My brief affair with current medium format digital cameras has come to an end. I tried to make it work. Really, I did.

 

I am in no way a neophyte when it comes to medium format digital cameras and the general practices of using them. The image above was done with one of Mamiya's attempts, circa 2007-2009. As a camera reviewer/writer for Studio Professional Magazine I enjoyed extended use of various Phase One cameras and Leaf Aptus cameras. I even spent some time with the Leica S system.  The difference between the CCD sensor-ed cameras from earlier days and the current CMOS offerings by Fuji, in their GFX line, rests on two things. The first is the the increase in both resolution and high ISO noise performance while the second is the $10,000 to $20,000 price drop from the bleeding edge days until today. You can now buy a used Fuji 50+ megapixel "medium format" (just barely...) camera for around $2,000 to $2,500; depending on the mood of the markets.

When one of my friends bought the GFX50Sii he thought he'd give it a try and see if it was much better than his current high res digital camera which, like most others, is based on a 35mm sensor size. Being affluent and able to turn on a dime he decided in short order that a newly released version of the 100 megapixel Fuji camera might suit him better. He jumped on the new product and offered me his scantly used 50+ megapixel model for a bargain price. I bought some extra batteries because I'd heard through the (accurate) grapevine that the bigger Fuji cameras sucked down battery power voraciously. That's also quite true. 

When the camera stores had sales on Fuji GFX lenses I bought the 50mm f3.5 and the "kit-ish" 35-70mm zoom. I quickly decided that 70mm was not going to be long enough for portraits so I looked around and played with a number of candidates. Having spent most of my budget for cameras on various  Leica camera bodies and lenses I looked for older lenses that might fit the bill for the MF camera. I stumbled onto the Pentax 645 AF lenses and I have to say that several of them are at least as good, optically, as some of the popular Fuji GFX lenses. I'll quickly add, for the naysayers, that none were as good, wide open, as the Fuji 110 f2.0. That is a nice lens. Pricey and heavy but optically very nice. 

I used the camera and the lenses on a number of involved photoshoots and, for the most part, I found the files to be at least as good as the images coming out of the Leica SL2 that I've owned for the last four years. But not much better. Certainly not remarkably better. If pushed I might say that the difference added up to about 1 or 2 % --- if every parameter was optimal and I could work with great care. 

But here's the deal. The Fuji GFX50Sii just didn't feel anywhere as sturdy and reliable as the camera I'd been using. Even the SD card slots are upside down (two is on the top, one is on the bottom. The opposite of every other camera with two card slots that I've used...). Even with Fuji lenses it's not a focusing speed demon. It makes contrast detect AF Leica SLs look fast by comparison. Then there is the unreliable performance from the camera if it is ever used in direct sun with an ambient temperature over 85° Fahrenheit. I've had the high temperature/thermometer icon go on sometimes in as quickly as fifteen minutes on a hot day. Go out shooting on any day with the "mercury" over 100f and you will quickly find that you are shooting on borrowed time. 

And then there are the batteries. The charged life reminded me of the painful days of the early Sony A7 series cameras and their tiny, weak batteries. Most pros I met out in the field who were shooting with those early Sony cameras (myself included) had a handful,  or maybe even a dozen spare batteries waiting for their 15 minutes of fame in one of the cameras before exhausting themselves and having to embrace a recharge. And, glory be, my Fuji GFX was in the same ballpark. 

Finally, the menus suck. Never drive a car that's faster and better than the one you own or you'll be disappointed with yours for as long as you own it. In the camera world I might say, where menus are concerned, that you should never shoot with a current Leica SL series camera if you plan on sticking with a Fuji GFX. The difference in menus is about the same as either having a clear and concise interface versus learning to read Klingon presented via a nasty and poorly designed font. Outrageous that menus have become so unwieldy and complex. And ugly.

While I got some good work out of the GFX I'll be un-modest here and say that it's mostly because I understand most camera operation basics and I spent time getting the lighting just right --- which is camera independent. When I finished my big group shot of the sixteen doctors with the downtown skyline in the background, last month, I was pretty much over any good feelings I may have had about the camera. 

The camera and the attendant lenses have now all been sold. The warm and happy feeling that this provides me is ... comfortable. If a job comes up that can't be done with an SL2, and a sensor with nearly 50 megapixels, then it's probably not the right job for me anymore. And that makes me happy. 

The ongoing purge of gear is all part of my current mania to pare down the excess inventory, simplify my professional and hobbyist life, and to stop thinking that I need to have every conceivable base covered by the appropriate photo gear. Might have been true when we were all professional generalists back in the 1980s and 1990s but now? Forget about it. 

Additional silver lining of no longer being a "Digital Medium Format" photographer? A lot more space in the storage cabinets. Who knew that negative space would be more comfortable?

The reason so many of us might be attracted to medium format digital cameras, especially since they are now so affordable, has to be our memory of the film MF cameras with their generous 6x6cm or 6x7cm film "sensors".. The geometry and size of the film formats gave us a lot more than just resolution. It also provided us with a different look and a different ramping of depth of field --- which made many subjects look so much more elegant. The current Fuji MF sensors are less than half the size of those in their film ancestors and not that much bigger than the 35mm size of most full frame digital cameras. Add faster lenses for the smaller sensor cameras and you've got marginal differences in the looks you can get. 

