The Visual Science Lab

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Shooting A Dress Rehearsal with the tiny Nikon and the Pens....

I wanted to see how the two mirrorless systems I've been playing with handle the "real world" of Kirk so I jettisoned the Canon stuff from the camera bag and loaded up with mini-Nikon lenses and Olympus Pen toys and headed to Zachary Scott Theatre to photograph the dress rehearsal of a wonderfully funny play called, The God of Carnage. Shooting plays can be interesting. When I arrived at the theater the first thing I noticed is that the floor had been painted a deep, bright, fire engine red. The stage lighting hit the floor and bounced a juicy red light into every actor's face. Made white balancing a little more interesting... My biggest concern was whether or not I'd be able to accurately focus my favorite Pen manual focus lenses under the stage lights and you can tell on a couple of frames that I missed by a mile. I was worried about whether or not the Nikon V1 would focus under these conditions, given that the lenses are slow (aperture-wise) and I wouldn't be able to use the AF assist light.

I started out shooting at ISO 1600 with both cameras but quickly determined that I'd be able to use ISO 800 under the kind of stage light the lighting designer had cooked up. While the play was funny and engaging it's still an hour and twenty minute (sometimes heated) conversation between two couples so there are exciting costumes, not many light changes and not much action..... but that worked for me because I was in the "casual" test mode.

I worked mostly with the 30-110 on the Nikon V1, shooting raw, and I worked with the 40mm 1.4 on the EP-2 (which worked well!!!) and the 25mm 2.8 on the EP3. The wider angle on the EP3 is what screwed up my focusing.... There's just not enough acuity on the screen given the wider angle of view.

I popped the kit lens on the EP3 just to make a comparison with the Nikon in terms of focusing speed and was pleasantly surprise. It kept up well.

Usually I shoot this kind of work with a couple of Canon cameras like the 5Dmk2 and the 1dmk2N along with some L series zooms. The 5Dmk2 has about the same level of noise at 6400 as the Nikon V1 does at 1600 as the EP3 and EP2 do at 800 ISO. The biggest difference is in apparent sharpness. The big Canon pixels are in their element at these kinds of sensitivity settings. To be bitingly honest I'd use the EP3 with no real restrictions at ISO 400 and slower. The Nikon V1 at ISO 800 and slower and, for comparison's sake, the Canon 60D at 1600 and the 5Dmk2 at 3200. Working at those settings and nailing exposure would get me into the same ballpark, in terms of "noise" image quality, across the board.

And here it's important to say that all of this is predicated on nailing an optimum exposure. Sure, you can blow out the highlights and you'll have less noise in the shadows but....blown highlights aren't really acceptable. Alternately, you can pull good stuff out of dark image files if you don't mind a higher noise floor and, by extension, less sharpness in the middle tones.

I found (happily) that the three micro cameras all have the same gameplan when it comes to noise. It's a monochrome noise that I've described as a uniform sprinkling of black pepper in the shadows and reaching (with less exposure) into the middle tones. I had the high ISO noise reduction turned off on the Nikon V1 but I understand that the camera still does some noise reduction and it's hardwired to do so. I set the Oly cameras to the lowest noise setting as well. And I stayed away from leaning on noise reduction in Lightroom conversions because I wanted you to see the differences between the files instead of differences in processing.

The Olympus cameras have meatier files with more sense of density and mass in the the lower tones and a more color neutral rendition of the higher tones. The Nikon is less noisy but I'll chalk some of that up to the in-camera noise reduction. Neither camera is particularly well suited to this particular kind of work but if I had to choose I would give a nod to the Nikon by 5%. With the right lenses both would be fun. For this kind of work I'd love the holy trinity of focal lengths to be the 35mm equivalent of 35mm, 60mm and 90mm. Longer is fun but if the files are clean enough I don't have bad feelings about cropping in.

Next time I head to the theater the Canons and the fast primes go back into the bag. Focus and ISO performance aside, the increased resolution of the 5D2 gives you a bit more wiggle room for fast action and aggressive crops.

Does all this mean that my love affair with the small cameras is over? Hardly. In good light they are more fun to shoot and more fun to carry than my traditional cameras. And the files are very, very good. Just put me in the camp that's waiting for Nikon to make good on their prime lens roadmaps.

