Getting back in the saddle. Ramping up with selected, trusted clients before anybody else.

I started letting clients know that we were ready to accept assignments; at least the ones that everybody agreed were pretty safe. By that I mean jobs such as photographing one person at a time in our studio, or photographing buildings and infrastructure projects outside. I'm fine with doing environmental portraits outside as well. Once I started reaching out and conveying details about our slow motion return to work I've been getting requests for bids, and actual assignments for multiple engagements in August. And it feels good to get started back. 

Since many of my clients are medical practices (radiology, cardiology, oral surgery, oncology, etc.) we don't have to explain much about the safety procedures we're requiring from everyone. If people are coming to my studio they'll need to wear their face masks until we get ready to photograph. We have an A/C system set up to bring in constant fresh air; no recycled stuff. I'm swabbing down surfaces like a professional HazMat team. If people don't want to do it my way they don't need to book my time. 

So far only two requests for bids have come from ad agencies and both projects got put "on hold" the day after the bids were delivered. The rest of the work, and offers of work, is coming directly from the companies I've worked with a lot in the past. Most of the first wave of jobs I'm scheduling are simple headshots in the studio but we are bidding on several video projects that will have their own sets of logistical challenges. I have a feeling everything will take longer now and move slower. And the approach to craft service (the traditional food/snack tables at video shoots) will be an entirely new experience. 

There is one large law firm I work with that loved the in-office, environmental portraits we were doing for them for the last five years. Since many of the lawyers are still working from home and are reticent to all come into the office for the traditional, tightly scheduled photo sessions we're changing gears a bit and working with some PhotoShop solutions. I'll spend some time in their offices during an off time (Saturday or Sunday) with one point of contact there as a host. My goal is to photograph a bunch of great environmental backgrounds in their facility that I can use in an ongoing library to make composites with portraits that we'll do, one at a time, in the studio against a plain, neutral background. 

I would not have offered or considered this approach pre-Covid, but that was before the latest upgrade to Photoshop more or less perfected the "Select Subject" command. (It's in the selection tools). If you have not upgraded and experienced the huge leap forward in this automatic selection tool you owe it to yourself to check it out. "Select Subject" makes the cleanest drop outs/selections I've ever seen. It's about 10 times quicker than using a pen tool and you can use it in conjunction with the refine edge tools as well. 

I had occasion today to drop out the backgrounds in 16 images I shot for another law firm. We'd shot against a plain background and it was amazingly easy to click one button and see a  perfect cut out. The 16 images, working in 16 bit from 47.5 megapixel raw files, took a little less than 2 hours of time. Last year I would have blocked out a day to do this kind of detailed selection process. I'm so impressed. 

Saving between 4 and 6 hours of time today and getting great results is the best argument I can make to anyone who thinks the $10-12 a month is way too much to spend for PhotoShop and Lightroom bundled together. I calculate that I made a year's worth of subscription charges from the time saved on today's job alone. And I provided what is probably a better product that I could have produced a year or two ago. 

While it feels good to look at August's business calendar and see it filling up there are still projects I won't accept. One kind is any sort of day long event work in interior spaces. No convention hotels for me yet. I also won't fly for work. I do have one client in North Carolina I'd love to continue on with but that will have to wait until we've got a better handle on either vaccines or iron clad curatives. Even though I always imagine myself as being bulletproof I am 64 years old and the statistics are not in my favor...yet. 

On  the other hand, if someone would like me to do larger, infrastructure projects anywhere in Texas I'll be happy to drive to the locations and do the work under the same constraints I've outlined above. I'm even considering a rooftop tent for my little SUV which would free me from having to flip a coin about how safe a hotel/motel might be... But no one is asking right now so that's more or less a contingency plan at the moment. Maybe something better saved until the cooler weather arrives...

I can't predict what will happen next. I have friends who've lost long term jobs at ad agencies and from corporate MarCom departments but I have other friends who are working through the pandemic, in marketing, without a hitch. I'll be happy to work a bit after months of twiddling my thumbs and boring you with images of Austin's mostly closed up downtown spaces. But I'll be equally happy just hitting the pool in the early morning, grabbing delicious take out for lunch and lounging under the ceiling fans with a great novel on my Kindle. Whichever way the universe leans. 

Favorite lens of the moment: The Panasonic 24-70mm f2.8 S-Pro. I used it on some in studio images of people against white and was impressed by the sharpness at both ends of the focal length range. And across all f-stops. Better than many, many prime lenses I've used. And not a hint of flare or contrast flattening even though the white background was a half stop hotter than the subjects. No flare from the hair light just out of frame either. The lens and camera combination focused speedily and accurately and  working with the lens was easy as pie with the face detection AF in the camera. It's a pricey lens but it's so darn good I've almost forgotten what I paid for it. In a few months I'll forget that altogether and wonder why I didn't get it sooner. 

