I took some photos with the Leica SL and the new-ish Panasonic 20-60mm zoom lens. It was encouraging.

When I decided that I'd probably never use a two pound, 20mm f1.4 prime lens; no matter how good it potentially is, I sold it and replaced it with a lens I'm getting a lot more use from. In my humble opinion it's an overlooked product. It costs $600, feels like it's made mostly of nice plastic, and it's slow with a variable aperture that starts at 3.5 and goes to 5.6. It usually comes bundled as a "kit" lens with the Panasonic S5 which, if you part them out, drops the price of the lens to $500. 

I imagined that the lens would be "adequate" but at least acceptable for my wide angle uses. I conjectured that if I needed a little better performance I could always bring out the 24-105mm Panasonic zoom which I've used a lot over the last year and never been disappointed. But I thought I should give the new lens a shake out and so I did a couple of week ago and I posted the results here. 

But I was at loose ends yesterday morning and it started out cool and crisp so I decided to get a few fast walked miles in and grabbed the recently acquired Leica SL and paired it up for the first time with the Panasonic 20-60mm. 

So, it's a fine lens. Really, really nice to have along when shooting and walking for hours. It even helps offset the weight of the SL pretty well. I've looked at the images very carefully and they seem nicely sharp and largely without the usual foibles of wide zooms. No discernible vignetting. No LoCa. No sloppy unsharpness in the corners. But, of course I cheated and used f6.1 which should be the sharp point for most of the focal lengths provided by the lens. While a Leica 24-90mm zoom might have been a smidge better I doubt I want to carry it on a heavy camera, on a strap, over a shoulder. So it probably would not have been invited along. 

The 20-60mm is nice. I bought mine used for $400 and now consider it a bargain. A $400 zoom lens on the front of a Leica --- and it was the star of the show. An odd photographic universe but that's why it stays interesting...

 

The city of Austin can be...odd. This is a big, metal, community picnic table.

the faux tablecloth is part of the design. This assemblage of lights and the table sit out

in the middle of a green space just north of Lady Bird Lake. 

I like how eccentric it all is.

Not seeing much distortion with this lens.

NOT my favorite BBQ restaurant. Not.

Leica SL does red. And blue.

I tried something different when I scouted a location today...

An P.R. agency I work with got in touch with me yesterday. They were in a small panic (but they handled it well). They have two client who are flying in from somewhere and they need new portraits taken of them to couple with a series of press releases. They said they'd like to do something downtown but would like to have the background "kind of blur out...."

We arranged to photograph tomorrow around lunch time so I decided to go back downtown and make some scouting pictures of likely locations. I did the usual scouting by taking note of places for the subjects to stand that would be out of the sidewalk traffic and places for me to stand while taking the photos that wouldn't be out in the middle of car traffic. 

When I got to my destination I had the idea that I might better show the client how this would all work if I blurred the background in the scouting photographs. It would be one less thing for them to try and imagine.

I was carrying the recently acquired Leica SL and I attached my favorite Contax 50mm lens to it. Then I set the focus to between five and six feet and opened the lens up to its widest aperture; f1.7.  

The world looks different when you intentionally blur it. We're overcast today and I hope we stay that way until I finish with this project tomorrow. I plan to bring a small flash and a tiny soft box. It doesn't have to be much, I just want to add a tiny bit of direction to the light. If we're in overcast it should all pan out just right. 

Since I was once a Boy Scout and really liked the motto ("Be Prepared") I went ahead and cleaned up the studio and set up a background and some lights there. If it's pouring down rain tomorrow, or crazy windy, we'll just move everything there and keep the process moving along. 

Now that I think about it I guess if we retreat to the studio I could use one of these ready made background in a composite and still get the shot they wanted. I've never "blur scouted" before so I wanted to share the idea with you and see what you think. Good idea? Stupid? Right now I'm thinking it's pretty cool....

A quick "thank you!" to my unwitting patron, the W Hotel.

I have used their fine restroom facilities through a large 

percentage of the pandemic. Nicely upscale.

Very clean. 

 

My earliest days as an international photographer. (Smiley face emoticon strongly suggested).

When we lived in downtown Adana, Turkey from 1963 to 1965 I made friends with a lot of Turkish kids my age. Every once in a while I'd go with them to their schools and try to keep up in Turkish and follow the lessons. At the time it seemed like a big deal to the Turkish guys to bring an American along with them.  I really enjoyed two years, immersed daily, in a different culture and far away from television, English language radio and our interesting culture. 

This has to be the earliest photograph of me with a camera. The family had one camera and we shared it. I took it to school with me to make photographs of my friends and their teachers. 

It was a very simple camera and, if I remember correctly, it took 126 film. I mostly got allocated rolls of Verichrome film (even though it has "chrome" in the name it was black and white) which was much cheaper to develop than color print film. 