The images below are a sampling from all three cameras. The Nikon's are on the top and the EP3's are on the bottom. While it's not an authorative test it is the way I tend to use cameras under these conditions. My base exposures were 1/100 with the zooms, nudging up to 1/200 when the light permitted and 1/320 with the fast prime. The wide angle fell somewhere in between. But hey, see for yourselves.....

Nikon V1, 130-110mm zoom.

Nikon V1, 30-110mm zoom.

Nikon V1, 10-30mm zoom.

Nikon V1, 30-110mm zoom.

Nikon V1, 10-30mm zoom.

Nikon V1, 30-110mm zoom.

Olympus EP-2. 40mm 1.4 PenF

Olympus EP-2. 25mm 2.8 PenF

Olympus EP3 and PenF legacy lens

Monday, November 28, 2011

Trying it both ways.

Photographers tend to be an "all or nothing" crew. When we gear up for a shoot we focus in like lasers on the exact gear we presume will be the best for the job of the moment, then we pack it up and go. But sometimes the license to experiment comes hand in hand with the job at hand. I can't tell you why I packed up my Hasselblad 501 CM and the 120mm Makro lens along with my Canon gear on the morning that Amy and I went off to make portraits of scientists for one of our favorite technology companies. It wasn't logical or rational. And I can't tell you why I stuck a couple of 120 rolls of Kodak's venerable Tri-X in my pocket either.

We were making portraits of people against white that would become ads and posters. We shot digital and tethered all morning long and paid close attention to things like white lab coats edged against the white background. It was great to have some instant proofing. The firewire connection had no problem matching my shooting speed. It was a smooth but careful shoot. The ad agency had no interest in experimenting with film. But I did.

We had some time between sessions so I asked this scientist if we could take a few quick shots and she agreed. I extrapolated the Tri-X exposure from the Canon 1DS mk2 ISO 100 exposure. It should have been two stops different but I went with one and two thirds stops difference because I like a slightly thicker negative and I was certain that Tri-X could handle as much over exposure as I wanted to throw at it without blocking up.

I think my subject enjoyed a little foray into historic imaging technology. I know I did. We chatted about it for a few moments while I licked the little band that secures the backing paper around the exposed film, and then we were done.

When my assistant, Amy, and I got back to the studio and finished unloading I got straight to work backing up the digital files, creating web galleries and doing all the back end work we now take for granted. A few days later I dropped the roll of film by the lab and asked them to "develop and contact."

The next time I was in the neighborhood I pulled into the lab and picked up the film. A quick glance across the contact sheet and I zeroed in on two frames. One somber and one smiling. I scanned the smiling one and made one or two little adjustments. I compared it with the digital file, painstakingly resolved from a big raw file and worked on meticulously in PhotoShop, and I must plainly say that the digital files rendering of skin tones in digital is not up to par with film technology from the 1960's and 1970's. You can blame my technique if you want and you can direct me to countless thousands of people on the web who may have mastered black and white in the digital age but all stories are anecdotal unless you live them.

I can dump Canon files in SilverFX and create lots of stuff that's close but it's the tonal range that always seems to give it away for me. The midrange always seems like gray mush. I am consistently amazed that, with one or two little tweaks I can get wonderful black and white from the real thing (black and white film) but the voodoo of manipulating color tones in relation to skin tones in relation to digital files seems so arduous by comparison. Maybe it's just me. I can accept that.

After I got this file back I had a husband and wife contact me about photographing them. They wanted images showing her pregnancy. I had the studio all set to do a digital session but when they showed up she remarked that she loved the look of square, black and white photographs. I proofed with the Canon 5Dmk2 but I shot in earnest with the Hasselblad and Fuji Acros 100. I got the contact sheets back today. I am still in love with black and white film. I don't care if it's less convenient. It just looks better.....

So, for all the people who were getting bored with the writing about the Nikon V1.........viva la difference!

(If you are going to comment about print quality, please keep in mind that the image above is 1600 pixels wide and the original is capable of being cleanly scanned at 16,000 pixels wide. It's also been converted from 16 bits of grayscale to 8 bits of sRGB color. Just mentioning...)