For everyone who suggests that if I can't find fun portrait subjects to work with I should find some other subject matter to replace them with in the interim: Go read Michael's post today: https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2020/07/bill-jay-on-the-thing-itself.html

It's a bit of writing from the late Bill Jay. Pretty much sums up my POV. 

At any rate, happy that the cameras and lights still work the way they are supposed to. More adventures on resurrecting my autumnal career in the near future. Keep your powder dry. 

Troubleshooting stuff that goes wrong. Don't be so quick to blame the camera. If you are using flash it's probably your ________!!!!!

Notice how the top half of the frame is darker than the bottom half?

When I lit the scene and metered it with a Sekonic meter

the whole background was evenly lit to half a stop.

What went wrong?

And who's to blame?

As usual: operator error.

As you may know, in addition to my full time, unpaid job, as a volunteer photoblogger I also do some professional/commercial photography on the side. You know, just to pay the bills and provide a budget to pay for canned tuna fish and ramen. So, in my capacity as a working pro I accepted the amazing challenge of photographing not just one, but two doctors this morning. We set up the appointments an hour apart so I could do mundane things in between, like wiping down doorknobs with Clorox wipes or re-brushing my teeth so I wouldn't have to live with coffee breath recirculating in my face mask...

But even though I've been taking these kinds of studio portraits for a number of years, and should have some sort of competency in both setting up the gear and getting my subjects to flash winning smiles, I'm  not so complacent that I'd wait till the last moment to set up and test the gear. Yesterday evening, between watering the grass and settling in for yet another one of Belinda's ultra-healthy dinners, I decided to head into the studio and set up all the lights, the background and the camera and then test everything a couple of times. I tend to sleep better that way.

When I got everything ready and started to test the images on the rear screen looked fine...except they didn't. One half of the frame was noticeably darker than the other. Yikes. Okay. I've done this before. I'm sure it was just an errant camera setting.

My first thought was about the lights. I was using two Godox monolights. The kind you plug in the wall. The kind with big modeling lights. While they tend to be binary they were part of different lighting method than I've been using in the recent past. I had been using Godox LED lights and never had a problem like this. Could it be the lights?

I switched them out with a second set of lights, turned everything back on and did a test. The issue was still there. It was unchanged. Uh oh. Might be something wrong with the camera! I was using a Panasonic S1R. It's one that was thoroughly (and I mean thoroughly) checked by Panasonic just a few months ago and it was working fine all last week. But you never know....

I went through and checked the shutter speed setting for sync problems but the phenomenon was unchanged. If it was the camera I would be pissed off but for the moment it would be an easy problem to solve. I'd just pull a second one out of the drawer, put a piece of tape on the broken camera and get on with the job. But to my horror the second camera showed the exact same issue. Half the frame graded to darkness. Well shit.

With my platinum strategy, the camera switch out, not working I was starting to get a bit nervous. I should be able to make a simple photo set up work. I've done it....forever. My next step was to go through every single menu item on the camera to see if I had set anything, ANYTHING that might affect the flash. Two trips through the menu and I still came up empty handed and saddled with a very annoying enigma.

While logic told me the lens couldn't possibly be the issue I reached into the magic studio drawer and pulled out another lens. It showed the exactly same messed up frame as before.

In scary times like this the options seem so limited. What to do next? Call the client and reschedule? Quit the profession in shame and embarrassment? Shoot with a half dark frame and try to get away with calling it ART?

No. A true master, like Richard Avedon, would have stepped away from the situation, gotten a cup of coffee and tasked his team of assistants to figure out the issue or face banishment.

It did dawn on me that I have no army of assistants onto whom I could foist responsibility but I'm always up for a cup of coffee so I headed all the way downtown to Intelligentsia Coffee to get a double cappuccino. Sure, I had to pass sixty or seventy closer coffee shops to get there but it's really all about the journey. The longer the journey the more time your subconscious mind has to work on the issue.

I got my coffee and headed back home. I was waiting for the coffee to cool down before taking that first sip. When I crossed the bridge over the river I thought enough time had gone by and I took in that first tentative slurp of perfect coffee. And then, like an electric shock violently tickling my medulla oblongata, the solution came to me. Fully formed. Springing like Athena from the forehead of Zeus. Maybe it was the dedicated Godox X1T flash trigger!

My right foot hit the accelerator and the incredibly dynamic Subaru Forester sped up from a pokey 35 miles per hour up to a death defying 43 mph as I rushed home to get to the bottom of the exposure
crisis.

I grabbed a big, theatrical looking magnifying glass and examined every square centimeter of the triggering mechanism; paying special attention to its infernal interfaces, and: there it was. The last untested possibility. The high speed flash sync enabling switch, or THSFSES!!!