I'm the kid second from the left on the front row. The one with the camera. 

Early indoctrination? Probably. I was in second or third grade when this was taken. That's a pretty early start...

Photographic Homeostasis. Ingrained Resistance to Change.

 Photographer Kristian Dowling said: "As photographers we are only as good as the opportunities we create." 

Johnson City, Texas.

March 28, 2021

Biological Homeostasis is an organism's adherence to a set of constants. All systems from blood circulation to hormone production to breathing; even shivering or sweating, are all about maintaining a very narrow range of constants in a system. Homeostasis in a human body is really a nice deal since it keeps us alive and functional. And it's all done autonomically. 

But....I am pretty sure that homeostasis in the art field of photography is a strong inhibitor of the evolution of new art and new ways of seeing things. Our generation of writers who are joined at the hip with photography continue to mine the past (way past!) masters as though there have been no changes in style or content since the last century. All hail Weston. All hail Sexton. And, of course, All hail Henri-Cartier Bresson and Robert Frank. But after a while it becomes like visual elevator music; an endless loop of Beatles instrumentals as a self-reinforcing paean to work already accepted and vetted. And then re-done by legions of lesser talents...

The mining of the past goes beyond just a knee-jerk adoration of our formidable heroes and includes now a vast collections of work by other photographers rigidly adhering to the look, feel and even process of our forerunners. One has only to attend a photography workshop at Point Lobos to see a horde of wannabe Weston's wielding their 4x5 and even 8x10 inch view cameras with their tripods anchored as close to the spots where the master once stood. 

When I read essays by critics and "experts" of photography there is always the sly comparison to the manner in which one of the old timers handled their vision or their craft that is a wink and a nod of approval to the hoary and calcified status quo. And why not? There's no downside for writers and critics who work over the bones of past giants. They are assured that at least a fair number in their audiences will know the work and also strive to follow in their footsteps. 

In fact, as photographic writers age we are getting locked more and more firmly into an encapsulated and fully "approved" version of the history of photography. Why? Because the audiences are in lock step. They've read all through their careers, as hobbyists or professionals, about these giants. In printed photography magazines and in books.

It's a curatorial mindset that's a remnant of a time when we knew about the "famous" photographers from a limited set of sources. In the last century there were gatekeepers and photographic kingmakers who could make a career from a sow's ear. How else to explain the work of Stephen Shore (sorry if you happen to be a fan...)? Patriarchy and privilege bestowed directly by John Szarkowski to a teenager with a banal snapshot aesthetic. J.S. also gave us a number of shooting stars that flamed out in the brutal glare of retrospective, and the passage of time, and fell back to earth singed and forgotten. But current writers of a certain age are relentless in branding "art" photography as a quiet, solitary pursuit which involves large format image creation, fine art printing (usually in B&W), gallery representation and book publishing when, in fact, most progress in the digital age comes from the democratization of distribution. The absence of gatekeepers and the rejection of 20th century restraints. 

We of a certain age like what we like because we are familiar with it. The traditional publishers and museums ensure the homeostasis of their curated favorites by dint of their control of traditional distribution and vetting, and by the artists' sheer tenure in an industry that profits from having recognizable stars. But would the art of photography be (much) better off if we had much less emphasis on revisiting, over and over again, the past success of photographers? If we let go of the homeostasis of the familiar and replaced it with a new reverence for evolution and revolution? When can we decide that an artist's impact is inextricably intertwined with his/her temporal context? 

I know one thing for certain. If you want to achieve glory as a current photographer in a traditional venue you'll go further if you present in black and white and you produce in large format. These signature properties have had the historic blessings of the gatekeepers and curators of a certain age as surely as the mention of archival processing. 

Just a thought. The image at the top of the blog is my nod to every southwestern (USA) landscape photographer who worked in the 1940's up to the end of the last century. The color would be frowned upon but is now tolerated. Thank you William Eggleston. (As elevated by J.Szarkowski). 

Hope you are having a happy and productive Monday. I'm off to steal some secrets from the work of the late,  JeanLoup Sieff. 

Is the Leica SL (the first version of the new mirrorless line) still relevant in 2021? Why buy one?

Leica by Leica. I photographed the new (to me) SL with my

(relatively) new SL2. I shot handheld at ISO6400. 

Looks okay to me. 

When the Leica SL camera launched in 2015 it seemed like the whole SL system was a touch-and-go sort of proposition. There were only three lenses available for the system at the time of the launch and only one was versatile enough to form the backbone of a new system. That was the 24-90mm Elmarit zoom lens which currently sells for around $5,500 new. 

