A quick but happy assessment of an old lens that rivals any of the new zooms covering this focal length. If you want to use one of these you'll have to learn to manually focus.

You'll have to take my word for it but at 100% on a 5K Retina monitor 

you can see, clearly, the rivets on the metal bridge. It's actually stunning. 

Very much equal, at this focal length to the same focal 

length on both Nikon and Canon 70-200mm f2.8 lenses I've shot with. 

There is a classic focal length that I've liked since my early days in photography. It's the 135mm lens. While we've more or less bought into the idea that our 70-200mm f2.8 zoom lenses are worlds better now than the older, prime lenses of the film days my latest foray tells me that we been sold a bill of goods. The single focal length lenses from the 1980's and 1990's can be every bit as good as our $2,000 wonder lenses it's just that you'll have to put a bit of initiative into their use. You'll have to become proficient and quick with your manual focusing skills. 

In a moment of weakness I watched a video from DPR, hosted by Chris Nichols and featuring Canadian YouTube star, Irene Rudnyck. Irene is a portrait/glamor/fashion photographer whose images of young, attractive women have earned her a huge following. She was helping prop up Digital Photo Review by working with Mr. Nichols to provide a review on an older (but still auto focusing) 200mm f1.8 Canon lens. 

After working with the Canon lens and plumbing the depths of zero depth of field she made the comment that after a long spell of using mostly 50 and 85mm lenses she is now motivated to try working more often with longer focal length lenses. She mentioned that she thought the 135mm focal length might just be the optimum type of lens for her portrait work. See more here: Irene shoots long and fast

Her suggestion reminded me that the second lens I ever owned for an SLR was, in fact, a 135mm lens. It was a Vivitar Series One f2.8 lens and I used it for anything I couldn't cover with my first lens; a 50mm. I took the 135 on backpacking trips to Europe and also took it up to the summit of Long's Peak in Southern Colorado. It never failed me and it was so addictive to isolate subjects and see the background fall away like magic. 

So when Irene mentioned the 135mm in an appreciative way it jogged my memory and reminded me that one of my friends mentioned an older Carl Zeiss lens, made for the Contax Y/C systems was sitting on the used shelf at Precision Camera. It's the same model of lens I took with me to the Paris fashion shows back in 1994, along with a Contax camera. 

I drove up, haggled on prices, and returned home with both a 28mm and the 135mm Carl Zeiss Y/C lenses. My previous blog post was a pictorial review of the 28mm. Today, with a bit of late afternoon time on my hands I thought I'd give the 135mm Sonnar a spin around the downtown area and see if my memories of its performance match current reality. 

I used it on the front of a Lumix S1H camera, facilitated by a Fotasy lens adapter. I shot everything today at either f2.8 or f4.0. Might as well push the lens a bit since those are the f-stops I'd want to use in real life practice. 

I'll let the images speak for themselves but I am blown away by the performance of a lens one can buy for under $200 in 2021. It's very sharp and very even across the frame; even wide open. 

Flowers on the pedestrian bridge.

A crop into the center of the image just above. 

At 100% you can see the individual pollen granules on the flower's stamens.

combine this lens with the highly accurate focus peaking of the Lumix S1H

and toss in the IBIS and you have a killer walking around lens that can 

be focused quickly. 

This is a full frame shot at the closest focusing distance. 

this is a crop on the needle the lens was focused on in the images just above. 

No problems with flare. And this is wide open.

This is my "Alfred Hitchcock" frame at ISO 12800. 

this shot, and all that follow were done handheld at f2.8 with the camera 

at ISO 12800. Jpegs from the Lumix S1H. 

I'll happily settle for this kind of performance any day.

end of day. Too dark to see the buttons on the camera. 

an hour and a half spent looking and shooting.

3.5 miles of shoe leather left behind. 

Heading home for dinner with my family.

A nice end to the day.

A quick set of observations about the Panasonic S1H and the newest Sigma 85mm f1.4 Art lens.

Autumn leaves in Austin.

When I got back from swim practice yesterday morning I got right to work updating the firmware in four of my Panasonic cameras; in all three of my S1x cameras and also a nudge forward for my (wonderful) G9. The updates were quick and easy and I encountered no snags. By mid-afternoon I'd finished all my busy work and realized that while I have used the S1H for five different video projects I had, in fact, only put about 400 frames of photographs through the camera since I purchased it. I thought it might be a good afternoon to evaluate it as a still imaging camera instead of only viewing it through the prism of video.

