OT: Finding the right XLR cables for my video microphones. Perhaps identifying the weakness of my entire working system... Yes, XLR connectors! (humor alert!)

https://www.headamp.com/products/kimber-kable-select-1136-analog-xlr-balanced-interconnect-cables-pair?variant=28220635185216&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9p2s8KbD6QIVVP3jBx3P2wI8EAYYCSABEgJ0KfD_BwE

I know these were originally designed to be used with an audiophile headphone system but I started thinking that a set of cables this highly regarded, judging by the price, could make my Rode NTG-4+ microphone sound even better. Sure, I could just buy a much nicer microphone but that might be a false economy if the wiring can make a really fantastic difference. Could it be that the wiring between microphone and pre-amp has been my video system's audio input Achille's Heel?

I'm on the fence about ordering for just one reason; I think that silver connectors are prone to tarnishing and don't have as fast and stable an electron transfer rate as solid gold connectors...

I've sent along a note to see if they can be upgraded to gold but I'm leery that the price may go up too much.

I guess I could pass along the cost of investing in superior audio accessories to my clients, who always seem anxious to pay much more for our services.

Just sayin.

A weird, non-video thing that the Sigma fp camera can do. And does it work?

While most digital cameras have a low ISO floor of 100 (in some cases, 200) those ranges can sometimes be expanded a bit to offer ISO 80 or even ISO 50. But those lower settings are basically software tricks that depend on using the native ISO and changing the arc of the files in camera processing. Those lower ISO settings can be valuable if you are trying to get wider apertures or trying to get slower shutter speeds in strong light but the files usually entail some dynamic range penalties. And they add nothing more that a third of a stop or so of fake "neutral density" of sorts. 

The Sigma fp goes about giving photographers lower ISO settings in an entirely different way; one which has both advantages and foibles. Sigma have designed in a way to get ISOs all the way down to 6. Yes, single digital ISO numbers. You can choose from 6,12, 25 and 50 ISO. These are in addition to the conventional 80-125,000 ISO settings available. The slower ISOs only work in photographs, not video, and they do work in Raw. 

When you set the lower ISOs the camera makes a quick series of short exposures and stacks them together and blends them, in camera (hello hour glass icon!) to make a single frame. The advantage is that random/non linear noise gets factored out and color sampling is increased by the number of exposures taken. What this should mean is that the lower ISO files will have better and more accurate color and much less noise than files shot at higher ISOs. Stacking multiple frames for noise reduction is a long time solution for many different photo uses but it's usually done manually, in PhotoShop. It's much more convenient to let your camera do the heavy lifting. 

This is not the first camera to offer this multi-shot lower ISO feature. It was in the Kodak SLR/n full frame camera I purchased way back in 2004. That camera had a 14 megapixel, CMOS sensor and it got noisy when used above 100 or 200 ISO. I used the lower ISOs in the studio with (at the time) tungsten lighting for still life shots. One project paid the freight for the purchase price of the camera: I did a series of still life shots for a manufacturer who used the files to make four by six foot prints for trade shows. The images were sharp, detailed and most importantly, noise free. When that line of cameras faded from the market we were left with a selection of cameras that all did the same thing but none of them offered the multi-shot, low ISO feature until now. 

There are a couple of trade-offs you'll want to consider if you decide that you want to use the low ISO feature. When I selected ISO 25 for most of these test shots I discovered that the lowest shutter speed I could set was 1/20th of a second. The camera shoots the images with an electronic shutter so you don't hear the multiple "firings" but it does take a bit of time to do and then more time to process. The processing time is a fraction of that which was required by the older Kodak camera but that's all up to the increased processor performance in the newer camera. 

Since the camera will be making multiple exposures you'll need to be aware that moving subjects can be problematic. See the last image at the bottom and look at the truck on the bridge to see an example.

The same goes for camera movement. You'll want to use the camera on a tripod and select scenes that have little or no movement to them. 

Would I use the feature a lot? Not me, personally, since I tend to photograph mostly people. For handheld work I've never required more quality from the Sigma fp than I already get using the camera at ISO 100, 200 and 400. But, if I shot more still life work, architectural work and other more controlled types of imaging I can imagine that it would come in quite handy. At some point a client will ask me to shoot a bunch of interior spaces and I'll have a blast playing with this feature.

The image just below is a 100% crop of the image from above and I think the detail and also the sky color are pretty much perfect. 

100% crop.

See the blur on the pedestrian.

See the multiple images of the van on the bridge... 

To sum up: It's not a life or death "dealkiller" feature 

but the expanded, low ISO range is fun to have and 

offers one more creative tool that's not available on 

many other cameras. Kind of follows along with the 

philosophy of, "don't be like everyone else" that

I love so much with the fp.

How flat can an 8 bit, .Mov file from a Sigma fp camera get (video)? I thought I'd test it myself just to see. Click through to Vimeo to see it full screen in 4K.

https://vimeo.com/420498736


Sigma flat and otherwise from Kirk Tuck on Vimeo.

After watching the video shot with the Sigma fp in .Mov at DPR I decided to test my camera to see just how flat a file I could pull out of the camera without jumping into Cinema DNG (raw file).

I took the camera to the bridge over Lady Bird Lake in Austin, Texas and shot some tests.

I used the camera's "neutral" profile, turned down the sharpening and the contrast in the "color" parameters and then used the manual tone curves to add +4 to the shadows and -4 to the highlights for even flatter files.

All shot at 29.97, 8 bit, All-I, 4K onto a regular V90 SD card.

I used ISO 400 as it is the camera's native video ISO. I used a variable neutral density filter to adjust exposure. We were in full sun on a very bright afternoon. No fill.

I shot with the camera for about an hour in 97 degree heat, mostly in direct sun, with no heat issues from the camera.

