It's fun to waaaay over deliver if you're shooting video; as long as you aren't the one who has to scrub through the footage and edit it...

 

I spread the smaller tripod legs wider to give the camera more support. 

This one was just put down in front of the audience, right between two loudspeakers.

Unobtrusive in the dark.

I love participating in reckless overkill. If one view of a concert is good then two must be better. And three might be excellent. And sometimes the fourth one is a charm. 

Getting assigned to shoot a series of concerts at Zach Theatre gave me an excuse to trot out an inventory of cameras, set them all at the same basic settings and let them rip. With the exception of the one camera I used to track the person performing and render them large and isolated, all the cameras were set up on various tripods, pre-focused and exposure set. I'd just wait until the person from fundraising came to the stage to make a plea for donations and then I'd hop around the plaza, turn on the cameras and hit the red "record" buttons. I'd linger for a moment to make sure each camera was rolling and that the image on the rear screen looked good and then scamper off to the next one. If my timing was good I was back at the main camera putting on my headphones and grabbing the pan handle on my tripod to catch the arrival on the outdoor stage of our gallant troubadours. 

Every time I do one of these events I learn something more. On the last go I learned that I actually could use the autofocus setting in the Panasonic GH5S. No, I don't trust any camera to lock on and maintain a flicker free, pulse free focus using C-AF on a moving singer for an hour and fifteen minutes but I was getting frustrated having to manually focus a long lens over and over again. I took to the web and found a good tutorial on video focusing with GH series cameras and put the new knowledge to good use. 

You probably already know this but if you leave one of the focus controls in the camera checked (continuous AF) the camera will try to focus all the time. Sometimes well and many times less well. And, of course, the camera rarely knows what you want to focus on...

But if you go into the menu and turn off the "continuous AF," set the external control to "S-AF" and enable touch focus control AF in the "touch screen" menu you can take advantage of the camera's ability to do single point AF well and the setting keeps the camera from re-focusing it until you want it to. 

Since my singers were mostly moving perpendicular to the main camera I could get the camera to focus quickly once and then stay in the manual setting until the singer moved to a different stage, or walked from a position in the back of the stage to the front of the stage.

While the singer was making a long move, like walking from the main stage to the secondary stage, I just panned with them and ignored focus until they hit the mark at which they'd remain (hopefully) while singing through their number. When they hit their spot I'd touch the rear screen at exactly the spot where their face was and the camera would hit that focus with authority ten times out of ten. And I would get fine focus confirmation from the focus peaking indicators on the Atomos monitor. Easy and accurate. And any gap of focus could be covered by one of three other views from the stationary cameras. 

It would be great to do one of these shows with a person operating each camera and maybe even add a fifth camera on a gimbal to get some camera movement into the shots. In my theater fantasy we'd have everyone on communication gear and we'd have a show director calling out to each operator to let them know which way to move or what camera adjustments they'd like to see. 

When we actually did shoot a show a few weeks back with four cameras we had each camera set up to shoot 4K video at 10 bits, 4:2;2. The data rate from camera onto the memory cards clocked in at around 150 Mb/s and when I transferred all the content from the memory cards to a hard drive I saw that each camera generated about 80 Gigabytes of files/content. The grand total of information I handed off to the editor was about 320 GBs. And that's just for one show.

I was kind though; I did put each camera's files into separate folders and labelled them with camera position information. I was trying to make it easier for the editor...

When I saw the video cut together and ready to stream I realized that while 80-85% of the footage was from the highly magnified, moving "follow" cam but that each of the other angles, even if used sparingly, gave the project an aura of higher production value. 

But I think I'm getting a little addicted to the possibility of covering the next concert with even more cameras. I'm considering hanging a small camera with a wide lens over the top of the band, etc. I think I'll back away from that a bit and spend a little more time going "old school" and maybe do my next project with just one camera. Can you ever really go back?

this little guy was riding on a Leica tabletop tripod.

The tape is for visibility. While the public doesn't walk through this 

area I wanted to make sure the talent could see this camera and 

lens over to the side and avoid any unfortunate collisions. 

Makes it easier to find for me at the end of the evening too.

The GX8 does nice 4K. And it doesn't have record limits. It only features .M4p instead of . MOV but 

that hardly matters in the big scheme of things. 

The center stage camera was an S1 with a Sigma Art 35mm f1.4.

Just right for a stationary shot of the main stage.

Unmanned and sitting on top of a Sirui tripod.

The footage from this camera was the second most used in the edit.

When the client and I first discussed this project their assumption was that we'd just continue doing what their previous videographer had done and set up two cameras side by side. One with a wide view and the other with a longer lens which could follow the whoever was singing at the time. But they just weren't considering the artistic director's propensity for letting his actors/performers roam the stage(s). I could see from the outset that we'd need more coverage. Good thing we have some depth to the gear inventory. 

I think though that we'd have to limit future camera proliferation to eight cameras per show. Max. If we did more than that I'd either have to start renting gear or pressing Canon G16 point and shoot cameras into service. Probably not very practical. Also, I think it would take too much time to turn everything on and off.

But if you've got them you may as well use them....

Fun to play around. Just glad I don't have to do the edits. I would never have enough patience.

Lenses and memory cards and all the stuff that makes images work. Oh. And cameras. But not as much...

 

I don't know if you were around for the early days of digital cameras but it wasn't always a very pretty experience. Lots of stuff went wrong on a more or less routine basis. I'm remembering shooting one assignment in particular, in a helicopter over some golf course situated right next to Lake Travis, here in central Texas. I don't know what pilots call it when the atmosphere is a bit unstable but I call it "bouncy." 

It was pretty typical around the turn of the century, maybe a little later, to create images of a new real estate development and the almost mandatory, attached golf course, by going up in helicopters and making aerial images of the property. Of course, this part of the advertising process has been almost entirely replaced by drones and that's probably a good thing. Flying around in helicopters is dangerous and, if you have a weak stomach it can quickly get very uncomfortable pretty quickly. 