It was set to allow high speed flash sync. A totally unnecessary setting given that the monolights were in the studio where the ambient light is totally controllable. I took another swig of coffee, took a deep breath and flicked the switch to the "off" position. Then, with trembling hands and no small dose of trepidation, I turned everything else back on and took a test shot. Voila! Success. A completely coherent and even white background. I had conquered the last Everest on my list. The flashes would now do my bidding with no further wobbling or subterfuge.

I finished my coffee with a triumphant flourish that only served to spill precious brown juice on the studio floor. But after I cleaned that up I knew I'd be able to complete those two assignments and I would still be able to hold my head high as a nearly fully functional photographer. And that's my story.

Next time I'll check the trigger first. Apologies to my big, fat Lumix S1R. It's not your fault, it's me.

Medium format digital becomes accessible. People take notice.

Interesting to me that three of my good friends (who are also photographers....but I guess that goes without saying...) have recently added Fuji medium format cameras to their collection of toys and tools.  One is my friend, Paul who is a very experienced architecture photographer, the second is a very advanced enthusiast named, Andy, and the third is an eclectic and self directed art photographer named Jim. All three had their reasons for giving medium format a spin and all three of them are happy they decided to give new Fuji line of MFs a whirl.

Paul, the architecture veteran, is always looking for an edge and he's not a newbie when it comes to large and medium format cameras; both digital and film based. When I first met him Paul was working with Linhof Technica 4x5 view cameras while keeping a Hasselblad SWC/M handy for quicker wide shots. He's worked recently with the bigger Hasselblad digital cameras as well as the Leica S medium format cameras so he knew what he was getting into when he bought a Fuji GFX 50R.

Andy is nearly as crazy about collecting various cameras as I am and his purchase of his GFX 50R was, I think, his first foray into medium format digital imaging. He picked up the basics in a matter of hours and has been using the 50R non-stop since picking it up a few months ago. I've seen plenty of samples from his work with the camera and he should be a spokesperson for Fuji. He's got that enthusiast's enthusiasm especially hard for the medium format space. All his stuff looks great. (And he's reviving his appreciation for his tripods).

Jim is the anything for art and all-in member of this loose coterie. He sprung for the GFX 100 (100 megapixels) and three of the lenses and he's become a bit zealous about how much he likes the bigger format. From the west Texas desert to the Colorado mountains, he seems to drag that kit around with him everywhere. It's a change from previous years when I could always count on him to show up with everything and anything Leica.

But what all three have in common is that they are generally in the first wave of adapters for camera technologies that make a difference in the actual look of the images they create. They aren't necessarily waiting for the reviewers to give them a sign. They are willing to adapt without the safety net of the herd to bolster their resolve. And they each deeply love making photographs.

So why the sudden lunge toward medium format? (Or, in Paul's case, back into MF).

In each case I think it happened when Fuji took all the goodness of the 50 megapixel sensor that appeared in the Hasselblad HD1X and the second generation Pentax 645D and put it into a system that is rationally affordable. In the case of the 50R when the price for a body started dropping down to the $3,500 price point it entered a dollar-to-value zone that made it irresistible for photographers who wanted a different look than what they (and everyone else) were getting from the 35mm sensor sized DSLRs and mirrorless full frame cameras.

In the case of the 50R the user is getting a sensor that's about +50% bigger than the 35mm models which translates into bigger pixels, which generally means a nicer looking file. But since the tech is based on the same underlying magic across sensor format sizes one still retains all the high ISO performance of the current smaller format sensors. And, unlike Hasselblad and Leica medium format cameras the lenses you'll want to use on the Fujis don't require selling a kidney on the black market to come up with enough money to purchase. I find the Fuji lenses bordering on affordable. The second part of the equation that really works for Fuji is that they quickly fleshed out the lens line up and did so with lenses that have a lot of appeal. I'm still salivating over the 110mm f2.0 lens. Oh, and the 45-100mm f4.0 lens. Even Mitakon makes two lenses for the system; a super fast 85mm f1.2 and a super fast 65mm. And I can't imagine a portrait photographer who wouldn't be at least mildly interested in the 100-200mm f5.6 zoom for a bit less than $2,000.

They've moved quickly to introduce lots of perfectly thought out zoom lenses as well as a collection of wides, normals and longer lenses. Venus Optical (third party) makes a 17mm for about $700 that's supposed to be good and is the equivalent of a 13mm on a 35mm system. But if you just want to get your feet wet with a pancake style "normal" focal length Fuji makes a 50mm 3.5 (a 40mm equiv.) for a hair less than $ 1,000.

Compare that to the Leica S series MF lenses and you'll find you can by three Fuji lenses (or more) for the price of one German marvel. That wouldn't be as exciting if the Fuji lenses were crap but by all reports from knowledgeable users the Fuji G lens are quite sharp and perform well. And the autofocus is decent. Both from a speed and accuracy point of view.

