Why I have stopped believing in test and review sites for cameras.

Tight crop from Panasonic fz2500

The Original uncropped frame

I'm not a big fan of gobbledy-gook, jargon and half-understood scientific word constructs meant to justify a visceral opinion in the service of marketing (and don't get me started on the satanic nature of acronyms). By this I mean that having a rationale for why something should be better or worse is not the same as a camera or lens actually being better or worse. So much of testing is still very subjective and, when it comes to issues such as focus, current cameras have far too much complexity for most users, which seems to exponentially (see what I did just there?) increase the things that can go wrong; or be mis-set.

Two recent things affected my ability to believe without question the results of one of the most famous camera review sites on the web. The first was their declaration that the Leica lens on the front of the Panasonic fz 2500 was mediocre. I was able to prove (at least to myself) that much, if not all, of the softness some people were experiencing with that lens had to do with the automatic focusing modes and their interface with the touchscreen, and the tenuous software that binds them together. If the camera is set up correctly for your individual use targets it is capable of lens quality performance rivaling its closest rivals.

Some tinkering with focus modes should have given the wayward reviewers more insight, at least into the quality of the lens itself, so they could re-focus their attention to the vagaries (not faults?) of the focusing system itself. The bottom line is that the Panasonic bridge camera is capable of making wonderfully sharp images, in the right hands. 

But the final, jarring, sledgehammer blow to the credibility of this corporate band of reviewers has been the ongoing exuberant praise, and alternate active rehabilitation, of the Sony a9 camera. A camera which sets the record for the most lines of text written in the service of naked marketing ever seen in the hyperbolic history of camera reviewing. 

The coup de grace to the credibility of the site in question was their re-re-testing of the a9's sharpness via a series of tests, the methods of which diverged from the parameters of tests done with hundreds of other cameras, for no other reason than to increase the sharpness score for that particular camera. Of course, a new testing procedure means that none of the previously tested cameras can be objectively compared, on that site, with the a9 because they were not given the endless chances to finally excel which have been lavished on the Sony product. Nor were test procedures previously modified to compensate for the shortcomings of other products. If you want objectivity and  also want to believe in the scientific method you can't have it both ways.

Just jotting down "fibonacci sequence" doesn't validate method. (They never mentioned Fibannaci Sequence but I'm making a point about trying to intimidate readers by trotting out phrases or arcane procedures that just don't match the situation...). 

I sympathize with the review site. It's a tough way to make a living in the post camera buying era. Click throughs become absolutely critical. But I find there's no substitute to living with a camera for a sustained period of time in order to understand it on a more holistic, even visceral, level. Most of the current cameras can only be assessed as part of a system. I prefer "hands-on" shooting to chart tests. This is not "String Theory" and the reviewers are not all Phd. researchers at Cal Tech. 

Just to be clear: Objective testing should mean all cameras get tested the same way. 

Now, if the reviewers want some non-Sony a9 work that would actually be continuously helpful to real photographers, who want to know if they should buy a certain piece of gear, they should consider re-reviewing cameras that have already been reviewed each time a big firmware fix is unveiled. There is much consensus that some cameras have been made amazingly better by new firmware and yet the old reviews stand as fact. The world iterates. Reviews should too. Right up until the camera in question is retired from the market.

(no ad for the Sony a9 here...).

added 6-27: An interesting article by Erwin Puts about testing and manufacture tolerances: http://www.imx.nl/photo/optics/optics/page62.html

The relentless migration to minimalism continues....slowly.

I was walking on 2nd St. in downtown Austin when I walked past a couple

sitting at the outside bar at Jo's Coffee House. I did a double-take when 

I saw his t-shirt and turned myself around. The first photography book

I wrote was entitled: "Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques

for Location Lighting" (Amherst Media). I have been working

on Downsizing my inventory ever since.

I have to say that success in the rigorous job of paring away unnecessary gear; and keeping shiny new (unnecessary) gear at bay, has been mixed. There is always the promise that one piece or another will solve all of my technical and creative roadblocks and propel me toward a life of artistic satisfaction. It ain't necessarily so.

Last week I took the last of my big, 29 pound (empty), Pelican hard cases to Goodwill Industries in the hope that they'll find someone who needs valuable protection for their gear and also has the strength and endurance to wield that protection. I've given up. My newer cases are much lighter and offer much the same level of protection. 

