Why I will be ordering an Apple iPhone 12Pro immediately.

 I'll admit that I've acted like one of those recalcitrant photographers from the early years of this century who claimed that digital would never supplant film, that analog photographs would always be superior to electronic files, and so on. But my Luddite tendencies have never been aimed at film versus digital (we started shooting commercially with digital cameras back in 1998) rather I've been a reluctant convert to the relevance, convenience and quality of smart phones. 

A number of years ago some wag created a category of image making he called, "iPhoneography" and the whole idea back then left me cold. The phones didn't have the resolution I thought they would need and the video wasn't nothing to write home about, not to mention that storage was small and expensive. But that's all changed. And the ascendancy of photography and video production with phones is being hammered in conclusively with the launch of the iPhone 12 Pro (but was evident with the iPhone 10 and 11 models too!). 

One of my video producer friends sent me a link last week that showed an interview with famous cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, and about 3 and a half minutes of wonderful video that Lubeski shot with the new iPhone 12 Pro. It also has him doing a voiceover and explaining why he feels that the new phone will change filmmaking forever. Before undertaking any knee-jerk reactions just watch and listen to what he says: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m07zMRXXP0

Yes, the video is sponsored by Apple but "Chivo" (Lubezki) is a much sought after cinematographer with a tremendous record of achievement and it's not likely at all that his opinion was "bought." And, yes, it's true that part of the reason the video looks so great is the combination of: great locations, great models, potentially hundreds of thousand of dollars of support equipment (professional level drones, cranes, specialty lighting, etc.) but the fact remains that the files coming out of the new camera are impressive in their own right. Lubezki's great work should be seen as something aspirational, after all, he's using the exact same camera and lens that you can pick up in the next few weeks from your favorite cellphone service provider for around $1K. 

To say that it's cheating to show work that was created out of a support-rich environment is like saying that having 30 years of daily, hands-on experience is unfair. The tool is neutral. It creates quality based on what the operator brings to the project. The phone itself isn't a magic wand.... And is actually a democratizing addition to the whole world of filmmaking. 

But back to that "magic wand" thing. What attracts me to the new phone are things that I would loved to have used on projects over the last few months. The first one being 4K, 60fps HDR footage. The images coming off the 12 Pro are in some ways more beautiful in their dynamic range than any of the best, under $5,000 traditional hybrid cameras which, in order to match the 12 Pro have to be used in V-Log and then meticulously color graded in long and grueling post production sessions. The difference is that the iPhone 12 Pro is doing all the work with in-camera processing and showing you the finished product on screen, as you shoot. It's the first phone to offer video in 10 bit, 4:2:2 and it's a wonderful to carry around and use on small, lightweight (but very effective) gimbals. 

While I might still need traditional video cameras for commercial work it's mostly because, for now, I need to be able to plug in and use professional XLR connected microphones to record traditional interviews. I need long, fast lenses for situations like this evening when I'll need to shoot from a static position but cover a waist up or mid-torso up close-up of a stage performer from 50 feet away. Maybe, just maybe, my full frame cameras will have less noise at the higher ISOs I'll need to use this evening. But, maybe Apple's incredibly fast A14 processor will be able to stack multiple frames in real time and make the noise a non-issue. We'll know when we get hold of one. 

The new camera comes with three lenses as well as LIDAR for low light and no light focusing. The lenses have some optical zoom range but I haven't dived into those numbers yet.

The model I have in mind is the 12 Pro. There is a bigger one called the 12 Pro Max but it's too big for me to comfortably use as a day-to-day phone, and it's more expensive but doesn't really have any additional production-oriented features. The price for the one I want is $999. I'll select the graphic finish for mine. I'm not really a big fan of bright colored phones and if I wanted to momentarily become aesthetically flamboyant I can always toss on a cute protective case covered with something topically current. 

Of course the new phone won't replace every camera on every shoot but I can't imagine that I'll want to use anything else again on a gimbal. I can't imagine that anything else will be as convenient and comfortable to use. 

To the caveat about audio and the need to use external microphones, does anyone imagine that a bluetooth or wi-fi app won't soon be available that will allow the wireless connection of mixers and microphones that will provide the same level of control we currently enjoy with our big, double-use (photos and video) cameras right now?