The camera body itself was very alluring. It featured a level of camera manufacturing that was far beyond the processes used by competitors, and its level of build quality has, as far as I know, never been equalled. The shell of the body is carved out of a solid block of dense aluminum alloy; it's not a die cast frame. It's not a joining of separate pieces. At the time of the launch the electronic viewfinder was the first to exceed the 4 million-dot bar. And the finder optics themselves were, to my knowledge, the first to use all glass elements instead of a mix of glass and plastics. The body was extensively weather sealed but has been surpassed by it's descendant, the Leica SL2 which is basically the same body structure with a more ergonomic grip, one fewer button on the back, a sensor that is 47.5 megapixels, and the (highly desired) inclusion of in-body image stabilization. 

While the menu controls are not identical in content or layout between the older and newer cameras they are philosophically the same. But the original is a bit more minimalist by dint of not having any of the rear function buttons (excepting the on/off switch) labeled in any way. It's a bit challenging for anyone coming from the button and dial-laden cameras from all the usual camera makers but once you get used to the new interface and button functionality it makes sense and it's fast and easy. 

I have been eyeing the original SL since its introduction in 2015 and, in fact, my move into the Lumix system was partly predicated on the idea that I might one day change cameras, buy Leicas, and have a wide range of really, really good lenses which are interchangeable between multiple camera systems. At the time of its launch I wasn't ready to commit to the Leica way of doing things. But as assignments dried up during the lockdown it became less and less daunting to try new stuff since I would only be messing up my own work or my own flow and not wrecking any photo shoots for clients. 

I had never really handled an SL2 before I walked in to the store last month and bought one. I've been making my way through its learning curve. I like the camera (SL2) but it's too perfect to love. If you point it at things and push the shutter button the camera figures the exposures and focusing so accurately and convincingly that it takes all the fun out of my generally haphazard approach to photography. 

While looking for tutorials about a better approach to setting up and operating the SL2 I kept coming across video after video and review after review from Leica photographers who have been five year long users of the SL and, to a person, the common thread was about the look of the DNG files from the camera. The refrain was about a level of discrimination of color tones that made images seem more like what one sees with one's eyes. The second concept, repeated in every recounting, was about the way the files dealt with sharpness and acutance. There was a lot of conjecture in the early reviews of the SL that so much of the look had to do with the high performance rendering power of the new line of SL lenses but that assessment evolved as people worked with any number of adapted lenses but still reported the difference in rendering between the Leica SL and other makes of mirrorless cameras. 

I found, online,  a barely used SL at a camera store in Miami and had it shipped to me here in Austin. When the box arrived via UPS I opened it and found it packed layer by layer. First was the big, generic cardboard box. Inside were chubby styro peanuts surrounding a thinner, white cardboard box, inside that was the original camera box. Inside that were all the manuals and accessories packed as though the camera was coming straight from new stock. When I burrowed down to the camera and pulled it out of its bag I was surprised to find that it was, essentially spotless.

The camera retailer, Leica Store Miami, did an amazing job packing the camera for shipping and I was even more delighted to find the body had been upgraded to the most current (v3.7) firmware as well.

Even though the reverse is true, the SL felt denser and fractionally heavier than its newer model replacement. 

So, the box arrived on Friday evening and I charged the battery, went through the menus, formatted a card for the #1 card slot, and generally took a stroll through all the menus. Saturday was a busy day and I didn't get to shoot anything. This morning I headed to Johnson City. 

A friend of mine who shoots for Texas Highways Magazine told me about a Celtic Sports Festival that was supposed to start at 9 a.m. in the Johnson City park. The event was something like Scottish kaber tossing and all the participants were required to wear kilts and stockings. But when I arrived at 10 a.m. I couldn't find the event anywhere (and it's not that big of a town...). I texted my photographer friend and he got back to me a little while later to say that he'd just gotten a notification that the event had been cancelled. Well. It was a lovely drive out. I stayed around the town and snapped a few more images just for fun. Part of breaking in a new camera. 

I stopped by the town of Dripping Springs to wash my car and then headed back to Austin. A bit frustrated by not having ready targets for my new (to me) camera I decided to take yet another walk through downtown Austin. Partly for exercise and partly as an excuse to try out the new camera.

Here's my "first taste" evaluation. Short and sweet. 

The camera is big, heavy and solid. The lack of buttons is, at least right now, a novel thing but also a bit fraught since I am still new to the process and the art of double-clicking to get to different functions isn't second nature yet. If you love light weight and small cameras you will NOT want to buy your own SL. 

It feels much like the heft of something like the Pentax K-1 I owned. Solid and convincing but you will be aware that you are porting one around at all times. 

The camera is fairly fast and responsive when you turn it on. It gets ready to shoot pretty quickly. The surprise to me was the finder. I was expecting it to be as stellar as the SL2's EVF but it isn't as color accurate or as contrasty or visually transparent. I've been spoiled by the newer Leica and also by the three Panasonic S1 variants I own, all of which have higher accuracy finders than the SL. The difference, I believe, is that the SL uses an LCD screen whereas the S1s and the SL2 use the latest OLED screens. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure I've read that in several places. 

