Taking career advice from the graffiti on a bridge.

Do you ever find yourself pulled in too many directions at once? I've got so many balls in the air I feel like I'm juggling while I'm asleep.  Sometimes it's good to just go for a walk.  As I walked over the Pfluger Pedestrian bridge that unites south and north Austin I looked east to the old railroad bridge for the thousandth time.  This time it made sense to me.  Focus on one point and BREATHE.


As if to underline the advice I looked out over the expanse of Lady Bird Lake (which is also the Colorado River running through the middle of Austin) I saw literally hundreds and hundreds of people out paddle boarding or kayaking.  They weren't in a rush.  They weren't worried about market share or ROI they were just soaking up the sun, watching the other beautiful people around them and ....relaxing.

Sometimes you need a reminder that there might be more things under the sky than compulsively working or even compulsively photographing.  I need to put my work life on a diet.

A quick test of the a57 in use at 3200 ISO/ 3200K

I love shooting in the theater when the light is sweet and the plays are interesting.  I bought a Sony a57 just for shooting in low light.  When I shoot it at 3200 the files look great at normal sizes.  When I look at 100% I see some noise reduction smoothing at play.  I had the camera set to "standard" noise reduction and shot Jpeg last Tuesday, at a dress rehearsal of Dividing the Estate.


I was using the Sony 70-200mm 2.8 G lens and I liked what I got.  I might shoot raw the next time around just so I can try some other styles of noise reduction.  The new version of Lightroom (4.1) seems to have well thought out noise reduction.  I never seem to mind fine, monochromatic noise, it's only the splotchy color noise that I don't like.  I noticed that the ISO 1600 shots I'd done with the a77 camera on the same evening cleaned up well.  I shot them in raw.

I'm getting more and more comfortable with the EVF in the a57.  I know it will nail the exposures and I'm getting a handle on the qualitative differences between the contrast on screen and the contrast in real life.  While the EVF is not as good as the one in the a77 it's acceptable.  And the nice part of the compromise is that even the raw files from the a57 are easier to handle than those from the a77.  Post processing 1,000 images from three cameras shows you just how much more time nearly doubling the shooting file size takes on the backend.

Panasonic G3 meets a lens from another time.

I was pleasantly surprised by the file above.  It's nothing special.  The subject matter is banal.  The composition is boring and the lighting is nothing special.  But....

I shot it with an odd combination of gear that most would hardly expect to render anything technically decent.  Let's start with the lens.  I'd brought along a 150mm f4 Pen F lens that was built around 1970.  It works on the micro four thirds cameras with an adapter.  The lens is all metal, the focusing is smoother than marbles in Vaseline and the aperture ring is so well damped it suggests clicks instead of pronouncing them.  But it's over forty years old.  We've all been subjected to marketing messages that try to tell us that only with the latest supercomputers have any lenses been designed that have value....  Tell that to Zeiss and Leica and Olympus.  They've been making keepers for a long, long time.

On a micro four thirds camera this lens gives one the same field of view as a 300mm lens on a 24 by 36mm framed camera.  That means there's a lot of magnification going on.  I'm not the steadiest shooter; I presume that most habitual coffee drinkers aren't either.  So I'm not sure why I ended up shooting with this lens handheld.

I brought it along with me when I met my friend, Frank, for coffee at Trianon Coffee House last Tuesday.  He's a big fan of the new OM-D and I wanted to show this relic to him because Olympus's first small frame camera system was an ancestor of his new camera system.  I'd been thinking about the excitement concerning the announcement introducing the new Olympus 75mm 1.8 lens and I have owned and used the older 70mm lens, designed for the Pen f system for many years.  My 70mm lens is a f2.0 and it's slightly shorter so I question why Olympus had to make their new lens so much bigger.  I think their roadmap forward is largely a reflection of the previous lens line.  I can feel a 60mm 1.4 coming up soon, as well as a 100mm f3.5 macro and maybe a few 38mm f1.4's.

But the whine on the forums is about the lack of longer lenses.  And I wanted to show Frank the 150mm because I'm sure that we'll soon get an upgraded version for the m4:3 cameras.  I had no real intention of shooting anything.