The technology that Apple is delivering in the new products is just stunning. And it's not just "potential" or advertising stunning; you see amazing results from current iPhones in real life all the time. 

If filmmaking gets technically easier and easier then great ideas get more and more valuable. The barriers to entry continue to fall; which is neither good nor bad. You can reject the change or embrace it. It doesn't matter. I'm on board because I've already seen what a two generations older iPhone can do on a gimbal. 

A filmmaking powerhouse that really fits in a pocket and creates stuff in a way we would have thought was magic just a few (very short) years ago amazes me. Please deliver mine now. 

Funniest comment I've read about the phones so far. Of course from a DP Review commenter:

"If it doesn't have dual card slots I'm out." 

I have to assume that was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.

Photographing a "Pandemic Safe" outdoor concert. Our theater figures out a way for "the show to go on."

 

Zach Theatre has a big, beautiful stage with seating for 400. Too bad we can't use it this year for live performances. But creative people tend to be.....creative and so the theater's team got together with health experts and figured out how to use the expansive plaza on the theater's campus to produce a series of live concerts. We had the first one last night and it was a raging success. We did a tech rehearsal the night before and I showed up to shoot promotional photos to kick off the series. 

Between now and November 8th the Zach Theatre is producing a series of live concerts that will run one hour in length and will (weather permitting) be held outdoors in the plaza. Seating is set up in pods. You can get tickets as a socially distanced couple all the way up to a "cabana" with seating for six. All pods are distanced about 10 feet from each other. Even though the concerts are held outside the theater is insisting on staggered arrivals and seating to reduce crowding into and out of the venue. Masks are mandatory. And, sadly, there will be no rushing to the edge of the stage to dance to the. You mostly have to stay in the confines of your pod space. 

But after watching both ticket sales and the reactions of our small, "family and friends" audience two nights ago I think there is so much pent up demand just to see good, live performances that people are happy to put up with any of the small inconveniences foisted upon them by a need (and desire) for group safety.

Each week has a different theme with different performers. This week Matt and Jill sing Broadway Show tunes, backed by a small band. Next week it will be Songs from the 70's. The following week will be Motown and the final week will feature Chanel who will show off the "Tina Turner" performance that won her the starring role of "Tina" in a famous, West End, London production. Shows run Weds. through Sunday. While we aren't going to have anywhere near the 400 person capacity of Zach's interior seating the theater will play host to about 120 people per evening, the production costs are much, much lower than those of a conventional stage show and the theater is able to keep functioning and paying staff and performers. It's a really nice solution. And since the weather people suggest that it will be in the low 70's for the rest of this week it's a perfect time to spend an evening on the plaza with a glass of wine and some great music. 

A "day before opening" rehearsal. Matt and Jill have been doing a "creative pod"

to ensure each other's safety at performances. 

Matt and Jill in performance at tech rehearsal.

I have two jobs for each show. I'll be there for the first show of each week's run to make marketing photos (and photos for the theater's archives) from a position that we just finalized in a strategy session yesterday. We tried a location on Wednesday evening but switched to a new spot yesterday afternoon. I'm using two cameras, shooting with a 70-200mm on one camera and a 24-70mm f2.8 with the second camera. The lighting is not as bright as our usual stage shows so we're working at 1/250th of a second, f4.0 at 4,000 ISO. We could not have used this kind of ISO ten years ago but it's now practically a new, low light normal with the Panasonic S1 cameras. Whatever noise you see in examining the files here was exacerbated by my half stop underexposure and then the lifting of shadows in post production. Sorry, it happens. I haven't hit the files with any noise reduction but I'm sure I can clean up a little noise in the shadows without breaking a sweat. 

The big challenges will come each Saturday as we do a three camera video set up. 

I'll be in one set position with an S1H camera shooting 4K video. I'm not depending on the continuous AF of the camera so I'll have an Atomos Ninja V monitor on top of the camera cage so I can see the bigger image and also so I can punch in 2X while recording to fine tune focus. It's a really nice feature of the Ninja. I'll have that camera on a tripod with a fluid head so I can pan with the two actors as they move from the stage in front of the theater to the long concrete wall and walk way about 50 feet to the right. 

