12.21.2020
Okay. Let's give this popular camera a run through. X marks the spot.
12.20.2020
The store windows are better at night. Bring that camera that does great high ISO along with you....
And I love the way the little robot turned out this time, now that the main lights for the scene are the ones adjacent on the tree. A tree that has its own fiber optics sprigs...
Nice.
Last night Belinda made veggie wraps. Fresh tortillas tinged brown by some quality time on the griddle wrapped around fresh roasted vegetables and slathered with goat cheese. A nice, green salad with just the barest hint of vinaigrette and a bottle of Bordeaux to make the goat cheese sing. Not quite traditional holiday fare but tasty nonetheless.
I hope the weather is treating you well and you have many opportunities to get those cameras out and stretch those legs. Those lenses are not going to walk themselves.
Finally, this season, like every other season, is coffee season. We're in the thick of it. Bouncing between mail order packages of "breakfast blend" from Intelligentsia Coffee, Organic Columbian Supremo from (local) Trianon Coffee and cans of Illy medium roast. The kitchen usually smells like my construct of heaven.
Interesting things I sometimes see when I'm out strolling at night. On Congress Avenue.
12.19.2020
Just a short post about a light. Yesterday was a full retro experience. But (groan) enlightening...
VSL reaches another (smallish) milestone. We've enjoyed 27,000,000 direct page views here at the blog.
That's the tally from 4,761 published blog posts (plus any that I tossed away over the years for irrelevance or spite) and well over 50,000 comments from readers all over the world. It's been a lot of fun and kept my mind busy and my hands less idle during times of international financial collapse, the pandemic, personal family tragedies, and all kinds of anxiety producing mini-disasters.
12.18.2020
Finally got around to diving into the Panasonic/Lumix S1R firmware update and assessing the new features. Some were surprising. Surprisingly great!
Here's a link to the video on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/492645355
You know how you can sometimes get really busy with lots of pressing details and you've upgraded something, made sure it still works, and then moved right back to getting your ongoing and not-related details sorted out? Well, that's where I was with the S1R. I did the firmware updates for all three of the S1x models and then turned my attention right back to finishing up jobs and doing year end taxes. I shot a few still frames on the S1R, determined that it still made nice photographs and then put it back in the drawer where it normally lives.
This morning though I stumbled across a video that outlined the differences in feature sets between all the full frame, Panasonic S series cameras and it immediately became apparent that I had not spent enough time understanding and testing all the goodies that were bestowed on the S1R at the time.
The video above is about 15 minutes long and might bore the socks off you. On the other hand it's a sample of what you might expect to get out of your S1R in terms of how well it focuses on me throughout the video, how much detail is retained in the files and, the charming image quality of the video.
I don't want to cover every upgrade to the camera because only a small subset of you own that camera model but I do want to call out a couple of major, and newly acquired, feature improvements.
Or, you can sit back and watch me ramble on in the video. But if you are looking to make visual quality judgements I'd suggest you click on the link above to Vimeo and watch it there after selecting the largest available size.
Focusing: I've always found the Panasonic S1 cameras to be very fast to focus but that's probably because of the way I use them. I'm fond of single AF and equally fond of selecting a single focal point or square to use. If you use continuous focusing with back button manouvering your experiences in the past will no doubt be different than mine.
But what people complained about 90% of the time was the just average performance of continuous autofocus in video. That the cameras were slow to lock on and had a tendency, in non-optimal situations, to hunt or pulse. Panasonic true believers hemmed and hawed and talked about how "real" cinematographers only used manual focusing lenses anyway. Well, even I know that a whole new generation of film makers are thrilled to use continuous AF for their projects. One of my best friends made that a primary consideration when recently upgrading his gear from a Sony FS7.