Another recent piece of gear that hasn't gotten enough of a workout was the new version of the Sigma 85mm DN DG Art lens. This was a good opportunity to split two atoms with one electron so I checked the camera for battery freshness and memory card occupancy and headed out to walk on my usual walk. 

The day started out gray and chilly but by four in the afternoon the sun was dominant and the temperature climbed back up to the low 80's. I left my phone at home, dialed in the camera's diopter, left my glasses in the care and went out as low profile as I possibly could. It was nice to be untethered from the hive. 

When I started taking images with the S1H two things struck me on the first little burst of frames. One was how crisp and color-rich the images were; even with the standard profile engaged. The other was just how solid and well damped the shutter noise and operational noise of the camera was. It is easily the heaviest of my recent cameras and I think that even includes some heftier models like the Nikon D850. I like the density, heft and outrageously good build quality of the S1H but I don't think I'd tip over into the morass of excess and put a battery grip on this one unless I'm shooting video anchored to a tripod and need a long, long run time. 

The finder on the camera is exemplary. I thought this might be one of those instances where the camera maker tweaks the EVF to make images look better than they will in real life but when I brought the photographs into Lightroom they matched the camera looks without lifting a finger to intercede. 

Weight and bulk aside this may be the nicest camera I have ever used. It does make me wonder if the Leica SL2 could possibly be even better.... 

I love the 85mm focal length on full frame. I bought the original L version the 85mm Sigma art lens and the image quality was amazing. Just amazing. But the darn thing weighed about 35 pounds and stuck out from the front of the camera at least a couple of feet (hyperbole alert!!!) and after trying to casually carry it around it had be consigned to "paid job" or "studio only" duty. Not a good thing for such a flexible and muse-like focal length. 

I'm glad I traded the original version in for the latest one because it's Lilliputian by comparison and seems to me to be equally sharp. Of special note is the external/physical aperture ring which I have come to adore on the Panasonic Pro lenses as well. 

I tried to stay in the nonsense apertures all afternoon and early evening yesterday. Most of the images shown here were shot at f2.0 or 2.2. Sometimes I got crazy and went all the way to f4.0 but that was only in photos where I wanted to see more and more instead of less. 

Perfectly round bokeh "balls" in the background. Nice. 

Happy close up performance and mellow background bokeh add to the lens's charm.

I've started to trust my Panasonic S1x cameras more and more and none better than the S1H. In a break with all past history I've actually started using Auto ISO and I don't care where it lands, up to 6400, because I know it will be as saturated and noise free as the cameras I thought were great but only usable at 200 ISO. 

I've also found that I like using many of the L-mount lenses manually. While the Sigma is MF focus by wire it's well damped and doesn't overshoot like crazy. It does a dignified march to your optimum focus point. I have the camera set, when using manual focusing, to show me a magnified section of the frame when I grab the manual focusing ring. Using the "punch in" you really know when you've nailed the perfect focus. 

I also have the camera set up so I can push the AF button on the back of the camera and have it override the set MF to auto focus. When I release the button the focus remains glued into place. I don't use the back button focus when I use the camera's regular AF. It's just not a habit that's been ingrained yet. 

I didn't take a tripod with me but I did continue shooting after dusk. The combo of a great sensor and a fast lens, along with good IBIS meant that not having a tripod along for the ride wasn't important and didn't affect my photos. 

All in all it was a fun afternoon and I'm over the moon with the S1H. I was already in love with the lens. 

Swimming: A little over 3,000 yards in the pool this morning. A decent amount for the 50 minutes I invested. I'll bracket the day with another walk this afternoon and then we're scheduled to have Thanksgiving (Thursday) and Friday off from swimming. TRAGIC! But there it is. 

I'm on schedule to get five more days of swimming in before I go in for the Mohs surgery next Wednesday. I'm trying to put a lot of yards in the bank to tide me over for those seven doctor-mandated days of aquatic deprivation. Working on a work around already. 

Click on the images to see them bigger. 

Meditation Benches thoughtfully added by the Hiking Trail Foundation. 

Walking over Congress Ave. Bridge. Zillions and zillions of bats live underneath and come out at dusk to look for mosquito snacks. People are getting ready to try and capture images of the fast moving aerial experts with their phone cameras. 

OMG. Kirk does a landscape. Kinda.

 

Taking a break this morning to unwrap my Holiday Gifts from Panasonic. Santa came early with updates!