That's all. Thanks. KT

A jumbled mess of thoughts for a super hot Tuesday in May. Copy stand magic. Crazy optics. Weird equipment longings and one off topic section just because: 2.5 months of deprivation.

This is a photograph of Belinda printed on a sheet of 

8x10 Ilfobrom double-weight paper. 

It's in a box with 250 other double weight 8x10s. 

I'm having fun looking at them again...

I'll get the totally off topic stuff out of the way first. Then we'll swing back to the "important" stuff. 

5:24 a.m. I don't know why but whenever I set an alarm on my phone I always seem to wake up five or ten minutes before the alarm goes off. I turn it off and get out of bed before I can change my mind and postpone whatever it was that prompted me to set an alarm. Then I get started. 

Today is the first day the Western Hills Athletic Club Masters Swimmers are allowed back in the (wondrous, mystical and transplendent) swimming pool to work out with a coach and fellow swimmers. It's been a long, long hiatus. The message that came last week announcing our careful and well choreographed re-entry was like stone tablets from heaven. 

I've been walking, running, lifting weights, working out with stretch cords and hiking, in some form or another every single day since the pool closure. I have to have an outlet for all the reckless energy so it's either exercise or spend time searching for new photo gear to buy. A couple pairs of running and hiking shoes is a much cheaper alternative.

The masters program has a short amount of time allotted to use the pool since there needs to also be time for kids competitive swim programs and adult/member lap swimming as well. We get three slots on weekdays. 6-7, 7-8 and noon - 1 pm, we get two slots in the mornings on Saturday and Sunday. In conjunction with advice from the city attorneys and heath experts, we've devised a safety protocol which mandates only two people per lane across the seven lanes. Each person in the lane starts and ends at opposite ends of the pool. The workouts are now only 55 minutes to allow for transitions between time slots. Everyone has to sign up online to reserve their space. It's first come first served. 

I swam in high school and college and have vast, vast experience doing early morning workouts. We used to hit the water six days a week in high school at 5:30 a.m. And back then we had school, dating, homework, etc. to schedule in. It should be a piece of cake for me to do the 6 a.m. workouts now that my biggest responsibilities in the present are dabbling the stock market and getting in that crucial nap during the heat of the day (of which there is much). 

There were three of us in the pool at six this morning, with two coaches on the deck. There are entry and exit protocols and even a tub with water and bleach for sterilizing the club kick boards after use. 

When I first thought of all the steps I worried that we'd have parts of each lap where we'd be closer than six feet and I thought about the aerosol effect of breathing. But as soon as I started swimming I realized that we are all trained to exhale all of our air with our faces down in the water and only bring our faces to the side to inhale. So we are basically blowing out our air, and any aerosol component, directly into highly chlorinated water. I can't imagine a safer "filtering" scenario. 

As there were only three of us this morning at the earliest workout we were easily able to maintain a safe distance as well...

Since none of us have been in the water and swimming hard for the last two months our coach, Chris, (former UT All American) took it easy on us. We got in a little over 2,000 yards today and a good portion of that was kicking with a board. The only "tough" part was the eight X 25 yard butterfly sprints. 

I was home having coffee by 7:15 and out walking the hills with Belinda by 8 a.m. Already a productive and happy day. And I'm especially glad we got our exercise early because today will be our first day of the year to probably crest 100 degrees. It's nothing but blue skies and intense sun from dawn to dusk. If that amount of UV doesn't kill the virus in the chlorinated water then I give up all hope...

Photo Stuff: I've made a copy stand from a big Benro tripod, with a smoothly moving center column, and a Gitzo side arm. After leveling the camera carefully and making it parallel to the light box I'm using it's easy to move the center column  up and down to change the magnification for copy work. I appreciate all the feedback I got from everyone last week and I'm making good progress getting very sharp images to play with in PhotoShop. I'm currently using an adapted Leica R 60mm macro lens but I might order the Sigma 70mm f2.8 Art macro; just for grins. I'm using film holders from several older flat bed scanners (which I no longer own) and that works well to keep negatives flat and to also provide a black surround for the film to keep flare to a minimum. More to come shortly, along with examples.

I've been having a satisfying time using one of the S1R cameras, along with the Sigma 85mm Art lens, as a black and white portrait set up for the studio and controlled exterior stuff. So far I have only been able to experiment on myself, Belinda and Ben but I'm hoping that I'll have the opportunity in the second half of the year to recruit and safely photograph a wider group of subjects.

I've got the camera set to shoot squares and use the L. Monochrome setting in the camera with a few tweaks (sharpness down a few clicks, noise reduction reduced a lot, and contrast dropped by two notches). The results are promising. The 85mm Art is a gorgeous lens. Heavy but such a nice imaging tool.

An interaction with a writer from DP Review was refreshing and positive. Richard Butler has been with DP Review as an editor and writer for a long while. He did a video project with a Sigma fp that was posted on the the DPR site over the weekend. On a cursory reading of his attached article I felt that he wasn't giving the camera enough credit for being a great video camera and wrote him a personal note to say so. I mostly took him to task because he was asking for a flatter file and I overlooked the fact that he  was talking about having a flat file (like "flat" in the big Panasnonics or "Eterna" in the Fujis) to use with the 8 bit, .Mov files he wanted to shoot. I though he had overlooked the wide range of controls available with "tone" and "color" settings.

Even though my poorly thought through e-mail could be interpreted as  a bit 'snarky' he quickly and graciously answered me and gently suggested I may have missed something in the article. I went back and re-read the last few paragraphs closely. He was right. I was wrong. I still disagree that the controls won't get one a flat enough file but he was very clear in what he was trying to get across. Occasionally I get moving too fast and miss stuff. But my takeaway was just how gracious and positive Richard's responses were. Now I'm calling my own truce with DP Review. I'll be more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt in the future.

