing on the rear screen everyone will assume it's just an old point-and-shoot camera and not pay any attention to you at all...

this is the noble 45mm lens hood that broke the fall of a brand new S1 when it tumbled off

a picnic bench and hit the concrete. The tape is covering a shiny spot where the 

concrete shaved off some black paint. The lens still works perfectly.

Come to think of it, so does the camera body.

During the current crisis I am becoming my most popular (but not most favorite) model.

I took all of the photos of the Sigma fp with this Lumix fz2500. It's pretty sharp and easy to do close ups with. Getting reacquainted with its video menus this week. 

So far we're safe and sound over here and doing all sorts of domestic stuff like painting and sword fighting. I've been walking with the Sigma fp and that inspired me to write about it again. It's a fun camera if you have a particular bent toward odd but simple tools. Keep an extra battery in your pocket. One less thing to worry about.

Added next day: Here's a nice video review that does a really good overview of the Sigma fp's strengths and weaknesses: https://www.l-rumors.com/sigma-fp-photographer-review-by-richard-wong/

Added a day later: Here's a nice review from a photographer in Chennai, India: https://medium.com/@hornbill/an-honest-review-of-sigma-fp-cd4e40579212

Why my resurgent interest in the lowly Panasonic FZ2500? Interesting that you should ask...

Dramatic portrait of the FZ2500 taken with Sigma fp at 1/6th of a second...

I have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to video capable cameras with which to shoot; or so it would seem. There are two Panasonic S1's in easy reach. Each has been upgraded with the magic firmware that yields in-camera 10 bit, 4:2:2 capture and V-Log. On the desk in front of me is the Sigma fp which is capable of shooting raw video as well as a long list of high data rate, .Mov files in every configuration you might want. There are Sigma Art lenses and Lumix S Pro lenses littering every flat surface in the studio as well. So why would I want to buy another copy of a camera I owned three years ago, made mainly of plastic, and readily available, used, for around $500?

There is actually a very straightforward answer. It lies in the fact that all the cameras I mentioned previous to the FZ2500 are made to work as cinema cameras. Tools that are engineered to give the very best image quality possible and yet they require a lot of "add-ons" to make them more functional for ENG work (ENG= electronic news gathering, or, stated another way = documentary work without a crew). 

If I want to shoot on the fly interviews on the streets in downtown with, say, a Lumix S1 I'll need to add an assortment of neutral density filters to put on the front of the lens. And I may need several different lenses depending on the subject matter I'm going after. The larger sensor in that camera means I'll need to be extra careful to make sure I've nailed focus because the depth of field can be quite small. And, even though that camera has very good image stabilization it's not in the same class as the FZ2500 because the smaller sensor camera has....a smaller and more controllable sensor. Bring a tripod or a monopod. And then bring a permit....

The Sigma might be an even higher image quality machine but to use it I'll need to carefully manually focus, I'll need an outboard SSD drive to keep up with the data rate of the raw files and, since the camera has neither image stabilization nor neutral density filters built in, we'll have to bring a big tripod and more filters. 

If I want to go out as bare-naked, equipment-wise, as possible I want something that works like a good, old fashioned camcorder. That means I want a package that can be handled in the street by one person. It needs to have a wide ranging zoom lens. It should shoot very, very high quality 1080p in an All-Intra codec, as well as offering full UHD and even Cinema 4K. I'll need peaking and zebras. I want clean microphone inputs, and I very much want the camera to have flexible, built-in neutral density filters. Add to all that good face detect AF and a long run time and you've put together a street ready video camera that can handle a very wide range of subjects. All for (used) around $500. 

Want to use it with a clean output to send less compressed video to an external video recorder/monitor, like an Atomos? No problem. The camera will output up to 4K in 10 bit 4:2:2. Want to shoot an interview in front of a computer monitor or in a situation lit by flickering light sources. Yeah. It's got variable frame rates galore. 

The real question, if you often want to shoot seat of the pants video, on the fly, is....why would you not want to pick up one at a bargain basement price?

Does this mean I'll abandon the above mentioned, full frame cameras? Heavens no! The files out of them look so great and the ability to use a wide range of fast, best in the market lenses gives me so much more image control. The audio adapter for the S1 cameras sounds great. The full frame image is a  whole different aesthetic. The 85mm f1.4, wide open, is magic on the S1 and the Sigma fp. But they work both best on a tripod or slider or jib. They work best when you can take your time and set them optimally, manually and repeatably. 