 

One of the many things I like about buying and using Panasonic cameras is the company's amazing generosity when it comes to firmware updates and the "gifting" to older cameras with the latest features. 

I was pretty impressed a while back when, out of the blue, Panasonic did an upgrade to the G9 that improved focus and, more important to me, added a bunch of higher end video capabilities to the camera even though those new additions would potentially reduce the market for their own GH5 camera when it comes to video use. Impressed again when Panasonic introduced a free firmware update to the GH5 this Summer improving continuous AF in video, along with lots of other tweaks. Not a paltry move when you consider that the G9 is already two years old and the GH5 is a three year old camera. In a couple of free updates Panasonic increased the useful life of two of their most popular cameras by a number of years!

When the newest addition to Panasonic's Lumix S series cameras came out the S5 included the newest and fastest AF software in the line up. Other camera makers might have waited to see how to leverage sales of the new camera but Panasonic announced, almost immediately, that all of their S1x cameras would be getting the same high performance AF algorithms in short order. They even gave us a date; the 24th of November!

Back to the studio. When I got back to the studio and fired up the computing machine I went straight to Panasonic's site to look for firmware updates. There were FOUR camera updates for four of the cameras that I regularly use. Those included the G9 (improved I.S.), the S1, S1H and the S1R. 

All of the S1 cameras got the same AF improvements which should bring them to par with the S5. We'll see it most in continuous AF and then most noticeably in video. I can't wait to see how it affects the S1H as I'm getting more and more video use from that camera. 

I won't go through everything but I will go through some of my favorite updates by model.

The S1R and the S1 both get the red frame line around the edges of the rear monitor when video recording is active. This is a feature that was already on the S1H and also on the Atomos line of external monitors. It's a very quick and obvious way to tell whether you are actively recording or if you didn't push the right button to get things started. It's a great "user" update. 

The S1R now shoots in 5K (4992x3744) video in both 24 and 30 fps. In .Mov you can shoot in 5K internally at 4:2:0 but with 10 bits. You can now shoot 4K in 10 bit, 4:2:2 to an external monitor up to 60 fps. I can't wait to try out the 5K performance and hope that downsampling to 4K makes for a more detailed 4K file, even if I can't shoot in 4:2:2. But speaking of 4K the camera can now be using at up to 60P with 10 bits and 4:2:2  when you output over HDMI to an external monitor/recorder. That's pretty spiffy. 

In the S1R the tracking and recognition of AF have been improved by way of a head recognition feature. My hope for this is that when using face detect AF I won't lose contact with the subject when they turn their face away from camera. We'll be testing that right away.

The S1R can now do high resolution audio recording using the XLR microphone adapter. You gotta use .Mov to get this.

We can now set shutter angle in the video menu. This is great for productions when we want to match cameras and we're working quickly. It's more control and gives more accurate video settings. 

The S1 had a major update earlier in the year which improved the range of video options in the cameras by a great deal. It's also slated to get a big update in the first quarter of 2021 which will add 6K ProRes Raw to the mix. But for right now the big improvements, in addition to the AF improvements which all of the S1x cameras share, are more about usability and minor functions.

The camera adds shutter angle to the video menu and it's AF performance has also been improved in V-Log mode. You can also now using the {AF+MF} when recording video. A few of the improvements are less important to me such as the ability to play back vertical videos vertically or being able to transfer 4K video files to a smartphone via wi-fi. But as soon as I talk down a feature I end up having a use for it so I'm glad they are there. 

The S1H got a huge update in July with Raw video being able to be output over HDMI to the Atomos Ninja V monitor/recorder. That's actual 12 bit Raw video data. That's really cool. So, on this firmware update we got the basic improvements in AF and the lesser upgrades like being able to transfer 4K to smartphones. They also mention some operational improvements in the way of bug fixes. 

All the improvements are most welcome and they go a long way towards solidifying Panasonic's video forward reputation in the hybrid camera market. With the S1H as the flagship video model the rest of the line closes the gap by a quite a bit which means better file matching across "B" and "C" cameras. For users who only occasionally dip into video it means that the S1R and base S1 become more than "good enough" to do 95% of the video work most of us will ever need. While having traditional photography cameras that are among the highest rated for overall image quality at sites like DXOMark. 

It's like an early Christmas present but without having to go out shopping or even spend more money. 

It's one of the less advertised features that makes me appreciate the Panasonic camera line. 

