Work I did decades ago still drives my search for the right digital camera and lens. Odd how that happens. I'm finally narrowing it down.

L.L.

This was photographed in my favorite, old studio at 500 San Marco St., over in east Austin. I was renting about 3000 square feet of space which came complete with 20 foot ceilings. I got the space when the company that owned the building was converting it from warehouse space to office and studio space. I think my rent was somewhere around $750 a month and included righteously good air conditioning and electric power + water service. Now $750 would barely cover utilities on a space that size....

I still have a recurring dream that I inadvertently left a bunch of gear and paperwork in the space and also that I forgot to tell them I was moving out. I wake up worried that I've lost precious negatives and that I owe tens of thousands of dollars in back rent, starting from 22 years ago... But the reality is that I renovated a new space at a property we bought and settled out with the previous studio landlord with all the paperwork done nicely and properly.

But it was such a fun and expansive space in which to shoot. I could set up a portrait subject ten or 

twenty feet from the front of my camera and still have a space of 25 feet behind the camera for the background. With those kinds of distances one could use longer lenses and the focus fall off to the background was nothing short of exhilarating. I make due in a much smaller space now and for the most part it works out because: A. We own the space. And, B. The vast majority of projects I do these days are on location. Would I still like a studio with 60 feet of linear space to work in? You bet. Would I like to pay thousands of dollars per month to occasionally shoot a portrait with absolutely no constraints? Hmmm. Maybe not so much....

The image above was shot in the studio just for the hell of it. We went through so much medium format film in a month that burning through ten or twelve rolls of color transparency film photographing a beautiful subject was a tiny drop in the bucket, financially. 

This one was done during a test session. We were breaking in two new lenses for our Hasselblad system; one was the new just then 180mm f4.0 Zeiss lens and the other was the 250mm f4.0 Zeiss lens  (I was replacing the 250mm f5.6 version with the faster version made for the 201F and other F cameras). The image is a look that I liked (and still like) very much. A long, fast lens on a big chunk of film. 

In fact, it's been the gold standard I still use to judge how successfully a current camera and lens system comes to matching or even getting close to what we could do with MF film, without breaking a sweat. So, my system from 24 years ago drives me to look at particular cameras and lenses, in a particular way, even now. 

When I used the 180mm f4.0 lens on a 6x6cm square Hasselblad format the corresponding 35mm equivalent angle of view was about 100mm. It always seemed just right to me. The 250mm was equal to about a 135mm on 35mm which was wonderful in my longer studio but would be unmanageable in the current space. 

I'm currently trying really hard to fit the Panasonic Lumix S1R, coupled with the Sigma 85mm f1.4 Art lens, into the mix and trying to set up the smaller system to best emulate what I used to get from the bigger film system. It's tougher work than I thought it would be but with every model encounter I get closer and closer. The first big step for me was to limit the S1R to shooting in the square, 1:1 format. That makes the 85mm effectively about 10mm longer by comparison. The next thing is trying to find the right imaging parameters with which I can get deep, dark shadows but wide open, airy highlights. Not exactly trying to leverage the ultimate in dynamic range at both ends of the curve but mostly just at the lighter (shoulder) edge of the tonal range. It's all a compromise but then again, so was film and film processing. 

I'm in the studio today trying to reverse engineer my own lighting from the 1990s. I'm afraid I really will need to re-buy one more five by six foot soft box. Somethings just can't be substituted...

I hope you are making good use of your vacation. I'm re-branding and re-strategizing for 2020 and I'm working hard and locking down what I want to make. It takes new work.

A Non-Linear wrap-up of the last three days. And what I bought myself for an end of the year present.

Belinda creating table decor with free rosemary. 

On Thursday, early afternoon, Ben and I drove out to Dripping Springs, Texas to Emmett and Lisa's Christmas Eve open house. Lots of people who I swim with were there with their families and friends. Ben got into a long conversation with an old friend who makes his living as a child psychiatrist while I took photos of Emmett (famous chef and restauranteur) using a saber to pop the tops off fancy Italian sparkling wine. Emmett and Lisa are the owners (totally hands-on) of Asti Trattoria which is my absolute favorite restaurant in all of central Texas. 

I knew Emmett was going to do something like use a saber to decapitate wine bottles so I brought along a camera and appropriate lens. It was a Lumix S1 and the 24-105mm kit lens. The perfect choice for a sunny afternoon out in the Hill Country.

Ben survived his interrogation conversation unscathed in time for us to head back home and help Belinda get ready for our Christmas Eve Celebration with a family of close friends. We made a standing rib roast which I think was a tactical error. Oh, it was delicious and everything but if you have a nicely marbled hunk of beef you'll be shocked at the sheer amount of grease that ends up on the bottom of the pan, on the cutting board, etc. As designated cleaner I now have an appreciation of just how labor intensive kitchen work can be. 

A good selection of red wines and Champagnes was a nice antidote to the very thought of my impending role as head dishwasher....

I photographed Belinda putting together sprigs of Rosemary with the Lumix S1 and the Zeiss 50mm f1.7 Y/C lens, wide open. (it was such a "wide open" sort of day). 

We ate and talked and laughed and sang until late in the evening and then, after our friends headed home, all settled down for a long winter's nap. 

A blue Santa in the window at Toy Joy.

On the 23rd I took a bit of time to go walk downtown to see if any pretty baubles caught my eye and would make nice gifts. I came home almost empty handed but did manage to take one photograph that I liked. It's the one just above of a plastic Santa in a blue costume. I love all the lights and colors in the background and captured this image with the Lumix S1 and the Sigma 45mm f2.8 (shot at f4.0).

As we say in Texas: "This here is Emmett, fixing to whack the top off a bottle of wiiiiiine."

I've been carrying the big Lumix S1 cameras and the even bigger lenses around for a couple of months now and they've done a great job but they left me desiring a small and discreet kit to carry around with me on long walks and in social situations in which five or six pounds of big, black camera gear seems to be a little out of place.

You probably read my musings about the possibility of adding a Lumix LX100 ii to the herd but I swerved after conferring with my retail camera consiglieri and carefully comparing the LX100xx and its sister camera, the Lumix GX85. For $900 I could buy the little fixed lens marvel but, with a current Panasonic end of year sale I could get the GX85 and two Lumix lenses for.....get this.....$449. 

I spent an hour at the store today, going back and forth and walking around shooting stupid stuff with each camera. The GX85 was the definite choice. Don't get me wrong, I loved most of the ethos of the LX100xx but the GX85 stepped up when I reminded myself that I had saved my complete collection of Olympus Pen FT half frame lenses from the chopping block during my last studio equipment purge. 

The GX85 can use those lenses (easily) since the mount (with lens adapter) is perfect for them. So, for less than $500 I end up with a body, a 45-150mm G Vario zoom and a 12-32mm G Vario zoom lens. I came right home and put the 40mm f1.4 Pen FT lens on the camera and I've been walking around, happy, ever since. 

Guess what? The GX85 menus are so similar to the S1 menus that I had the camera set up and ready to go in about 10 minutes. Bonus. 

I have time for a few more blog posts in 2019 so stay tuned. Or not. Your choice, but I won't be changing editorial content to please you.....