I'm waiting until some company designs and brings to market an affordable 6x6cm digital sensor medium format camera. That would be MF the way the photographic gods intended. And a sensor size that would make much more interesting photographs.

In the meantime I might go over and check out the new Hasselblad offerings. I hear the MF bodies are beautifully designed, feel much more solid, and the menu layout is even better than that in the current Leicas. If that's even possible.... But maybe I'll just continue to enjoy my four year journey amongst various Leica offerings. They are much more fun. Just sayin.

Thanks for reading. 

Learned a bit of sharpening finesse from a video on YouTube by James Popsys. Old dog. New tricks.

What a wonderful day in Austin, Texas. It was 42° when I crawled out of bed and staggered to the kitchen to make a revitalizing cup of coffee. I stayed up too late last night reading a riveting book. Couldn't put it down. After getting enough caffeine coursing through my veins I pulled on a new pair of Timberland hiking boots, grabbed a favorite sweatshirt and headed out for adventure. Or, at least a good walk...

I chose an underutilized Leica SL2-S camera and a perennial favorite lens; the Sigma 45mm f2.8, and headed into downtown. My primary goal is always to have fun taking photographs but today I had the secondary goal of breaking in the new pair of boots. 

Yesterday, during some much needed downtime, I watched a new video that UK photographer, James Popsys, posted on his YouTube channel. He was going over post processing and he called out something that I do too often as being a quick way to ruin good photographs. I have tended, in the past, to use a plus setting on the clarity slider in Lightroom far too often. I think subconsciously substituting the visual effect of more midrange constrast when what I really want, most times, was more intelligent sharpening. I made note to wean myself off the clarity slider and then James hit me with a perfect tip about sharpening. 

I learned to sharpen way, way back in the early Photoshop days when some of the tools were more like blunt hammers than fine scalpels. I barely even noticed when Abobe added masking to the sharpening tools and have ignored it until James flung a dose of revelation at me. I really didn't understand what purpose masking would serve in sharpening (even though the Photoshop version is called "Unsharp Mask."). 

Using the masking slider in Lightroom allows you to fine tune what tones/intersections will be sharpened and what will be left alone. Leave the masking at zero and the program tries to sharpen everything. Not just the subject of the image that you might want sharpened. But when you sharpen everything you also end up sharpening noise and artifacts. Which then makes you dependent on the added step of messing with noise reduction when, many times, you don't really need to. If you use the masking slider well.

The secret is so simple. More slider = larger details and tonal intersections get sharpened instead of tiny and visually inconsequential data. Less slider = increasingly includes smaller details such as the aforementioned noise in the file. Wanna see how much or little the masking slider will affect? Hold down the option key (on a Mac) while sliding the control and you'll see an inverted, black and white version of the image and you can see how, when you move the slider to the right, it ignores smaller details and instead only changes bigger details. It's a revelation. 

What I found right off the bat with my new information was that my skies looked more natural and less crunchy. The big details that draw one's eyes were satisfyingly sharp while the small details that don't really register stayed smoother and more realistic. Here's a link for James's video covering this and a number of other post processing tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUbzmWfQFmk&t=825s

He has also convinced me to pay much more attention to luminance in the HSL panels when fine-tuning color in files. But you can watch that part for yourself. 

I tried using the masking in sharpening on all the files I processed from my walk today and was impressed with the improved subtly of the finished files. See what you think.

Today I started my walk by heading over to Torchy's Tacos on Second Street for a bacon, egg and cheese taco on a flour tortilla. That, and a small cup of coffee. Business was slow there this morning. I guess everyone was already out shopping. Being as how it's Black Friday and all. My taco came out quickly and it was enormous. Packed with eggs. Overflowing. Fork necessitating. Napkin swamping. And delicious. 

It was just the protein hit I was looking for. I headed East and dropped by the JW Marriott Hotel to use their superb restroom facilities before walking across the Congress Ave. Bridge and heading South toward the trendy shopping and dining area they now called SOCO. (Yeah. Kinda dumb. South Congress. Right. We get it.). The whole half mile of the street with the fashionable shops and "fine" dining choices was packed with people. Mostly visitors from out of town, judging by their excitement at seeing everyday excesses of Austin's post-hippie-cowboy culture.

I shot a mix of black and white and color and had a blast sliding through the crowds with as much grace as I could muster. Like photographic ballroom dancing. At the end of my long walk the temperature for the day crested around 65° and the sun was lighting up everything. I headed home to see if there was any pecan pie left. In a fit of muddled but optimistic thinking I decided a big wedge of pie would make a perfect lunch. And it did.

the mannequins are ready for the holidays.

and the holiday parties. If you blow this up every single sequin on the dress is well defined and edgy.

For part of the walk I was interested in trying out my black and white chops.

Since I am happily well adjusted (mentally) I found that I could easily switch between black and white and color when the subjects would benefit from one mode or the other. It's not that hard. 

Two things I have never understood about Yeti. Their advertising and their prices.

But here's their Austin showcase. Right at the intersection of S. Congress Ave. and Barton Springs Rd. 

deep in the heart of SOCO I found a bevy of mannequins surrounded by holiday decor. I tried out my skills. The images would look better, I think, if blow up to a couple of feet by a couple more feet. 

Your call.

holiday wall art at the famous Continental Club. 