No, the FZ2500 is for all the other times. The handheld stuff. The "Quick! Can you capture that?" And for those situations when nothing will beat being able to reach in with a 450mm lens and get the shot.

I mean, since you were asking. 

Kudos to M.J. today. I never thought anyone could use over a thousand words to say, "Eat your broccoli. it's good for you." And I never imagined that, if someone did write that much to say so little, that I would have read every word. I wouldn't enlist him as my nutritionist but Man, can that guy write!!!

Cleaned up the studio and put on a freshly laundered shirt so I could do a FaceTime conference with a law firm.

This particular post is aimed at freelance photographers and videographers.

I think it has some universal applications for business owners of all stripes.

I came in from a "hilly" run covered with sweat and breathing hard. Took a shower and put on a pressed, dress shirt (and pants) and sat down in front of my computer to have a FaceTime conference call with one of my clients at a law firm. Seems all their competitors have been doing videos for the web, and television commercials, and the competing firms are getting better name recognition and more market share. I guess, since law firms are considered essential businesses, that the clock doesn't stop. Potential work is out there, in quantity, but we creative folks have to wait for the all clear signal to be sounded for those of us in non-essential enterprises to get back to work. Sounds kind of pejorative to be called, non-essential.

But what this morning's small event tells me is that there is demand. Cash flow might suck for us in the short run but in the medium and longer run there is demand for the kinds of work we do. Our products are one of the many cogs in the figurative machine of commerce and while the machine may run for a little while with some parts missing it will eventually break down; or at least underperform, until those missing parts are replaced or repaired. The down side is that the recovery might take more time than anyone who runs a business like ours would like. 

I know that a lot of freelancers see this whole downturn as something over which they have no control and no way to take action but that's hardly true. If we had 50 good, recurring clients before the shit hit the fan we'll probably still have 36-38 good clients left when the vaccine comes around or a fool proof treatment drug is mass produced. I'm assuming a business failure rate among existing clients at around 25% which seems to me to be just about right for bigger corporations in dire times. If you were specializing in restaurant or event work your numbers will look worse. But here's the deal: those 37.5 clients still working when the lights click back on are yours to lose right now. 

It's a good idea to stay in touch. To remind the clients of the relationship you both enjoyed and both profited from. You can stay in touch by sharing some personal work, by writing an essay on something relevant to both your industries and sharing it on LinkedIn. By sending e-mails outlining how you'll handle personal safety when we all get back to work. Talk about your continuing education in your field and how it will benefit your clients. The important thing is to use your time wisely to stay in touch with people who've proven in the past that they can and will write you checks instead of considering this a time to binge watch Tiger King on Netflix.

Now is a great time to experiment with video if it's a service you aren't already offering. Set up the gear, play with audio. Watch a video by Curtis Judd on recording better audio for location videos. Watch Sean Tucker talk about the way he edits Youtube programming. But more important, try each thing you learn from videos on Youtube with your own hands and your own gear. It moves your education from theoretical to actual and informs you about where your current skills are sub-optimal and can improve. Then it's back to learn > try > and master, again. 

The end result of our call today was a request for me to do some creative concepting around their unique selling propositions. What they do better. How they produce better results. Why working with them makes sense. I'll go back with some broad concepts (which I will bill for) and we'll try to align those concepts with their firm's brand and identity. Once we have some good fits I'll sit here in the safety of my office and write scripts for both web programming and television commercials. We'll have another call to approve or change scripts and then I'll generate storyboards and find a motion graphics pro to produce an introductory logo treatment to put at the front end of every video. All of this is background work that's important, and billable, and can be done remotely. 

The lawyers won't like it but I'll have to let them know that we can't shoot actual, principal video until we get the go-ahead to go back to work from the local health authorities, and even then we'll have to conference about how to ensure everyone's safety on set. (I can tell you one thing, this will benefit solo video artists a great deal as being a crew of one definitely reduces the staff footprint as low as it can go!).  We'll limit the number of people from the client side to just two on set at a time: one on camera and the other from marketing for content approval. When people are not on camera we'll enforce a "face mask on set" rule.  It might slow production down a bit but that's okay if it means we can go back to work and stay safe.