After the firmware update I believe that the S1x cameras have become much more competitive with their C-AF focusing. But instead of taking my work for it just go look at the video I posted. There's no "pulsing" between the foreground subject and the cluttered background. None that I can see, anyway. And the camera goes from out-of-focus to nicely in-focus smoothly and without any obvious over-shoot and re-focusing. I thought the results were confidence inspiring and will consider using C-AF for on-camera interviews, going forward.
So, that's the first big feature set, which I approve of, but I will add a caveat. Many users are experiencing some interference in focusing performance when working under flickering, non-continuous light sources. Mainly fluorescent lights and cheap LEDs. These conditions make focusing much slower and sometimes inhibit focusing altogether. Yikes.
I haven't experienced this but enough people have written about this that I felt duty bound to report it.
5K video: For me this is the biggest improvement. Right out of the box the S1R had the poorest selection of available file options for video. You didn't have the choice of selecting .Mov. You could only work in M4p. There were also no options for 10 bit color depth and nothing beyond 4:2:0. Still, the files coming out of the camera in 4K looked good. It's just that the paucity of higher data rate files reinforced the idea that the camera was more squarely aimed at photographers and that most everything else about the camera was merely a polite nod to hybrid users--- and Panasonic's camera heritage.
The update delivered a new choice. Now you can shoot in 5K and you can do so with 10 bit color at a data rate of 200 Mbs. The camera delivers tons of detail but it does so in an odd aspect ratio. The native 5K files at 30p or 24p are 4992 pixels by 3744 pixels. It's a much more square-ish format than we normally expect to see out of a consumer video camera. But it works. Go look.
The 5K files are only available as .Mov files and that's fine. The increased bit depth and higher overall resolution mean that your final video, exported as 4K or 1080p is going to look great. Really great.
If you want to stick to 4K the S1R has some interesting new advantages there as well. You'll be shooting in M4p but if you want to shoot at 60p you'll find that instead of mandating an APS-C crop as is required by nearly every 24 megapixel camera shooting with current Sony full frame sensors (not fast enough read speed to write our the full width of the frame!!!) you'll have only a 1.1 X crop with the S1R at 60p. And that's almost no crop at all. You'll get the nearly full advantage of the format all the way up to 60p and that's while writing to an internal memory card.
There's also a bonus level. Go into the HDMI menu and you can choose to write to the camera at 8 bits or to an external recorder at 60p, 10 bit, 4:2:2. And you still get almost the full width of the sensor there too. If you take the clean signal out with the HDMI and write the files at ProRes 422 you'll also get the advantage of an ALL-I codec. Suddenly the S1R goes from a good video tool to a great one.
The final bonus of using the external recorder is that you lose the 20 minute, 4K time limit. The system will run as long as the camera battery and memory card are able. Pretty sweet!
And while you are in the video mode you can also set the camera to show shutter angle instead of shutter speeds. It's a quicker way to work and helps assure that you are in the right setting for good, clean, jitter free video. Sorry, no wave forms...no vector scope...
With the update the cameras shares an exclusive feature with the S1H (which I actually consider to be the system flagship). If you use the XLR audio adapter from Panasonic the new firmware unlocks "High Res" audio. You can record your audio at a much higher sampling rate which should improve the sound and decrease noise in the files. Go ahead and listen to the sample I created and see what you think. It's not available on the S1 or the S5...
I'm very impressed that Panasonic took a camera I already liked a lot and made it even more valuable to me. Like all the S1x cameras the S1R has a full sized HDMI which makes me want to connect it to my Atomos recorder along with headphone and microphone jacks on the body. I'm very happy right now. If you just updated your S1R you're probably also happy. Ah, happiness. Fleeting but tasty while here.
So, that's what I experimented with today. Thanks for all the comments on yesterday's post. Seems like many of you have found great ways to work around the pandemic. Gave me hope and a smile when I read the comments.