This week I was able to pass along four big, Fotodiox professional fluorescent light fixtures. At one point they seemed to have so much promise to me. They satisfied my need for continuous light that didn't also emulate the heat profile of a blast furnace but they've been superseded in my kit by much smaller, lighter and more color accurate LED lights. 

Last month I met a young, student photographer, struggling to use a 4x5" inch view camera on a spindly and much abused, lightweight tripod. I walked back to the car and grabbed a medium sized Benro tripod and handed it over with no strings attached. Anyone attempting urban street photography with a 4x5 in 100(f) heat at least deserves a stable platform, and it helped me reduce down the tripod inventory to a still embarrassing five models. On a cheerier note I'm down to only two monopods!

Today's clumsy waddle towards minimalism in the studio is about picture frames. I have dozens in several sizes, from local shows I've done over the years. I am in the process of pulling the prints out and cleaning them up for another trip to Goodwill Industries where I hope a struggling artist will discover said frames and mount their first big show in repurposed rectangular boundaries.

I understand what drives us to try new stuff and experiment but I'm now coming to grips with the fact that it's equally important to let go of things and reduce the clutter that takes up space; on our shelves and in our minds. And if we can pass the pieces along to be re-purposed then all the better. 

Loved the man's t-shirt. I need one like that to wear during the sporadic studio purges.

Focal length is a big part of a portrait vision. I prefer longer focal lengths. This portrait was shot at 189mm.

Given the choice I'll nearly always shoot longer and longer rather than shorter when it comes to making portraits. There is something about the compression, blended with lighting that helps accentuate the topology of a face, that makes a portrait seem more real to me. When the first digital cameras with interchangeable lenses hit the market in the early part of the century almost every model came complete with an APS-C sized sensor. I was amazed at the number of people who thought nothing of shooting portraits with their 50mm lenses on those cameras. While the 50mm focal length translates to about a 75mm equivalent on a full frame camera I think that's still more than a bit short for good compression when making portraits. 

We could be pedantic and suggest that the 75mm user back up a bit and then crop and that the results would match a longer lens but we know there's other stuff at play. In the early digital days part of the equation was a resistance to cropping in order to ensure there were enough pixels left over to make a decent image. I'd say that if one is shooting on full frame cameras and cropping square the same reservations apply. 

In the best of all possible worlds I'd use something in the range of 135 to 200mm for a studio portrait and I'd also specify that my background be yards and yards behind my subject instead of mere feet. The further away the background the easier it is to drop out of focus and also to light as a totally separate plane. If we put the background very far back we soon see another reason to go longer with our portrait lenses. A shorter lens will show the edges of the background sooner and will limit our ability to push it back as far as we can. In essence, a long portrait lens, delivers more options for the relationship between the subject and background. 

There are a few downsides to using a long lens for a portrait. If you light faces in one of the current styles that calls for flat and even light across a face you'll find the compression makes the face seem wider; fatter. This is rarely a benefit to the subject. When we compose with long lenses I try to create light with quicker gradations to shadow in order to create a more three dimensional rendering to the face. I'm trying to bring back a normal geometry to the face with my lights. 

One more thing about lighting. I like to make sure that the bottom edge my main light is up well above chin level on my subject so a shadow drops in under the chin and gives a visual depth between the chin and the neck/throat. Alaina certainly does not have a double chin to worry about but many corporate subjects do and it's benevolent to make sure that a well placed shadow, created by correct lighting, does its part to conceal certain...flaws. 

The photograph above was done with a Sony 70/200mm f4.0 G lens on an A7ii camera body. 

Of course, you can always ignore these conventions and shoot wider. But eventually you'll come to hate the look and probably give up photography altogether. Wide angle portraits can be that bad... You'll notice that even Bill Brandt only dabbled with wide portraits a handful of times....

Why I prefer cheaper cameras now.

Studio shot with Panasonic fz2500, one inch sensor camera.

I've been watching with interest as one of my close friends, a working, professional photographer, goes through the process of searching for the holy grail of cameras to use for his work. He has a few Canon cameras; like the 5D3 and the 5DSr, he also owns the Leica SL with the honking big (and superbly pricey) zoom lens; but the cameras that fascinate and repulse me are the most expensive of his inventory. He's on his second Leica S2 medium format camera having been through a previous iteration and also a Hasselblad MF digital camera....system. 