We mostly flew around in two and four-seater Robinson helicopters which are piston engine machines. I guess they were "affordable" because there seemed to be a lot of them in service. BSD (big swinging dick) commercial real estate guys all seemed to think of the Bell Jet Ranger as being the ultimate aerial status symbol (kind of an airborne Range Rover...)  so we occasionally got to use them to make images of big, industrial projects and of glamorous skylines. 

One time when we were shooting golf courses out by the lake I got into a helicopter owned by what we "affectionately" referred to as a "Dell-ionaire." That's someone who started working in the early years at Dell, Inc. and made a fortune as the stock busted up through the ceiling. It was the first time I had any experience with turbine engine helicopters. If I recall correctly it was a German helicopter and the selling point of the turbine engine was more power...which meant it could climb at some amazing rate; which the owner was thrilled to show off. Don't really get the advantage of shooting aerials at 10,000 feet but what the hell...

The day I remember, with misgivings, was spent in one of the battered Robinsons, along with two Fuji S2 Pro cameras. And some fairly new memory cards...

We were supposed to "capture" the magnificence of yet another golf course community and showcase its proximity to the lake. All from the air. I stuck some peppermint chewing gum in my mouth, got in the flying machine and put on a headset so I could talk to the pilot. I was always careful to buckle up because we were usually flying without a passenger door so I could shoot without restriction. Careful photographers often taped their seatbelt buckles with gaffer tape just to make sure nothing clicked open while leaning out of the door frame. We had a brief pre-flight discussion about what I wanted to get the pilot revved up the engine and we got airborne. 

I was shooting with the aforementioned Fuji cameras and a couple of Nikon zoom lenses and everything was going fine. Well, my equilibrium and digestive track were both unsettled and borderline rebellious from looking one way and flying another --- along with some chop and bounce --- but the photos were pretty much what the client wanted: endless green course next to bright blue water.

After ten minutes or so I got a "card error" message from the camera. I had learned early on with the Fuji S2s that there were several varieties of "gotchas." The cards frequently crashed or became corrupted and the two different battery clusters died quickly and at opposite times from each other. I knew I couldn't fix an errant card while in the air so I grabbed a second camera, changed lenses and got back to work. But I also tried to re-shoot some of the ground we'd already covered in case the card in the first camera was unrecoverable. After about 100 frames the second camera started giving me the same "card error" message, intermittently. I immediately stopped shooting, turned off the camera, took out the batteries (two different sets in a Fuji S2 - not at all compatible with each other) and dropped out the card. I replaced the ailing card with a new one, formatted it in the camera and started shooting again. It worked for about 120 exposures before sounding the alarm. 

By that time we had pretty much finished our flight and, if the cards could be recovered we be okay. I would have had the pilot hit all the important locations again but by this time the bumpy ride, hot morning and sticky humidity were conspiring to prod me into a feeling of deep and accelerating air sickness. I figured that a quick landing might prevent untimely regurgitation so I called for an end to the adventure. 

I was glum on the drive home. I thought about what I'd have to tell the client and I worried that unrecoverable cards would result in my paying for the next helicopter ride out of pocket in order to re-shoot. Three more pieces of gum and some time with my head between my kneess didn't solve the issue with the cards but a $150 piece of software and hours of sweating did the trick. I was able to save nearly all of the images. Only a few were horribly corrupted and unusable. After an hour or so I recovered as well. Mostly.

People ask me why I think I need so much back-up gear and I look at them as if they are insane. You can't sit in a flying helicopter that cost six or eight hundred dollars an hour and futz around with a broken camera. Or a corrupted memory card. Or a lens that's given up. You've got to grab for the next camera and get on with the business. 

I haven't been in a helicopter in nearly eight years and I'm pretty happy about that.  God bless drones. It's obviating the need to risk life and limb in a mobile death trap that makes the pervasive invasion of drones tolerable. I won't use them but I can hire someone who will.

So, that was early days in commercial digital photography. Things broke. Batteries ran dry in a hundred shots. Card's structural data integrity fell apart. Interfaces failed. Computers crashed and SCSI connections were frail. Where are we now?

Cameras, for the most part, are rock solid performers now. I can shoot with any number of cameras and not find anything too difficult to overcome. I've only had one camera failure (catastrophic) in the last five years and that one was replaced under warranty. 

It's been ten years since I've had a card failure. I chalk some of that up to card discipline (always format in camera, keep cards stored in their plastic cases when not in use, and, don't buy cheap cards) and some of that record of success to the fact that bigger and bigger file sizes mandate bigger and bigger memory cards so we end up replacing them mostly before they even have a chance to act up. All the cards I use now are either 64 GB or 128 GB and are either V60 rated or (mostly) V90 rated. Two of my cameras take CF Express or XQD cards and I like them for their structural ruggedness. The 128 GB CF Express card I have is extremely fast and buffers 47.5 megapixel raw files like they are tiny Jpegs.

I hate to say it but I think the real explosion in photo quality (output) isn't necessarily higher and higher resolution or increased dynamic range. I think lenses have actually gotten much, much better than they've ever been before. 

I'm convinced that if I could put a new Nikon 70-200mm or the new 85mm f1.8 on one of those old Fuji S2s I could make photos that blow away the ones we took 18 years ago. Just because the optical performance of the current lenses would be so demonstrably superior. I'm burned out on chasing legacy lenses because, inevitably, while they look good on lower resolution cameras they tend to fall apart on cameras with high pixel count sensors. 

I recently did a job where we shot for a day and a half against a classic white background. The subject was also backlit. I used a Panasonic S-Pro 24-70mm f2.8 zoom, mostly between 35mm and 70mm and I never saw the kind of veiling flare we took for granted with the older lenses. Even with a light shining directly in the lens I didn't see a decrease in contrast or any sort of softening of the images. 