Since my longest lens in the 70-200mm I'll take advantage of the ability of the S1 series cameras to shoot in full frame, APS-C or pixel-to-pixel mode and set it to shooting in APS-C which will give me something approximating 300mm on the long end. Using the lens like that will give me a great range for shots of two people together or waist up tight shots of the individual actors. Works well. No light lost either.

I'll use the Panasonic audio interface to pull in sound from the sound engineer's board since the interface has settings for "line in." 

The second camera will be an unmanned camera right in front of the front door stage. Normally we don't do "un-manned" cameras for theater work because the lighting intensity changes all the time and you'd end up with tons of under and over exposed footage. But since the lighting team is small the stage lights are static for this set of performances. That means I can set up a camera, set the exposure and color balance and start it running five minutes before curtain and then not think about it again until the end.

We'll make that camera an S1 and outfit it with the 24-70mm f2.8 S-Pro lens. 

The third camera will also be un-manned and will sit in front of what's quickly being called "the second stage." It's a long wall with a walkway on top. The artistic director originally created the concerts with just the one front stage but an hour with very little movement, no props and no stage settings gets pretty visually boring and that gave birth to the idea of using the second, contiguous space. 

We'll set up a wide shot for that space using the GH5 coupled with a 12mm wide angle lens and let that one just roll as well. To access that camera for changes we'd have to walk right in front of the audience and that's just not a good look. Fortunately the GH5 will run for over two hours on one battery and get me something like an hour and forty five minutes on a 128 GB SD card. We only need about an hour and ten minutes.

I'm so happy that I get to shoot all this but that I don't have to edit any of it. The files go straight to the theater's in-house editor and he can decide how to cut the whole thing together. 

A quick explanation of why I am happy to pay $1800 and more for some of the Panasonic S-Pro lenses. Since we're working in low light on projects like this one I seem to end up shooting a lot of stuff with my lenses at their longer settings; and also set to their maximum apertures. In the case of the 70-200mm f4.0 I find myself shooting at f4.0 for most shows. If these were like lenses from the past I'd be hesitant to work at such a wide aperture but it seems that Panasonic are taking their lens design cues from Leica. The prevailing philosophy seems to center around making lenses that are so high performing at their maximum apertures that there is little to be gained from stopping down other than to increase depth of field. 

I surfed through 300+ handheld images, shot at the long end of the 70-200mm, with the f-stop at its widest and the lens is sharp and contrasty at those settings. 

Same with the 24-70mm which I use a lot at the 24mm focal length, also wide open. They work well and deliver very sharp files. Sharper than the images I got from nearly all previous systems. Nice.

Some thoughts on managing entropy.

Jeez, I'm feeling ancient these days. My hair has just about finished turning light grey, I'm slowing down a bit in the pool, and huffing and puffing more when running the hills. I don't hear quite as well in my left ear as I used to. I always feel like taking a nap around 3 in the afternoon. I have less tolerance for people who waste my time and even less patience for unnecessary meetings and phone calls. One glass of wine at dinner and I'm sleepy. I can accurately guess the plot and the ending of any movie after the first ten minutes; which takes all the fun out of watching movies. 

I had a client tentatively book a couple of portraits for today but they never got back to me with times, etc. They called in a panic yesterday afternoon to see if I could still accommodate them today but I assumed, when everything went radio silence that they'd made other plans. So I made other plans. 

They were stunned when we e-mailed today to tell them that our next open day would be November 9th. I don't know what happened to this year. We started out in the Spring with everything cancelled. Nothing stirring. No jobs or projects. And now we're booking a month ahead. 

But the real issue for me is how to gracefully reduce the amount and types of work I've done in the past so I have more time to play before entropy catches up with me and puts caps on the quotient of fun we're allowed. The quantum of joy.

It's a delicate balance between boredom and that feeling of obligation. I think everyone who works at something they are passionate about has mixed feelings about paring down their time commitment. I've started eliminating jobs that I just don't want to do anymore. I'm burned out on studio headshots so I've been declining that kind of work left and right. There are a few clients who I like a lot, personally, and I'll continue with them but I no longer have the emotional bandwidth to sound excited about: "sharpening my pencil" to make a competitive bid for strangers at companies with which I have no history. Especially clients who want boring, safe, normal photos.

I've also been ruthless about turning down the sort of bread and butter commercial work that's stupid, exhausting and which has a half-life of about 3 months. To wit, we no longer accept catalog-type jobs shooting products against white backgrounds. Those icky products would be things like desktop computers, electronics and assorted tech gadgets. 