The takeaway here, at least for me, is that we will get back to work. And we'll get back to work more quickly and profitably if we nurture the relationships we enjoyed before everything collapsed. 

A fringe benefit to maintaining good, personal relationships with clients? All bills for work done this year have been paid by my clients on time. Some a bit earlier than usual. Keep your powder dry and be smart about focusing on the future. Don't waste time.

Ah. Take out. Now a significant treat in our house. 

But only once or twice a month...we're cheap.

A mini re-review of a mini camera. April 16th.

In the car, getting ready to go walking in the appropriately designated area.

It's been interesting reconciling the need for exercise with the desire to carry a camera with me to make random photographs for pleasure. I used to swim every day. Who knows when or if that will ever come back. But I never took a camera into the pool. That was a "walking" thing. So, now I walk. Three days a week I also run, but everyday I walk. At the beginning of the crisis I walked through downtown because we were allowed to and that was where I was used to taking photographs. But now downtown is more or less closed down for all but the most essential enterprises, and the homeless. 

Group thought momentum has made walking anywhere without appearing hell bent on just exercising is infectious. I can feel the judgement from a hundred yards away. And I feel sorry for all the people living downtown in the high-rises who will be judged for merely leaving home to walk to a grocery store for food. They'll have their heads down, and the kindness and courtesy that Austin has always been famous for will die a bit more.

In the past I felt comfortable carrying any camera I was interesting in at the moment along with me when I walked around the Lake on the Hike and Bike trail. I hardly pulled a camera off my shoulder and shot anything with it but it seemed natural and sanctioned to have on at hand. At worst it was a clear sign that there was a "boomer" under the strap, as we seem to be the only ones left who still carry a single purpose camera with them everywhere.

Now relegated to the trails, and working under the current assumption that the trail is only open for the exercising of exercise, I've started to feel more and more self-conscious for bringing along a full size camera. I've downsized from any camera to something the size of the Sigma fp (small) but still wasn't feeling it so I downsized to the Panasonic GX85 and even that felt obtrusive. Unwelcome. 

Today I woke up and looked outside. It was beautiful. Spring is in full bloom, the temperatures were mild and close to perfect, and the skies were that good old fashion, horizon one hundred miles away  Texas blue. I wanted to take a long, brisk walk but couldn't bear not to take a camera along so I looked in the equipment tool case trying to find the perfectly sorted, briskly walking man takes along camera as casual afterthought camera. 

I think I found it. It's the Canon G10 Powershot that I bought from a friend about a year ago. This is my mini-review of that camera.

I've owned a couple of the G10 cameras and keep rediscovering just how good this small, dense, point-and-shoot camera is. 

The whole G series of Powershot cameras from Canon were really superb small cameras. This particular camera was launched in 2008 and was initially criticized by the all-knowing photo press for having too denser packed (and therefore too noisy) a sensor. I agree that it isn't the best high ISO camera ever produced but it had/has such a rich feature set, and it created such great images, that it could not be ignored. 

The camera featured a 14.7 megapixel 1/1.7 inch CCD imaging sensor. It was, I think, the last of the CCD sensor cameras from Canon and I think it was that older technology that gives it such a good and uniquely photographic image . The lens was a 28-140mm f2.8 to 4.5 zoom and, again, the gear critics at the time were also not at all happy to have a lens that slowed down so much at the long end. Now they just take it in stride.

I bought the camera just before starting a new book project for Amherst Media Publishing in 2008 and I used the camera, on a tripod, and at its lowest ISO (80), for every single product shot in the book. Just like my Kodak CCD-enabled professional cameras, the DCS 760C, if you used it in the best part of a narrow window of parameters you could expect very, very good results. The combination of a sharp lens, a very detailed sensor and a stout tripod yielded files for me that were very satisfactory for publishing images at up to a full page in a printed, four color book. 

The G10 was/is a wonderful camera for seasoned photographers to use in good lighting. It provides a Canon raw file and can be set up to shoot a Raw+Jpeg file as well. The camera has complete manual controls and plenty of dedicated knobs and dials so one doesn't have to jump down into the relatively clean menus to make small changes to things like exposure compensation or ISO. The ISO dial surrounds the mode dial on one side of the camera while the dedicated exposure compensation dial sits on the other side. Right in the middle is a hot shoe that allows the use of Canon dedicated, TTL flashes but can also be used with generic flashes that have a single contact. 