The Brand New Lens I Deeply Desire but have no apparent use for or rationale for owning. Well, I could easily rationalize owning it but it's the exchange of money for the lens that makes me hesitant. The lens in question is the L-mount version of the Sigma 40mm f1.4 Art lens. It may be the greatest normal lens every made at f1.4 but my hesitation is that I rarely ever shoot at f1.4 with normal focal length lenses and I already have that range so well covered with the Panasonic 24-105mm lens, the Panasonic S-Pro 24-70mm f2.8 lens, two of the 45mm f2.8 Sigma lenses and the Panasonic S-Pro 50mm f1.4. Seems like pretty radical overkill to also covet the 40mm f1.4 Sigma L but there it is.

I've resisted it so far. I guess I'm waiting to see a clearer path to business recovery but the 40mm is a brilliant idea. I just don't have a slot in which to put that idea to work with any sort of logic.

I'm going to see if I can borrow one to test it and perhaps see if there is some reason that it all makes sense for....something.

Sigma fp. I continue to think that this is a delightful camera and I'm currently building a shoulder mount rig for it. The components are mostly from a company called, SmallRig, and it will have padded shoulder mount, 15mm rails to provide for lens support and a top mount arm for a monitor. I'll also have space to mount the SSD required for Cinema Raw as well as a space on which to mount an audio interface. Interestingly, with an Atomos digital monitor/recorder I could pull an audio signal directly into the recorder, bypassing the camera pre-amps altogether. Seems like a lot of complexity but the weight of the rig plus the three points of contact with me should help to calm down camera movements and make shooting off the tripod better.

Sales for Camera Companies are all down dramatically but at this point it doesn't really affect me since there is ample new inventory out in the market and the used market is just bursting with product. Sure, this slowdown will probably put a hold on a lot of new product introductions but generally, unless there's something you really need, those introductions are more of a burden than a blessing. I'm trying to become stupider about new stuff and smarter about using the stuff I already have. Experience with gear is a good thing; a plus. New and Improved don't necessarily go hand in hand....

That's it for this morning. I've got stuff to do and Belinda is telling me that I've got to get the recycling can up to the curb --- stat. Drink good coffee, sell your big stereo and get better ear buds. No one can hear the difference between two speaker wires of the same gauge and length, and people, in general, need to spend a hell of a lot more time outdoors getting some use out of their bodies. We tend to live too much in our minds.

Thank you for letting me share with you. Can't wait to get up at 5:30 tomorrow morning for another life affirming swim. Namasté. 

Staying on message is important. For readers and for writers. Here we write about photography. Let me know if you need me to start a swim blog...

Sigma fp in video snapshot mode.

Equally proficient at taking photographs.

Confession. I was going to go a bit off topic today and write about grandmother Tuck's incredible method for making ham salad. I was going to reminisce about visiting my grandparents in the small town in central Pennsylvania where they lived, and go into detail about their house; even sharing details of their big television set in the living room, with the ceramic sculpture of a black panther sitting on top. The panther had a dial midway down its torso and one used that to change the orientation of the rooftop antenna mounted three stories up on the roof of the house. Using the panther belly mounted control you could fine tune broadcast reception! That one feature made such an impression on me...

Before getting into the secrets of grandmother's ham sandwich I was going to regale readers with fragmented stories about my father and his father sitting in the living room of the house, listening to the radio for the live broadcasts of the Pittsburgh Pirate's baseball games. And then maybe segue into a delightful and nuanced story about my sister sitting at the oh so expansive dining room table making toothpick sculptures, which would lead, of course, into a story about my older brother sitting in a nicely upholstered chair in his bedroom (while visiting) on the third floor of the house, reading the earliest issues of the Marvel Spiderman comic books... 

But instead I'll hew to my new resolve and try to stay, at least obliquely, on the subject of photography ---and by extension --- a bit of video production thrown in for good measure. 

But I don't want to leave you hanging so I'll give you the TL:DR for the ham salad. The secret was peanuts. She added peanuts to her ham salad and that savory addition made for the best ham salad sandwiches I've ever had during my full and happy life. End of story. Oh, and the toothpick sculpture turned out well, the Pirates lost (as usual, which generated salty language) and my brother lost his copy of Spiderman #1 long before they started trading for upwards of $100,000 (in mint condition). 

Which brings us to the Sigma fp, once again. I was happy to find a weird review of the Sigma fp as a cinema camera in an interview with an award-winning cinematographer and underwater camera engineering expert with deep experience in media such as IMAX. The guy is a member of the Australian Cinematographers Society and an inveterate camera and lens tester. The actual interviewer is goofy but Pawel is pretty rock solid and has some amazing things to say about the video capabilities of the tiny camera. See it here. And here is the take-away quote from the cinematographer:  "When I say I like this camera, it's as if it cost $60k, I would have still bought it."

Added: Here's a review by a very smart and talented photographer who I've known since our college days in Austin: Ellis reviews the FP.

I think those of us who took a chance on the Sigma fp have ripped through a lot of words to try and explain what it is about the camera that endears it to us. It's obviously got less gingerbread and comfort features than cameras like the Sony A7iii and the Panasonic Lumix S1, and as far as photography goes there are some drawbacks to use, but across both video and still imaging there are several consistent features that make the camera well worth the "paltry" $1800 price tag for those who appreciate those features in spite of not having the  cupholders, automatic transmissions and heated seats of most current higher end cameras. 

The first is something that can be measured objectively. The Sigma fp has some of the very highest color accuracy of any production camera on the market. In Pawel Achtel's tests the Sigma fp seems to slightly outperform the Sony Venice cine camera ($42,000, body only) in this regard, as well as the Red Ranger Monstro 8K  ($59,950 body only). 

