Why I keep coming back to the clever and elegant Panasonic G85. Especially now that I've found a great companion lens for it.

Tomorrow morning first assistant, Amy Smith, and I will meet at the studio, pack the car and head to Kyle, Texas for a daylong adventure in commercial photography. We've been awarded the assignment of photographing, in detail, the operation of a large radiology clinic there. We'll be photographing architectural documentations, procedures (with actors and technicians, but not with real patients...) and encounters with machines such as MRIs, CT Scanners, Mammography Imaging Scanners and much more. 

In this instance we are NOT taking everything in the studio with you. I'm limiting the lighting gear to only what we can comfortably fit into a rolling case (see above) but that does include: Three Neewer Vision 4 battery powered monolights, one Godox AD200 flash, and two Godox V850s with their rechareable lithium ion battery packs. At first glance this may seem light but I'm really packing two systems; mostly for redundancy. 

My well worn plan is to use the three bigger, monolight flashes for everything. Two bouncing off white ceilings and walls and the other one adding directional fill from a 60 inch white umbrella. But if the schedule drags out and the batteries start in the big units start to falter I'll have the more pixie sized flashes on which to fall back. I may approach it the other way around and start with the pixie flashes and work my way up. 

The power of the flashes hardly matters. The clients and I had a meeting on Monday to discuss creative strategies and the "look and feel" they want to get in the photographs and actually less powerful (but no less controllable) lights might actually be beneficial. We want to shoot as wide open as possible in order to de-emphasize the backgrounds. This means we'll need to work mostly at f2.0 or f2.8 for effect. Even at ISO 200 it means that most of the lights will be operating in the 1/32nd to 1/64th power area and we'll need to be cognizant of "bleed" light from existing fixtures around the facility. No sense getting a great shot if we also get a lot of green tinge.

So, one roller case filled with lighting goodies and one Amazon Basics backpack for all the camera gear. Seems like a recipe for moving quickly while retaining good control of the lights. 

We'll be working with the two Panasonic GH5s and shooting raw format all day long tomorrow. I thought I'd take a day off today and blow off some steam (and lingering anxiety0 by heading out for a walk this morning with what has to be the most comfortable and amiable camera I've ever, ever used: The Panasonic G85. With a whopping 16 megapixels of super-charged pixels and a shutter that's a sweet as an Adele song, the G85 is a stellar traveling companion. Across town or around the world. It's compact, smooth and, with the right lens, it can be a bit of euphoria in your hands. Yes, that's called "hyperbole." But in fact, the camera is a very, very well designed and implemented companion camera. The EVF is transparently invisible, the shutter sounds nicer than the gentle closing on a Bentley door, and the image stabilization is top tier.

My latest engagement with the camera was also an opportunity to test a lens I've had on hand for a while but have ignored, for no good reason. Maybe it didn't seem sexy enough just sitting, forlorn, in the drawer of the equipment cabinet... It's the 25mm f1.7 Panasonic lens that is often on sale for $149 and worth at least a hundred dollars more.

I thought it would be the perfect companion for the G85 and I was exactly right. I used it wide open, and at apertures up to f4.0, and was happy with the sharpness at every f-stop. It was a lens that instantly helped me channel my "Henri-Cartier-Bresson-Robert-Frank-Lee-Freidlander" classic vision. A vision in which the subject is king and not the visual strutting of unusual focal lengths with all their hysteric frippery. I was so happy shooting with today's combination that I neglected to stop in any of my favorite coffee shops or bakeries, such was my passion to continue on with my addictive photography rig. No visit to Voodoo Donuts. No cappuccino at Medici. No Vegan Lemon Hazelnut Scone at Whole Foods/Amazon. Just walking, shooting, walking, shooting. 

It was 55 degrees and breezy when I started my walk and by the end we were careening toward the high sixties and that sweatshirt that felt barely cozy at the outset was starting to feel overly warm. Ah, winter in Austin. A few days of bluster and weeks of swimmable weather. Below are images I shot this morning.

Woke up this morning in the undecided category.

 I envy those people who have one overriding sense of purpose in life. One all important goal at which to aim. They can wake up in the morning, drink their orange juice, and just get the ball rolling in the same direction they always have. Not so easy for those of us who intentions and interests are divided. (Just for the record, I absolutely hate orange juice. I am not anti-orange but orange juice seems to me to be disgusting, and always too sweet).

I woke up this morning and felt a wash of frustration froth over me. I love taking portraits. I love writing. I love walking around town with a camera in my hands; not in endless pursuit of the ghosts of H.C.B. or Robert Frank but as an observational walking meditation. The problem for those of us with multiple interests (those who've taken off their culturally induced career blinders) is that to excel at either portraiture or writing I think one has to commit and make a singular pursuit a priority. But, of course, I'm from the generation that wants it all and, in truth, has been fairly successful in getting most of it.

The pursuit of cameras, as Michael Johnston is engaged in on his wonderful blog, is a great way to sidetrack one's self into not deciding anything at all. You can research, test, buy, review and re-sell cameras all day long and they become their own occupation --- separate from taking the photographs you think you'd like to take.

Part of my ennui is that I'm satisfied with the cameras I have right now. Even the lesser cameras like the G85. Part of my lack of motivation to push photography harder in the business realm is that I'm not really forced into the hot pursuit of money. The issue with getting a second novel out is the same issue every dilettante writer has; it's hard as hell to get started ---- again and again and again.

Some days, lately, I feel as though I am stuck in quicksand. On those days the most helpful pursuit I can think of is.....a long walk. And a bit of introspection. I'm better at the walking part.

We should all be working 

on our next project.

Otherwise nothing will get done.

If only I felt certain about the nature

of the next project...