One result of having a camera with a conventional hotshoe and an electronic leaf shutter (as opposed to a focal plane shutter) is that the camera can sync at very high speeds. I used to use it at swim meets in the Summer at shutter speeds up to 1/1000th of a second with very good results. The shutter actually goes all the way up to 1/4,000th of a second.

The camera was, at the time, one of the first to offer decent face detection autofocus and it also has very good image stabilization. I find I can generally shoot at any focal length at a shutter speed down to at least 1/15th with very sharp results. The one parameter that won't get it much praise was its video capabilities; it only shot 640 by 480 or worse. But, it was a different time....

The little, chunky batteries are good for about 400 images with the LCD on and up to 1000 image if you turn the screen off and learn to trust the evaluative meter in the camera. But to shoot in this mode means you have to frame your shots in the optical finder and that's the one other (besides movie mode) crippled feature of the camera; the optical finder is "blessed" with both massive geometric distortion and a lower magnification. It's also showing only 80 to 85% of the final image. The OVF was not the G10's best feature....

Like all contrast detect AF systems the Canon takes a second to lock onto whatever you've put under the AF indicator square. I'm sure you could try the C-AF settings but I'm equally sure you would be frustrated in most situations. This camera (and most like it) was made for taking travel shots, quick portraits, and other types of photographs that showcased mostly non-moving subjects. 

There are two G series Powershot cameras that I really, really like and kind of own. The first is this one. The G10. To make an analogy with another camera system I own, the G10 is the high res version of the family in the same way that the S1R, with its 47 megapixels is the high res Lumix camera. In the Canon G series the camera with better ISO performance is the G15. The designers throttled back the pixel count from 14.7 to 12 and implemented a new CMOS imaging sensor that handled higher ISOs with more grace than any of its predecessors. The G15 was the Lumix S1 of the Canon G series family. 

I say I "kind of own" the G15 because, in reality, I lent it to Belinda for a vacation trip and never got it back. She really, really likes that camera. It's small, fast to use, has a faster lens and takes better images under low light. For someone who has no desire to play with accessories or to change lenses the G15 may be one of the great travel cameras that you can buy (used) for less than $200. 

So, I took the G10 with me this morning because I could "palm" it and carry it in my hand without a strap. Its smaller profile probably looked more like just a chunky cellphone at a quick glance. Funny that it's commonplace for nearly everyone to hike or run with their cellphone clutched like pure oxygen in their clenched hands but at the same time to begrudge people for carrying conventional cameras.....

I've made peace with cameras that mostly depend on the rear screen for everything. Maybe my bifocal prescription is just better. But I'm able to make photos in stark daylight using the rear screen and that's pretty cool for a camera screen that's twelve years old. 

This morning I shot raw and then post processed in Luminar 4.2. It does a very nice job converting these old raw files and I find a lot of the hokey presets in the program are fun and...endearing in their kitsch-y aesthetic. So Eggleston. When I got back home I was happy to see that I'd gotten about 20 images that I really wanted to play with and look at. Nice. See images just below. Some even have captions....

 Systems check in driveway. Camera? Extra Battery? Glasses? Face Mask?

Small bottle of hand sanitizer? Pants? All yes? Then we're a Go. 

Barton Springs. Totally empty. No swimming allowed. 

And I'm too egalitarian to even try bribing someone for access...

 Don't worry. The little train that runs through the park is also shut down. 

These are not Union Pacific Railroad tracks. I was not in mortal danger at any time.

But I took the photo to show off my skills at social distancing. 

Again. Social distancing. No harm, no foul. 

New for today!!! The powers that be have decided (and I agree) that the trail should 

have all traffic going in the same direction; especially since the trails are laid out in interlocking circles. Now we all go clockwise around the trail. This will alleviate (somewhat) people blocking 

the entire trail and breathing towards the oncoming people traffic. 

And yes, I read the European study saying we need more distance if we are running behind someone...

Loving the creative examples of distancing. Nice. Fun. 

It's okay to have fun in times of crisis. Gets the message across better.

Canon G10's monochrome is first rate. At least I think so. And lots of detail!

No conflict with safety on this little used part of a branch trail...

Maybe I'll take up disc golf. Like I need a new hobby....