While new, expensive and state of the art lenses would make the older cameras perform better there's nothing they can do to improve the memory card performance of the older cameras. 

In almost every way the new cameras, lenses and memory cards are better, more reliable and easier to use. 

If camera makers were benevolent and generous they might consider updating firmware on cameras that go all the way back to the dawn of professional digital. I guess that's a pipe dream since on-board memory and processor performance play such a big part on the data side of the process. And I guess that would make camera makers seem too much like socialist enterprises. But I sure would love to give those S2s and even the S5s another run for their money with killer lenses and current instruction sets. 

Who knows? Those old sensors might deliver a retro look that all the cool kids adore. 

I think I'll count myself lucky and keep filling out the lens bag with current, top of the line product. Then I'll be the only one in the chain to blame when the images don't meet (unrealistic) expectations. 

Hope you are having a mellow and Covid-free weekend. Keep those masks on tight. We don't need to see your nostrils. It's never a political statement, it's just best practice. 

Jaston Williams in Black and White.

Jaston Williams at the State Theater. November 13, 2020

 

Portrait of Jaston Williams at the State Theater on Congress Ave.

 One of the most interesting artists I've met in the last thirty years has got to be Jaston Williams. He's a writer, playwright and consummate actor. He's starred in so many productions, in Austin and on national stages, that I'd exceed my usual verbose writing limits just listing them. But the thing that makes him both hilarious and captivating is his ability to observe, distill and define the zany characters he finds all over Texas. And to display them with frightening authenticity. 

Since it looks like no one in the USA is going to be producing plays inside theaters for big audiences through at least 2021 he's experimenting with new, hybrid constructs of theater.

I was enlisted to help him with his current production. The project is structured like a cross between a live, one man play, a television show and a movie. The play is about the inhabitants of a small, west Texas town who have seen mysterious lights dancing on the horizon. There are only a handful of people who claim to have seen the lights while everyone else in the town, the people who haven't seen the lights, think those folks are crazy.

Jaston worked with Austin's best theatrical make-up person to create a dozen characters. He plays every single one. While doing a dozen characters in a traditional play, with very complex make-up and costuming, would be nearly impossible (time, time, time...) doing it as a movie is manageable. And better. 

Today he and his crew will be filming him live on the stage at the old State Theater here in Austin. He'll be the on camera narrator for the project. He'll do his one person script in front of a large green screen and during the post production editing process the images I made of him in his various characters will be unveiled in the background, on the green screen. Since we shot several hundred images in each character the editors and director will be able use multiple images of each character in what amounts almost to an animation. 

Once the project is finished the producers intend to work with live theaters around the country to provide them with the "play" as content. The theaters will be able to sell streaming access to their own audiences and they will split the proceeds with the production company and Jaston. This gives theaters in many markets something to offer audiences during the time when live productions aren't possible. They share in the profits and there are no costs to the theaters beyond the split of profits. It's a nice model. I hope it works. 

I've photographed Jaston in so many guises and characters over the years and I had no intention, really, of photographing him yesterday. But I do take a camera with me everywhere and when I went downtown to look at the preparations for today's multi-camera video shoot he answered the door and stepped, just by chance, into a nice looking pool of light. I shot off five or six frames and then we walked into the auditorium. 

The camera I had with me yesterday was a Panasonic GH5S with a Sigma Contemporary 56mm f1.4. I used it at f1.4. 

Interesting time for art in general. Tough times for theater in particular. 

in character from our shoot several weeks ago. On that shoot we photographed against a white background and dropped out the backgrounds in my post production, All were lit with LED lights and photographed using a Panasonic Lumix S1R at its highest resolution, in 14 bit raw. I used the spectacular Lumix 24-70mm f2.8 lens. The detail in the files is nothing short of amazing. Even at ISO 640.

A work schedule update.

From: A Night With Janis. 

Zach Theatre.

Sony SLT-99 + 70-200mm f2.8 G lens.

As crazy as it may sound I really have decided to take the rest of the year off. I have one small project left to do. It's a one day video with my friend, Kenny, next Monday. After that I've turned down all other client work. The emphasis is on "client." I'll still go out with cameras and play on my own time/dime. 

There are several reasons I've decided to do this. First, my friend Michael Johnston (theonlinephotographer.com) has written so convincingly about the game of pool that I've decided I need to dedicate the rest of my life to learning it. In that way you'll have two dedicated sources of writing about pool and/or snooker for your amusement and education. No. Wait. Strike that! While Michael is an engaging writer I have NOT become enchanted by the game of pool...

But I have become a bit addicted to spending my free time with no scheduled limits. 

The real reason to take a break from commercial work is that it's become....boring. It's starting to feel like the movie, starring Bill Murray: "Groundhog Day." Every job lately has felt too familiar. The glitches too predictable and the client theatrics unchanged over the decades. 

I think, as Ian Fleming did about courage, that patience with clients is a finite store. Each person gets a sum of patience and goodwill to use through their professional life. When the client patience is fully spent one must exit the field of battle and either re-coup, re-direct or surrender. My hope is that a couple of months off will leave me refreshed and ready to re-engage. At best it's a nice trial run for a life of leisure. At worst I'll be chomping at the bit to get back in the race by mid-January. 

But this is not just a temporary "goodbye" to wholly commercial clients. No, non-profits are no less immune to my eccentric idea of temporal personal space. They are on the "no more this year" list as well. 

So, one half of my unemployment resolve is driven by boredom and a sense of endless, grinding deja vu. But the other half is a rational assessment of where the USA is with the Covid-19 Pandemic. The rate of contagion is accelerating. Really accelerating. And while Pfizer announced a successful series of tests for their vaccine it will really be months and months until it becomes initially available. And who knows how long until it's widely available by regular folks like me? Hell. I live in a red state. They may outlaw the vaccines as being witchcraft...