We just declined to bid on a project to shoot tons and tons of food images in one 8 hour day for a national restaurant chain. It was an unrealistic "ask" and I didn't even want to go through the usual routine of either bidding it high enough to make them go away or default to telling them "we're already booked." I finally, honestly just said that we weren't interested and suggested that there are many hungrier photographers out there who could really use the work. 

This new resistance to work extends to big studio projects for national manufacturers. Someone got in touch to see if they could book two days in December to have me photograph very large metal cabinets filled with servers and electronic stuff, in my studio. The enclosures measure eight feet by nine feet. They would not even fit in the studio door. And we know how those "two day" jobs expand. First there's an endless flurry of phone meetings. That's followed by a few reschedulings. Followed by a request that we be on-hand to receive a couple of multi-ton products a couple days in advance. Followed by two days of unrealistic expectations and those endless: "this was a demo/prototype/loaner/damaged in shipping item. Can you extensively Photoshop it to get rid of all the scratches, uneven paint, broken parts, etc.?" Followed by, "The soonest the freight company can come by and pick up these things taking up all your space is....next week," Ah....two days. We'd like to book a two day shoot that will take over your life like a virus...

So, those jobs are gone. Rejected. Trashed. But I guess it's about time to prune the deadwood of jobs. 

I love taking portraits. Haven't slowed down in the least. But I just want to pick the people I photograph, not the people who get sent over by companies anxious to populate a boring website with their "team." 

Really, I'd love to just keep working on getting better and better at making little movies, and personally interesting photographs of people. Of course, if we weren't in the middle of a raging pandemic I'd want to spend lots and lots of time traveling. And hanging out in cool places with Belinda. 

Things are good within the confines of our little half acre. We've always got personal projects on which yo work. We have our morning walks after my earlier morning swims. We cook meals together and enjoy each other's company. But I've never been so aware of the passage of time. Or the oppressive nature of being bound into one geographical area so tightly. 

I'm assuming so much of what I'm feeling today is a result of dealing with the shock and horror of turning 65 years old this month. I guess this new reticence to do any boring commercial work started around the time I had to figure out Medicare. That was last month. It required me to admit that even though I have the maturity of an 18 year old I really am transitioning to, um, middle age. With only forty or fifty years left in front of me I'm thinking it's past time to concentrate on the stuff I really want to do as opposed to all those projects I used to feel that I had to do. 

I'm guessing the majority of my readers have already figured this out. I used to think it was different for everyone but more stuff is the same than it is different. We get gray. We slow down. We want to stay relevant as long as we can. Ah well, enough complaining. I need to pack. I'm photographing an outdoor concert at Zach Theatre this evening and I want to bring fun toys to experiment with. First concert shoot using the Lumix S1H. The other camera is the S1. It will be interesting to see if they are interchangeable or if they each have their own quirks. But that's a blog for another day.

 

Exhausting, frustrating but fun workday.

 This image has nothing to do with the post below. I just liked it and wanted something to put at the top of the post. And...dog. 

There is something exhilarating about working in a medium where you are still very much a "student." While I've been feeling that photo assignments have been growing stale for me lately the challenge of working at the very edge of what I know in the video editing world is both daunting and very satisfying. 

My friend, Kenny, is a wonderful singer and he was asked to "cover" a couple of songs from an upcoming, virtual, online holiday party. The client wanted him to have us create two videos of him singing; one for each song, with a bit of comedy at the end of the second video. Kind of a "sign-off" for the evening. 

Kenny and I worked on a bunch of video stuff for Zach Theatre (you saw him in the opening video of the virtual fundraiser last month - the guy sitting on the bench, on the bridge, at the very beginning of the video. He gets up and leads the first group of people towards the camera) so he called me and asked me to produce the video. The budget was minuscule and the resources scant, but it was a chance to try out a few more video techniques in the service of a friend. I jumped at the "opportunity." 

We shot all the footage on Saturday and I started editing last night. The actual files look amazing to me. My edit? Less so. The files have some of the best color I've seen. It actually appears richer and has more apparent depth than the stuff I've shot on much more expensive cameras. I think the secret was shooting 1080p in a high data rate, All-I file. That, and getting a nice white balance at the very beginning of the shoot. 