That's where we shot the Billy Joe Shaver music video that won 

the country music video awards one year. I was the DP on that project.

It was very cool. Steve Mimms was the director.

Kendra Scott wasted no time in getting here holiday decor in gear.

just the present with which to ingratiate yourself with your favorite spouse or mistress....

interesting packages of tea at one shop in SOCO...

Purchased one and sent it to a blogger who tends to overthink... a lot of things. 

Nope. Not me. I rarely think things through. Just ask my attorney...

Youthful appreciation of art on the street.

A new way to shoot on the street. Set the camera for f8. Set the shutter speed to 1/500th. Set ISO to a wide-ranging automatic setting. Blaze way with abandon. Next time we'll work on finding more interesting subjects...

way to block the entire sidewalk with one extended family. Not mine...

the sign in the center says it all....

A couple at the street facing bar at Jo's Coffee. Just chilling out and watching the endless show of people walk by. Pretty good idea.

If it's under 68° the big, puffy down jackets are a must have!!!!

Always wanted to see what ISO 12,500 looked like in one of the restrooms at Jo's. 

I guess it looks like this...

This building, on my route, is a complete mystery to me. No signage. No windows. No signs of human activity. maybe the headquarters of an invading, superior race of lizard people? Eerie. 

I know these balls of concrete exist to prevent people from driving their cars and trucks into the sides of buildings but they still seem out of place to me. I guess it takes balls to deal with bad traffic...

That's it for today. A marvelous walk. With luck we'll be back in the pool tomorrow getting some real exercise. I've got some pie pounds I need to work off. I think a three hour hike was a good start. Now off looking to see if there is still more pie. Pecan pie. The best pie.

I did  search on the web to find out what the human limits per day of pecan pie might be but my research came up empty. I guess the real number is....unlimited.

Hope you all had a fun and vibrant holiday filled with all kinds of food and photos. Skip black Friday and wait for the 2029 models to arrive. That's one plan.
 

Oh darn. Did I forget the affiliate links again? Dear me...

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm thankful that camera introductions have slowed down enough so we can take time to enjoy what we've already got.

2005-2013. Those were heady years for camera introductions! Many a baleful and plodding blogger paid his mortgage introducing camera lovers to an ever expanding and ever "improving" flow of cameras; each camera model arriving with just enough new features and performance boosts to make a recently purchased model seem old, obsolete and borderline unusable. This, in turn, prompted photographers and camera lovers to keep chasing after each new camera model because of their fear, in commercial circles, that they would be missing out on a feature that clients might find useful --- which might give an opportunity to competitors who were quicker to upgrade. Amateurs felt that any additional advantage would help them make better and better photographs. The bloggers who incessantly praised new cameras didn't really care whether a newer camera was better than an older one as long as their reviews could generate revenue through their affiliate links. 

It was a crazy time in the industry. The turnover of gear was astounding. The ability to spend seemed bottomless. But in truth? It was mostly money down the drain. The benefits of the churn rewarded the camera makers and their co-conspirators; the recipients of affiliate cash, much, much more than it ever did the working photographers or the people who were trying to polish up their camera skills. 

And, if you go back and read the blogs most of the writers postured and pretended that the "new" camera was so much better that they found themselves on the fence and might be buying one with their own money. But, most never did follow through and as soon as the access to the sample loaner expired so then did their interest in the new model. But that was okay for them because it was a time in which a new camera or lens from another maker was already arriving via the Fedex truck. 

Hoodwinked by persuasive writing so many people rushed to buy based on the sweet words of "reviewers" who had never worked a real photo job in their lives. Or even worse, people were taking advice from writers who had tried their hands at photography only to not succeed. To not make the grade. To not have successful encounters with cameras! 

Pretty darn amazing. My least favorite type of manipulation was perpetrated by "influencers" who never even touched the cameras before writing their reviews.  Bold. Insightful? Manipulative!!!! But I guess it's all fair game if money is involved. 

But we seem to have turned the corner. At least for a while. Many regular folks are realizing that the cameras they bought three years ago, five years ago, even ten years ago still work perfectly well. Some older cameras, by my measure, are even better than the latest models. Or at least they are less complex in actual use --- which counts for a lot.

About four years ago I bought a Leica SL camera. That's a camera that was introduced to the market back in October of 2015. Nearly ten years ago. It's a solid, full frame, 24 megapixel mirrorless camera which lacks a few features people take for granted these days but is, frankly, the most fun and best performing camera I have ever used. I liked it so much I bought a second one as a back-up. Then?  Covid interceded and camera makers slowed down the pipeline of new introductions and, since there was no compelling reason to get rid of the first SL, or the second one I bought as a back up, I had time to really get to know and appreciate the original. 

And if push came to shove today, in very late 2024, if I had to sell one of the Leicas the SL2 I bought later would go ---long before either of the two SL camera bodies. The older model is just more or less perfect ---- for me. I have a friend who works professionally and bought one of the first Nikon D850s to hit the market. He could well afford to buy any camera on the market right now without breaking a sweat but when he compares the new options against his tried and true D850 he sees absolutely no compelling reasons to "upgrade." 