I'm no longer willing to take any chances with the virus that I don't need to. It only takes a brief encounter with one person whose judgement is poor to ruin everything. I think most functioning adults have realized by now that there should not be anything political attached to our collective response. Austin, Texas has a citywide mask mandate now and I think that's a good thing. It will be in place through the end of the year. 

I know that everyone talks a good game when they need to come to work. They wear a mask and, sometimes, even try to distance from each other. But I have no way of knowing if they spent their weekend in a packed choir practice, a mosh pit, or just sitting in a crowded bar somewhere out of town, soaking up the ambiance, and a deadly contagion, and then heading in to work after grabbing their well used face mask out of the ashtray in their car. I can vote with my presence or absence on this one. 

More time to write. More time to swim. More time to have lunch with Ben and Belinda around the dining room table as the leaves fall off the trees and the cold weather makes coffee taste even better.

And, being a contrarian, and just a hint mean, I'm having fun listening to client reactions as I explain to them that I don't think it's prudent to work right now. But thanks anyway. Call me after the vaccine comes out. I'll want to see that note from your doctor...

 

Heading into retro camera investing with a vengeance. Well, maybe I just bought another used camera...

 

I always found the GH5S camera very interesting. 

This is the second time I've owned one, maybe this time

it will stick. But "why?"

Sometimes you aren't ready for a camera. Not well enough educated to take advantage of specialty capabilities that come with some niche tools. I'll admit that I knew a lot less about the fine points of video codecs and even basic camera system operation a couple of years ago than I do now. Everyone would like to find a camera that does everything perfectly but I'm pretty sure that camera doesn't exist; and if it did it would only be for a moment and then everyone would just "move the goalposts" and demand something different. 

When I first owned a GH5S, bought slightly used from a videographer who changes systems even more often than I do, it was a time before gimbals were on my radar, and a much larger percentage of my work, paid and unpaid, was regular, traditional photography. While the GH5S was great on a tripod I found myself following the herd who felt they "needed" in-body image stabilization---acutely. 

I loved the feel of the body but (un) intellectually I worried about those sparse ten megapixels of the m4:3 sensor. In some misguided  rush to another camera system I sold it off and forgot about the GH5S until this year. And this year was one of those times when I learned a bunch of new stuff in a narrow category. Compression learning? Pandemic cramming?

What exactly is a GH5S?  The GH5S is very similar to the Panasonic GH5. It's a professional level, micro four thirds format camera with all the right plugs/connections and menu items that many will want/need in order to make really good video content. While the bodies are pretty much the same the "S" variant is totally optimized for video while the traditional GH5 is an all-around performer. In fact, I'd say that the GH5 is so well stocked with features for both photography and video now that it's close to being one of the best universal cameras; a camera that works as well for most video as it does for very high quality still photography. Sure, there are a number of cameras with much bigger sensors and we could discuss the advantages and disadvantages of sensor size for a long while but, if you are inclined to look for treasure in unexpected places the GH series cameras provide it in spades. 

The major differences between the two cameras are: The GH5 has built-in image stabilization. Its built-in image stabilization is very good and can be combined with the I.S. in Panasonic lenses to provide a highly effective "dual I.S." The GH5"S" does not have in-body image stabilization. It is still capable of working with stabilized lenses but the performance of that type of I.S. is less effective than the in-body type --- a direct observation by someone who has both. 

The lack of I.S. had the effect at the time of launch of immediately cutting the interested pool of buyers down to tiny numbers. At least where photographers are concerned. The argument against the inclusion of I.S. in a camera clearly targeted to video users was simple, the suspended sensor (required by I.S.) introduced motion artifacts when many enabled cameras are moved during filming. The thinking on the part of Panasonic was that serious film makers would be working either on a tripod or with a stabilizing device like a gimbal and in-body image stabilization would be both unnecessary and might even degrade the overall optical performance of the system.

When I first bought the camera I had never used a gimbal and saw the GH5S strictly as a tripod mounted video camera; which limits its usefulness.

A fair number of videographers and film makers who were more experienced understood that a camera producing great looking files in a small package was a real boon for filming and they also understood the advantages of using devices like gimbals and Easy-Rigs. (whatever happened to sliders?)

The second big argument against the GH5S for people who shoot mainly photographs is the lower resolution of the imaging sensor. While a 10 megapixel sensor is perfect for shooting 4K video most photographers are of the opinion that more pixels is best. And for many, many things I agree. That's why I have cameras like the Panasonic S1R with it's full frame sensor jam-packed with 47+ megapixels of resolution. It's by far my most used camera, currently. 

But the flip side of the coin is that fewer pixels on a sensor means every pixel is bigger, can soak up more light, and has a different "look" than files from the "dense pack" cameras. You could make a case that the GH5S is an effective photography camera but that's a waste of time when the real argument is how much better the austere sensor makes the camera --- for video. 

When the GH5S came out the GH5 had been on the market for about a year. The newer camera came packed with video-centric items. It came stock with V-Log, it had a waveform monitor and a vector scope, it could do variable frame rates, it had a much wider selection of codecs, and lots of arcane video stuff that I'm still learning to appreciate more. Over time Panasonic has added, through firmware updates, many of the critical features that originated on the GH5S over to the GH5. It makes the GH5 an even more potent video camera. 

But the less dense sensor and the ability to shoot a wider 4K format, along with some of the extra tools preserves the GH5S's advantage as a video camera for people who need that power and flexibility. 

In the interim we've had bestowed upon us various cameras like the S1H which out specs the GH5S, but at a huge price difference. And the advantage of the bigger sensor in the S1H, when used for stills, diminishes somewhat when both cameras are tasked with video production instead. That makes the GH5S still a very relevant camera to those whose jobs match up with the camera's capabilities. 