To be clear, the MF digital cameras he's been buying are the price of a decent car. A new Honda Fit, or Toyota Corolla, at least. But there are two interesting consequences to dabbling in such rarified heights. One is that the lenses he must adapt to the cameras for his use; tilt and shift lenses, are frightfully expensive and kludgy on those cameras. Most are adapted from older systems. So every time he wants to shoot with a new focal length his minimum new investment seems to be in the $5K to $7K range. A bag of lenses along with one of the S2 camera bodies may have a combined value north of $30K. That's a lot of K. The cameras are slow to use and most of the lenses he's using are manual focusing. Even the AF models are nothing to write home about --- if you've used any decent 35mm style AF lens in the last ten years. 

The second issue is that his "hit rate" seems to be much higher when he's using the Canons or the smaller Leica camera. There's less missed focus and less missed opportunities and, when push comes to shove, the only place he sees a bit of imaging superiority in favor of the bigger camera(s) is when they are mounting on a stout tripod and used with great care. Even there I am of the opinion that the gains he is getting in terms of increased detail and dynamic range could be easily matched by using a much less expensive camera on the same stout tripod and then using new camera features to combine three quick exposures for more dynamic range and more resolution. A very viable consideration since most of his work is immobile architecture. 

So, does spending more money to buy the state of the art camera really translate into better images and better efficiencies with clients' work? Based on the variety of cameras I've bought and used in the past five or so years I'd have to say no. My friend's work has always been good, with or without the new MF cameras. I think having the ne ultra plus of cameras (or of any tools or even marathon shoes) does more by way of delivering a placebo effect to the owner. An emotional life jacket that assures one that they've covered all of their bases. That no one will come back to them and argue that they didn't make every effort to deliver the best. 

I've become a true believer in the idea that there is a big range and all of the quality metrics across all the good, current cameras are bunched up tight at one end of a long performance curve. By that I mean that most current cameras, when used for typical photo shoots and casual artistic use, generally are capable of hitting the 92 to 96% quality range. In fact, I'd say, based on years of observation, that the real appeal of the highest quality camera is nothing more than the machine providing a buffer against the sloppy techniques of the user. Most people would be better served working on their technique if ultimate quality was really their goal. 

The cool thing about cheaper cameras is that the features per dollar ratio is better and sometimes trading off the ability to do sharper, nicer 40 by 60 enlargements is righteously offset by cameras offering features unavailable on the priciest pro-targeted cameras. One feature I think is in many cases a better value is the inclusion of a long, sharp lens. I've had many opportunities to take images that I would never have had before the launch of cameras like the Sony RX10 series and the Panasonic fz1000 and fz2500 cameras. The long, fast lenses on those cameras are unique. Getting the same angle of view on a full frame camera like a Sony a9 or Nikon D5 would cost a fortune, weigh as much as my inkjet printer and be devilishly hard to handle and move around with. For one tenth the cost I get to shoot with a focal length the likes of which I would never have invested in before. And I can carry the whole rig easily over one shoulder.

Another set of features shared by the two one inch sensor cameras is profoundly good 4K (UHD) video. It's better than the video out of most high end, interchangeable lens cameras because Sony designs this as an important feature instead of a check list afterthought. It's much better 4K video from either of the small cheap cameras than video from my old Nikon D810, or the D750, or the Canon 5Dmk3 - 4, etc. etc. etc. With the Panasonic my low budget fz is a complete video solution: Just add a microphone and some lights. That makes the process of creating high value video dirt cheap and easy. 

I have an expensive and well specified Sony camera that's nearly the ultimate in image quality. When I bought it the price was $3200. But I hate taking it out when I'm shooting casual, daily art because it gets used too hard. I need to preserve its working condition so I can use it for bigger paying jobs. Sweat, heat, dust, water and all those other things aren't good for precision cameras. I'd hate to trash the A7rii just to get a couple of street images to share on the blog. I guess that's meek on my part but sometimes replacements are backordered and service is a great unknown. I'd rather preserve the integrity of that camera and trash a camera at a third or less of the price. That's why I have a Panasonic G85. For $900 I've got a camera that is weather sealed, comes with a weather sealed 24-120mm equivalent zoom lens and boasts killer image stabilization. It's also a very decent 4K video camera. Since the sensor is smaller the lens is also smaller and lighter. I can carry this camera everywhere and never stop to worry that some accident or misuse might cause its destruction. 

And you know what? The images taken out in the streets and around town are fabulous. It's a wonderful all around shooting camera; especially when I consider the performance for the money. If I drop it hard, in a mud puddle, and it gets trampled by horses I won't pretend it has a chance at survival but the loss won't be monumental or profound. It's also less complex and actually makes better use of its battery power. A win for everything except giant posters and double truck print ads ---- now, when is the last time we saw one of those?