The second point that Mr. Achtel makes in the camera's favor (and here he is making the statement about video output) is that the camera's high ISO is amazingly noise free. He suggests that it is nearly noise free to 10,000 ISO and usable at 25,000, with a bit of noise reduction tossed in.

I'm maybe a bit more conservative when it comes to noise but I'd use the camera at ISO 6400 without much worry for stills; as long as I was careful to get the exposure just right. As for color accuracy, I don't have a way to accurately measure it but I have to say that the files that come out of the camera, both as photographs and also cinema DNG video, are some of the best I've ever seen. 

So, No. It's not a good, all around snapshot camera. It's a horrible, just horrible sports camera. It's not a good camera for shooting active dress rehearsals in the theater (I tried once with lots of sweat and gritted teeth). But when it comes to shooting as one would with a movie camera or with an old Hasselblad it delivers amazing files and a similar workflow. 

Yesterday I put on a wireless mike set-up and gave the camera a video spin as a "snapshot video camera" using 8 bit .Mov files with the camera set to 4K UHD All-I at 29.97 fps. It was great. The audio is fine as long as I pay attention to the meters and never let them clip. (It's one of the few cameras I think I'd prefer to use in a dual sound video set up just because the meters are small and the control interface a bit buried...).  It's a small package and since it doesn't have mechanical image stabilization built in I cheated by using the fluid head on a monopod. 

While there are a lot of great photography and video camera out on the market this Sigma fp really speaks to people who love to tinker with their files and are willing to sacrifice ease of use for more visual perfection. More cowbell...

This morning I saw a video posted on DP Review that showed some footage shot in .Mov with the Sigma fp camera. The "cinematographer" listed as a shortcoming of the fp that there was no flat profile. But that's because it features uncompressed raw files which are much, much, much more color gradable and contrast adjustable than Log profiles (which can be added downstream from a raw file import, in post). The camera just needed to be set up to use the raw DNG files and to write them to an external SSD. (added:) In fairness the writer did say that he missed having the Log profile in the .Mov mode.  I contend that you would know whether or not the camera has a Log profile when you do your research before buying.   He also suggested that the color settings (might be called profiles...) such as 'cinema' 'orange and teal' etc. were too intense or overdone. And I would agree with him if each profile was not widely adjustable. You can decrease the effect of the color settings all the way from a plus 5 to minus 5 with the use of a menu item, for each color setting. You can also adjust the contrast, sharpness and saturation of each look in +/- five steps as well. That makes it perfectly adjustable for just about anything you'd want to do. You can even make .Mov files as flat as a pancake, if you want to by also using the "Tone" control in conjunction with the "Color" control.  The article seemed to short change the fp when much of the problem was a lack of experience with the camera...

So, we're still staying at home but that doesn't mean we can't test, shoot, evaluate and vet our results. 

Sorry, no chat about swimming. It just didn't come up.  

Added note: Richard Butler got in touch with me and we e-mailed back and forth. He directed my attention to the line where he (correctly) went into the color profile sub-menu to change the strength of the profile but was still not able to set a low enough contrast for his uses. I missed that. I apologize. 

I do agree with him to his point that a nice, flat profile like Fuji's Eterna would be a welcome addition for shooting in .Mov.

Signed, The Imperfect Blogger.  KT

Stuff. Like putting your leg in a bear trap....

Thought I should tackle the idea of stuff, just enough stuff, and too much stuff. I suppose I started thinking about this when I ventured over to Mike Johnston's blog this morning and read the 45 comments from mostly middle-aged men gushing and reminiscing about various esoteric audio components; mostly sourced during the golden age of audio-philia.

The entire exercise of falling in love with gear is not necessarily foreign to me. Let me explain (As I listen to Bare Naked Ladies on the earbuds that came standard with my iPhone XR):

It all started when my frugal parents bought my brother and I a joint Christmas gift of a stereo record player and....the Beatles White Album. They also had the foresight to buy us a set of (cheap but serviceable) headphones. Once bitten by the idea of being able to endlessly listen to my favorites songs on demand I started diving deeper and deeper into "audio." I bought and tried to fix old reel-to-reel tape recorders and built a Heathkit stereo receiver which actually worked. By the time I graduated from high school I'd decided to go off to the university and study electrical engineering with the idea of designing and building various audio components.

Once ensconced in my cheap, un-air conditioned dorm room I embarked on building all sorts of stuff. I put together a Dynaco Stereo 70 amplifier, scrounged up a pair of AR3a speakers and finally bought a decent turntable. The flaw in all of this was that my parents were putting all three kids through the university at the same time and were NOT disposed to financially support what they very clearly saw as nothing more than an expensive and distracting hobby. I needed to find a part time job to support my hobby...

Of course, the logical thing to do was to find a great "hi-fi" store within walking distance (no car) of campus and present myself as a knowledgable stereophile who would be capable of actually explaining and thereby selling equipment to customers. Just at the edge of campus was a tall residence tower with two stories of retail at the bottom. One of the shops was called, Audio Concepts. The store was filled to the brim with many esoteric brands I'd never heard of before as well as the rank and file stuff from companies like, Kenwood, Yamaha and Pioneer.

The stars must have lined up just right on that day back in the middle of the 1970s because the manager, a really cool guy just a couple of years older than me, hired me for 20 hours a week at a bit more than minimum wage. There was also a small commission they'd be willing to pay me for system sales. I was in heaven. Swim practice in the early morning, followed by classes at UT, followed by a late afternoon/early evening demo-ing audio gear for eager audiophiles. Sleep was just an incidental concern...