The weird thing is that the rear external screen seems to be perfectly color calibrated and nicely sharp. It's actually a joy to use. But here's a note to those who like their cameras friction free.... The screen on the back of the camera is fixed, built-in, non-rotatable, non-swivel-able, not flippable. It's just right there on the back of the camera. But it's nicely color balanced and looks sharp and well done. 

The newer camera; the SL2, uses Gorilla Glass for its touch screen so it's a bit hardier and more resistant to scratches and other accidental damage than the older SL rear screen. Just something to keep in mind for you folks that like to thrash your cameras around. 

I had the camera on for about three hours today and took somewhere north of 300 images. Most were flushed into the desktop trash can within minutes of reviewing them but my point is that the battery life was better than expected. With a bit of judicious conservation it would be possible to make it through a full, but casual, shooting day with two batteries. And that's a good things since the batteries are currently priced at $275 each. 

I'm a center focusing spot, S-AF sort of photographer so you're not going to get much relevant information  about the camera's ability to track someone running in a zigzag pattern toward the camera. And that's because I've never needed to shoot anyone running in a zigzag towards me and my cameras. If someone were to do that I'd probably decide, at some point, to turn around and run away from them in a zigzag pattern. But anyway, when used the way I like to work with cameras the focus locks on quickly and it seems very accurate. 

I've used adapted Leica R lenses on the camera as well as L-mount Sigmas and even my Contax lenses and I have to say that the camera is able to meter and expose pretty well with all comers. I was a bit apprehensive this morning when I stuck the Lumix 24-105mm lens on the camera and then turned the camera on. I got a message on the screen letting me know that this lens might have higher than normal battery consumption. Interesting. I'd heard a rumor that certain non-Leica lenses drained batteries quicker on the SL and SL2. I turned the camera back off, turned off the I.S. on the lens and then turned the camera back on. This time I didn't get a warning message. I'm guessing that leaving the I.S. on all the time is just more battery intensive and the engineers wanted you to know that. It was good to know. 

So, if the finder isn't as good as cameras I already have and the camera lacks some of the video features as well, why would I want to buy one in 2021? 

In a nutshell, I think the body design is the best industrial design I have ever encountered in a camera. The aesthetics and the feel are unmatched; even by the newer Leica. I'll be happy if, after putting it through its paces, I decide I have other cameras that are better in the field, I just put it on a shelf next to my workstation and admire it for the next decade. But, the reality is that I think the files are different. Maybe not better but different. And I think it's going to pan out as a wonderful portrait camera. But we'll see.

I think the older camera is a bargain for anyone who is interested in sticking an exploratory toes into the Leica SL system waters right now. It's still relevant in terms of its 24 megapixel, full frame sensor, and it's useful selection of 4K video options. It's a fast and sturdy shooter and a great entry into the L-mount alliance systems as well. Worst case scenario? At least I have one more battery I can use in my SL2...

The purchase price of this used, premium camera was $2.000. A huge drop from its original selling price of $7450. And less than one third the price of it's 2020 replacement. 

An interesting point about the SL2. I paid $5995 for mine, new from an authorized dealer. I've just been informed that the price is going up to $6500 on the first of April. Yes, a price increase on a camera that's been out for a year. Not a price drop. Seems like it's also going to affect the price of used SLs. Maybe I got my copy just in time. Chalk it all up to nostalgia but the older camera makes me grin while the newer model just makes me smile. Yeah, it's worth it.

Added the next morning, after more reflection: There is a certain psychological momentum pushing the buyer of any longed for product to see it in the best possible light; to ward off cognitive dissonance by looking for the positive attributes of an acquisition instead of being objective. 

I haven't answered the question posed in the title as it relates to someone who is "not me." So here goes:

Would I recommend that you, or anyone looking for a good, utilitarian picture taking machine buy a Leica SL in 2021? Absolutely not. While the camera is a manufacturing and design marvel, and might well be appreciated just for that, as a picture taking device it's got a lot stacked against it when compared to more recent cameras. It is very heavy, other camera makers have caught up and surpassed the SL in terms of EVF resolution (which was a big feature in 2015 --- less stunning today), and the 4K video shot in APS-C is a dated approach. 

As long as we're on the subject of hybrid use I would counsel would be buyers to look carefully at video production considerations if considering this one. The 4K files written directly into the camera are all Long-GoP and 8 bit. But the real rub, if you want to use this as a compact and reliable production tool is the absence of a direct and permanent input for a microphone and a permanent output for headphone monitoring. There is a remote control port on the camera and one can buy a device for an additional $175 that will allow the attachment of headphones and a microphone but it's a small input/output port and a non-standard dongle which means that if you lose it or it becomes non-functional mid-shoot, you are out of luck. Unless, of course, you have multiples of the device sitting around...at $175 each.