But yesterday and today reminded me of how much I still need to learn in both planning projects and in editing them. Let me tell you what I learned and re-learned.

I shot Kenny in wide, medium and tight shots with a gimbal mounted camera and got great footage. What I didn't get and what came back to bite me on the butt was b-roll. Or the abject absence of enough b-roll. Even though Kenny has a nice enough face and a warm and engaging personality it gets boring to watch the same person sing a song for three minutes and twenty seven seconds. 

I should have shot more: hands on the keyboard, playing the piano, more fun martini shots, some "grand piano hammers hitting strings" shots, and even some shots of just his hands in close ups. I flubbed the b-roll and paid for it with some painful editing sessions today. Part of the fault lies with my lack of pre-planning and part with rushing through the shoot.

Here's another super-genius thing I learned when I started editing on a big screen: Stuff that looks great and sharp on a tiny, tiny rear LCD on a camera doesn't necessarily always look sharp on my monitor. I updated my camera firmware and the big benefit was supposed to be much better C-AF. And it sure did look good on the pixie screen but sometimes the camera hunted and I'd be in the middle of a nice clip only to have it fall out of focus in the middle. Wouldn't having more b-roll be a nice thing?

I had to scramble to find better shots and figure out how to edit to cover up my camera's grievous errors.  Lesson? If I insist on shooting with those Panasonic cameras I need to make sure I'm using manual focusing instead of relying on the cameras. Sure, go ahead and let me know in the comments just how great those Sony A7Siii focusing features are. I'll read it. 

But the thing that saved me in the edit was the fact that these songs and the overall presentation could be a bit campy and a bit retro so I used some transitions that good taste had previously prevented. Aesthetics go out the window when you need to deflect. And entertain.

I did learn a bunch of new editing techniques that work well for making music videos. Since all the clips of Kenny performing were done with the same sound track playing on them I was able to select all four clips (different angles, different focal lengths) and the soundtrack and have them all synchronized automatically instead of trying to sync up each clip individually. I could lay the four visual tracks on the same timeline as the audio track and then cut back and forth between the takes to make the edit. It was a much faster way of working. Very similar to multi-cam editing.

I also learned that when stuff looks good in Final Cut Pro X but parts don't play back correctly after you export everything the safe fallback is to go back to the timeline you edited, copy the whole assemblage, open a new "project" and then paste everything into the new project. I dodged two bullets that way.

Okay. That's enough about video editing for now. I guess it's time to look forward on the schedule and get ready for tomorrow's live theater photography and then another video project on Saturday. Seems like I'm back in the busy mode. But I really am turning a lot of stuff down. I'm only interested in the fun stuff right now.

New motto: Never Enough B Roll.

A lens update. A very satisfactory outcome. And a walk through America's most sought after city with the new lens glued at f2.0. Time to amble.

When I first entered the Panasonic S1 system I was replacing, wholesale, an entire previous system and I made some knee-jerk purchases based on all the systems I'd used in the past. Every time I've gotten into a new camera system I've made sure to buy certain lenses that I always thought of as "mandatory." 

In my mind the mandatory inventory of lenses looks something like: 20mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm and something over 100mms. It's now the age of zooms so I cut myself some slack on the long end and bought the S-Pro 70-200mm f4.0. I also initially picked up the 24-105mm f4.0 to have as an all-around, grab-and-go lens for all those times I want a wide range of focal lengths but I don't feel like carrying more than one lens and one camera body. 

But at the time of the S1 camera launch the selection of nice, single focal length lenses was....sparse. In the 50mm space I had the option of the $2300 S-Pro, 50mm f1.4 lens, the big Sigma 50mm (which didn't focus as quickly or surely, but only cost $1199) or the Leica Apo-Summicron L lens at something well over $5,000. I chose the middle ground and have been quite happy with the Panasonic 50mm. 

The choice in the 85mm focal length was a bit tougher; I could go with the big, fat, heavy and slow to focus, but infinitely sharp!!! Sigma 85mm f1.4 Art lens or um, go back to that Leica catalog and try to find something in the ballpark.  Again, for somewhere north of $5700 the Leica 90mm Apo Summicron was looking good. I hovered over the link for that Leica lens for a few minutes before the blood came rushing back to my brain and I stepped back from the keyboard a bit chastened. I sprung for the chubby Sigma by default and for no small part, financial self-preservation. 