I brought the lens along glomped onto front of my Lumix G3.  It's a from a camera family that seems stained by the idea that their jpeg files are substandard.  Color impaired.  Bad DR.  

At some point I turned around and handheld the camera and lens and shot the image above while seated at the table.  The camera was set at ISO 1600.  Standard Jpeg.  The lens was wide open at f4.0.  There's no image stabilization anywhere in the system or, for that matter, anywhere in my system either.  But I was able to hold this long lens (the same magnification as a 300mm lens on a Canon 5Dmk3) and lens steady enough to get an image in which I can see small type clearly rendered from 30 feet away.  Amazing.  

There's only one reasonable explanation:  Clean living.  Because it can't possibly be the gear...

Panasonic G3.  150mm E. Zuiko Pen lens.

Dividing the Estate. A play directed by Stephen Dietz

I went to Zachary Scott Theater last night to see a new play directed by Stephen Dietz.  The play, Dividing the Estate, written by Texas playwright, Horton Foote,  is set in rural Texas and concerns a family hell bent on dividing up the family estate to save each member of the family from his own, self-inflicted, economic demise.  Stephen Dietz was masterfully directing the play and even though it was an early dress rehearsal the cast pulled off a great performance.  I really enjoyed it.  Some parts had me laughing out loud while others reminded me of more or less universal family dynamics.

But I was there to get some work done. We started right at 8 pm. I used three cameras:  an Olympus EP3 (with VF2 finder) and both the 45mm 1.8 Olympus lens and the 25mm Lumix Leica Summilux 1.4.  The combinations worked well.  I kept that camera at ISO 800 and the files were well behaved.  My one modification to the EP3, for this evening's work, was to cover the blue "on" light with a piece of black gaffer's tape.  It was too bright for my taste.  The camera locked focus quickly and I shot mostly in the range of f2.8 @ 1/125th.

I used a Sony a57 camera with the 70 to 200mm f2.8 G lens.  I used the lens at f3.2 and generally, with the camera set at ISO 3200 I was able to shoot without any problems at shutter speeds of 1/250th to 1/500th of a second.  I was happy with the camera's ability to lock focus quickly and I was happy with the shallow depth of field and uncluttered feel to the out of focus areas.  The files at 3200 ISO were just fine (shot Jpeg fine at 16 megapixels).

My final camera/lens combination was the Sony a77 couple with the 16-50mm lens.  I shot this combo at f4, 1/125 to 1/250th of a second @ ISO 1600.  I shot these files in the raw format.  Not for any brilliant reason but because I forgot to switch the camera to Jpeg after my last project...

The noise at 1600 was easy to handle and the files looked the best of all three cameras.  But not by much.  I would have been happy shooting with any of the three.  

All of the cameras were shot handheld and the image stabilization was turned on for all three.  Not that it matters but I was using Transcend class 10 SDHC cards, 16 gigs, in each camera.  I've been using them since I switched to cameras that take SD's with no issues.

I have become much more used to the layout of the buttons and controls on the Sony cameras and I was much more comfortable using the cameras in the dark at the rehearsal.  I credited that to having already clicked through about 30,000 exposures between my three Sony cameras since I bought them several months ago...

I really enjoy shooting dress rehearsals for plays.  Not just plays I would enjoy as an audience member (like this one...) but also work that is challenging to me as an audience member.  When I'm shooting I'm following the basic story but I'm mostly looking for things that are more engaging to me like an actor's pose or gesture.  From the commanding stance of the actor in the image just above to the engagement of the actor below.

What the marketing people really want to see is different than what I want to see as a photographer.  Their interest is in groupings like the one below that, with the addition of a good caption, go a long way to giving a short hand glimpse at what the play is all about.

In between dramatic moments and groupings I like to take images that are more akin to portraits.  The lighting on this production was especially good for photography with well filled shadows and not too many lighting cues with over the top color casts that might not succumb even to good post processing...

I love the juxtaposition of the forward actor and the out of focus actor in the middle plane.  The light coming through the side window and the plane of the back wall add so much dimension.

Austin acting legend, Barbara Chisholm, had me laughing out loud in her role as a Houston woman of means who's, "NEVER WORKED A DAY IN MY LIFE !!!"  She played the role so well.  I know.  I've been to Houston...