After shooting and reviewing files yesterday I would also join the almost unanimous chorus of writers and SL users who've cautioned people away from using the camera as a Jpeg photography generator. It may be that I have yet to zero in the controls for Jpegs effectively but there are no "profiles" to select and the three parameter controls are coarse; with one step between neutral and "full on" for contrast, sharpness and saturation. I find the look of the Jpeg files a bit dated. They are less nuanced and subtle than the Jpeg renderings of the newer cameras, not just from Leica but from nearly all the competitors. But I guess you have to go into it understanding that you are comparing a model from six years ago with current, state of the art stuff. In reference to Moore's Law that at least three full generations back. And given Leica's stately pace of innovation I'd make it more like four gens.

So, big, heavy, slow, under-featured and still selling at a price that will get you a more modern and facile camera. And that's before you factor in the size and cost of Leica brand lenses. 

In retrospect I might have been more satisfied, long term, by waiting and saving a bit more money and buying the newly introduced Leica SLS, if I really needed a 24 megapixel adjunct to the SL2. If I was starting from scratch and not interested in the L mount system I would certainly be looking at something like the Nikon Z6ii. I've been bitten by the ergonomics of the Sony A7 series camera bodies too often to consider them even if they boast the best spec sheets. 

So, would I recommend this camera to you? No. Not unless you had money to burn, were into Leica or Panasonic L mount stuff and came from a long background of shooting medium format film, focusing manually, working deliberately and were the kind of person who enjoys or even invites a little friction into your process. If you were a sports shooter convicted of some heinous crime, and I could mete out a bit of justice to you, I would consign you to shooting fast action sports with a Leica SL for the rest of your career.....

Let's leave it right there until I've had more time to evaluate this camera in the studio. Doing the holy work of portraiture....

 

Good red seems to be tough for some sensors. The SL nails red. 

Why the process of photographic portraiture is so different from all other types of photography.

 

Over the years I've read so many quasi-scientific manifestos about "how to shoot." I just read an essay by our friend, Michael Johnston, in which he talks about shooting too much or shooting too little. How his mentors would go out with six frames of film to do an assignment or, conversely, how a teacher at an art school program was "prolific" and wanted to instill in his students the same machine gun approach to shooting. 

It seems most of the recent talk about "process" revolves around whether or not one is committing the sin of wasting film or pursuing the opposite approach and hoarding their film/digital frames. The underlying concept seems to be that there might be an exacting number of frames that one might be expected to commit to on any given genre of photography. 

But the trigger for me of the essay was MJ's decision not to drill down and let the reader know just what kind of assignment called for which approach. Was his example of going out and forcing himself to use just one 36 exposure roll of film connected to a portrait shoot? Was it a landscape project? Was it a bout of street shooting? Was it a commercial shoot in which he was working carefully to a specific comprehensive layout in collaboration with a marketing team? If we don't know what our guides are shooting then how can we possibly make any sense out of their intentions? How are we to understand if they are, in fact, over shooting or under shooting?

Not trying to criticize Michael because his essay was a quick afterthought about his blog post yesterday about a photographer who currently shoots architecture with large format film. But his writing spurred me to think about the whole subject a bit more.

I also come across writers who make the assumption that everyone who is shooting in a 35mm format is making lots and lots of frames while photographers who work with large format cameras are magically imbued with strict discipline and shoot only a handful of images when confronted by each scene. I am instantly reminded of the stories surrounded Richard Avedon's photo session of "Natasha Kinski and the Serpent." It was a beautiful photograph and it was made on very expensive, 8x10 inch color sheet film. If one assumed that photo writers are correct even part of the time then one would also expect that Avedon might have tried to get his shot in five or ten frames. 15 to 20 frames at the outside limit. But multiple sources confirm that this was not the case.  

In fact, Avedon exposed more than 100 frames of very large sheet film on one pose and took well several hours working at it before making the frame that he judged would be the "perfect" one. That doesn't take into account the vast numbers of 8x10 inch Polaroid frames he took just to get everything into the ballpark of his vision. 

He knew when he got the frame not because he was counting the number of film holders used and judging the number to be sufficient. No, he kept firing the camera until one moment arrived where the serpent, laying over and around Kinski's nude body stuck out its tongue right next to her ear. Avedon, prepped by the numerous previous frames, and the extensive trial and error of an artist who has mastered his vision (and not just his craft), was waiting and watching for just that sort of additional magic in the shoot. He tripped the lens shutter on the view camera at that exact moment and got the frame that went on to grace millions of posters. 

A casual writer about photography might hear that story and deduce that Avedon "wasted" those frames and should have just set everything up and waited for the right moment, shot his one frame and then moved on with life. A highly skilled portrait photographer would understand that those previous 99+ frames were the fuel that powered the creative moment into existence and that without them there would be no perfect frame. 

