I went downtown to photograph more stuff at SXSW yesterday but I ended up liking these clouds more....

 

One focused on infinity...

One focused on the edge of the building...

If you go out with the idea of shooting something very specific in mind you can sometimes limit yourself by constraining the intention of your outing too tightly. I went out looking for unusual people and scenes at SXSW (big music, film, tech conference. 10 days straight. right here in the middle of Austin) and the very last images of the day were a mile away and up in the air.

Yesterday's camera and lens of choice were the Panasonic S5 (original) and the Sigma 85mm art lens (DN DG). A very nice combination. 

Contrary to Saturday's mission all of the Sunday images were shot as Jpegs. I actually like the look better. 

I posted some questions for Mike over on theonlinephotographer blog site. The consensus is that I do not suffer from "low energy." But I really didn't get any of my pressing questions answered. Oh well. At least some of the readers seemed to really appreciate them.

Daylight savings time messed with my timing yesterday. Not much...but enough. 

Need a really, really great and cheap entry into the L system? The S5 is a wonderful and very capable camera. I recommend it highly. Sure, the new one focuses video faster. So what?

How do you become more "fluid" in taking photographs out in public? Practice, play, practice, play. And shoot, shoot, shoot.

 

I had time yesterday afternoon to take a camera downtown and make a bunch of photographs documenting the start of the week+ long spectacle of SXSW. Most of the events take place indoors and the music portion of the show doesn't start until tomorrow but it sure was refreshing to see people filling up the streets after a few years of sparse traffic downtown. 

I broke one of my "rules" in casual photography by taking along not just one camera but two, and not just one lens but two. And more extra batteries...

I'd photographed the day before with a Leica SL and a big, standard, 24-105mm zoom lens. I was bored carrying around such a big and obvious package of gear. I decided to go small yesterday and took out two Leica CL cameras. One sporting a Sigma 90mm f2.8 i-Series lens and the other with the small Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 zoom lens. I have to admit that I'm out of practice with 135mm equivalent lenses but I ventured on and used the 90mm lens for just about everything. I used it either at f4.0 or f2.8 but no apertures smaller than those two. 

I mostly just walked the streets and tried to will myself into anonymity and a super low profile. I don't shy away from meeting people's eyes but I also do like to pick people out of crowds with longer lenses. The two shooting days this week were less about coming home with "winners" that getting back into random shooting practice and to figure out where all the good shots are going to end up happening this time around. 

While the CL camera focuses quickly in S-AF it can be less performant in C-AF. I experiemented with C-AF but almost immediately defaulted back to my comfort zones of either using S-AF or just switching the lens to MF and using some focus peaking. The cameras were also set to .DNG format which is something I normally shy away from using in casual play. Jpeg makes the process more challenging (and fun) because you mostly have to get your files to be well behaved in camera instead of relying on the magic of post processing to save you from bad technique.

Above and below are samples that are all from the CL and the Sigma 90mm. I hope you'll click through to see them larger.