The Curious Incident of the Zoom Lens that acts like a bag full of primes.

It seems like I never stop learning about how to push back on the perceived limitations of the photographic process. I've been locked in a battle that resembles a sine wave. I want to do things in a different way than before but I come to doubt my motivations or my resolve or even the premise of my undertaking and then rush back in the old direction to re-embrace a comfortable but unexciting methodology. I swing from risk to comfort like most people. I guess our hope is that each swing into newer territory has us walking forward by five feet and retreating by "only" fifty-eight inches once we lose our nerve...

I'm back in the m4:3 sensor camp for now. It will take a bit to nudge me away this time because the format caught up with where I always wanted it to be. 

I have a confidence in the format now that I never used to and a belief in the best lenses for the system that dwarfs what I felt I got from large format system lenses.  In a sense so much of why systems excel or fail has to do with the synergy between body and lens. 

I was at ZACH Theatre last night photographing a new production called, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." The play is from a popular novel the protagonist of which is an autistic teenaged boy in England grappling with a shifting and ultimately unsettling family landscape. The play depends on projections and dramatic light changes to push the audience into the mindset of the main character. 

It is harder to photograph plays that are about ideas or about concepts than to photograph more "narrative" plays and plays with multiple scene changes and costume changes. Those productions have visual texture on which to hang technique. This play is more cerebral and spare. But, of course, I gave it my best shot. Or multiple hundreds...

Given my selection of the first five images in this blog you can see the scene I liked best; in visual terms. It's meant to be a small group of people standing next to a subway track, waiting for the next train. Our hero, in the red jacket, is observing so he can learn how to use the "tube." 

Last night was my first attempt to use just one camera and just one lens to photograph the complete dress rehearsal of a play at ZACH Theatre. We had a live audience and I was constrained, once again, to be mid-house; half way up from the stage and pretty much dead center. It should come as no surprise that I was using the GH5 camera body nor that my choice of lens was the Olympus Pro 40-150mm f2.8. With this system if I could see something clearly on the stage the camera was able to lock focus instantly and capture the image without much fuss. 

This series (the first five) of photographs documents a scene set near the rear of the stage. I needed the full reach of the lens for the tighter crop and still a tight focal length to get everyone at the "stop" from head to toe. 

Since the lens is as sharp as the sting of a wasp, even when used wide open, I had no reason to stop it down. At f2.8 I was able to stay in the 1/250th to 1/400th shutter speed range, and I kept  the ISO at 1600 for the entire evening. If one part of the exposure triangle needed to be changed to compensate for changing light levels it was always the shutter speed I chose. 

I watched part of the tech rehearsal on Sunday evening and I quickly surmised that the color temperature of the light on our people changed frequently and, massively. With a warm light cue the dominant light on stage was around 3200K, + or - 200K. In the cooler cues the lights sat at around 5700K with a healthy dose of magenta in the mix. On this play I set up three different white balances in the custom WB settings. As I was shooting I'd watch for different light cues and assess their white balance. With the camera to my eye I could hit the WB button on the top panel of the camera without having to look. The submenu opened to the current balance and the flick of a control wheel took me to the next white balance. One hits the "set" button to make the change. 

Setting up the camera in this way, and having an easy "touch to identify" physical button meant that I could soon make the changes almost subconsciously. This turned out to be a time saver in post; I was in the ball park in nearly every situation and could concentrate on just tweaking exposures and shadows for my conversions to Jpeg and subsequent delivery. 

Following along on my "one lens, one camera" experiment last night I can also report that the entire evening's shoot was accomplished with just one battery.

It's odd to try to watch a play and to photograph it at the same time. There two completely different brain uses involved. One is passive observation while the other is active editing with continuous, mini, calls to action. Look, frame, commit and then push button. Repeat. If I knew a "non-photogenic" few minutes came along in which I could put the camera down and just watch and listen but there was an inertia that slowed me down from switching back over the active mode. It seemed like a case of always wanting to be doing the opposite thing. 

So, I was working at ISO 1600 and, in post, boosting shadows in Lightroom by plus 25 or plus 50. I was also tweaking exposure, adding anywhere from plus a quarter stop all the way up to adding a stop and a half of exposure. These are all things that should lead to noisy files. Especially in shadow areas. But when I look at the images I've included here I find them to be no more noisy than the images I used to get from my Sony A7ii or A7rii. In any event files from either system were easy to "sweeten" with a judicious lean on the noise reduction functions in Lightroom or PhotoShop. 

Where does this leave me? I'm currently thinking that all cameras are good but that all cameras take time to understand and time to practice with. There needs to be a shoot-look-shoot-look break-in period. A time in which you learn where the breaking point is for files from each system and each model. You learn where these negative inflection points are and then you learn to compensate for them. And if you are doing your job right you come to find that, with a few tweaks, the camera you enjoy shooting can pretty much match its competitors for image quality. Now you can safely choose the cameras you want to use by how they feel in your grip and what kinds of features you think are most beneficial to the way you work. 

I must say that my regard for the GH5 cameras grows with every use. The bodies are extremely solid and convey a sense of indestructibility. The files seem to say to me that if I do everything in "best practices" mode I'll be rewarded by beautiful technical file attributes. 

Nail exposure = get no noise. Hold the camera still = get sharp photos. Nail the color balance = get malleable and pleasing color right out of the camera. 

These practices are not limited to a brand or a format but are things we should be consciously practicing every time we do work with our cameras. 

After reviewing the 600+ files I presented to the client today I have to say that my purchase of the Olympus Pro series 40-140mm f2.8 lens is one of the smartest purchases I've made for photography in the last year or two. It makes my work look better than it should. Actually better than a bag of primes...