I've seen people work both ways on photographic assignments. Some are parsimonious with their frames as though they are wasting something precious which they'll never recover. Others are generous to a fault with their frames and shoot until their memory cards fill up or their film supply is gone. But, again, it all depends on what kind of photograph they are pursuing. What their aim in the adventure might be. One approach seems too rigid and structured, giving power to the process of photography over the imperative of gently guiding along a more nuanced process and, step by step, building a rhythm and rapport with a subject. 

With a landscape scene one might be able to understand that the scene in front of them will have a perfect moment of exposure where the balance between light and dark is just right and the angle of the sun is like a sculptor's chisel. Working with a digital camera or a film camera and well understood light meter the photographer might be able to capture the image while using only five or six frames, taking time to try a frame or two over and then under the median value. She might bracket a bit to get the perfect balance. 

But here's the vital difference between portraiture and all other forms of photography: only (good and great) portraiture requires the photographer to enter into a relationship, a rapport and a collaboration with the subject. No one walks in cold and, on meeting a portrait subject for the first time, fires off five or six frames, deludes themself that they have a perfect shot, and terminates the session. Unless your only goal it a clinical documentation of the person in front of the camera. 

The hope of most portraitists is to work through a process that involves getting to know the other person as well as possible, looking more keenly with each exposure for slight changes of expression, angle, glance, gesture that eventually come together because the photographer has used his accruing knowledge from all the previous exposures to gently guide the subject into a physical space and emotional realm that is, to the photographer's point of view, the definitive image of his sitter. Each frame builds on the frame before it. Each subtle change distills the image into it clearest essential truth. To arbitrarily and methodically limit the encounter to a certain predetermined number of frames is sheer folly and eliminates the chance that the frame after the "last" frame may have been the best frame. 

Each session that I've ever done that's made me feel as though I've gotten good work follows a similar pattern. The first frames of the shoot are awkward and stumbling for me and the subject. They are trying to orient themselves to the space, to the light, to our proximity. They are trying to divine my intention in the shoot just as I am trying to unearth theirs. By getting started and photographing we start to both build a comfort with the process. I'm vocal during shoots. I encourage, suggest, and when frames work I heap praise on the subject and the process. You can feel the subject getting more and more comfortable over time. As the frame count grows there is a diminishing of stress and tension. At some point we've worn each other down in the best of ways. I've let the subject trot out all the cliché poses and expressions they've seen in other people's work; whether on Instagram or in a magazine. I've been worn down by working through my reflexive routines. My desire to "shortcut" and try poses and expressions that have worked well for other subjects. At a certain point I stop trying to overlay these on my subject and the person in front of the camera has started to trust me with her potenital image. 

As the frames fly by we get into a tighter synchronization and we divine, by trial and error, how the light looks best on their face. How their posture influences the personal power they feel. How my voice and cadence motivate movement, or I might ask for them to pause so when can fine tune a pose rather than constantly changing (like models on TV). 

At some point somewhere in the process of shooting, reviewing and shooting again we both realize that we've hit a high point and that the energy we had moments ago is starting to dissipate. We keep trying so we don't miss something good but at some juncture we're both ready to end the process. But as my subject gathers their belongings, finds their silenced phone, grabs their alternate wardrobe, I keep the camera in my hand and look for the unguarded moments that might have their own magic. 

I can't keep track of the number of times we turned off the studio strobes or big LEDs and walked into an area in the studio that is flooded with some beautiful and soft natural light and I watched it flow across my subject's face and begged them to stay and  let me shoot just a few more frames. It is, after all, an art project and not a mathematical problem. There are no upper or lower limits on the number of frames it might take to get a portrait that's special. That's why we don't count frames and don't artificially restrict the shooting process. These are photographs, not spreadsheets.

It would be as though you were constrained to only drive your car in one of two ways; always at 30 mph or less, and only at 90 mph or more. We follow the road and handle the curves as required by the feel of the car and the road conditions at hand. Not by preset scenarios.

The process of landscape photography is one of discovery. Once discovered the artist conceives of a way he or she would like the final photograph to look and works, more or less methodically, toward that goal. The landscape is the landscape. It doesn't change second by second. It doesn't toss out a gesture that changes your understanding of your subject.  The light may change but that's one parameter. 

In convincing and intimate portraiture it's much more important to build a relationship between photographer and sitter and to understand that it's only with their willing complicity that each works to make one image a culminating treasure of their combined efforts. And that takes shooting no small number of frames. 

I recently did a photographic assignment on which I needed to work with six different subjects in the course of a day. Each needed to be guided through six looks. While not my brand of "art" portraiture it still took a lot of back and forth, a lot of role playing, prompting, encouraging and cheering on my part to get each model to share their energy without reserve and without worrying about looking goofy. 