The EVF finder on the rangefinder style 50R body is one of the 3.69 megapixel versions so it's nice and detailed. And, if you travel a lot for your photographic work (does anybody do that anymore?) the body is currently cheap enough to make a second, back-up body nearly practical. (Not so practical if you are addicted to the 100 megapixel GFX100 version = which is still hovering around $10K. But then again....100 megapixels!!!).

What do I think? I think if the pandemic hadn't shut down my entire 2020 fiscal year's business income I'd find the $3500 price tag for the 50R body, and the $2,700 price tag for that slick looking 110mm f2.0 a very reasonable and highly justifiable purchase. I might still find them to be so.

But for my own stuff, in the moment, the S1 and S1R cameras are filling the bill. When the first green shoots of new business sprout, or when that lucky lottery ticket pays off, you'll probably find me in line at B&H or Precision Camera waiting for the 50R to come off back order. Yes, "back order" in the midst of the camera industry meltdown. Fuji must be doing something right...

My friend Paul likes the camera for its files but he's equally engaged by the short lens mount-to-sensor plane distance that allows him to adapt and use a vast collection of medium format shift lenses from previous, much more expensive camera systems. He's becoming a master at adaptation. Especially with shift lenses. Maybe he'll step up to the 100 megapixel GFX100 after he sees some of Jim's work with that camera. Then he might need to get rid of the 50R. I know someone who might willingly take it off his hands. I wonder if I can adapt some old Hasselblad V lenses to it.  You never know...

So, $3900 for a Canon R5, or a Lumix SH-1, or save some cash and step up to MF for nearly $500 less... An interesting question.

Just sharing a little "Canon Love" that has absolutely nothing to do with new camera launches...

Jana at a test shoot for a book project.

Little City Coffee Shop on Congress Ave.

Canon 5Dmk2 + 85mm 1.8

I think sometimes we forget how many really fun and wonderful photographs we were able to make with the gear on the market ten or twenty or even thirty years ago.

Looking back is always a good exercise.

My Canon 5D mk2 always worked and never even thought about overheating....

Emmett Fox, owner and executive chef at Asti Trattoria.

In Austin, Texas.

I was sitting in a comfortable chair reading a book late yesterday afternoon when I looked out the window and saw that the sky had turned quite beautiful. I caught myself wishing I had some assignment or any reason at all to be out photographing and taking advantage of all that sweet, late day light. I re-oriented my thinking just a bit and remembered that my friend, Emmett and his partner, Lisa were re-opening their restaurant this week for take out. Their patio was also re-opening too. Just no dining room right now...

I decided that Emmett would be a great subject to photograph so I grabbed the Lumix G9 with the 25mm Meike Cine lens, as well as my trusty iPhone and headed over to the Hyde Park neighborhood, just north of the UT Law School, in the center of Austin.

Emmett and I walked together for exercise earlier in the week but he was still surprised to see me show up with my camera. I shot a bunch of images of the restaurant exterior with my iPhone (auto HDR can be a wonderful thing...) and then got serious with my G9 and the 25mm.

This weekend is the 20th anniversary for their business and I've been a delighted customer every step of the way. Emmett and I also swim together in the masters program at The Western Hills Athletic Club. 
The thought of them working the 20th anniversary of the restaurant without some photos to document the occasion seemed wrong. Sitting around in my chair while the light sparkled and amazed seemed lazy and stupid. Sometimes it's incumbent on us lazier photographers to push ourselves just a little harder.

Two big benefits to my impromptu photo session: 1. Emmett and Lisa sent me home with tiramisu for two (amazing, delicious, comforting, fattening --- but in a good way). and, 2. I know Emmett can't repurpose this series of breathtaking portraits for his passport because of the face mask!!!

Emmett Fox, owner and executive chef at Asti Trattoria.

In Austin, Texas.

Emmett greets me in front of the restaurant. Mask and apron, the new norm.

Ben, Belinda and I have been coming here on as many evenings as we could 

over the last 20 years. Ben had his first escargot here. And his first sorbettos. We are 

all addicted to their house made bread sticks and focaccia. I love Emmett's 

fried artichoke hearts with aioli. 

Belinda is a fan of any risotto they happen to make.

Lisa and Emmett Fox. In front of Asti. Ready to feed you!

All images available light. Really nice available light. 

iPhone.

ISO 25!

I'm still fascinated by the Meike 25mm T2.2 Cinema lens. That means, by extension, that I'm re-fascinated with micro four thirds. Especially the G9.

I guess this is a continuing review of the Meike 25mm Cinema lens that I wrote about two weeks ago. At least it feels that way. Yesterday I wrote about the importance, for me, of having friction in the photographic process if I was to both enjoy it and also feel as though I guided the picture taking process rather than being led by the nose through the routine by a smarty pants camera. I was thinking of this lens while I was writing about the 90mm Elmarit R because more than most lenses the Meike Cinema series is an unalloyed ode to total manual control. 