Video notes: The video I embedded and linked to was created in a small corner of my office. Everything you see is unedited, not color graded, not corrected for exposure or tonality. It was recorded directly into the camera so it's 5K, 10 bit, 4:2:0. The audio is 96kHz. I shot at f2.8 and 2/3rds of a stop with a Sigma 45mm f2.8 L-mount lens. The scene was lit with a single 500 watt tungsten light in a Lowell Tota-Light fixture.
So, both the audio and the video are absolutely STRAIGHT OUT OF CAMERA. No monkey business. No LUTs and no Log files. Nice to see the camera delivers so well with so little intervention.
Next time I'll try to find a more glamorous on camera model. This one was definitely not cute enough.
Thanks. KT
A Production Photograph from "Harvey." From a more mellow time. Warning: dire introspection included.
12.17.2020
I'm sure everyone has been paying attention to advances in field audio recorders so I'm guessing this post is redundant. But here goes.
The big news in digital audio recorders this year is a feature they are calling "32 bit float."
But let me back up for a second and set the stage. When you leave a completely treated sound studio and venture out into the real world to make videos or movies you are leaving a "safe zone" and heading into a real world filled with background noise, distracting noises and random noises. You try your best to ameliorate as much audible clutter as you can by using the right microphone types, putting up sound absorbing blankets and turning off as many noise making appliances as you possible can. And you lift your headphones off one ear and say, "quiet on the set" whenever you can. That's the nature of location recording.
If you are not only the sound man but also the camera operator, director and all around only crew member then you've got your hands full.
The biggest issues, after the various controllable noises are taken care of, when recording live sound along with video, are the noise floor of your audio gear and the treacherous thing we call, "clipping." Clipping in audio is a lot like blowing the highlights in a photograph. If you record sounds and all of a sudden an actor or subject gets very loud a traditional recorder will clip hard and introduce a lot of distortion into you audio that's very hard to deal with in post. You can use "limiters" to pull back the audio but it's not the most effective solution.
At the other end of the spectrum you might have set your levels for a good level while doing your tests but then, in the heat of an interview, the speaker either moves away from your mic or starts speaking so softly that the signal barely registers on your recorder's meters. If your only job is audio it's pretty straight forward to ride the level controls but if your head is in the "visual" and "content" spaces you'll likely overlook the audio spikes and dark holes that will certainly vex you when you sit down to cut your project together.
Along comes "32 bit float." While nearly every production recorder writes 24 bit audio files the newest generation can write 32 bit files. There's a lot more information and the files are much larger but the wonderful thing is that you don't even need to set levels. You can bring up the quietest passages and you won't get the ever higher noise floor you would with a regular 24 bit file. You can scream at the microphone and as long as your microphone doesn't overload you won't clip the recorded audio. That's so cool. You can let Tom Cruise scream at you and record every tender nuance without distortion. You'll just need to adjust the levels in post.
The first device I heard about that offered this was a Zoom F6 and the reviews on it were pretty good. Some have mentioned that the audio pre-amps aren't particularly good sounding and that may be so but it sometimes feels (analogy) like people talking about a lens not having that Leica look. The F6 was cool in concept and I guess it's serving its purpose for some users but many were hoping that Sound Devices would come out with an affordable version because people really, really like that company's quiet and clean Kashmir pre-amps. And the way they design their limiters. The limiters have a nice roll off instead of an instant clamping modality. But, of course, you won't need to use limiters with 32 bit float. It's kinda built in.
Sound Devices launched an updated model of their original Mix-Pre3 audio recorder and, voila! it features the magical 32 bit float. And the Kashmir pre-amps. And you can use it as a high end audio interface for web casts.
The Mix-Pre3 is set up for professional use and takes three XLR inputs. It will do simultaneous writes on the internal SD card as well as a USB Thumb drive which gives you a back-up of your audio recordings. It can read or write time code and can be powered by double A batteries, an A/C adapter, a power bank via USB-C. Most reviewers are suggesting either the power bank option or an adapter for the battery tray that allows use with Sony NP batteries because the unit does suck down power.