So far Austin and Travis County have done a better than average job of keeping infections down. We are no where near seeing a trend toward exponential contagion. The number of cases per day seems to be flat for now. Hoping all of our mask wearing and social distancing is paying off. Helps to have an educated population that pays attention and is generally able to work together for the common good. Makes me proud to live here. 

Stay safe. Buy more cameras. Take em everywhere. We don't want people to get acculturated to a camera-less society. Right? 

Dealing with bureaucracy really makes me want to throw in the towel, sell everything and go live on a mountain top somewhere. How the IRS screwed it up this time....

Remember those enormous checks we sent into the IRS year after year? Huge, debilitating checks that provided funds for our government that they continue to use up trying to fight the cold war. With fleets of nuclear subs and gaggles of unstealthy stealth fighter jets.  The checks my government is using so my "president" can play golf more frequently than Arnold Palmer and Ben Crenshaw's life time rounds combined. Checks used to pay for all sorts of misguided nonsense! 

I never complained until today. this was the day I decided to look and see where my Crisis/Disaster/End of the World check for $2,400 was hiding... (well, not actually a check but hopefully a direct deposit...). 

Apparently IRS widget made expressly for this kind of information has been crashing non-stop since early this morning. Par for the course. I'll try a nine iron...

But here's the insight I gained today.... All the government reports about the one time "relief" payment suggest that if you have filed your 2018 and 2019 tax returns, and have given the IRS your bank information to complete those returns, you need do nothing more and as quickly as you can putt a six incher you'd have the cash in your accounts. Hole in one. It's supposed to be....automatic.

But here's the rub that I've discovered. If you've never gotten a refund from the IRS and all the money has flowed in one direction (to them) they won't/can't use the banking information you gave them for your payments to them to get this one time payment into your account. Even if it's the same account. No. You have to go online and give them your banking information for  this payment all over again. 

And the only way to do so it through the new site widget. Which is broken. But otherwise you can wait with all the other folks for a check to hit your mail box in August --- if we decide to continue the national postal service. Enter information into the site! But the site is broken. It's like being in an endless sand trap with no wedges, only woods. 

Who actually gets refunds? I've never gotten a refund. I wouldn't know what they look like. Apparently we're one of the few households where the IRS money only flows in one direction. 

If I sound angry it's because all of this is such a waste of time and energy. And it's not a service my CPA or attorney is offering to do for me.

But this particular rant is mostly intended as a public service announcement to our readers: If you pay taxes with direct EFTs (electronic fund transfers) from your bank account don't depend on the IRS reciprocating automatically and depositing your money there. You must give them your account information to get money back from them.

But there's this Nigerian man who offered to help if I could just send him all my banking information.....

Just a few odds and ends as we wait for either the end of the world or the re-opening of global commerce. Caution: Caustic Content Ahead.

I have a two part plea to make today. First, I would like for the city of Austin to try every possible workaround to prevent ever closing the Hike and Bike trail again. Fit people need a safety valve and with all the pools, gyms, basketball courts and such closed tighter than a clam's ass the hike and bike trail, for purposeful walking and running, is the last resort. I'll be happy to wear a face mask, practice good social distancing, even pay a fee, but for God's sake we can't expect people to sit in abject fear, staring into their TVs and monitors, watching Trump evolve fully into Emperor Palpatine before our very eyes (not being political here; you'll understand if you saw Monday's horrifying press briefing/campaign rally/psychotic ramble...) without a meager carrot of hope dangling in front of us. Which would be time on the trails.

The second part of that plea is to the runners and walkers. Please, please, please follow all the rules so we can keep this resource alive. Run far apart from each other. Practice good situational awareness at all times. Stop spitting when you run!!! And for the love of all that's rational and pure, please treat the f*cking trail like a two way street instead of spreading all the way across, or running straight  down the middle. 

We have to do our part or the authorities will start to channel the current federal government and try taking away all of our most basic rights. The most basic is the Hike and Bike Trail and our freedom to run.  

And here's a personal request to all the type "A" business guy assholes using the trail for the first time: Hang up your stupid cell phone and stop making loud, obnoxious, arrogant 'business' phone calls in a very, very loud, braying voice as you trudge up and down the trail. I don't think the female runners are impressed. At all. And I know I'm not.  Not having a phone in your face might help with your situational awareness and increase public safety. I don't want to hear about how your company is planning to game the system and take money intended for poor waiters, retail employees and health care workers out of the current stimulus bill. I don't care if you need it for the down payment on your next Escalade. I just want you to walk forward in a straight line instead of weaving all over the place as you bluster...