Working in an audio shop was fun. We carried Crown, Audio Research, Thiel, Dahlquist, Phase Linear, Lux, Denon, Magnaplanar, Klipsch, ADS, Stax, and so much more. I was a dutiful study. I memorized every spec sheet and paid rapt attention to every sales training session I could attend (also, the reps brought pizza for us and I was in perilous straights half the time having routinely spent my food allowance on a really cool tonearm or moving coil cartridge. We spent hours in our "listening room" at the store training ourselves to hear the tiny differences between the products. The sales staff was really good. We loved the gear but we also were well motivated to sell. In fact, at one point I was whisked off to Minnesota to do a two day interview with Magnaplanar; they were looking for a marketing person with some technical knowledge.  (I declined their offer because it was 17 degrees when I stepped off the airplane at the beginning of September. It was 90 in Texas the day I left...).

So, when I was at work, and in my dorm room, I spent a lot of time listening to the gear. I'd choose music based on how well it was recorded and how well it showed off the best parts of my system. It was almost exactly like photographers who shoot images only to test their lenses but who never get around to finding a style or subject matter than really compels them to go out and photograph for the sake of photography.

But I was smart enough to understand that there was a "gold list" of composers and artists that all "sophisticated" audio enthusiasts were supposed to appreciate and enjoy. Thelonius Monk and John Coltrane for Jazz. Joni Mitchell and Pete Seeger for folk. Anything Mozart, Beethoven, Berlios, Rachmaninoff, Debussy or Ravel. Everyone had a copy of "The Planets" composed by Gustav Holst, and a copy of "The Four Seasons" by Vivaldi. And no audiophile's collection was complete without a good copy of "Carmina Burana." Yeah. I bought all the vinyl I could find and listened to the coolest parts. Because they made my speakers sound great. Even better through a set of Stax electrostatic headphones.

But then something odd happened. I started dating a concert cellist. An avowed music lover. Someone who didn't give a crap about the "quality of the recording" or the "amazing low bass" of a music system. Her favorite set of records was the "Bach Suites for Solo Cello" which was scratchy and recorded with a lot of noise/hiss, and even grunting and moaning from Pablo Casals as he played. To her the audio quality was totally immaterial. Didn't count. Not on the radar. But every once in a while she'd hear a note so sweet a tear would fall down her face.

If you date a cellist you ARE going to go out a lot to hear live music. Not just classical music but all kinds of music. The same girlfriend who played hauntingly beautiful cello was also the bass player for a punk band that performed in clubs around Austin. For her the appreciation of music was saved for composition and execution and not at all for the mechanical reproduction. We sat through all of her friends' recitals and every concert that students could get discounted tickets for. At some point in time something in my own brain clicked in and I realized that no matter how great the gear might have been it was much more thrilling and much BETTER to hear the music live; in performance, contemporaneously. Three different music history classes at UT convinced me of this as well. I was lucky that two of my classes were taught by a famous concert pianist who would discuss a piece of music and then sit down at a Bosendorfer grand piano and proceed to play the composition we were studying. What a great way to learn music!

At that point in time it was as if someone reached into my mental process and turned off the switch to the circuit that made the idea of buying more and more gear seem fun. Now the gear was a weak and very secondary substitute for the REAL thing; which was the live, performed music. And, of course, at that time in Austin we probably had as many live music venues as all of New York City and we had the Armadillo World Headquarters, Austin's spiritual center for live music.  From country to hard rock. From Willie Nelson to the Talking Heads and Devo. And UT did their part with performances by Paul Olefsky and Janos Starker (cellists).

I started parting out and selling off the audio gear. When would I have had time to sit in an easy chair and listen to....an unchanging and always the same...album? And why would I spend time listening to a copy of the experience when it was so easy and enjoyable to go out and see the real thing in real time?
Should I put on my slippers and smoke my meerschaum pipe or get out to a club and see Clifton Chenier? Easy answer there....

My collection of LPs sits in a closet in one of the unused bedrooms now. I no longer have a turntable and we don't have any audio components in the house. Just a Tivoli Stereo Radio in the studio and an all-in-one, rosewood cabineted, CD playing, FM stereo on a bookshelf in the living room. Total expenditure about $300.

There are two places where I routinely listen to recorded music. One is in the car when driving for more than twenty or thirty minutes. The other is when I'm writing fiction. And in the case of writing I can only listen to music without vocals. When I do sit and write I like to do so in coffee shops (temporarily on hold) and I use music through my phone's earbuds more to cut out the ambient noise and distraction than anything else.

I still live in Austin. There's still live music everywhere (but temporarily on hold lately). When we have shows in the main theater at Zach Theatre there is always someone performing beautiful music in the lobby before the shows. It's always top notch; always live. And most of the shows which are musicals are almost always done with a live band or orchestra. The Theatre never uses canned music. We're lucky in one regard; we can hear good live music all the time in Austin. Even during the pandemic people are hiring UT music students to come and perform at backyard (socially distanced) happy hours for small groups or families. No one would think about piping in recorded stuff. Not when we can hear the real thing...

I subscribed to Amazon Prime and I sometimes pipe in streamed music when I'm sweeping the floor or doing planks or filling out tax forms. But, as a rule, Belinda and I seem to be immune to the charms of dedicating time to listening to pre-recorded music, other than a brief splash of something from our past during an anniversary celebration or something of that nature.

My lifestyle tends to be one of constant movement and so the value to me of thousands and thousands of dollars of audio gear, locked into one place in one room, only to be enjoyed in repose, is incomprehensible. I think I realized early on that one could (and some did) spend tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars on audio gear to chase what will be an always imperfect replica of the real thing = live music. And every hour spent sitting motionless in front of big wood boxes, listening to the same collection over and over again, was an hour lost to the pursuit of enjoying the REAL THING.

Mike posted images of his basement, littered with obsolete and aging gear from his past audio pursuits. It was a reminded to me to keep moving stuff out the door as soon as I decide to move on to the next iteration.