I've used the Sigma 85mm f1.4 DG Art lens (let's just call it "v.1") for nearly a year and every time I used it I came away with mixed feelings. The images were the best I'd ever seen out of an 85mm across all the brands of lenses I've used. Even wide open the darn thing was just flawless. But the world's most cumbersome 85mm was enormous and dense and weighed in at a little less than 3 pounds. You expect that kind of mass from an f2.8, 70-200mm zoom with a tripod mount attached but it's a bit radical for an 85mm and it basically ruined that lens for me as an option for casual shooting in the streets, and also as a "take anywhere" lens. 

I'd pull it out for controlled situations like portraits in the studio or casual rehearsal shoots over at Zach Theatre, but the idea of putting it on an S1R and walking for a full day through the streets of Austin or San Antonio was a daunting thought. Something I might do on a challenge, if there was money involved, but not for sheer pleasure. I figured I'd keep the Sigma 85mm v.1 around and hope that Panasonic or Sigma would eventually come out with a lesser spec'd and slower 85mm that would be a much friendlier companion for a man who lacked Sherpas. It was a sad compromise since every time I used the big Sigma I was blown away by the sharpness and contrast that jumped out of every frame; if it nailed the focus. And if we had time to wait for it...

On the plus side I will say that my left bicep is now twice the size of my right. Partially from holding hefty gimbals but also due from hefting the 85mm v.1 lens on shoot days for clients. Ouch. How lopsided. 

As you probably know, Sigma recently came out with an all new version of the giant 85mm. It is supposed to be an even higher performing (optically) lens (if you don't look at the pincushion distortion!!!) but in addition to being potentially game changing in its performance the new lens, the 85mm f1.4 DG DN Art lens is about a full pound + lighter and about half the overall volume of its predecessor. The filter diameter has slimmed down from a harder to find and more expensive to buy 82mm to a much more available 77mm. The new lens got a physical aperture ring and, as a bonus, you can flip a switch and "de-click" the ring to make it silent and step-less for video. There is even a function button on the side (but I haven't messed with it yet). 

I wanted to get one of the new lenses to test but as soon as they were launched the markets snapped up all the available copies and the retailers started putting people on waiting lists. At the time I decided to just ignore the new lens. I rationalized that the old lens was fine for my commercial work and, at some time in the past year, I bought a Leica 90mm Elmarit  R f2.8 lens and an adapter and figured I could use that as a street shooting lens. In the meantime every encounter with the Big Bertha of 85mm lenses pushed me right back into the confusing parfait of emotions: Love the look, hate the portage. Love the wide aperture, hate that it doesn't compensate for it's tremendous weight with at least a tripod mount. Etc. Etc. 

I just finished up a job last Thursday and I was looking forward at the next week's schedule. I needed to replace a gray cloth background that basically fell apart from overuse so I was shopping online at my local camera store. I was just checking out the website to see what kind of backgrounds they might have in stock when I decided to take a shopping detour through the L-mount lens inventory. And there it was. They were showing an 85mm Sigma V.2 DG DN lens in L-moount, in stock. But sometimes websites are inaccurate. I called to confirm. My sales guy, the infinitely wise Ian, let me know they did indeed have one in stock and would be glad to hold it for me. I called the person at the store who takes trade-ins and we negotiated a value for my existing, portly, 85mm v.1 and I headed in their direction. Deal done. 

Today was the first time since I bought the new lens that I've had time to put it on a camera and take it for a spin. It was a beautiful day so I took the new 85mm and an S1R out for a pre-lunch walk. First observation: It's a good compromise between the speed and the size. The lens balances well on a good sized body and is comfortable at the end of a well made shoulder strap. 

Since we always like to say that no one buys a fast lens to shoot all day at f8.0 I decided to shoot every single image at f2.0, which is one stop down from wide open. I could have shot everything at f1.4 but that's such a shallow depth of field that I'm not sure how much I would have learned today; other than whether the camera focused accurately there. 

So, all the images here were shot at f2.0 and minimally processed from raw files. I am very happy with the performance of the lens and can't wait to use it for a night shoot coming up on Wednesday. 