Even though my lighting didn't change much I needed to go through about 3,000 frames in a digital camera, or about 500 shots per person, to get the looks that I wanted and that my clients needed. I needed to work with the models in collaboration to make it work. The models aren't mannequins that can be positioned then photographed with some requisite number of frames. They are all fallible and insecure human beings who need to be guided into a process, supported in their interpretation of the process, and then coaxed into blending the best of my preconceptions with theirs to make images that are both authentic and connected. 

We used 36 frames for the final, international ad campaign. Should I have tried to set a limit or was I right to respect the process as well as the individual needs of each model/photographer interaction?

I've shot a lot of product in my career. I can light a white seamless for products in about 20 minutes. With digital cameras and their direct previews I can probably shoot most products in one or two frames. Then I could walk away from the shoot having fulfilled the letter of the contract. But even in these situations there is an opportunity to move the product around, shift the lighting and come away with variations that might be even better than the original concept. If we limit our frame use we'll never know....

I continued to be surprised that the process of portraiture, as a subset of photography, can be so misunderstood. Either that or I am just slow or inefficient at fostering relationships and too lost in the emotion of photographing people to stick to a "logical" and "cost effective" process. 

But that's the only way I know how to do it. 

Final thought. An anecdote about a major ad agency's expectations for film use. 

On my first big assignment for GSD&M Advertising I needed to photograph four different mentor/mentee pairings for a series of ads done for a cellular phone service company. It was a bigger job, dollar-wise, than I had ever done before. One advantage I had was that my assistant made an instant connection with the art buyer. My assistant and I labored over the bid process. Somewhere in the bid was an estimate of how much medium format color transparency film I would use, how much Polaroid test material, how much processing would be required. We bid optimistically (at least from my point of view). 

The art buyer came back to us and said they were fine with everything in the bid except for the film and lab costs. I was ready to sharpen that pencil and whittle the film cost to a bare minimum. But before I could commit to that the art buyer said, "The client will be on the set and they expect to see a lot of different variations and subtle changes. You need to double the amount of film and processing in your bid. And, in fact, since we haven't shown them numbers yet you might want to triple the amount. Otherwise we'll need to give this job to someone else." 

My assistant and I took the art buyer's suggestion and proceeded. We shot more film on the two shoot days than I ever had before. Our film and processing cost for the shoot was about $6,000. (Medium format transparency film + Polaroid + Testing and Processing). Part of our overall profit was in the mark-up we charged for film and processing so we made more profit into the bargain. 

The clients were happy and I learned a valuable lesson: Don't artificially limit your process. Don't be your own limiter. Some of the best frames were on rolls of film we would never have shot if the client had accepted our first bid. 

It's still true in the digital age. Especially in portraiture. 

One more note: my typical headshot shoot for a single pose takes about 100 frames. Rarely fewer. We talk and shoot, shoot and talk, and I can see non-models relax more and more, frame by frame, until it's just two friends talking. That's when the eyes start to look kind and welcoming and smiles become genuine. 

Just saying. 

I wanted to show you how ISO 50 looks on the Leica SL2 but Blogger tends to compress the goodness out of images. So I made you a gallery on Smugmug. Details in the blog.

https://kirktuck.smugmug.com/ART-AROUND-AUSTIN/Austin-with-a-Leica-SL2-at-50-ISO/n-PsF2cm/

Whenever I write something about the color rendering of a lens or a camera, or the sharpness of one of them, and then post images here on the blog I'm inevitably a bit disappointed by how the images look within Blogger. 

Today I was using the recently acquired Leica SL2 and the ancient and battered Leica 28-70mm (which vignettes like crazy on the L-mount adapter at the wider focal lengths...and close up) and I was experimenting with ISO 50. I wanted to see what the low ISO (which is native) 50 would look like. How would the colors look? What does the ISO 50 setting do to the dynamic range? Is it better? Is it worse? I tried it and liked it a lot and wanted to write about it here but why write if you can show pictures, right?

But the conundrum is that whatever I show here is size limited by the program and the format. Not so on Smugmug.com which is where most of my client galleries happily reside. Then it dawned on me that I could just create a gallery and share the images with you that way. 

If you follow the link you'll see that I've required no password and the images can be downloaded at the full resolution at which I shot them. You can look on your own machine to your heart's content. 

The files started life as middle resolution Jpegs which is about 22 megapixels. The downrezzing in camera makes them appear a bit sharper. I set the WB manually to the cute little sun icon. I was able to set a lens profile in the camera menu for the exact Leica lens. 

If you click on the image you'll go larger but there are tools on the left hand side that allow you to go all the way to the full res. Also, if you choose to download an image it will download at the full resolution. 

These are for personal use. Please don't repost them. Thanks!