But what does all this have to do with photography? Well.... It's all disturbingly similar. For many of us the gear seems to be the thing of great interest while the photographs seem like nothing more than a proving mechanism of just how good the gear is. Almost as color accurate as real life. Almost as sharp as seeing something amazing with your own eyes. Almost as much fun as the act itself. As a group with most photographers there is an inclination to pursue photo gear for the sake of owning and testing said photo gear. The minute something comes out that promises a more accurate rendering we rush to buy it. And I'd wager that I'm not the only one with too many cameras and not enough finished work of my own.

If I follow the same progression I did with audio I'd end up with one small point-and-shoot camera and a hundred more stamps on my passport. One thousand more portraits. A multitude of human engagements. Because, while it is so true that the camera captures memories, you have to create or witness the memories in order to capture them. You have to have interesting things happen in front of the camera to imbue it with relevance. You have to meet interesting people and get to know them in order to get interesting portraits. You have to fall in love over and over again to get great portraits.

The stuff itself is like an anchor which ties you to it. Like a sad elephant chained at the ankle to a post. You want to go out and create a great image but first you need to acquire more stuff and then optimize it. In the meantime more stuff comes out and now you are convinced that you need to take a break to learn which new stuff to buy and how to use it so you can  REALLY create great photographs. In the end, if you follow this path you'll have memorized every owner's manual, masterfully mapped functions to every button and figured out exactly what focused distance works best for each lens in your system but you won't have invested the time in actually photographing much of anything more than a glorified test chart.

If you follow the same path but with audio gear you will have surrounded yourself with expensive, glorified record players and components but you will have anchored yourself to a room, cut off human contact, and taken up precious time and money that could have been spent actually HEARING AND EXPERIENCING real, live music. The kind where every performance is different, nuanced and irreplaceable.

There were a couple huge benefits for me in reading all the comments about audio gear that were appended to Mike's original post. First, it reflected back to me my own weaknesses in photography, where I (sadly, routinely) let my desire for new gear overshadow my desire for new images and new experiences. It also showed me that it's the desire itself that is the issue; the thing that kills our happiness within our chosen hobbies and passions.

I remember back to the late 1960's when my friends and I camped out in little pup tents in our backyard. We each had our own little transistor radios. They ran on those rectangular 9V batteries. I lay down on my Boy Scout sleeping bag and looked up at the Summer stars and then a song by Donovan which had hit the "Top 40" came on the radio station. It was "Sunshine Superman." Nothing has ever sounded as good as that did in that moment.

I remember when I took my first real black and white photograph. It was of my high school girlfriend who was as patient with me as she was beautiful. I used an old, zone focusing 126mm camera (Argus) and I barely understood even the basics. But when those deckled edge prints came back from the drug store processor I was irrevocably hooked. Mike's column, and the responses, reminded me of where the real magic lays and how much the "stuff" insulates us from the joy of the moment. 

I'm not sure that's what he intended.....

right now I'm listening to "Sunshine Superman" with some earbuds connected by white wires to my phone. I can tell you the music is as powerful as anything coming out of $$$$$$ stuff.

Nice. Thanks Mike for the Instant Satori that came packaged in that blog.

Now, where did I put that magic Argus?

For Better or Worse Austin, Texas Prepares for Re-Opening. But first, coffee.

My coffee. The way I've come to like it. = perfect.

Austin, Texas has been in a "stay at home" posture since the first day the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic. By my reckoning that would have been on Friday the 13th of March. Which means that Belinda and I have been staying close to the house most of the time, walking in the neighborhood, respecting social distancing, wearing face masks in public for a bit over two months. We're okay with that. If it means giving health experts time to perfect treatment protocols that save people from dying and gives us some breathing space to find a cure then we'll gladly take the hits that come with that choice. But we don't speak for everyone...

Whether it's right or wrong it seems that the USA population, in general, is being pushed to get back to work and school in spite of whatever consequences might result. I get that we have a choice and that not everyone can afford the same choices. But I also get that some of the "back to work" posturing is purely political and might set us back a good bit. We might not be around to see the "right" answer finally presented but history will tell the tale to future generations.

I'm not here to make a political statement one way or another. I'm a liberal democrat but I have friends who are conservative republicans. Trying to make everything black and white is a fruitless exercise at best. Especially when there is so much that's truly unknown. People are wired differently and it would be great if we could all see past the political stuff and appreciate each person for their individual selves.

But one way or another we can all go out and document how it's affecting our communities. Rather than sit at home today and continue to work on a bit of marketing I chose to take a camera and go downtown to see what the pulse of the entertainment district looked like today. You'll remember that I was down a few weeks ago and everything was boarded up. Artists, as usual, were painting art over the plywood and particle board that covered the doors and windows of our historic bars and music halls. What would have changed from then to now?

The first tentative start up of the bar district has started. The panels are coming off the doors and windows. The less welcome graffiti is being scrubbed off. The sidewalks are being power washed. It feels like everyone's target is to open (soft or hard) around June 1st. I'm glad I got down there today because I wanted to take some higher res versions of my favorite temporary art. 

I used one of my Panasonic S1 cameras and one of the two Sigma 45mm f2.8 lenses I'm currently hoarding (hey, some people hoard toilet paper and hand sanitizer; I like lenses....which is crazier?) and set the camera for documentation mode. I like to use the camera in the flat profile and then add back contrast and saturation in post. Seems to work really well and does a good job of preserving highlights. 

It's already getting hot here in Texas and by the time I got back to my car it was already in the mid nineties. I got in the car and flicked on the air conditioning before checking my phone.

But you've already read about resumed swimming, right?  

https://www.kvue.com/article/money/austin-bars-music-venues-prepare-reopening/269-4e544657-1fa0-4250-9295-28a41cb677fc

OT: The universe finally throws a poor, humble photographer a bone... Splash, splash.