If you are shooting with Lumix/Panasonic cameras go here to see what kinds of updates they've got for your cameras: https://av.jpn.support.panasonic.com/support/global/cs/dsc/download/index4.html

A break for swimming. Swim practice left me with mixed feelings today. We've done so well as a group at practicing pandemic safety at the masters swim workouts. We're supposed to be masked any time we're not in the pool swimming. But it seems like "pandemic fatigue" has set in with a number of our swimmers who are starting to act like the rules don't apply to them. That attitude really put me off today since we're in the midst of rising case numbers and hospital beds filling up. 

I talked to our coach and let him know we needed to honor the contract we make each week as we sign up for our choice of swims during the upcoming week. I hope he follows through and gets people back on track. I would hate to have to escalate to the club's B.O.D. (I served as V.P. of the board for 10 years and I'm sure they'd hate to have to deal with this...) and get everyone twisted up. 

Otherwise it was a good swim. Lots of medium distance repeats for a change. I'm still working hard at extending my reach in my freestyle stroke. You always need a target for improvement. 

Keep masking up till we get those vaccines out to the public. It might save someone you know from a world of pain.

A post job analysis of our live concert documentation. Video, video, video. (We'll circle back to photography shortly...).

I'm always hopeful that we'll get an evening where the temperatures drop into the high 50's and we feel as though a nice, light jacket would be welcome. Instead it was a typical Austin October evening with temps touching 80 and lots of humidity in the air. Better though than our recent theater videography sessions in 105 degrees.

I had a really good idea of what the shooting conditions (lighting, sight lines) at the plaza would be like since we photographed the same show there just this past Wednesday. The concert, with two singers and a three person band, started at 7:30 pm so the sun had fully set. The production folks built a stage just outside the front doors of the main theater but after a few rehearsals they decided to have the performers spend parts of the show out on an elevated walkway in front of the audience; just to add some motion and change to the hour long show. It was a good call for the audience but it meant we would need three video cameras to do an acceptable documentation of the show. We needed at least two views on each stage for editing purposes.

I arrived at 6 pm so I could set up the three cameras while it was still light enough to see. My main camera looked like some sort of "Rube Goldberg" science experiment. We had the DMW audio interface in the hot shoe with a big XLR cable running into socket #1 from the sound board that our engineer was overseeing, about 50 feet from my camera location. Just to the right of the audio interface my Atomos Ninja V was attached to the SmallRig cage. On the other side of the camera I had a headphone cable out, a full size HDMI cable from the Ninja running in, and a USB-C cable for quickly attaching a power bank (just in case) plugged in and ready. The power bank hung just below the camera in case our camera battery ran unexpectedly dry.

All of this sat on top of the new Sirui fluid tripod head. It's a nice head and very smooth but I think my rig was too heavy and totally out of balance. Next week I think I'll rig the Atomos to a tripod leg to take the weight off the top of the camera. I'll also do a better job balancing the weight forward and backward. The 70-200mm f4.0 weighs a lot. I can't imagine trying to balance the whole collection with the f2.8 version mounted on the camera.....

I had the camera set up to shoot 4K in the APS-C crop configuration. It's nice and crisp and turns the long end of the lens into a 300mm with no hit to the aperture. But a long lens, used wide open on moving subjects is very dependent on having that Atomos monitor fired up and working. It's impossible to really tell, by looking at the rear screen of the camera, when you have achieved really sharp focus. Maybe it's my old eyes but that last bit of tweak that provides the real "bite" in a well focused image is beyond my abilities without the aid of some screen tech. 

The Atomos screen is bigger and brighter to begin with. That helps. But while you can't use image magnification while recording on the camera you have no such limitation with the external monitor. I could punch in to 1:1 or even 2:1 to see very clearly exactly where the plane of sharp focus should be. And I could fix focusing errors while watching the enlarged screen while the whole time keeping the full frame on the camera's rear screen for composition/framing. The long lens, follow camera footage would be a mess if not for the Ninja V monitor. Truly a lifesaver. I've even started using the monitor routinely in the studio. It's a pleasant way to work with manually focused lenses. 

At this point I should mention that I tested out the autofocus with video at the long end of the lens and it's just too hit-and-miss. At least with manual focus once you are well focused and the actors are in a certain spot for a whole song there's none of the hunting that even the best systems are plagued with from time to time.

I monitored the audio coming off the sound board with headphones. We nailed the levels during rehearsal and the audio is flawless on the main camera.There's just scratch audio on the two stationary wide cameras. 