It's taking me a while to get used to the SL2 since the interface is so wildly foreign compared to just about everything else. But now it's starting to build up some happy momentum. See if you agree....

https://kirktuck.smugmug.com/ART-AROUND-AUSTIN/Austin-with-a-Leica-SL2-at-50-ISO/n-PsF2cm/

One of the best parts of using mirror-free cameras is the vast choice of lenses one has. Here's some images from one of my perennial favorites.

I've owned a lot of 50mm lenses. I still own a lot of 50mm lenses, but when it's time to put one on a camera just for a comfortable walk I eschew the big, brutal, take no prisoners lenses, with their extensive collections of complex and specialized glass elements, and reach for a lens that's more than adequately sharp but has a low profile and, even with an adapter, an equally low weight. My choice, across mirrorless systems for the last five years (at least) has been the "pedestrian" 50mm f1.7 Contax/Zeiss lens made for the Y/C system. 

It's easy to handle and is an appreciated weight-saver in combination with heavier cameras like the Panasonic S1R or the Leica SL2. I like that the external aperture ring is instantly accessible and that the lens is manual focus and comes complete with a nicely done focusing scale which allows me to go back to the time-tested approach of setting approximate distances on the focusing ring and figuring out the best aperture to cover the subject area I'm interested in. With a lens set in that manner one can walk around and shoot as fast as the shutter can react and not worry about AF hunting or pesky sensors locking onto the "wrong" target. It's the quickest way possible to shoot. 

While the sharpness isn't as astringent and over the top in the way you'll see with many current, high dollar 50mm lenses (looking at you Panasonic!) it's very, very good for its age, provides a nice, but rounded softness wide open and then becomes fully competitive by f4.0. While only a few years ago, in that era where the block-headed Luddites were still rampaging about the sins of electronic viewfinders and making promises that we'd only be able separate them from their flapping mirrored DSLRs upon death, one could pick up a nice, mint copy of the Contax Zeiss 50mm f1.7 for somewhere between $125 and $150. Now, with the delayed realization of the potential of electronic viewfinders, people are flocking to mirrorless cameras and, upon learning that just about any older SLR lens can be used on their new, mirrorless camera with an inexpensive adapter, the supply of exceptional but inexpensive older lenses is not just getting more expensive it's drying up altogether.

Contax also made a 50mm f1.4 lens in the same mount and it's very nice too. But it's no better than the f1.7 version and having tested both I could find no real differences in their overall performance from f2.8 on to f11. I've never bothered to pick up the f1.4 version since it adds at least 50% more weight for no real world shooting advantage. Especially in current times when camera ISO engineering allows us the freedom to shoot in almost any kind of light. 

The focusing ring on my lens is smooth as greased Teflon and the overall look of the files from that lens is beautiful. Different than the look of my hyper-real Lumix S-Pro 50mm, but beautiful nonetheless. 

I took it out for a brief time on Wednesday just as excuse for another walk. We (the camera, lens and I) got stuck in some rain but I had an extra face mask in my pocket and it covered the lens and lens mount nicely. I didn't worry about the camera; the SL2 has an IP 54 weather resistance rating. I've no clue what that really means but their website ensures me that the camera sealing is prodigious. Doesn't matter. It wasn't raining hard. 

It was the performance, proven over time, with the 50mm Contax that led me to also buy the Contax Y/C 28mm f2.8 and the 135mm f2.8 (a lovely lens!) lenses. With cheap adapters I use them all the time with the big Panasonic S1x cameras and the new Leica. They are so easy to use and manually focus with those EVFs that I sometimes ignore focus peaking and magnification altogether. 

Seems a bit silly to put a cheap, used lens on a pricy camera but the whole point of a great camera body is how well it fits in one's hands and how much fun it is to use. The whole point of a great camera lens is that it gets out of the way and lets one shoot in the style desired without letting any egregious flaws diminish the quality of the final product. Iris slicing sharpness is not always my highest priority parameter in a lens. 

I am always brought back to reality when it comes to lenses and our collective (and misguided) desire to always have the very best, by the thought of how excruciating it would be to take a casual walk with a camera bag filled with Zeiss Otus lenses. Or a bag full of Sigma Art Series high speed primes. The happy reality of working with the old, manual Contax lenses makes photography and walking about aimlessly as fun as it can be. 

Sign in a soon to be opened, new restaurant on 2nd St. 

I ate my multi-grain super toast with intense purpose today. 

It was good.

Checking in with my downtown mannequin friend. Late evening.

One of the many wonderful things I like about Austin

is the high proportion of truly fit people who live here.

Not just young people but also 75 and 80 year old marathoners

and pools full of former Olympians as well as people just out walking for fitness and pleasure. 

While we have peripheral 

suburbs filled with regular, chubby Americans it's so 

refreshing to see fit people all over the place. 

Maybe, subconsciously, that's why I'm putting my

camera bag on diet today...