I had been re-reading a few reviews of the GH5S recently, prodded by some good experiences with the GH5. I like that both cameras can shoot All-I files at 400 mb/s and that the colors match up well. The V-Log addition (a paid upgrade $100) to the GH5 matches the V-Log in the GH5S and so much of the operation between the two cameras is the same which means that when you need two cameras for a video shoot you have a good chance matching performance and the look between these two. And your hands remember how to operate both equally well.

When I was just re-entering video production with digital hybrids a few years ago (my first film making  experiences, decades ago, were all in either 35mm or 16mm film as well as with big and heavy Sony Beta SP cameras) I was firmly in the "single camera" camp. We would shoot projects, using one camera, in the same scene by scene method used since the dawn of time. But as I learned more and cameras became both cheaper and more powerful I started to realize how much more could be done with multiple cameras, shot at different points of view and with different focal lengths. 

For the last five weeks I've been doing a weekly job that entails shooting live, outdoor concerts in a pretty well controlled environment. In the past, when people did video documentation of shows in our theater they generally only used two cameras and both were stationed in the same position (about half way back in the house and centered to the stage). The points of view were the same and only the magnification was different. The wide camera was always stationary and captured the full stage while the telephoto camera (follow cam) was anchored on a tripod and panned and tilted to maintain attention on a selected performer or small group. 

When we went outside and I was asked to do the filming I immediately saw that we really needed three cameras (and we could use two more....) so we could cover two connected areas that the performers moved in and out of. Essentially there are two discrete stage positions separated by 100 feet. After much trial and error I landed on the GH5 and the 50-200mm system as a great follow camera set-up. That meant choosing two other cameras to set up much closer to the other stages on tripods. And that worked pretty well. 

Last week I had to buy some seamless backdrop paper for a project and headed to Precision Camera. They had just taken in a couple of GH5S cameras, both with cages, and one with both a cage and a battery grip. Both were in mint condition. I bargained hard and walked away with the gripped body. Last night I made the GH5 one of the stationary stage cameras and pressed the GH5S into service as the follow camera. The advantage being mostly peace of mind. The second battery in the grip meant I could stop being fixated by the idea that the single battery in the GH5 would run out before the last bow of the show.

I have a mix now of cameras to use that all do nice 4K video. And I do use at least two cameras for every project. I can see the direction that live performance theaters will probably go, at least for the next couple of years here in the USA. They'll be rehearsing and then performing for small, socially distanced audiences but their new sideline will be to make video programming of the same production that they can sell behind a paywall. The better the production values the more sellable the creative product. Since we (videographers/photographers) have a limited amount of time to get as much nice video as we can it really does mean we'll be pressing more and more secondary cameras in the mix each time. 

When we're producing on stage I can see a need for follow cameras on either side of dead center to the stage along with cameras at the edges of the stage, shooting at different angles, and even some cameras at the rear of the stage shooting a back view of the actors and the action. Pretty much just like filming an action movie. 

We aren't going to shoot theater with one camera and multiple takes--were not making movies, per se. It just doesn't work that way. Actor time is limited and the gap between rehearsal and performance, driven by costs, is one or two days. Not nearly enough time to go take-by-take with a solitary  camera. 

As a single producer it makes sense for me to have as many cameras as possible that are in the same color family, take the same lenses, and the same batteries. I like the look of the files I got from last night's shoot with the GH5S so I'll keep looking for more, clean used ones. 

For shooting stills? I think it's smart to keep the Panasonic S1 family cameras around for that. There are more advantages in photography for high resolution, full frame cameras. But you'd be surprised how little advantage there is in video. No matter what the pundits say on YouTube. We've got both. There are advantages to each. But it's not a race between a 1965 Volkswagen Bug and a Tesla Model S PD 100. It's just not.

So, why a GH5S? My "out the door" cost for the camera (mint)+battery grip+two Panasonic batteries+ a SmallRig cage with 15mm carbon fiber rails was $1349. Works with all my m4/3 lenses and the batteries I use in the G9 and GH5. In good light it matches the video output of my bigger and more expensive cameras and it's charmingly easy to use with a gimbal. Sounds like a bargain to me!

At this junction I have to (painfully) admit that I wasn't smart enough two years ago to appreciate what the GH5S was capable of bringing to the table. I didn't understand the value of All-I codecs. I didn't think I needed waveforms or vector scopes. I was wrapped in garden variety hubris. I've learned a lot since then. I have so much more to learn. Makes life fun.

Using external monitors on a photo shoot is a sensible part of staying safe. For everyone.

Video shooters have a specific use for external digital recorders/monitors.  Not only can they see the flow of images larger and with more focusing and exposure tools, they can also record higher quality video instead of video that has compromise baked in by the camera processors. It makes sense. But why would photographers want to use high quality external monitors on their shoots?

We just wrapped up a second day of photography for a biotech company. We were shooting in a large conference room and we were trying to make sure everyone was safely distanced from each other. In the olden days of photography, while shooting still life images, we might have tethered our camera to a laptop so that clients could see the images we were making at a bigger size. But I always found tethering to a laptop to be far from satisfying. Sure, instead of gathering around to see the screen on the back of the camera people would gather close together to see the photographs come up on the laptop. And laptops were slower, kludgier to use, etc. than just blazing away with one's camera....

But it dawned on me one day that we could press a high quality, external monitor into photographic service with ease. All we have to do is plug one into the HDMI socket on our camera and we instantly have access to a big, bright, and low latency monitor for our clients. The screens can also run a long time on standard Sony-type batteries. The generics versions are dirt cheap. 

I can run a cable to a monitor up to 30 feet from the camera. But the more interesting thing about using an HDMI monitor instead of a laptop is that external HDMI monitors can be "daisy chained" and you can provide multiple viewing stations on a location. All you need is the cabling and monitors that have compatible HDMI "in" and "out" ports. 