When used on a micro four thirds camera like the Lumix G9 the 25mm lens has the equivalent field of view of a 50mm lens on a 35mm sensor camera. It's a nice focal length for me because I can never figure out what to do with the rest of the stuff on the edges of images made with wider angle lenses. 

Because of a more restricted schedule at our pool I can only sign up and swim four days a week. As a consequence I'm at loose ends now on Saturdays and I figured that after my neighborhood walk with Belinda I'd have some extra time this morning to grab the camera and head downtown for a brisker walk and spells of dalliance with the camera gear. It didn't hurt that we've broken the oppressive heat wave, at least for today. Our high temperature is predicted to be only 97° and the humidity is mercifully lower too. It was a perfect morning to stroll with the G9 and the 25mm. 

I set the camera to manual exposure, ISO 100, daylight/sun WB, standard profile, with a starting shutter speed of 1/640th of a second which led me to an aperture range of t 5.6-8.0 in full sun and t 2.2 - 2.8 in open shade. Just right for my appraisal of my most used settings. We had nice, bright sun diffused by high, thin and only occasional cloud cover. It worked well both for my comfort and the camera's performance. 

With the G9 set to M/F you can get full time focus peaking even with non-communicative lenses. It makes manual focus fast and accurate. I have found that either my vision is improving or camera finders are getting better because it seems easier and easier to focus most lenses on the G9, even without the focus peaking. No glasses required. 

I could write a bunch of stuff about my impressions of this lens but I think the photographs will speak for themselves. I will say that there is some small amount of barrel distortion that's easily corrected in Lightroom but there is no vignetting that I can see in the photos. I'm also not seeing chromatic aberrations anywhere. The colors are nicely accurate and the lens has a transparent quality to it that's unique. It makes photographs that seem clearer and cleaner than many other lenses. 

One more note: I'd forgotten how much I liked the feel and sound of the G9 shutter mechanism. I'm also pleased with the incredibly long battery life of that camera. It may be the current best, all around photo tool on the market. And the I.S.  Even with non- I.S. lenses the stability of the system is so good I'm sure other camera makers are green with envy....

This is my morning view from the dining room table. 

Today I made coffee and sourdough bread toast.

Thick slices that I slathered with peanut butter and 

blueberry preserves. A wonderful treat. 

Early light. 

I keep trying to get this mural right.....

 I thought this frame would be a good test image on which to try Adobe 

Lightroom's "Detail Enhancer" feature. The image above is the full frame 

while the two images below are, first 100%, followed by 200% crops. 

The G9 raw files, aided by the Meike lens performance, resolve plenty of detail.

See the distortion at the roof line? 

Of course it could be quick and shoddy building construction instead...

I looked up during a quiet coffee break to see the steam stacks from a different perspective.

Another perfect cappuccino from Intelligentsia.

I'm always curious to see how sharp and detailed a lens is. 

I expect them to be sharp in the center and I'm happy to see them sharp at the edges.

For the Meike test I used the lens at f5.6 and a half and focused on the 

machine in the center of the frame.  See below for crops at 100% and 200%.

Remember, you can click on the frame to see it full screen...

I think the detail in the grass is quite nice.

At the end of my walk I headed back home to toss the files into Lightroom and check them out. I was happy with the color and the overall quality of the files. The G9 is one of my all time favorite cameras and I think the combination of that camera with the Meike lens is superb. Really superb.

OT: Today is the first day since late February that Belinda and I got hamburgers and french fries from out favorite Austin burger chain: P. Terry's Hamburgers. Of course we ordered our favorites online and I dropped by to pick them up. I'd forgotten just how tasty the fries are. They don't use nasty, industrial oils to fry them; they use canola oil. All the produce is locally sourced and the beef is organic, grass fed. For an inexpensive lunch they just can't be beat.

It was a lovely break from our usual, healthy homemade fare. You don't miss your water till your well runs dry! Into every life a little junk food must fall. The happy familiarity of a good burger is not just delicious it also produces happy endorphins. Mustn't discount those!

I have better lenses but they're not as much fun to use. I have faster cameras but they're not as interesting.

this is a combination that repudiates "easy." 

The Lumix S1R camera is not a "fast" shooter. You won't be

using it to shoot 20 frames per second. It's big and heavy. 

The battery life isn't "class leading." 

the lens is an old Leica 90mm R Elmarit lens that opens up to 

f2.8 and has to be focused manually. The aperture has to be manually

set on the lens. With a fully "dumb" lens on the Lumix you

only get "A" and "M" exposure modes. 

so, when I'm just hanging out shooting for fun, why is it that 

I prefer this rig to ones that are easier and more 

automatic to use?