If you look through the images you'll find several building shots where I've included a direct reflection of bright sunlight off highly reflective window glass. While I can see a slight flaring on small parts of the image there is no veiling flare at all and everything remains "crispy" even though the super bright highlight is included in the frame. 

It seems that Adobe has included an 85mm DN DG lens profile now in Lightroom because there is none of the pincushion distortion in the frames which I had seen in early reviews, which were pre-software update. 

This is a situation in which trading up to a newer design pays off well. The lens is infinitely more manageable and easy to carry. It's easy to use and has more features. But more to the point, Sigma was able to deliver all this at the same price point as the older model. We even got extra goodies such as the external aperture ring. That's a plus even if you never shoot a second of video. It's all about having operating options. 

That is one bright running shoe. Damn, that's ugly.

I shot a number of images like this one where the foliage is in focus and the buildings in the 

background are out. It's interesting to see the effect. More depth?

I mentioned in the title that Austin is now, once again, the most sought after re-location destination in the entire United States, according to a recent article (today) from Forbes. You can read it for yourself: 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/petertaylor/2020/10/11/covid-19-has-changed-the-housing-market-forever-heres-where-americans-are-moving-and-why/#2ff5989861fe

People are moving in droves from last century cities looking for warmer weather, the ability to be outside for more of each year, the presence of smart jobs and the presence of an embarrassing oversupply of high tech employers. The wildfires are chasing people out of California and Oregon, last century hate politics  and lower educational achievement are making Southeastern states unbearable for nice people and smart people, and the rust belt has run out of jobs. Everyone else is trying to escape the cold. 

But if you have visions of re-locating to Austin you should know that it's currently the most expensive city in all of Texas in which to live. Property taxes are high and housing prices in the city proper are much higher than national averages. You'll need one of those high tech jobs to make it all work. So dust off those post graduate degrees before you fire up the mini-van and load up the roof rack. 

Current prices for "tear downs" in the most desirable neighborhoods of West Austin have, on average, breached the one million dollar mark and even at those prices the market is red hot. I never imagined we'd see single family house lots hit that dollar amount but here we are. And if Forbes is right this is only the beginning. 

Funny that "bluest" city in Texas, replete with a liberal, democrat mayor, boasts first place as the desired destination for employers and families in a comparison with the rest of the country. 

On my walk today I saw and cataloged at least ten new 20 story or higher buildings in various states of construction in the core of downtown. That's just in one small area. The giant cranes are a fixture in every corner of the city and in many of the quickly growing small towns that surround our city. It's a region poised for quick and continued growth. Just remember, markets ebb and flow...

The perils of divided attention. Or...why audio stuff is always the video component that bites you on the ass.

 

On a side street in Rome. Taken with permission. Mamiya 6 and 75mm lens.

You never know when but you know you're going to screw up something at some point. 

I worked all afternoon on a video project with a good friend yesterday. We did our filming at a location about 20 miles from our respective home bases. I was working as a one person crew and every was going very smoothly. When I got up this morning I swam, had breakfast and then headed into the studio to scrub through my footage and make sure everything was good. I also wanted to get the files imported into a Final Cut Pro X library and also back it up on a second drive. When I spot checked each clip they all looked great. Same exposures, same colors and very good focus throughout. I was happy. 

After lunch I circled back to check out the audio we did for the "opener" and the "goodbye" sequences but I wasn't too concerned as we were having Kenny lip sync the two (important content) songs from recordings he made in the studio --- which also sound fantastic. 

I checked the audio in all the opening sequences and it was right on the money. I remember setting the levels and also monitoring the audio with a pair of earbuds. It sounded great. I was elated. We shot some other stuff in between and then took the camera off the gimbal, added the same audio interface I used for the "hello/welcome" speech and placed the microphone exactly. I must have been tired/distracted/stupid or concentrating too much on the visual side of things but at some point the phantom power button on the audio interface got turned off and no power flowed to the microphone. I carefully watched Kenny's performance to make sure we nailed focus and I guess I just assumed that we were getting the same good audio I'd monitored on the earlier shot. 

The sad thing is that I know better and I got sloppy. I should have had a set of headphones on and been monitoring everything in the "intro" and "outro" speeches. I should have been paying more attention to the audio levels. I would have caught the mistake immediately. But I got overly confident in my "one man band" abilities and now I get to fix my mistake. 