Lately I've taken to bringing along two Atomos monitors. They are also made to record video but I don't even bring along SSDs for them since they don't write Raw photography files. I use them strictly as monitors.

 

Today I got a wild idea. I remembered that we bought an Aputure monitor a few years back just to show clients stuff in the field. This monitor is smaller and lighter than a laptop and since it was so cheap I have no qualms about tossing it into the camera bag or rolling case and dragging it along everywhere. And....wouldn't you know it...you can put it into a daisy chain with the Atomos monitors as well. 

So today, in addition to the camera's rear screen we had three viewing stations staged around the room in order to give any member of the marketing team their own, distanced viewing solution. It was a great way to keep everyone in the approval chain engaged while keeping the space around the camera open and relatively safe. 

Since it was strictly a still life shoot we were adamant that everyone wear their masks at all times. No exceptions. And since it was 80° in the great outdoors today we ate lunch outside, on the grass, under some big shade trees. 

All good. 

 

Playing around with video cameras at last night's concert. Focus peaking means different things to different devices...

 

Too tired to unpack everything on Friday and Saturday. Now it's Sunday 

and I have to re-pack to finish up a project tomorrow. I can step over the 

mess for now. 

My Apple Watch 6 has a sound pressure meter built in. It measures the decibel levels in your immediate environment. I'd glad I had my earplugs in and my headphones on last night because 50 feet or more from the main stage of the outdoor concert at the theater the SPL was peaking up around 96 dB. My watch kept prodding me trying to make me understand that continued exposure at those levels could result in permanent hearing damage. A good thing to know. But I kept asking "Siri" to tell my watch that I was using ear protection devices and not to worry so much. My watch must not speak Siri because it kept warning me at intervals.

External monitors

I've been having a love affair with two different external monitor/recorders this week. One is my older Atomos Ninja Flame and the other is the smaller and newer Ninja V.  When I shoot video at the night time concerts, outdoors, I use the Ninja V clamped to my tripod leg and connected to my GH5 or S1H which provides me the ability to punch in and see the video in much greater detail for more accurate focusing while I am recording. You can't do that directly on the cameras. They won't punch in if you are already in the process of recording. The best you can expect from your hybrid video camera is to be able to set and see focus peaking indications. I want both. I want to be able to see the image writ large, with more magnification than a standard screen (100%?) and also see that magnified image augmented with the glimmering color indicators provided by focus peaking. 

If I can already see the focus peaking artifacts on my camera screen why would I also want them on the monitor? I guess it's a matter a visual discrimination. On the smaller screen the focus peaking indications are closer together and it looks like much more is in focus than I'll end up with when I finally view the video on a large monitor at home. 

If I can magnify the view and the see focus peaking generated by the larger monitor I'll be able to see the plane of sharp focus shifting more easily while I focus, as indicated by the dancing colors. The higher the resolution of the monitoring device (and the bigger the image on the screen) the better I get at hitting sharp focus. Having the image on both the camera monitor and an external monitor means I can turn on focus peaking on both and I can use different colors for the peaking. It doesn't do anything different but it's fun. 

In casual use the focus peaking on most cameras is good enough to get you into the ballpark but not good enough to help you achieve super sharp focus with fast aperture lenses. Or fast moving subjects. Or with darker scenes. But the trade-off is that there's some lag time between what you see on the external monitors and what you see on the camera monitor. You have to change focus carefully if you are judging via the external because you'll get impatient and overshoot correct focus while you are waiting for the screen to catch up. Small corrections done in short increments seem to work best. 

One thing I didn't think about in using either an internal or external monitor is the effect that a moving subject will have on the focusing indicators. I noticed last night that when my subject moved from left to right or vice versa the indicators vanished or diminished during the move. I had to wait for her to settle before I could re-focus and use focus peaking to help. At some point a fast moving subject, in concert, requires some careful anticipation. 

Last night I fell into a certain rhythm. I'd try to get focus peaking indications to show prominently on my talent's microphone and then tweak just slightly behind it. I'd monitor the full frame on the camera's screen and the use the external monitor punched in to 1:1 to fine tune the focus. That worked pretty well for almost every shot except for the ones where the talent was moving all over the place. Fortunately she was moving perpendicular to the camera so the change in distance was minimal and the need to constantly refocus wasn't there. 

The camera was set to 30 fps and I can imagine that focus peaking might work better at 60 fps since the underlying shutter speed would be faster and induce less blur. I'll try that next time I have a scene with more light in it. 

Now that I've used an external monitor for a number of night concerts, with much longer lenses I can't imagine trying to shoot without one. But I said pretty much the same thing to my assistant during our still shoot the day before. There's something great about handing your client a 7 inch  monitor at the end of a 10 foot HDMI cable while you are positioning a product or model and letting them see "exactly!!!" what your camera sees. It eliminates so many misunderstandings about physical point of view.

There's another thing I want to share about using Atomos Digital Recorders as simple monitors, running off batteries: Take out any SSD drives that you may have inserted in the drive bay. While the recorders are just set up to record video, as triggered by the video start button on your camera, they seem to know when there is an SSD inserted and they fire up their recording circuits, fan cooling, etc. in preparation. With a drive inserted they can blast through a big, fat battery in an hour and change. If you don't have a drive inserted the units can run for at least a half day and, with judicious shutdowns during scene changes, perhaps even a full day. 

One warning about external monitors. One of their amazing abilities is the lumen power to produce a very bright image. This is great for working in full sun. And on film sets (video) people tend to work carefully enough NOT to judge correct exposure just via the monitor image. They mostly use a waveform or even a light meter to set overall exposure. The very bright image of the external screen tends to push sloppy users to underexpose their files based on the bright image they are seeing. 