Why indeed.

things have gotten so easy. You point a current S.O.T.A. camera at something, zoom the lens to match the composition that looks best, do a half press on the shutter button and the camera leaps into action, setting the focus and the exposure and you smile as you press the shutter button all the way down and the camera makes the shot. You don't have to think. You can just respond. If you are unsure you can just hold down the shutter button and the camera will continually readjust focus and fire away at 10 or 15 or 20 frames per second. Surely one of the frames from among hundreds will work for you...As simple to operate as it is to change channels with your TV's remote control.

Not sure how to get the best dynamic range? Just put the camera into the auto-HDR mode and let it do all the work. You can totally automate your videos as well. 

But, after a while, doesn't all that easy photo living get a bit.....boring? It does for me... Modern cameras are to immersion in photography as golf carts are to authentic golf.  If you didn't walk the course and carry your own clubs did you really play? 

And I guess that's why I'm drawn to cameras (and lenses) that have the potential to deliver great images but at the same time require more effort from the operator. I love cameras and lenses that make me work for the prize. I hate the ones that make it too easy. Too easy is how people must feel when everyone gets a trophy. Not a sensation you'll encounter when using something as eccentric as a Sigma fp. Or even your hyper automatic model, when switched over to manual control.

I like cameras that require the owner to invest in at least some of the operation; some of the creative and subjective selections. The need to make decisions tied to the actual operation of the camera keeps reminding me that this is still, when all is distilled down to its essence, a craft that depends on my choices more than on just buying the most convenient-to-operate tools. When the operational requirements are so facile and so automated I think the process, subconsciously, is devalued by the person practicing it. I know I invest progressively less in a photograph the more simple and automated the process becomes. 

I like the hands-on action of manually focusing a lens. All the better if I have to magnify the view and decide exactly where the point of sharpest focus is supposed to go. And then get it there. I like shooting in a manual exposure mode because there's less inertia to making exposure settings that "disagree" with the automatic settings. Because it's okay to prefer exposures that are lighter or darker than the automatically selected ones.  No matter how compartmentalized your thought processes are I can't believe that a camera providing an exposure set point doesn't in some small way reduce your incentive to take control and make adjustments. 

The weight of a camera isn't a detraction from the process if your intention was to go out and take photographs. It's a reminder of the seriousness with which you take your process. Carrying around the extra weight and taking over control of all the camera settings is akin to making a hopeful sacrifice to the photo gods. It's the friction that makes the process of taking a great photograph more unique, more difficult and by extension more fun and rewarding. 

If Panasonic made a camera body with no autofocus, no auto exposure and no extraneous modes or features, but one which required your complete attention to making images, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. It would be a constant reminder to me that I am integral to the process. That the success of an image depends more on my seeing it and capturing it correctly than letting a camera implement a cookie cutter approach to capture.

There's no real style without creative friction of some kind. For me it's the mastery of the camera and all the controls, for someone else it's the search for the perfect location or the perfect post processing recipe. But I can only see the process through my approach. And for me the friction with my tools is important. 

I find composing and focusing to be intertwined and I like it best when I control it all. But I'm guessing people's ways of working are all different. I can only think that cameras like a manual Leica M, though digital, are popular precisely because they require the integration of the human brain and fingers with the mechanisms of the camera.

When you learned on a Canonet QL17 you learned a way of shooting that doesn't leave you. Knowing how to make all the changes is the core advantage. Excessive automation is the enemy. 

The Leica Elmarit f2.8 is a classic. It's a simple optical formula that's enhanced by the build quality. Superior glass in metal barrels, precision machined parts that are made to be used for decades. A smooth focusing ring, the use of which is its own reward. The knowledge that if you get everything just right you'll get a photograph that you bargained for. I love the process of selectively focusing that lens. It keeps me involved right in the center of the whole enterprise.

If, on a  walk for instance, the camera/photography is secondary and you've only brought your camera alongs in case something catches your eye, then I understand the desire not to be burdened by weight or size or complexity. Bring a compact camera. Bring a good phone/camera. But if it's your intention to make photographs I think the added complexity and required work of a more controlled approach between human and manual camera operation adds a welcome  friction that generates the needed heat of creativity.

OT: Kirk's ramble about stuff. Today we start out with swim goggles...

This is the usual time on Friday's during which I look at the stats for the blog and wonder where everyone went. We had been averaging 4,000+ readers per day but now it's slipped to about 2,500. Maybe, in a way, this confirms my post from yesterday about the state of the market. Fewer people (who read English language blogs) are interested in photography than at any time since I started writing blog posts. Either that or the quality of my writing has finally fallen through the bottom of the web content safety net and we're plunging toward the abyss of irrelevance.

I guess I don't really care what the reason is since I enjoy writing the blog and will continue to do so until Google pulls the plug on Blogger and entropy keeps me from turning to some other publishing  substitute. And since that's my attitude I think I'll just proceed with what I had in mind to write after I made a cup of coffee for the afternoon.