Okay. We're through with that rant. 

I'm ramping up my marketing, it's something we do when we perceive that we're about 60 days away from a new seller's market. Come hell or high water the politicians are going to open up the economy on May 15 --- June 1st at the latest, no matter how many additional deaths that might cause. Something about shareholder value and using those new tax incentives... But whatever the reason it might be an opportunity to make some cash before the system crashes again with the next sloppy outbreak of contagion. (see today's news from China and Singapore).

Part of the new marketing is finding ways to make virus preparedness and virus workarounds into stories that allay client fears about doing video and photography work. We'll talk a lot about sanitizing things, using longer lenses to distance ourselves, we'll wear protective gear instead of those stupid photo/fishing vests and we'll have belts with a holster on either side to hold our spray bottles of hand sanitizer. 

When it comes to actual production we'll turn our own fear of driving to jobs with assistants or crew crammed next to us in cars to pitch the benefits (both health/safety and economic) of having a solo person instead of a swollen team to interact with on location. What could possibly go wrong?

I wanted to write something here about travel and vacations but that would be too mean and may be impossible for a good long times as all the places I want to go are being too careful to welcome me from my home country. 

Instead I'll write about how I was thinking it would be cool to shoot more video in a style similar to what we do with street photography and less as though we were trying to shoot big production movies. To that end I've been thinking about getting a smaller and less complicated video camera that could be used more nimbly than the typical interchangeable lens, hybrid solution. Full frame, 4K cameras are great for measured and carefully planned shoots but I started thinking how great it would be to have a camcorder or palm sized video solution. Something with built in neutral density and a long zoom range. Fast focusing and more depth of field...

Thinking about this for nearly a day seemed to work and I pulled out a Panasonic FZ2500 that somehow magically re-appeared. I'd forgotten what a great, little camcorder substitute this thing is. More to follow on that later.  Extra batteries charging (uses the same battery as the Sigma fp and the Panasonic GX8. Happy days.)

In lighter and happier news we had a great anniversary. We ate scrumptious Chinese food and drank Moet Chandon Imperial Champagne. Belinda made a delicious chocolate cake with walnuts (my fave) sprinkled all the over the top, in the icing/frosting. We watched a fun movie on Netflix and generally said nice things to each other. We promised to hold it all together for at least one more year.

Novoflex Leica R to L-mount adapter coming from a place called CameraWest on Friday. Can't wait to be able to use the 90mm Elmarit lens on one of the big S1R bodies. Should be fun. 

Finally, I was reading Thom Hogan's blog today and he was writing about the market for cameras in the USA being down by 60% this March versus same time last year. I never thought about it until he mentioned it but both Canon and Nikon must be taking the global economic shut down especially hard. With no sports being played, or broadcast, or covered for ESPN, etc. and the postponement of the Olympic Games in Tokyo, those two camera makers must be getting endless cancellations of all orders of Nikon D6s and Canon 1DXmkxxxxx cameras. Why bother buying them if no one, NO ONE is paying you to use them? And as I was writing this it dawned on me that this would also adversely affect lenses sales...I foresee endless rebates on a forest of white and gray lenses. But even with rebates will mortals take the bait? And where will the extra cash come from?

And if no one is in the market for these cool cameras then is DP Review still going to write 20 or 30 different reviews for each one? And why? Amazon won't be selling anymore as a result. Oh, the trickle down is merciless...

Finally, as the ad revenue at the big site dries up have you noticed that new camera reviews have been largely replaced with soppy articles and videos about which camera the writers started out with as photo-children and how to shoot film with that old Konica you found in your parent's attic. Sexy writing for sure. Can't wait to read all over again about the Pentax K1000... Or the Nikon FM. Or to read the younger writers as they wax poetic over their bromance with their first Nikon D70. Canon Digital Rebel or Sony Photo Magic camera. If the market for cameras doesn't recover will we soon be reading quasi nostalgic articles about how to develop your first roll of film. I want to see some video of Barney trying to load a roll of 35mm onto a developing reel. That should be sweet. We'll tell them afterwards about how you have to turn out the lights first. 

Go and buy a camera from your local camera store. Maybe they'll appreciate the gesture. Me? I'm still waiting for the next price drop on used Leica SLs. Do they read this on the west coast???