Yesterday felt like a step backwards. I noticed a flaw with a new camera and spent time boxing it up and returning it. This morning felt like I was just running in place trying to come up with things to do and reasons to unlock the studio door. By noon I was ready to get out of my house and my office and just walk to relieve the boredom and encroaching ennui. I went downtown, parked my car, ditched my phone in the center console, masked-up and went for a walk. 

When I got back to the car a while later I checked messages. There was a text from my swimmer friend, Patty, which read: "Masters swimming is back! Check yr e-mail."

Hallelujah. Hallelujah! It seems like years since I've been in the pool. Apparently the USMS (United States Masters Swimming) folks have been working with medical experts to devise protocols for allowing us to get back to swim workouts. We'll be swimming with no more than two people to a lane. One person will start at one end of the pool and one person at the other end. We'll start and finish our repeats and sets at opposite ends of the pool from each other at all times. We'll circle swim. Up the right side of the lane and back on the right. We won't be able to use the showers, suit spinning dryers or the water fountains, and we'll have to come suited up; ready to hop in and swim. 

To make this all work we're having to do reservations for each workout. Of course there is a website and an app for making reservations. With space for only 14 people per workout the sign-up system is the only way to make it all work. 

Since I was out walking and not sitting at my desk, or nursing my phone, I missed the original message by hours. When I got back to my computer to log-in, re-engage my credit card (to pay dues) and head to the reservation site all of the 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. workout slots for next week were already filled up. But there was still more than enough space for an anxious-to-get-back to the water swimmer in the SIX a.m. to SEVEN a.m. slots. I can handle that. I did it all through high school and college...

The biggest advantage for us is that we're a private, members only swim club so we don't have to worry about accommodating walk-ins or drop-bys. 

We're scheduled to start next Tuesday but I'm already cleaning my goggles and checking my gear. This will take so much of the sting out of the shutdown for me. I can hardly wait. I would have traded a camera system just for the chance to swim through the Summer. Now all is not lost! Some sanity has returned to my universe. Pure, soaking, hyper-gratitude over here. 

I've got four days booked for workouts through the next week and I couldn't be happier. It's like getting a free Leica M10 in the mail. 

Now I can back off of all that stupid running. Whoever thought that running was a real exercise? (again, sarcasm alert!!! I do understand and appreciate that running is good exercise). 

Tuesday. May 19th. 6 a.m. Target. 

Inconsequential news of a product failure. Or perhaps just a failure of quality control...

full frame file from an fz1000 ii. 

Same. Central area magnified.

You start out using a camera one way and enjoy it but then you use it another way and uncover a fatal flaw. At least that's how I progress through onboarding a new camera. 

About a week and a half ago I splashed out some cash and bought a brand new, sealed in the box, Panasonic fz1000 ii. I bought it from a USA official dealer with a pretty flawless track record. I set up the camera for the way I usually like to use these bridge cameras and fine-tuned the menu items with my idiosyncratic methodologies in mind. For the last week I've been using it while on walks around Austin and have stayed in a fairly narrow and easy use window by mostly setting the aperture near its widest setting or no smaller than f5.6.

I've been happy with performance of the camera and found it was capable of creating very sharp and nicely colored files. All in all, a good performer and a nice camera to take out when you want to be ready for just about anything. With a 25mm to 400mm zoom on the front it's a camera that can deliver results in just about any situation. It's at its best in strong light and that's how I was using it today. 

I was standing on the pedestrian bridge that joins north and south Austin, shooting an image of the city skyline, when I decided to stop down a bit more to get sharpness across a deeper section of the photograph; I wanted to make sure the paddle board riders close to me and the bridges further away were in sharp focus. For grins I stopped down to f11 and shot a few frames but when I did so I noticed a mustache shaped blur object at the top of the frame. Uh oh. 

I tried the same shot at f8.0 and the blur object remained. Now, this is where I'd take a conventional, interchangeable lens camera home to blow the dust off the sensor. Worst case scenario I might even do a wet cleaning... but this camera does NOT come with an interchangeable lens; it's a sealed system, so I looked through the menu to see if I'd missed a menu function for sensor cleaning. NOPE. It's not an option. 

So, here I am with a week and a half old camera that's never been subject to sand storms, leaf blowers, desert winds, the sea shore or work in an industrial setting and it's got a honking big piece of crude on the sensor. 

I came home and looked at the file writ large on the screen of my 5K monitor and noticed that the mustache artifact was not lonely but was accompanied by smaller dust bunnies. (See bottom left of the magnified frame, and also, just above the left side of the "mustache). 

Say what you will about intuition but there must have been some reason why I saved the original box and all of the packaging when my usual inclination is to dump out all the manuals, warranty cards and boxes into the recycling. In this instance (perhaps the lethargy of the moment) I'd tossed the whole package that constituted the packing and materials into my closet next to the spent cores from our experimental nuclear reactor. Just above the shelf with the souvenirs from Area 51. 

With a warning call to my sales associate at our local bricks and mortar store I jumped into the VSL limousine (no, I do not literally have a limousine!) and headed up with the box, materials and flawed camera in hand. But not before taking a moment to print out an 8.5 by 11 inch print with which to demonstrate the inadequacies of my particular unit. 

Without a murmur of push back my sales person asked me how I'd like to handle the unfortunate situation. Would I like to trade the camera for a different, new and boxed unit? No, I decided, I'd rather just get a refund to my credit card and soldier on with one less camera in my inventory. The whole transaction was amicable and as smooth as teflon. 

This marks my second mishap with a Panasonic Lumix camera this year. I'm not at all enthused. But, considering all the really crappy things happening in the world now this falls below the line of even caring. 

I'll miss the camera's long reach and easy wide angle but I won't miss the unwanted clutter in the final files. A bit more Q.C. might help cement Panasonic's reputation for the better. Just a thought. 

Kudos for the prompt and effective response on the part of my favorite "bricks and mortar" camera store, Precision Camera. Nice to be able to manage things face mask to face mask.