You think the switch to digital changed photography? Well, just imagine how big a boost it was for swimming when, back in the very early 1970s, swimmers started finding workable and semi-comfortable goggles to wear while working out in chlorinated pools!!! I've been swimming long enough to remember when goggles were a rarity in most programs. We'd pound away at swim practices and then head home with bloodshot eyes and a hazy cloud reducing our visual acuity. It's a wonder most of us can still see today.

Now there is an avalanche of choices in the goggle "sector" and it's dominated by Tyr, Speedo, Arena, Roka, and Barracuda. My pair right now are the Speedo Vanquisher 2.0 goggles. They provide a tight seal around the eyes without having to be strapped on too tightly. I also like the Tyr version with the red surrounds but I have no idea what the model name (or number) is; I only know that I have six pairs of the Tyrs in various states of utility so I must have liked them a lot for a while.

It's possible to pay up to $100 for a pair of swim goggles but, get this! I've been swimming with competitive programs for decades and have never spent more than $18 on a pair of goggles. Can you imagine if I could maintain this sort of discipline in my pursuit of cameras?

The Speedo Vanquisher 2.0s ($16-$18) that I have now come in an optically clear version and a dark shaded version and I have one set of each. I've been using the clear ones lately for the 6 a.m. workouts so I can actually see my lane mate at the other end of the pool in the early morning darkness. Yes, we have underwater pool lights but in breaks between sets it's great to see your partner and yell back and forth about the particulars of the next set. Better still, you can see them getting ready to take off on the set which is your cue to also start.

If I go to a later workout, at a time when it's already light outside, I switch to the deep gray lensed goggles which are also UV resistant. It's a lot more comfortable that dealing with the glare of the sun through non-tinted plastic.

Why does anyone need more than two pairs? Because all the swim goggles are made of plastic which eventually becomes scratched and optically marred. You never know when you'll hit that tipping point of no longer wanting to look through a visual mess of scratches and surface abrasion to you keep a new pair around in your swim bag for the day you find yourself ready to switch.

Why bring a second pair with you to the poolside? Goggles are unpredictable. A pair can work fine for a year; maybe even two, and then one day without warning the seal along the eyecup will no longer seal properly and you'll have one or the other eyecup fill up with water as you push off the wall, flip turn, etc. Once you do swim practices with goggles in a chlorinated pool you'll never want to try to go the distance again without having that back-up pair stuffed in with your other swim paraphernalia at poolside and that means you can do a quick change and not miss the sets you've signed up and paid to swim.

What other failures do goggles exhibit? The weak spot for me with goggles has always been the rubber or silicone strap that holds the goggles onto your face. Now that new materials are being used it doesn't happen as often but the combination of chlorine and UV radiation breaks down most elastic materials and eventually causes them to fail. Tugging too hard on a strap end in order to tighten it is the prevailing cause of strap failure. This is another reason to keep a second set poolside. Sure, in the quiet comfort of your own suburban home, surrounded by your nicely mowed yard, it's pretty easy to replace the broken strap with a new one. But in the middle of a workout, in a shared lane, during a coached session, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to grab your back-up, deck-resident goggles and get right back into the mix. You can fix the casualties over a quiet cup of coffee on your own time.

I keep goggles everywhere. There are three pairs in my main swim bag which I take to every workout. The swim bag also has hand paddles and a pull buoy as well as a set of fins and a collection of different sunscreens.

I keep two pairs in the car in case (God forbid!!!) I forget the swim bag or lose it. I'll still want to swim and with the car goggles and an extra pair of jammers (swim suit) in the trunk of the car I can still make it through a workout without stressing over lost swim opportunity.

Oddly enough, I also keep a couple pairs in my main camera bag on the presumption that I might find myself near a pool or clean lake, waiting for the light to get cool, or a client to show up, and decide to take advantage of the scheduling gap to hop in the convenient body of water for a swim. With two pairs in the camera bag I can always be magnanimous and offer a pair for the client to use.

I realized the importance of goggles for workouts back in high school. We put in a lot of yardage. We hit the pool five days a week at 5:30 in the morning and had a second practice each afternoon. We also did a long Saturday morning practice. By the end of a typical day our eyes looked like Zombie eyes. Read and weepy. Sometimes a bit painful.

I had a date once with a beautiful swimmer on whom I had a crush. We went out to a very fun and trendy Mexican food restaurant on our first date and I would have loved to have stared into her eyes and she into mine. But we'd both spent too much time in the pool and both of us were so visually impaired by the time we got to the restaurant that our eyes watered too much to even read the menu. I figured that when swimming goggle-less hampered one's dating life it was time to take definitive action. I bought us both goggles and we started wearing them to every workout. After a while it became standard.