Sony RX10iii. Long lens, close shot.

In the recent past the idea around spending big bucks for high end cameras swirled around the idea that you got a lot more rugged reliability mixed with higher overall performance, but when even budget cameras are capable of 8 -10 fps, focus quickly and well, and have wonderful color output the value equation shifts dramatically. Add in the fact that almost all digital cameras have become quite reliable and the only reasons you might choose a more expensive option (beyond the mysterious forces of ego...) would be better focus tracking and better continuous AF performance. And maybe a bigger buffer. 

It's all a matter of degree and use. I rarely have to track race horses or Usain Bolt. Swimmers are easy to track. I mostly set up my shots in the studio (where I have nearly complete control and can even use manual focus happily) So I am not the target market for super-hyper focus speed even though my income is derived from making photographs. I like the G85. If I wanted some more performance options I might migrate to a GH5 but that would still be just a third the price of a Nikon or Canon top of the line camera and less than half the price of Sony's new a9. For most people the differences (if any) between those cameras and a GH5 are probably more imagined than real; with the exception of the bigger sensor. 

At some point it pays to be honest about our camera use. Most of use know what we use our cameras for and I think most are aware that, for all intents and purposes, we are the limiting factor on the imaging chain. If I am honest with myself I'm happy with the actual performance of the G85, the RX10xxx and the fz 2500. I was happy with the imaging performance of my older Olympus EM-5.2 cameras (although I was swayed to change mostly by the bigger and more detailed EVFs on the cameras I migrated to). And I have been happy with other less prodigious cameras. 

I guess the real question is whether the final use is really worth the bigger drain on your own finances. I know that these purchases all add up. But they add up more slowly when the purchase price is lower. And there's little truth to the old German adage of "buying cheap means buying twice." since the sensor tech is the ultimate source of obsolescence and affects the proud and the modest cameras equally. 

Just some thoughts on why I keep enjoying my cheap cameras more than my pricier toys....

Sony RX10iii

The 2017 version of the Nikon FM. Or the Canonet.

video studio in a backpack.

want indestructible? Wrap a cage around your favorite camera.

A high ISO, long lens, handheld shot with the fz2500. Cheap and spectacular is a good combination.

I had a nice website yesterday, made a few changes this morning, crash fest and a largely dead site now. NOW FIXED.

Too Serious.

Anything that requires many minutes of uploading into some mysterious folder at one's ISP is fraught with peril and frustration. I read the comments left by my thoughtful readers yesterday re: my re-do of the website and, fresh from a relaxing father's day, I hit the studio this morning to make some tweaks. Most involved just removing duplicate files, changing the automatic slide show timing for the galleries and making the thumbnails in the galleries one size bigger. 

Then, unexpectedly, all hell broke loose. I tried to publish to my site from the design program only to have the program crash again and again. I tried to save the files to disk but would get 90% of the way there before the program crashed again. I tried uploading what I thought was a completed save to the ISP only to see that major parts and pieces are missing and now the site is a catastrophe. A meteor crater of programming.

It will, no doubt, be during this time period that the senior art director for Apple will decide to take a peek at my site as a prelude to offering me an exten$ive project.... And then J.J. Abrams will drop by to see more about that great novelist he's heard so much about (all fantasy). 

I may have fixed the issue. I'm trying another upload now but, as with all things modern, I am very doubtful, pessimistic. 

Well, at least I'll have the memory of having once had a mostly completed site up for a while....

edit: Hmmmm. It's wrong to always presume that we've done something wrong when it comes to computers, ISPs, web sites, web hosts, et al. Today I re-loaded application software, changed security protocols for uploads, cleared caches, cleared folders on the web server and all kinds of other stupid voodoo only to finally talk to a human at our hosting company and finding out that they did a huge server upgrade over the weekend that played havoc on their firewall settings. It got resolved around noon and I found out about it just a few minutes ago at 3:42 CST. 

We are now in the last throes of yet another upload to the kirktuck.com server and everything that I've been spot-checking looks pretty good. On days like this I re-decide that my hatred for technology is not misguided. Happy only for air conditioning, and cures for polio, tuberculosis and other assorted diseases; as well as refrigeration and Fed Ex delivery from Amazon.com. Every other advance largely proves to be more trouble that it is worth and comes with unexpected consequences. But, for the moment, it looks like I'll have my new website back. Pretty happy since I dropped days into construction. Whew.