I'm sitting in the studio now.  I've post processed all of the files and I'm waiting for Lightroom to convert everything to manageable Jpegs.  It's taking a while to crunch through the large raw files I shot with the a77.  Once we've converted everything I'll stick the files on DVD's for the marketing director.

We are transitioning to Summer here.  I've ordered a new air conditioner to replace the dying one in the studio.  It should be here tomorrow.  We don't mess around with dying air conditioners in Texas.  Not after last Summer.  

I'm busy putting together a book of essays for my e-book project.  More about that to come.

Hope everyone is staying cool and having fun.

Bringing "outside" into the studio.

Showing off heat shrink cable insulators for 3M.  In studio.  

4x5 inch Linhof Technikarden view camera.

240mm Symmar lens.

Studio Electronic flash.

Key feature:  Dirt Styling.

RTFTRJ.

Phun with Photons. An assignment in NYC.

Some images from a job at Primary Packaging in New York. Spend a couple days photographing pack printing.  Medium format camera with 50mm, 80mm and 150mm lenses.  Tri-X film.  Leitz Tiltall Tripod.  No lights.  The images are scans from prints.  The prints are not direct copies of what is on the negatives.  They were "interpreted."  The art director was not looking for "literal".

An experimental afternoon with a Sony camera and a Hasselblad lens....

On the bridge.

I'd read a lot of stuff on the web recently by people who think the only way to control depth of field is by using full frame cameras.  I can't understand why these people, who are so emotionally attached to the visual effect of very narrow depth of field don't just shoot large format but who can understand another person's mind?

I went out this afternoon with my cropped Sony a77 camera and a Hasselblad lens to make some images while thinking about depth of field.  The lens I chose was a venerable Hasselblad 150mm f4.  At first I was nervous to use the lens wide open because it's very old, not even a "CF" lens and so I imagined that it would not be sharp or contrasty when used at its maximum aperture.  I was, of course, quite wrong.

The photo at the top of the blog is a quick portrait of a person passing by.  I asked him if he would stop to be photographed and he readily agreed.  He was in magnificent physical shape and I loved the look of his sunglasses.  Looks to me as though the background is nicely out of focus even though we're in bright sun....  We could have increased the effect by using a faster lens, like the Hasselblad 150mm F series f2.8 but I like what I've got here. There are limits to the effectiveness of every style or technique....

We took four frames and then my "model" got on with his walk. The best narrow depth of focus I ever saw, as an effect was by a photographer who used Nikon's legendary (and no longer available) 300mm f2.0 lens.  It was enormous and awkward but if you wanted razor thin DOF you couldn't go wrong...  They retailed for $29,000 when they were introduced... 

This is not a crop.  It's the full frame.  When I grabbed this lens out of the drawer I thought I'd be getting something interesting but I didn't know that, wide open, it would be this sharp.  You see, it's not my main 150mm Hasselblad lens which I've owned since new but a back-up lens I bought used from Precision Camera here in Austin for around $249.  The Hasselblad to Sony adapter I bought from Fotodiox for another $69.  The lens is a black paint, late C lens with T-star coatings.

I also stopped in at Whole foods to shoot some produce.  I was interested in how the lens would work at its closest focusing distance and I was interested in how the Sony would perform under the low, mixed lighting.

Interestingly, they both seem to do pretty well...

I couldn't pass up the bakery.  The cakes make wonderful subjects for photography.  Sadly, no free samples were forthcoming...

Back on the bridge I ran into this joyous couple.  A photographer and his vivacious model.  I was happy with the performance of the both the Sony's rapid focus peaking and the easy focusing of the Hasselblad optical system. 

And finally,  I was reminded of why I love living in Austin.  A laid back, adventurous and fun town with lots of little nooks and crannies to surprise us.  That's the old Lamar Bridge over Town Lake.  I love its design.

Lesson for today?  Old stuff is good stuff.  New stuff is good stuff.  It's all meaningless unless you go out and use it.

Mr. A.M.,  Thanks for the glass of wine and the fun conversation at the Whole Foods bar.  Nice way to spend time.