My biggest issue last night was just the fatigue of having to pay attention for an hour and fifteen minutes to every movement and every nuance of tripod management. How far to lock down the tilt. How much resistance was just right in the pan control. How to smoothly disengage the tilt lock to start a new move. And I made the mistake of wearing a pair of dress shoes I found in my closet. They looked so good but they obviously weren't engineered to be comfortable for hours of standing in one place...

There's not much to say about the second two cameras. I had an S1 set up to cover the front stage from side to side and then a GH5 to cover the secondary "stage." Someone asked earlier about the run time of the S1 camera in 4K thinking that it was 29.9 minutes but with the V-Log upgrade package from Panasonic for that camera you now get unlimited record times. Well, at least until the memory card runs out. You can attach a battery bank and charge while shooting so the battery isn't an issue. 

And these cameras are actually "Pro" cameras. Unlike the Canons and Sonys none of the four models of cameras we've used from Panasonic over the last two months has ever overheated. Never shown an overheat warning. Barely gotten warm to the touch. And we're not out shooting these in a Canadian snow storm, they work well right up to the 105 degree zone, and beyond. I'll gladly trade off small advantages in continuous AF for robust and bulletproof operational performance. Any Day. 

The third camera was the GH5 I purchased a few weeks ago. I put a Meike 25mm cine lens on it and set it up on a small tripod covering the "live" space on the secondary stage. This camera was also shooting 4K and ran for an hour and fifteen minutes, ending up with at least 50% battery power left over. No drama, no acting out. Just a good, solid working camera. Why oh why did I ever sell off the first batch?

All the of the cameras were loaded for bear when it came to memory. I had twin/matched 128 GB, V90 UHS-II cards in the GH5 and the S1H (both have two slots, both of which accept SD cards) while in the S1 I had a 128GB Sony CFexpress card backed up by a 128 GB V90 SD card. All the cameras were set for relay recording to the cards, just in case the show went long. I should not have worried, the show timed out with enough space left over on the cards for another 30 or 40 minutes of run time.

A while back I donated a Panasonic FZ2500 to the theater for day-to-day captures and quick interviews for the web. One of staff (Joshua; who has the task of editing all of this footage together...) used that camera to sweep up a bunch of b-roll while I was shooting the main stages. He got crowd shots, reaction shots, gear shots and wild side angles. Yes. I know. There can never be too much b-roll. 

We have three more weeks of shows. Each week features a new set of performers singing totally different shows. We'll be there to document each one of the shows. So, at least I know what I'll be doing (and how I'll do it) for the next three Saturdays. And unlike recent donations they theatre is actually paying me for these. 

It's fun to problem solve so many different kinds of projects. From small and intimate to big and boisterous. It's also nice to have cameras in my hands for so long and so often. It gives you a feeling of being totally conversant and comfortable with your equipment. That makes every move and every decision a bit more fluid. It's a great way to learn the ins and outs of a camera system. Everyone should try it. Before they review their first camera....

Hope your weekend was fun and comfy. More to come. 

Having Spent the last three weeks filming moving pictures I decided to buy an appropriate camera. So much more interesting. S1H.

After spending a serious chunk of time making video over the last three weeks I've learned more about what I really want in a video camera. I do want a camera that is big and robust so I never have to worry about it overheating and shutting down. I made frequent use of the waveform feature so that's a must. The camera should not only record nice, Long-GOP files but should also be capable of shooting ALL-I files for those times when I want to keep motion artifacts to a minimum. Or make post production faster and easier.  It has to be able to write 4K, 10 bit, 4:2:2 files, even ALL-I files, directly to internal cards. It needs to have great color profiles; and enough of them for any use imaginable. It has to have good audio capabilities and an easy-to-use audio interface for all those times when I'm doing the one man crew style of shooting. It has to have a great EVF. It has to have a full size HDMI port. And it has to fit in with all my existing cameras and lenses.....because....batteries. 

Nice stuff to have but not absolutely essential for most of the stuff I currently shoot would include: A luminance spot meter, a fan to keep the sensor from getting too hot, big, dedicated buttons to start the video. The ability to output and record color bars and tone. The ability to set video exposures with shutter angle instead of shutter speed menus, the ability to work seamlessly with an Atomos Ninja V monitor/digital recorder and finally, the potential to output crazy, intense, detail rich, and highly malleable ProRes Raw files. For those times when you have to try for the next rung on the ladder. 