The basic fact is that there have been very few actual/noticable improvements in cameras, image sensor design, or camera firmware over the last five years. At least not improvements that make a difference for the grand spectrum of our actual practices. And even comparisons with older cameras show that the newest gear has gained at most very small, almost imperceptible improvements in the way photographs look coming from any of the comparable cameras. People have learned now that it's okay to step back, take a breather, and enjoy the use of the cameras they've already had, and mastered, instead of being on the prowl for the next one. Which is great for the end user because the next one might not benefit them much --- if at all. 

While this line of thought is true for most professional photographers (I'll exempt sports photographers who've been brainwashed into believing that ever higher frame rates are always mission critical) it's even more true for the folks that don't need to earn a living working with their cameras. For them, if the camera did what they wanted it to when they bought it, and it still delivers the photographs they want today, then for all intents and purposes there is no reason at all for them to lose money trading in a long time friend for a pricey new friend of unproven quality. It's probably the case that their D800, D810, Canon 5D3 or Sony whatever works perfectly well for all of their uses and all of the targets for which their output is intended. 

So, today I am thankful for all the things most happy adults are thankful for. A great kid. A wonderful spouse. Life in a fun city. Good friends. Health, and more. But I am also thankful that we aren't subject to the near endless equipment churn we endured in the past. That we now have time and space to appreciate what we already have in the camera bags --- and now have the bandwidth to relax and enjoy the gear that has been a steady companion for years instead of months.

That's a relaxing prospect for this blogger in particular. I have little to no interest in writing about an endless progression of new cameras. And even less interest in begging for money via affiliate links that tout products 99% of my readers don't need and probably don't want. Refreshing.

On a more moving note..... I drove to San Antonio today to have Thanksgiving Lunch with my in-laws, my spouse and my adult son. The dinner and time spent were wonderful. No conflict. No political fired discussions. No drama. Just mutual respect and ample servings of love. But the real story is in the driving. 

The weather was perfect for driving a car. Clear, clean highways with temperatures in the 60s. I made the round trip in the Subaru Legacy Sport I bought earlier this year. With nearly seven thousand miles on the odometer I have decided that I love sedans far more than SUVs, and that every big sedan should have a big, powerful motor, and high performance tires. I averaged 80 mph on the highway while getting 30.8 mpg. The car is heavy and solid on the road with a great, low center of gravity. The way the turbo kicks in when passing other cars is amazing. And exhilarating. 

Traffic on the way home was light. I drove fast. But no faster than the rest of the other crazy Texans blazing down the highway. I'd almost forgotten how much fun driving can be when you aren't stuck in midtown traffic, or stuck in an bloaty SUV bouncing down the road on the automotive equivalent of an easy chair. Vroom. Vroom. 

Tomorrow I will be thankful for everything I wrote above but will be additionally thankful for swim practice in the morning. We didn't swim today because of the holiday. Sad. But what can you do?

Dance with the camera that brung ya? Relish the classics? It's all good.

Here's a book recommendation: David Hobby, of the Strobist.com fame, wrote a book that was published this year. It's called, "The Travel Photographer's Manifesto." It is by far the best book I've read on the subject and you can be sure that it's not just a self-serving vehicle used to print a portfolio of greatest hits because there are no photos in the entire book. Just great writing (not weird, overly fraught academic pablum) and lot of great information. I learned a ton.... and I thought I already knew everything about photography (smile emoji goes here....). I'd buy this book again in a heartbeat. David walks the walk (actually makes a living taking photographs) and talks the talk (well, I guess writes the writing....). Whatever. Just go over to Amazon and buy a copy. If you don't like it a lot then you might just be a landscape photographer ---- or an odd duck who doesn't at least think about traveling. And photographing. 

No hidden agenda here. No links to David's book. No cash in my hands.

Final Thanksgiving advice. Don't trust the writer who does love to read fiction. A favorite quote: 

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one. - George R.R. Martin

 And a sad one at that.

Night.

 

Let's talk about a fun job!

There is a medical practice here in Austin for which I've been making photographs, video and written content for nearly thirty years. There is a constant roster of sixteen doctors and each one is also a partner in the practice. The jobs range from the typical "doctor in white coat looking congenial and concerned" to event coverage and photos of their different locations/buildings for their website. 

To a person they are all pleasant, collegial with me, and down to earth. When one doctor retires the rest take a good long time to interview, interview and interview potential new additions to the practice. It's fun to watch. They only want to bring in fellow doctors that they'd enjoy hanging out and socializing with. 

About fifteen years ago they decided they'd like to do a group photo for use on holiday cards and various promos. Their marketing staff decided on a location which had as its background the downtown skyline of Austin. It was on the front plaza of a big event center just south of Lady Bird Lake (which used to be named, Town Lake). The plaza has a  big arch and, in the late afternoon I could arrange for the group to be in open shade. Without the building the doctors would have been in the same sun angle as the downtown skyscrapers. The shade of the building kept the docs from being directly lit with harsh sun. 

The problem for the photographer to solve was that the open shade was three to four stops darker than the full sun on the buildings. A correct exposure for the buildings would leave the docs in the dark. Obviously, they needed to be lit to a level that would compete with the sun. We'd need powerful fill flash.

The first year we did this kind of photo I used a battery powered flash with two heads. It was called an Elinchrom Ranger RX. The battery powered generator put out 1200 watt seconds and the power could be evenly distributed as 600 watt seconds to each flash head. Nice. Powerful. Just right. 