Of course, you can always calibrate your external screen to match levels with your camera's screen but that presupposes that you've been able to calibrate that screen! I think it's still best to use the waveform monitor in most situations. I've found that on a very dark stage it makes the most sense, when possible, to walk up onto the stage and take a series of incident light meter readings at the positions that the talent will be in. With a good cine meter and good technique (presuming the lights don't change much) you'll have a much more accurate starting point. Handheld meters are not dead yet.

I like the bigger screen of the Ninja Flame but the smaller Ninja V is just so convenient. And a lot better at conserving battery power. These monitors can also be daisy-chained so you could run one off the camera and use it close to the camera to really be able to see your scene in glorious detail. Then you can run a second monitor out of the first monitors "out" plug and set up that monitor as far away as you need in order to provide a safe, social distance, between you and your client. It's a good rationale to not trade in an "obsolete" monitor as you upgrade. You'll nearly always find a new use for a recent tech monitor. And anything you can do to make your set safer and more efficient is its own reward. 

Finally, all the professional monitors either come with a shade or there is one available for your model. I think it's a great idea to get into the practice of always using the shade for a couple of reasons. First, it shade the screen from glare and glancing, non-image forming light. This makes the screen easier to see and your assessment of comp and color better. Secondly, if you are shooting a concert with an audience all around you then the shade is doing a great service for the audience by keeping the screen's light from being obnoxiously visible to all the people on either side of you and a lot of the people behind your camera position. Less light spill is just a nice practice to get into. 

When I complained about the micro-HDMI plugs on some cameras I was channeling my experiences last night in setting up a camera in near darkness. I was guessing about the exact location of the camera plug and I was a bit rough with the cable. As the port was a full sized HDMI it's rugged enough to take a bit of abuse from time to time. Not necessarily so with the smaller connectors.....

That's all I've got for now. 

Well. The election is over and I'm looking forward to not having that weird and anxiety provoking sub-routine running in my head. On to the big question of the day: Will I buy a Lumix S5?

Before I get into the S5 I have to say that I've had the most unusual, personal realization lately. I think I've actually come to dislike the process of commercial photography. On one hand I've been quite busy and also able to command higher fees than ever before in my work history. But at the same time I enjoy the process of dealing with marketing directors and ad hacks much less than I ever have. The jobs I've come to enjoy are the ones with very little on-set collaboration with the clients who attend sessions to offer pointless input, not realizing that most of the ground they are anxious to cover is old and boring territory for me. 

I had a shoot lately during which no fewer than seven people vied for the title of "boss." None were particularly gifted with creative insight or massive brain power. It was almost as if they'd seen a 1990's television show which might have been a parody of a low end fashion shoot and they were determined to provide input. Not necessarily good input; just a rampant desire to mark the territory with their opinions. 

My favorite (least favorite) moment came when a group of product managers, ad managers, art directors and various other members of the org chart zoo, after spending half an hour discussing what to do about the hairdo of a person we had in the far background of our shot (out of focus - intentionally), all of a sudden realized that they could see themselves in the mirrored finish of a machine that was in the background of our shot. 

Panic broke out. Would we need to re-shoot everything we'd done in the last hour? Could the in-house (poor bastard) production person go through and retouch dozens and dozens of photos to remove the reflections? Would we need to add yet another day to the schedule? (Please, God, No!). When they calmed down for a moment I mentioned that they were viewing the machine from an angle 90 degrees different from the angle at which the camera was viewing the scene. There was no unwanted reflection in any of the shots.

They were flabbergasted and didn't believe this was possible until I showed them the images on a monitor. Only then did they relent. Some still didn't get the science behind the "angle of incidence." At which point I reminded them that their population in our relatively small, enclosed working space had swelled far in excess of the limits we set for social distancing and hygienic safety in our pre-contract negotiations. I hoped that the loudest and most aggressively undereducated in their number would surrender the space to their betters but they decided to jettison the only two people in the room who seemed to know what they were doing....

And so on. The pivotal moment for my career assessment came when we, as a group, were trying to make a product color choice with two variables in the same shot. They instantly decided that instead of making a choice we could shoot photos of each of two parts in all of the available colors. Red with red. Red with blue. Red with green. Green with blue. Green with red. Orange with green. Blue with orange. etc. etc. This would multiply our single set-up shot to something like 64 separate shots. 

The combined group had too much fear to make a simple choice. It was a choice (color) that could easily be changed in post processing with just a few steps. "And,"  they asked, "Could we do all the combinations of color with each of the three different models?" Just because it might be nice to have. At that point I was clearly presented with a choice which was to finish the job or pack up and exit. Sadly, I decided to stay and finish since it was a long drive home...and the day was rapidly coming to an end. 

Clearly, some in the ever re-swelling group were keenly unaware that our contract did not include working by the hour but rather by the shot. All of which as negotiated well in advance. Ah, the poor art buyer. He looked miserable every time we made eye contact. I made sure of it. 

I think there must be a turning point at which the universe slowly starts to hint that it might be time to retire from the commercial field. And if you don't listen the first few times the universe starts talking louder and even insinuating that you might not be very smart. Or that you are downright stupid...

I'm sliding toward a very detached view of working just for money. Augmented and amplified by a spouse and financial adviser who both suggest that I don't need to work at all. I think I'll side with them as we glide into the future. Work actually has, for the first time in my memory, taken on the aspect of something society demands in order to punish you for something you don't remember ever doing wrong.

The upshot of this is that I've started declining all work after the 17th of November. That's the last day for which I have already made a commitment. I think I'll see what it feels like to take the month of December off entirely. To that end I've already turned down a number of assignments I would have accepted in the past.

Now, on to the Lumix S5. And I should say that I do call them Lumix cameras for the most part instead of Panasonic cameras since it's a shorter word to type and it is the branding they use on all their cameras. Who am I to argue with that?