I had few complaints about my long day spent with a stock Lumix S1 shooting video last week. The camera, and a smaller, less expensive model (G9) in the Lumix line up, were both sterling performers. I did wish I could have shot some of the scenes that contained lots and lots of movement with ALL-I files but I doubt more than a handful of people would notice the difference in the final mix. I could have shot to the Ninja V and the resulting Pro Res 422 files would be ALL-I but the S1 and the Atomos V don't automatically sync their stops and starts and the last thing I needed was one more thing to think about. Plus our editor works in Premiere and I'm not sure how that program handles Apple's Pro Res files...

Having an S1H wouldn't necessarily make everything "better" image wise but there are enough features in the camera that it would make everything I do with video easier, smoother and in some situations, more self-contained. For example, when shooting ALL-I files I would not have to bring along an external monitor/recorder if I wanted to travel light. 

While an S1H and a bigger lens isn't ever going to be a preferred solution for drone work or use on consumer gimbals it's the perfect camera (when used with dual I.S.) to handhold (nice mass), put on a monopod or use on a tripod. That makes it a great solution for all the interviews we end up doing and just about any narrative project I want to do. 

I was sitting in front of my computer going through last week's files yesterday when I got e-mails from two different P.R. companies; both of which were looking for bids/estimates for video projects that are very similar to the project I'm working on now. The timing seemed fortuitous. I looked forward in time and ruminated on how I'd like to handle those projects and I kept coming back to the S1H. So I hopped into the Subaru and headed to Precision Camera. I walked out with a brand new S1H, sealed in the box.

Of course, I spent a couple of hours messing around with it last night and I'm very impressed. The shutter has a wonderful sound to it. It's big and husky. The menus seem rich but familiar. It's just what I thought I was looking for. 

We've got a few smaller projects to get through this week and I'll use it for video on those. Then, on Sunday, I'm going to be on location on a river photographing a doctor fly fishing. I'll use the S1H as a photo camera then; just to see how well it fills that role. 

I'm happy with the collection of S1x cameras I have in house. With the addition of the S1H I now have representatives of the high res version (S1R), the all-arounder (S1) and the video-centric body (S1H). Each fills a good, functional niche for me. 

Weather: Finally, the heat wave is abating. We've got rain outside for the first time in a good, long while and that's great since we were heading for drought territory. The frog who lives in my French drain will be so happy. The temperatures are supposed to be moderate ( highs in the low 90's) into next week along with ample chances for rain. I even saw a prediction for one day with a high in the 80's and a low around 60°. We'll all be euphoric. 

Swimming: Two good days in a row and looking forward to a noon swim tomorrow. I found a shampoo and body wash that's the first really effective anti-chlorine solution for swimmers. I've been testing it in my outside shower and after a week of having skin that doesn't itch, hair that doesn't feel like burnt grass, and no chlorine cologne smell I went back to Austin TriCyclist and bought out their stock. It's called, Thinksport.

The project is "Shampoo & Body Wash". And their tagline is: Safer Products for Healthier Athletes.

A subtitle on the tube reads: "chlorine remover." It's little stuff like this that makes me happier while the world around us falls apart....

Nothing exciting in the workout today. The main set was 10 x100's where you sprint a fast 25 that progresses through the distance as you progress through the set. So, on the first 100 yard swim you go fast on the first 25 yards and then cruise through the next 75. The next 100 starts with a 25 cruise, ramps up to a sprint 25 and then ends with a 50 just cruising at 85-90 % effort. And the progression continues in the same way, rotating through for a total of 1,000 yards. We had other stuff in the workout but that was the set that stood out for me. 

Today: I'm slowing down today to try to clean and organize my studio space. After weeks of messing around with video gear my office is a mess. A cooler, rainy day seems like just the right time to do some office work. I'm sure I'll get bored at some point and head out for a walk. We'll see how much discipline I have left. 

Work seems to be flowing back. We had planned to be able to retire from working for $$$ now and we've planned well but all of a sudden good, fun clients seem to be bouncing back and offering projects to work on. Seems like too much fun (and optimism) to pass up. Maybe I'll retire next year....

Biggest announcement: As I am turning 65 at the end of October I have just received my Medicare Card in the mail. I hope we can vote the wannabe tyrant out of office in November so my benefits don't get "privatized" (Latin for financial rape) out of existence. Should be fun though to stop paying for private health insurance after 35 years of freelancing. I'll feel stinking rich. Well, relatively speaking. 

Anyway....new camera. New fun stuff to think about.