With enough power you could distribute the light across 16 subjects and gain f11 @ whatever your highest sync speed might be. Enough to evenly light the foreground while maintaining a good exposure on the skyline. 

Over the years I made use of several different flash systems. After the Elinchrom I tried one year with a set of Alien Bees monolights and one of the Alien Bees battery power packs. Those power packs used sealed lead acid batteries which made the whole combination quite heavy. But it all worked. When it worked. 

The next time we did the images in that space (about once every four years) I used a Profoto battery powered system which consisted of a battery box/flash generator and two flash heads. The power was lower, at 600 watt seconds, but we were able to time the near end of day light on the buildings with the full power output of the Profoto units to get the right balance of exposure.

This year I used two Godox AD200Pro flashes firing into a dual, bare bulb head for my main fill light. It was less power than I'd used in the past but I knew we could make it work by 

 

Sea Change. Getting rid of lots of stuff. Feels good to downsize the inventory from time to time.

From the fashion shows at the Louvre. 1994

Certain photographers who worked professionally through the decades have a propensity for accumulating more and more stuff as time goes on. I count myself among the worst offenders. I've rarely met a lens or a camera body in which I wasn't at least passingly interested. Recently I looked into a drawer that holds most of my lenses and realized that things have gotten a bit out of hand. Especially when it comes to vintage 50mm lenses. Then there's my whole flirtation over the last year and a half with the Fuji medium format cameras and various MF lenses. I also found that I have too many big LED fixtures but that's not really my fault. I found newer ones with better, more consistent color and in one stroke they made my previous, first line LED lights obsolete. But the bottom line is that all this stuff is too much to keep up with and needs to go. 

A friend of mine offered to sell the Fuji stuff, and assorted lenses, on Fred Miranda for me. That's great. I'll do much better than trading it in on store credit here in Austin. But everything else? I just want to move it out of the physical space and the mental space. If I make money on it that's swell. If I don't that's no sweat either.

Which brings me to today's subject: The cost of mind space as it relates to diverse photo gear. 

It dawned on me when Leica discontinued M240 batteries as retail items ( you can still order them as parts, thank you! European consumer protection laws!!!) that having lots of different cameras means having to have lots of different batteries on hand. And though they last a long time they are, in the end, a perishable item. Batteries have a finite life and they also require routine maintenance during their lives. Lithium batteries need to be charged and used from time to time to ensure their long term health. Spread that around several different camera systems and you might end up with lots of batteries to think about. That takes up a share of brain power.  Having to keep track of them all is more trouble than it might be worth. One reason I love my Leica SL and Q stuff is that they all take exactly the same kind of battery and the batteries for these current and recent cameras keep improving (more power) as they become more affordable (price drop from $285 to $200 for the SCL-4 versus the newer SCL-6). One battery type works in everything from the original SL to the SL2 to the SL2-S to the Q2. The newer SCL-6 batteries I have been buying are the same as those that come with the (on perennial back-order) Q3-43 camera, should it ever arrive. But the batteries for the big Fuji 50Sii are a whole different kettle of carp and are disappointing when it comes to the amount of charge delivered to the camera. They just run out of power too soon. 

Having used the Fuji 50Sii for the better part of two years now I'm ready to see it gone. The files from the camera can be great but....  In the Texas heat I get temperature warnings almost every day that I try to use it outside. Not right away but frequently enough to assure me that it's not really a "professional" piece of gear. Good in an air conditioned studio but that's as far as it goes. The focus ability isn't what I would call quick and....the files are just about as good as those from my SL2 and I anticipate that they won't be any better than the SL3 camera I've been eyeing. I guess technique still matters.

All the manual focus lenses I've accrued for the Fuji are Pentax 645 lenses that I use with an adapter. The lenses are all quite good but everything is too heavy. They all would have made sense in earlier days when I was working more with assistants and also more frequently in the studio but now they are just an unnecessary burden. The sooner they leave my orbit the less I have to consider.

The general equipment purge is delicious. As I close in on complete retirement from the commercial field I find that many of the previous rationales I held onto for keeping certain gear in inventory are no longer apt. They no longer make sense. An example? Well, when I was photographing endless dress rehearsals at the theatre, shooting mainly from mid-house, I needed longer lenses. I depended on a series of 70-200mm lenses from various makers. The last one was the Panasonic S-Pro 70-200mm f4.0. It was rugged and reliable and I felt that I could not deliver the tighter images I needed in the mix without it. 

I stopped photographing dress rehearsal in the big theater back in early 2021 and, miraculously, I've found absolutely no need for any lenses longer than 90-100mm in my daily work. The 70-200mm left the studio several years ago and I've never looked back. I harbor no longing for a new one or a new variation. Around the same time I stopped doing multi-camera video productions and no longer need an assortment of microphones, gimbals and additional tripods. On one of our last video projects of a live concert production I was setting up five 4K video cameras. Four ran in unmanned set-ups while one was used as a main, or follow camera. When I quit doing that kind of work it orphaned three or four tripods and other assorted gear in short order. 

These days I am mostly doing environmental portraits for companies. I never need a lens longer than 90mm and I never really need lenses shorter than 35mm for 99.99% of the commissions. It's a pretty tight window of focal length requirements. But I do keep some wider lenses around for the errant street or tourist-type city scapes; just in case. 