This machine provides the audio equivalent of a digital camera raw files that never runs out of highlights and has no noise in the shadows. I'm putting this on my Amazon wish list for myself. It'll be right there next to that set of Leica cinema lenses. If you buy the five lenses together the package is just a bit shy of $100,000.
The Sound Devices Mix-Pre3-ii is much more affordable at around $800.
But the real story is the 32 bit float. And it is also available on a small, single channel device from a company called, Tentacle. It's a self contained recorder with a supplied lavaliere microphone that's meant to be used in place of a wireless mic set. Just turn on the unit, pop the small box into your subject's pocket, clip the mic onto them and go. You get to set the levels after the fact and it's easier than ever to sync up the audio to your video. That system is a bit less than $400. But you'll need one for each actors or interviewee.
I can't wait to try out the Mix-Pre3ii. Seems just right for a one man video band.
Okay. That's it for today.
What kinds of projects are you doing to keep photography fun during the lockdowns?
I'll admit to feeling a bit lost this year. I've always used a framework of commercial engagements as the glue that strings together the fun stuff and the gear lust. Having descended from the puritans I have an aversion to spending money I can neither deduct or depreciate and l've also lost my rationalization that the paid work will pay for the leisure time photo dalliances. So I'm trying to mentally re-group and re-imagine doing stuff just because it's fun and just because I can.
I have in mind to make a series of small, black and white movies with my current gear. When I say movies I mean little, five minute to ten minute long pieces that are narrative in nature; not interviews or travel showcases. The problem, of course, is not really being able to use actors as I'd like and also not having access to locations that I used to take for granted.
Fortunately or unfortunately I've come to realize that unlike walking around with a nice camera and taking photographs of stuff that looks interesting or pretty does not work when it comes to making really interesting projects that need to hold an audience's attention for more than 30 seconds.
I say, "unfortunately" because this requires me to actually do work in advance of shooting. I guess it falls under pre-pre-production. The hard part being the need to think up the story, then write the script, and then do the storyboards. Everything else flows from those steps. But this means hunkering down and doing work for weeks instead of getting the immediate gratification of snap-shooting.
It's fortunate in that I have the time, and the country has the time, for more considered thought projects. There's not any pressure to construct and fulfill tight deadlines. There's no one looking over my shoulder trying to hurry me along or pick away at my budgets.
Having written a number of books I know the only way to make a good project, as opposed to a good shot, is to plan, write stuff out, walk through ideas and blocking, and to make well thought through shot lists. It's so different from my usual work which has always been loosely planned and subject to changes on the fly.
Anyway, short films. Fun to watch. That's my current hobby project.
But I am curious what are you doing to stay active as a photographer? Have you found projects that are engaging even if they are different from your usual beat? I'm assuming that many portrait and people photographers are quickly discovering landscapes. I've tried it but my heart just isn't in it...
Would love to hear how you've changed your focus (ha. ha.) to adapt to whatever restrictions you are under in your area!
And a quick note to all of you being inundated by snow and wild weather: Stay safe and stay warm.
12.16.2020
How's that 12mm Meike Cinema lens treating me? Pretty well. There's some barrel distortion and some fun flares but...
One of my two favorite lenses from 2020. The Sigma 56mm f1.4. Too tight for a lot of work. Just right for me.
We are currently in an unprecedented building boom. It's not confined to downtown; I see it happening all over the city. Downtown is becoming denser by the month but it's an odd contrast because everyone is working from home and most of these new buildings are class "A" office space. Not residential towers.
So, the streets are nearly vacant, the restaurants are mostly closed down and there's little of the hum that used to accompany downtown living.
While many are predicting that office life won't necessarily return I believe that face to face contact is essential, in the long run, for human health and cooperation. With all the big businesses moving relentlessly to Austin I imagine filling the newly finished buildings will be the least of our teething issues.
The future, it seems, will be crowded. But at least I'll have the right lens to document some of the change.