I am fascinated with the S5 and would rush out and buy one if I didn't already have a gaggle of S1x camera bodies. I was fortunate to play with an S5 for an afternoon and there's so much to like about the camera. Especially if you are into video or even glancingly plan to stick your toes into the waters of filming stuff.

The camera is slightly smaller than a GH5 but contains a full frame, 24 megapixel sensor. It's supposed to be the same sensor as is used in the S1 camera and, if that's the case, it's a very fine sensor with tons of sharp detail and also an excellent resistance to noise at even absurdly high ISOs. Like all of the new S cameras the 5 features in-body image stabilization. Some of the Lumix S lenses also have image stabilization and when both body and lens have I.S. the system delivers "dual I.S." which is very, very good. I've been using the S1x cameras for nearly a year now and when I match one with a lens like the 24-105mm f4.0 the stabilization is uncanny. Maybe not as good as an Olympus EM-1iii with a 12-100mm Pro lens (witchcraft?) but easily the best of the full format cameras. 

The S5 has nearly every video spec offered by the video flagship S1H of the Lumix family and the imaging capability in both photographs and video should equal any camera in the line. The exception is the S1R which provides much more resolution and fewer video choices. One video credential the S5 lacks, and which I think is a relatively big deal for very picky video users, is an All-I codec. The camera offers two vastly different ways of compressing files. You can have L-gop or ProRes Raw (coming with an update) but nothing in the middle. If you shoot for Netflix or several of the big video stock houses you'll want/need that All-I codec....

So, we have a smaller, lighter body, offered at a lower cost. We have a new camera that offers the same level of image quality as the most expensive camera in the system and, if we can find one in stock, we should all be pretty happy about this new camera --- if we're interested in the Lumix S system. Right?

Well, there are a few gotchas that make me hesitate to toss one in my shopping cart and cut another notch into my weary credit card. 

While the camera can perform there are several cost cutting design measures that make it a less exciting side grade for me instead of any sort of upgrade.

I'll start with the viewfinder. We devolve from the S1 series world class electronic viewfinder of nearly 6 megapixels of resolution to one that resolves less than half that. Also, the optics for the finder seem not quite up to the same level of quality as those on the more expensive cameras. Ouch. A year further into the evolution of the cameras and already a big step backwards. 

But! I hear my video friends dismiss this flawed finder because we have become accustomed to mostly using our hybrid cameras, in video mode, in conjunction with external monitors that have wonderful and richly detailed screens. 

Yes. I get that. But therein is the source of my next "deal killer" complaint; at least as far as buying the camera as a video content generator is concerned. All of the newest Lumix cameras are a joy to use with external monitors. They connect easily and the software is all very straightforward. The big, "A" type, full size HDMI plugs are such a professional touch and inspire complete confidence in the the video capabilities offered in the S1 series as well as the G9 and the GH5 and GH5S cameras. And that's where the S5 misses the mark...

The camera is burden with a micro-HDMI port. A tiny, flimsy, crappy connection point that most heavy users are certain will fail them at the least advantageous moment. It's such an obvious nod to intentionally crippling a model so as to not fully cannibalize from pricier cameras in the lineup. 

Some have suggested that the S5 is worth buying if for no other reason than to get better autofocusing than is currently offered in the S1 line of cameras but that's a non-starter for people who already own the bigger cameras since a promised firmware upgrade (free) being rolled out on the 24th of this month will feature the same new firmware for AF as the new body. I am especially looking forward to getting a few more file choices for video in the S1R camera. Nearly every project I've worked on since Summer revolves around a multi-camera video set-up and I'd like to press the S1R into more projects. I like the hulking, big cameras. They feel like real cameras to me. And if they all focus equally well... why change?

As someone who already owns a number of the S1x cameras another design point with which I disagree is the introduction of a brand new battery type/design. I'm sure it's a fine battery and will provide ample power for the S5 but I'm equally certain that I'm not anxious to add yet another family of batteries to my nearly unmanageable inventory of disparate battery types. I'd rather have the new camera use an updated but still backwardly compatible version of the battery used in the G9 and GH5. If they'd gone another direction I would have been happy if the new S5 camera body was just tall enough to incorporate the beefy battery from the S1 series cameras. But that in between zone is just irritating.

So, when you read this you may come away feeling that I'm not a fan of the new camera. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think it's a great product if it is evaluated on it's own. If it's a first purchase or part of a system switch. It checks a number of imaging "boxes" and does so at a high level (all while not overheating!).  The files are pretty and rich. The handling is nice even though I feel the camera is a tiny bit too small. The video files it makes are great. In all it's a very, very well thought out camera for the price and the times. 

But my assessment of the camera comes from my own point of view. I owned a bunch of Panasonic Lumix cameras and it's easy for me to see where corners were cut and changes were made that I don't like. 

For me, as silly as it sounds, my friction points are mostly about usability and have very little, if anything to do with image quality issues. I'm addicted to the finders on the S1 cameras. I love having big, fat, rugged HDMI ports because I use them all the time (I shot all day with two external monitors plugged into my S1R for a photography assignment on Friday and then spent Saturday evening monitoring my video shoot with an external monitor fed by a GH5. Both cameras feature the "A" series HDMI plugs). 

For some people the smaller size and lighter weight of the S5 are selling points but to me these attributes are neutral. Viewing, reliability and overall handling are more important.

I will nearly always see advantages aimed at better viewing and higher structural integrity as being the most important if all other things are equal. 

For me, not having to buy three or four new batteries that will only work in one out of seven of my cameras is a stumbling block. 

The S5 is a great compromise but it's a compromise in a direction that doesn't directly appeal to me. 

All that being written I'll have to add the caveat that it's nearly inevitable that I'll end up buying an S5 at some point. I'll have a trip into the wilderness planned and it will provide the perfect rationalization for getting all the performance I am used to but in a more compact package. The ability to rationalize this kind of stuff is both my super power and my kryptonite. It could be worse.