In the past I would have said that our gear lust mirrors the parabola of our enthusiasm for the art form. We begin tentatively and then, as we gain more knowledge and money we buy more and more stuff, experiment with a wider range of options and generally expand out to, or past, our comfort zones. Only when we pull back would our equipment lust go out like the tide. I would have said this but now I know better. I know it's quite possible to maintain the enthusiasm and passion but at the same time pursue a narrower and narrower selection of necessary tools. And, if this is true of cameras and lenses I think it is also equally true of lighting gear and lighting modifiers. 

Stuff left the studio yesterday and today. The space looks bigger now. Less cluttered. Big enough for a couple of billiard tables (God forbid!!!) but not big enough for an indoor Olympic pool... There are now fewer decisions to be made when I get ready to walk out the door to work or just to make fun photographs for myself. And that's a good thing. The next purge will have to be extra tripods and also light stands. The studio feels over run by C-Stands. And heavy duty light stands of all kinds. 

More and more often I find myself going out into the world with a beater Leica SL and an older Carl Zeiss 50mm f1.4. Not the big Milvus version but the much more manageable previous model. Seems like a good combination for most things. And it falls nicely into my routine. 

Marie Kondo had a good mantra. She suggested evaluating your possessions and only keeping the ones that continually bring you joy. It's a tough standard but you have to start somewhere. 

Have you winnowed stuff down to a manageable pile? It's never too late or early to start...

 

Revisiting a post from a recent blog at a different address: "Old dogs gotta learn new tricks if they want to do business in a fast evolving economy. Can't rest on old laurels...."

It's human nature to find a way to do a job, have some success, and then doggedly try to do things the same way; over and over again. Some of us seem to be highly resistant to change -- no matter what that intransigence costs us. I remember, during my 40 year career, the transition from shooting everything on 4x5 film to shooting almost everything on medium format film, and then transitioning again to 35mm film. When we learned to get everything just right on our film cameras we barely had time to take a deep breath before we had to do the whole process again for digital. And we went through many iterations of digital before real innovation slowed down.  

Lighting too has changed. At the outset of my career studio electronic flash systems (heads and packs) were frightfully expensive, heavy as boat anchors and fraught with danger. Over time lighting units got smaller, lighter, less dangerous and more controllable. Then, all of a sudden, we were offered lots of units that had features like 1/10th of a stop power control, reliable radio triggers built in, and....big change....the ability to do powerful flash exposures with battery powered units. No more extension cords. No plugging stuff into the wall sockets and praying the circuit breakers wouldn't trip. Then we started experimenting with LED light, etc, etc. 

Now I am convinced that the majority of basic photography projects can be done and done well with a late model iPhone. But for some reason duffers want to make everything as complicated as it was back in the days of film, and lights that had few, if any options beyond on and off, full, half and quarter power. Most of the duffer-ism stems from a profound resistance to learning new stuff. On so many levels. 

Portrait photographers no longer delivery paper proofs. Wanna see which portrait you like best? There's a private web gallery for that. Want to deliver thousands of high resolution (big) files to your clients? There are inexpensive and easy to use file transfer apps you can use. But you'll need to upgrade your internet access if you are still locked into a cheap, slow service. 

Commercial photographers are transitioning to take advantage of newer file enhancement features that are made possible by A.I. which are being incorporated into existing programs as new features. And we use them more and more. I've hit a tipping point at which it's easier, better and more advantageous for my clients if I photograph their portraits against a neutral background and then composite them into an appropriate pre-shot background using some of the new selection tools in PhotoShop. Bitch all you want about A.I. but at this particular level what you are really doing is taking chance out of the equation for your business. No more endless location scouting for environmental portraits only to show up some place on a shoot day and find: The weather sucks. The building you were going to use as a background just got demolished. The shoot day "features" record breaking heat/record breaking cold/high winds/a protest march or something else that lays waste to  your clever schedule. 

The business of photography is, at its core, all about business. Offering products and services that clients need, want and value, and for which they will pay well. The new barriers to entry are no longer access to gear or access to start-up capital. Rather, the new barriers: are failing to understand how to incorporate new tech, new image styles and new points of view into work you want to sell to clients. How to shoot it all efficiently and how to bill for it.

There is a prevailing myth that no one is making money any more by creating and selling photography directly to clients  --- or through an ad agency or P.R. agency to clients. While it's true that anything which can be competently done with the camera in a phone will be done by the clients in house there are still enormous opportunities out there for people who keep up with the progression of technology and business practices. Our fees for creation and our usage fees for licensing have never been higher or met with less resistance. 

It's no longer enough to show up with an 11x14 inch printed portfolio of black and white images you did 20 years ago to try and secure a job. Nobody really cares about that. They want to see absolutely current work and they want to see it right now, and on their phones. Nobody is looking for your printed invoice to come in the snail mail. They want a digital invoice now and a way to instantly pay for your services with a corporate credit card. 

I had lunch this last Wednesday with an art director  who I have worked with on hundreds of assignments over the last 30+ years. We were sitting in a new restaurant here and he asked me to excuse him if he got a text. He was art directing a food shoot with a photographer in Houston, Texas who specializes in photographing seafood dishes in his well equipped studio. We ate our appetizers and he got a text with an attached test image on it. We looked at the image and bounced a few small suggestions back and forth before my art director friend sent the photographer some quick feedback. This happened several times more during lunch and by the time we left the art director felt like the food shoot a couple hundred miles away was going well. No need for travel. No need to wait around for approvals. 