I came home and watched the news. That put the camera imbroglio into perspective...

What will the profession of photography look like in a year? Or Two? Pretty sure it won't look like it did before but will the photos have changed or will the way we look at them have changed?

"Hairspray" Zach Theatre.

I was looking through a folder of my own images this morning and I found myself wondering how my photography will change next year or the year after when we emerge from the pandemic and the new financial depression. Will there still be a theater in which to make images? Will there still be plays and musicals? And will people still want to drop by and have their portrait taken? Will I have lost the skills I've spent decades working on? Will my isolation slowly rob me of my glib repartee and make my social skills slow and clumsy? Will I have lost a pivotal time frame in which I might have done my best work? Will I be consigned to the concept of yesterday's photographers?

These are the things I think about when I wake up in the middle of the night, with unspecified anxiety and then lay awake until I've decided that the time has come to get up and start the routine of my daily suspension from art over again. At least I still look forward to that first cup of coffee...

When the smoke clears and people walk back out of their shelters will there still be a demand for photographs or will more practical and immediate needs wipe away any residual appreciation for the graphic arts? 

I fear for physical galleries and museum spaces. I think the former won't come back for quite a while and the later will be diminished. I think the shift from photography to video will accelerate while also pushing down incomes and moving us further away from the idea that intellectual property has value.

We'll all be a little sadder if we lose some of the legendary camera makers that we grew up with. Product introductions will slow down and the tools and selection of tools will become a bit more constrained and limited. 

Will models and talent agencies exist anymore? Maybe only in the biggest markets like Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas. Will NYC even be a player in the creative spaces going forward? Will compacted living become an impediment to attracting talent anymore or will people seek to live in less expensive and more diffuse communities? 

Maybe a year or two of not being able to go out and shoot exactly what we've always wanted to shoot will cause us, collectively, to lose interest in photography as a hobby and passion and by extension losing the most affluent part of the camera market will be the final nail in the coffin for camera sales and  finally make iPhone photography the dominate channel for all kinds of imaging. 

I think most of us reading here are at an age and a demographic segment where our worries are more likely focused on losing our relevance to our local culture more than they are about want and deprivation. We can count ourselves lucky to have nice roofs over our heads and well stocked pantries. But every generation is and will suffer through this shut down of normalcy in some way that is pernicious to each bracket.

The millennials will have an unexpected gut punch to their ability to get good jobs. The generation X folks will have taken two steps backwards in funding those college accounts for their kids and saving for retirement, and even the kids still in primary schools will be scarred by the sudden shifts of parenting and education. The burdens will fall (as they always do) most harshly on those with the least income and wealth and the affects of the upheavals will be less burdensome for the wealthy. 

I understand all this and there is little I can do to ameliorate the chaos for anyone, but I can understand what the chaos feels like for me and it most immediately feels like so much loss potential and lost opportunity. Both as a working photographer and as an "artist." I am almost certain that 2020 will be a lost year for work. We're coming up on the half way point of the year and there are no signs of recovery for our businesses. And no opportunities to make the kinds of photographs that I love. The foundational ones that make the rest of photography seem fun and fulfilling. 

I feel like one of the Olympic athletes who trained for years and years only to have the games postponed. Having peaked too early. And, the possibility that when everything resumes it will be somehow too late.

We're lucky, sure. We only had travel plans and personal projects disrupted. Our social security contributions will be lower this year and that will drive down future income. But we haven't lost people close to us to the disease and we're doing fine. It seems selfish to write this but the only truth is in writing what you know. Trying to explain what you feel.

I head outside with a camera every day. My goal is to find one good photograph every day. Sometimes I get it and sometimes I fail but I'm committed to keep my hands in the process; my mind in the game. 

Today I selected images that I like, that were fun to make and fun for me to look at. I chose them to bolster my own spirits and to help renew my hope that we'll all get to go back to whatever work we loved as soon as it's possible. At 64.5 I've learned that I only get to do this whole process of life once and every lost year is irreplaceable and something to be mourned, at least in passing. 

Intellectually, I know this is so much harder for people everywhere. But if we don't talk about the way it affects us personally we're pushing down real feelings that will surface less elegantly later. 

It helps to have friends. I had coffee with a great friend today. He's just ahead of me on the life experience scale and he's a great mentor. Every connection helps. Just a quick "thank you!" to Frank. Much appreciated.

photographing big, fun set up shots for 

Zach Theatre's marketing and advertising.

Wearing short pants and sandals.

Michelle's beautiful smile.

this is now a documentation of the past. 

The Chair has been recovered and is now looking 

modern and snappy. I miss the wrinkled and the padding 

that had been compressed far too often for far too long.

checking on the reservation status of state parks in West Texas.

Ready to go back to Ft. Davis State Park and watch the stars in

a dark and dramatic sky while camping a bit rough.

The last time I was in Mexico was two years ago.

We photographed an industrial plant. It was hot, loud, 

humid and fun. 

the Kirov Ballet at the Mariensky Theater in St. Petersburg.

The view from the Czar's box. Was this performance

"the Firebird"? I think so....

Up to Saratoga Springs to see Ben graduate from college and to see 

Fred for coffee at Common Grounds. 

Noellia at the Barton Springs Spillway.

a model getting ready to hit the catwalk at a show in South Beach, Miami.

Boston. Dress shop.

Austin. Dress shop.

Ben at Asti Trattoria. Austin

A still life shot on stage. During a rehearsal for "Million Dollar Quartet." 

@Zach Theatre.

Ben. Looking earnest.

South Korean Photographer at lunch in a Chinese restaurant in Berlin.

My dining room with a model blocking the view. 

Made potentially for a book cover.

A pause while getting make up done for a photo workshop I taught.

At the Spa.

In the old studio.

the end of the road? Or, another beginning?