And, that added equipment was a good thing for teenage swimmers. The last thing you want a police officer to see if they pull you over for a traffic infraction is a kid with bloodshot and bleary eyes. And back in the days of hot cars and cavalier teens the "pull over/stern lecture" happened more often than one might imagine.

So, how do you keep your goggles from fogging up when the water is cold or the outside air temp drops? If you have no other recourse you let a few drops of water in each eyecup, put on the goggles, and then, when swimming, you tilt your head down and let the water wash across the inner surface of the lens. There are also anti-fog liquids you can buy that are specifically made for swim goggles. Speedo makes the most popular formula. I find that it doesn't work much better than a bit of human spit and a quick clean with a human tongue.

Hope your swimming is coming along well and that I can offer you other swim oriented tidbits when the photography entries become too boring. After looking at today's stats I decided it was an appropriate time to start....

My brain tells me to constantly pursue improving gear. My ability to look back at older work lets me know my brain's advice is often futile.

Once upon a time I liked to do live demonstrations about lighting. For a while, after the publication of several books on the subject, I would be invited to do a question and answer session about technique as well as a demonstration.  In 2011 I was very interested in the quickly growing acceptance of lighting just about everything with LED lights. Seems so normal now but nearly a decade ago the standard working protocol for just about everything photographic was to trot out a flash or two and bang away with them. Right or wrong, I thought LEDs and continuous light would become the preferred working methodology for many kinds of photographic projects.

I was right about some of the photographic uses for LEDs and wrong about others. For portraits, products and just about any subject that doesn't move around quickly continuous lighting has many benefits. It's wonderful to see what you are getting as you go along without resorting to frequent "chimping." It's great to easily work at bigger apertures without having to worry whether your flash can be turned down far enough. And, while working with big, soft, multi-diffused lighting it's great that a new generation of LEDs is much brighter than the modeling lights on most flashes; that makes composition and the visualization of the final image much easier. 

But in the early days I was caught short a few times by the unexpected need to freeze fast moving action, like dance, or kid's at play. I learned to really dig into a project's brief and to ask pointed questions about subject movement. If the marketing director at the theater suggested that the actors would be dancing and gesticulating wildly I swapped in conventional flash in the place of the LEDs. 

The image above represents one of my favorite ways to light people, and one of my favorite ways to use LEDs. Looking at it closely these days the image also tells me that most of my camera chasing is an exercise in futility. That the tools we had a decade ago were fine. 

To light this photograph I set up a canvas background and then, to one side I put up my favorite 6 by 6 foot scrim. I covered the scrim frame with two layers of white diffusion material which sucked up about three stops of light. On the side of the scrim opposite my talent (Amy Smith, now ace photographer!) I placed two large LED panels that each had 1,000 individual LED bulbs. I used the panels far enough back from the scrim so that they illuminated it fairly evenly from one side to the other. I angled the scrim so it was 45° from Amy's eyeline. 

She is as close to the scrim as she can get without me having to show the rear edge of the scrim. 

I used a well worn Canon 1D mk2N camera and the pedestrian Canon 85mm f1.8 lens. The ISO was 640 and the exposure was 1/125th of a second at f3.5.  

The set up took about ten minutes and the photography another ten minutes. Then we tore everything down and put it back in the boxes. If there is anything I'll remember with absolute clarity about how we used to do photography it will be the non-stop setting up, tearing down and moving to the next location to do it all over again. Photography of a certain kind has always been about managing the packing and moving of gear....

When I did this particular demo I remember someone asking me why I bothered to make the switch from flash to continuous light. Of course I had a number of rationales but what I really wanted to say was something along the lines of: I get bored easily. I like to try new things. This is a new thing.

And it's also really an old thing. But we all love the look of cinematic lighting work when done well in movies. I was watching the last Jason Bourne movie in bits and pieces last night. When I first saw the film I was watching the action and the choreography of fight scenes. But last night I was so enamored of a quiet scene of Alicia Vikander, lit at a 45° angle, in what was made to look like a vast office flooded with daylight, that I paused the Blu-Ray disc just to look more intently and to deconstruct exactly what was so wonderful about the look of the scene. One could tell that the DP had fallen in love, at least for the duration of the movie, by the look of that actor's face. His lighting was in service to her look and at the same time it was a rich gift for the viewer. 

All of which is to say that it's the final look that counts and all the stuff that happens behind the scenes is meaningless to the final viewer. 

I haven't written a book in ten years so I haven't been asked to do a demo in quite a while. Sad, because I think you learn to lock in whatever style you take time to demonstrate. 

Finally, one of the things I love about working with Amy is that she is so perfect as a talent for demonstrations. As a wonderful photographer in her own right she understands exactly what I'm looking for from a talent and she walks right into the sweet spot of a scene and flashes the perfect look for me. I hardly feel like I'm working. 

45° and 45° is like magic. The final magic dust? The biggest diffuser I can find.