Everything moves faster now. Everything changes now. Faster and faster. 

We don't buy the latest cameras just because they are pretty, we buy them because they have features we value which make the work faster, more efficient, easier to work with in post. 

And we're not buying into the idea that no one wants to pay good money anymore for good photography. In fact, we raise our prices by 7-10% per year and I will say that I've had zero push back on prices this entire year. Everyone gets that there's inflation. The clients charge their clients more. They expect the same from us. 

Sure. If you want to take your Nikon FM out and shoot some office buildings with a 28mm lens and some color film, and then delivery machine prints from a warehouse store you are probably going to have big problems being taken seriously or being paid much of anything. And if you are inordinately slow because you've refused to adopt technology or advanced training in necessary processes you'll probably never be invited back to work with clients who endured your painfully slow processes again. 

I've said it a thousand times. Photography is like staying in shape for swimming. You can't go months or years without regular swim practices and expect to do much more than not drown. You can't go months or years without practicing the craft of photography and expect to do much more than waste everyone's time. The more you practice the better you get ---- if you practice the things that add value. For the client. 

My list would be: Use the right camera. If you need lots of dynamic range, the best image stabilization and class leading low noise at higher ISO settings you'll need to spend accordingly -- or suffer from painfully involved file salvation in post processing. You'll need the right lenses for your work. If you are an architectural photography, for example, you'll need lenses that are wide enough to give you some room for perspective control in post. You'll need lenses that are sharp all the way into the corners because clients want the corner details to be just as sharp as the center of frame details. If you need lights you need lights that are fast to set up, highly reliable and easy to control. A couple of Vivitar 283 flashes just won't cut it. And you need to have researched your field to understand what the clients who practice in it want from your engagement. They are not paying to subsidize your guess work. 

But you also have to stay culturally current. Constantly researching great work on the web. Embracing current movies, music, art and social structures. Being able to speak to people without showcasing anachronistic tells. Not playing too much Frank Sinatra at your contemporary fashion shoot...

My list of important stuff would include money spent on liability insurance. And a targeted web presence. And apps that make it easy to get paid. And a professional attitude. And lots and lots of ongoing training.

In the "old days" we'd redo botched shoots if we needed to and that might make the clients of that period happy again. Now with deadlines measured in hours instead of days it's more and more critical not to fail in the first place. Some clients have their backs against the wall and there's no margin for re-dos. No time.

I had coffee last Monday with a 62 year old event photographer. He's right up to speed. His latest client wanted images from on-stage speaker presentations as the speaker was still on stage speaking. He set up a connection between his camera and his phone that allowed for immediate transfers of the files he was shooting from camera to phone which he could them directly send to the client's marcom staff via the venue's high speed wi-fi. Result? Happy client who was posting to social media before the presenters even left the stage. No time spent diddling around with inconsequential edits or stumbling blocks. Happy clients pay quickly and then invite you back again for another round. 

Most of my clients are half my age. Most of them are up to speed on what can be done with A.I. tech and the latest tools in the Adobe Suite. Most of them grew up with constant phone access. Telling them how we used to do it in the old days is a ticket to irrelevance. And lost opportunity. 

If you aren't constantly learning you aren't running in place --- you are going backwards. 

Move fast. Don't break things. Don't look backwards. Staying current is staying profitable. 

Revisiting the VSL blog. Some notes. 2024 has been an interesting year.

I put this blog on hold back in July but the last five months seems like so much longer a time. I thought at that point that I'd said everything I had to say about photography and thought, perhaps, that it would spur other formerly interesting bloggers to renew their enthusiasm and provide me (and everyone else) with some new, good content. Something fun to read between appointments or while waiting for the sun to get in just the right position. But no. I fear most photo bloggers are just aging out, have lost their spark and are just settling in to doing the only thing they really ever mastered. Writing about writing.

It would be easy to blame it all on the camera companies for not coming out with marvelous new "treasures" every quarter. The equipment reviews are so much easier to write...  But many writers have just thrown up their hands and walked away. Mostly because the advertising revenues are drying up. The ones who remain seem to think that now is the time just for reminiscing. Gliding into oblivion while rummaging around in their closet of memories looking for a cozy cardigan, woven together with vignettes of the past, to keep them company while rocking in a favorite chair during the short, dark afternoons. 

Can some writing, no matter how detailed and punctilious, be well described as...sedentary? I imagine so. 

I was buying into the story that photography as it was meant to be practiced was in hastening decline. But then I took the cure. What is the cure? Suiting up in your favorite casual clothes, tying those walking shoes with double knots so they don't come loose just as something exciting happens in front of you, grabbing a well worn and favorite camera with a sparky lens on the front and heading out the door to walk the urban streets and see what's new. And on so many of those walks I encountered... real photographers. Not just keyboard jockeys writing multiple theses about those "golden years" but vibrant, young, old, and mostly enthusiastic practitioners who were just out for joyous walks in the real world. Well, as much as you could call Austin, Texas the real world. 

So, I've spent the last five months not hunched over a keyboard and not occasionally having to toss out nasty anonymous comments from one particular person who has made it his new working from his parents' basement job to tell me I'm an asshole. It's been refreshing. 