Our options are to re-shoot at the same location (more difficult) or to have Kenny come in to the studio and try to ADR to his original speech by watching his own lips (still difficult). We'll try recording in the studio first and if we can't make it work we'll default to plan "B" and reshoot that precious (and needed) 8 seconds of audio, along with its matching video, on Tuesday evening. Thank goodness we don't have an immediate deadline to deal with. 

So, I make mistakes. I'd almost forgotten that. It sure hit me in the face this time. 

I'm putting myself back in remedial studies. For the next ten shoots I'll pull out the laminated check list and do every step by the numbers. Thank goodness I'm not a brain surgeon.

I just remembered why big productions have a sound engineer and a different guy on the camera and another guy on lighting and another......

The best way to deal with screw-ups is to figure out where you fell down and how to fix it and to own up to your mistake as soon as possible. Procrastinating can limit your client's options and make things worse. A timely "mea culpa" followed by a good fix is always the best way. 

Jeez. And here I thought I had it all going on.

Gone Fishing. Well, not me. But a doctor who fly-fishes. And we only went fishing to make a print ad.

I don't fish. I really never warmed up to the whole idea of fishing although I can see the appeal of getting out of town, standing thigh deep in cool water and taking a break from the real world. But just like golf there are activities I know I'll never have an inclination to take up. 

My photographer friend, Paul, loves fly-fishing and has gone on adventures in far off places like Patagonia armed with just a (nice) point and shoot camera and his fishing gear. He's gone for weeks and always seems to come back with a smile on his face and stories to tell. Oddly, the stories are hardly ever about fishing and much more often about great meals he had in places like Argentina, where he stopped along the way. 

Like photography fly-fishing seems replete with opportunities to impoverish oneself. There is costume (waders, vests, special shirts, and trendy hats) and there is gear. Rods, reels, flies and special lines. But a lot of the cost is that you need a nice river in which fish and those are hard to find right next to hot and dusty Texas towns. 

If I were to take up the hobby I'd want to practice it somewhere delightful. Like in a nearly frozen stream in Iceland or someplace picturesque like Scotland. 

So, how did I get on the topic of fly fishing? Well, we do a bunch of imaging for a cool group of Oral Surgeons here in Austin. Each time they add a new associate they "introduce" him to the community with a run of print ads in community newspapers and general interest magazines. Each doctor is presented doing something they love. One of the ads featured a competitive water skier, another surrounded by his carpentry projects, and still another on a nice road bike. 

The practice's latest addition, Dr. Szalay, is an avid fly-fisher. Since he grew up around Austin he knows all the local (within 50 miles?) places to go out for a day and cast a line. When I was hired to take his photo he knew just the right place. We met there just before labor day, parked near a crowded park and walked for a while to get to this secluded spot. It was a hot day and the sun was blazing but every once in a while we were blessed with a little cluster of high, puffy clouds marching their way through a clear blue sky. 

I positioned the doctor for just the right composition and we talked about how we both wanted the image to look. Almost on command a small herd of fluffy clouds performed their duty as soft diffusers, floating their way between the sun and my subject, and we shot 25 or 30 frames of him casting out his line. Looking through the photos it was the 10th image that contained everything the art director had asked for. 

We walked back to our cars and chatted mostly about how much Austin has changed since I moved here and since his childhood. We also talked about fishing. I'm still not a convert. It's a messy hobby. 

The art director and the marketing director were happy with the shots and we did the post production on the selected raw file on the same day. They had a deadline to hit on the next day. 

The trip down to our location took an hour. The trip back was a bit longer. I drove back the long way so I could luxuriate in the rolling hills out to the west. Anything to stay off the north/south highway from hell we call I-35. The actual photography took just ten minutes or so. 

It was one of those jobs that just rolls through the camera almost un-propelled by conscious thought. I used a Lumix S1R and the S-Pro 70-200mm but honestly, I could have used just about any camera with a reasonably long lens. The S1R does a great job holding on to the highlights, and since the files are so large and detailed I had no fears about the effects of a big crop. 

Sometimes things just fall into place. Either that or practicing this kind of work thousands and thousands of times actually pays off. 

Nice afternoon. Good subject. Great client. 

That's my fishing story. Now I have to start editing my latest "music video."