Here I'll make a somewhat sad confession. I missed two things in the five month hiatus. One was good written content specifically about photography, taking photographs and playing with photographs. There is so little out there that I sheepishly, from time to time, took a break from endless YouTube scrolling to go back and read my own work from years or even a decade ago. And some of it was good. At least I thought so. The second thing I missed was the straightforward process of writing. Of sitting down at my office desk and "talking" to my vast collection of friends, peers, colleagues and strangers who used to come by this blog to agree, disagree, preach at me about manners, and generally supply mostly altruistic give and take. My fingers missed caressing the keyboard. I am in the process, here, of warming up the fingers and reacquainting them with the pleasures of typing with gusto. Most of all though, I missed the regular and well considered comments all these friends and peers left. Well, except for the aforementioned asshole...

What have I been up to? Mostly the same old stuff. Driving the new staff car around to little Texas towns to catalog their hurried transition into new bedroom communities. Working with the same clients I've written about over the years. Billing outrageous amounts. Spending most of it on new toys. Trying my best to understand investing and it's scary opposite, withdrawing my own money and spending it. Which is actually kind of fun.

Have I wholesale switched camera systems? Naw. Still soldiering on with the two Leica systems. One new camera has been added to the mix but also a current Leica model. So, I've been using one brand of cameras almost exclusively since 2020. It's a record of consistency in camera ownership for me. I thought I'd chaff at sticking with a routine --- but no. It's fun to lean on the familiarity of the cameras and menus when you might enjoy turning off parts of your brain and just using your gear via muscle memory.

I've come back online here (my intention is to be more sporadic than in the past) to talk about a few things that I, as a photographer, am grappling with. One is the glide into irrelevance that I think we all experience once we've logged enough years and lived through so many revolutions in our practice; our profession. Another theme is how to maximize the fun of photography in an age of distractions and the utter diffusion of individual work into the ever-widening arena of shared images. 

If you believe the propaganda from most hobbyists, bloggers, V-loggers, pundits, for profit photo websites, etc. You would think the entire world of photographers is hellbent on discarding all of their traditional, big tech cameras and rushing to buy the digital equivalent of point and shoot cameras as represented by popular models from the 1990s film days. A mad rush toward Ricoh GR111 variants and the ever elusive Fuji X100VIs. In the retro film space that would be a gold rush to find Contax, Nikon, Olympus and Canon point and shoot film eaters from the same time period. 

I won't be writing nice stuff. I won't spend much time here digging into the past. All we have and all we are able to work with is NOW. The past is gone. The future is not promised to anyone. Now is the only thing that really interests me. I don't care if you used to be the president of your high school chess club or if you made 10,000 8x10 inch prints of something in your old black and white darkroom. Tell me what you are interested in right now. Show me. Archiving is something to get around to after you are dead. 

One thing I'm really not tolerant of this time around is the idea that everything is too expensive. It is and it's not. If you are here and you have the time to read blogs about photography and other hobbies you are probably not a paycheck to paycheck working person anymore. You may think new cameras are expensive but you might also have just spent $50K on a new car without blinking. It's all about perspective. Not the skewed perspective of keystoning buildings and tilted walls but with priorities about what to spend money on. Let's not dwell on price here. Let's burrow down to the actual gear and not the perils of acquiring it. I think if you've made it to a certain age you might have more fun just saying, "Fuck it. I'll buy what I want." and be done with it. Life is too short to pinch all the pennies till they scream. 

I'm writing this blog as much for me as I am for you. I don't charge anything to you. There is no firewall.  No affiliate links to manipulate your buying business. No Patreon begging. But on the flip side I won't tolerate much nasty or uniformed feedback. Just sayin'

Hope life is treating you well. More mannequins and more tipping over high rise buildings to come...

But circling back to the current cameras markets... if you talk to working professionals and people who do photography as a real art, with a profit intention attached, you'll find that full frame and medium format, current, interchangeable lens cameras are still the mainstay. The world at large is actually filled with endless Sony A7, A-something variations along with Nikon full frame Z models and (hard to keep up with model designations) Canon full frame cameras. The one brand that consistently sells out of everything they bring to market? Well, statistically, that would be the Leica M, Q and SL cameras. Just try snagging a new model of your choice at any certified retailer's shop. Or online. I'm beginning to think they invented "the waiting list." And mostly you'll find that the good photographers are still working and making money. Weird, huh?

I spent a lot of time over the past five months working with and trying to play with the Fuji S50ii medium format cameras and a drawer that's filling up quickly with adapted Pentax 645 lenses as well as the occasional GFX lens. I've used the MF cameras on five or six daylong commercial assignments, mostly doing environmental portraits and I have to say that I much prefer working with the Leica SL variants for most jobs. The Fuji menus are a mess. The operational handling is profoundly middle brow. And worst of all, if you have the camera in direct sunlight and the temperatures are higher than 85° Fahrenheit you WILL get a temperature warning followed in short order by a complete camera shut down. Not a good thing in a "professional" tool. Added to that is battery life that makes most other cameras look competent in their power handling performance. 

If I get around to it I'd like to write about the differences in handling, and also end results, between the Leica SL,  the SL2 and the SL2-S. All different from each other but all the best but in all different ways. 

I'm still swimming every day. I walk a few miles most days. I have no medical issues. And I am happy.

Hope the same for you.