Fully Committed. Shooting a play with an old, manual focus lens.

Martin Burke in Fully Committed.

Camera: Olympus Pen EP3.  Lens: 45mm 1.8  ISO 1250.

One of my favorite actors of all time, Martin Burke, will be starring in the one man play, Fully Committed, at the Zachary Scott Theatre, opening this evening.  Last night was the dress rehearsal.  The play is about the person in the basement office of an ultra-trendy, Manhattan restaurant whose job comprises sitting at a desk taking telephone reservations from a group of the most entitled, eccentric and sometimes sociopathic group of patrons imaginable.  Martin plays both sides of every conversation, including conversations with the slimy head chef and the head waiter.  At the same time he also fields calls from "friends" who are anxious to let him know they've landed acting jobs in parts that he also auditioned for. 

Martin is amazing and the play is so much fun.  So fun, in fact, that I was able to convince my 16 year old son to come with me.  I was going to shoot images during the dress rehearsal that we'll be sending to the press today.  

First, let's talk about the photography part.  I would be covering one actor on a small stage. I wanted to try something a bit different and I'd been champing at bit to pit two of my favorite lenses against each other to see which would emerge triumphant.  It wouldn't exactly be a fair fight as one lens would be on my Panasonic GH2 and the other on my Olympus EP3.  What the Olympus has in design panache and build quality it gives back in resolution...Yes, that has been remedied in the OMD but I'm still holding out...

I wanted to shoot my Olympus 45mm 1.8 and my Olympus (old school Pen) 60mm 1.5.  How would the ancient legacy lens do against the young favorite of the m4:3 crowd?  How would I do pitting my skills in manually focusing against the fast sample rate and quick AF of the EP-3?  Who would emerge as the top contender in the America's Top Small Camera Contest (A trademark of the Shooting with the Stars Corporation, ltd.)?????

Martin Burke. Fully Committed.

Camera: Panasonic GH2. Lens: Olympus 60mm 1.5  ISO 1250

I brought along the two bodies I mentioned, the two lenses I mentioned and also the Pan/Leica 25mm 1.4 and the Panasonic 14-45mm zoom, as well as two extra batteries per camera.  Everything packed into one small Domke camera bag with room to spare.  Lots of room to spare. Ben and I left the house a bit early and headed to the theatre. Little did we know that the city of Austin was hosting one of those "everyone-with-nothing-better-to-do-come-to-the-park-sit-on-the-grass-and-listen-to-jazz" things where hordes of people looking for free entertainment drive in from the suburban hinterlands, and fill all the roads between me and the theatre with hapless, confused and generally incompetent drivers who are afraid to make left hand turns.

Through a combination of patience and profanity in equal doses we were finally able to arrive at the theatre with five minutes to spare.  Ben settled in to a comfy seat behind me and I got to work setting up my cameras.  They were both set identically.  ISO = 1250, manual shutter speeds, manual apertures.  White balance set to tungsten. Noise reduction on stun (low) and each camera set to large, fine or extra fine jpegs. (The Panasonic has only "fine" as a choice...).

My routine with the Panasonic was to push in the little wheel on the back, top right of the camera which magnifies the finder image.  I would fine focus the 60mm lens and then touch the shutter button which got me right back to the 100% finder image.  Then I'd be able to shoot for a while without worrying about focus until Martin moved.  The method was quick and pretty accurate.  When I hit sharp focus the lens worked well.  Most of the time I was shooting with the lens set to between f2 and f2.8. 

My routine for using the Olympus was to evaluate exposure on the VF2 screen and then rely on the camera's autofocus for the heavy lifting.  I even used the face detection AF for a number of the shots.  

I think both cameras did well.  The GH2 files seem a bit more solid and I find that I actually prefer to manually focus my lenses.  Probably a holdover from the past.  I was happy to see that neither camera seemed to struggle with noise at the 1250 ISO setting.  I found the controls on the Panasonic, especially the push wheel for toggling between, and setting, aperture and shutter speed to be more usable than the two different dials on the EP3.  I also found the files on the GH2 to be a bit cleaner and more robust.  There is a color difference between the cameras but nothing that can't be duplicated or remedied in Lightroom or some other piece of software.

The big difference to me was in the lenses. I much prefer the look of the longer, 60mm lens. I think it has a sharpness and contrast that the other lens doesn't quite share. They are very, very close and by f2.8 and beyond you'd have to have your nose stuck to the front screen of your monitor to see the difference, but, at f2 the winner for contrast and center sharpness (to my eye) is the ancient metal beast of a lens.  The 60mm f1.4.

The big caveat is the fact that it was used on a body with 24% more pixels.  

Why use the smaller cameras when I have bigger, faster stuff?  Because I wanted to and because the action in the play was constrained to a smaller space which meant fewer changes in  focal length ranges were needed.  The prime lenses are nicely sharp and gave me the opportunity to work at higher shutter speeds.  That's always nice.  Next time out I'm going to match up my old 70mm f2 against the 60mm 1.5 and see which one really is best.  Nice to see Olympus re-introducing so many high speed primes.  It's always a nice option in the age of relentless zooms.

The biggest issue I had, technically, last night was all the laughing.  Most of the play is so funny that I found myself laughing out loud with the rest of the small (family and friends) audience. Hard to keep your equipment steady during a full out belly laugh. Ben thought the play we great as well.  Score one for fighting against video games....

Both cameras made it through the show with their original batteries.  Paranoia proved once again to be unnecessary.

I've already made reservations to go back and see the play again.  All fun all the time.

Hope you've got your Summer in a good trajectory.  It's not nearly as hot in Austin as it was this time last year.  The lawns are green, the pools are cool and it's even possible to go (comfortably) for long walks.  With a camera.

Thanks for reading.

The first generation of Olympus "small sensor" cameras.

Painter in the marketplace.  San Antonio. Scanned at 4800 dpi for a final size of 10x15 @300DPI.Reduced to 2000 by 1300 for the blog.

Scanned at 2400 DPI and reduced for the blog.

I've written often about my admiration for the original line of Olympus Pen-F and Pen FT cameras but I rarely show many photos from that camera.  One reason is that I long since gave away my dedicated film scanner and I didn't think the cheap flat bed scanner I used for everything else was up to doing scans of really small transparencies. The actual film size is less than half a frame of 35mm film.  I think that makes this ancient line of cameras the first real "smaller sensor" professional cameras.

Once Eugene Richards, a bunch of Life Magazine photographers and a few Magnum photographers adopted to the half frame, with it's very small and discrete form factor, the photo community at large didn't even try to start arguing about "equivalence" or the impossibility of doing professional work with small cameras.  Back then all that mattered was results.  And generally the images were judged for things like: content, timing, composition and juxtaposition.  Not ultimate sharpness and certainly not a camera's performance at a zillion ISO.  Maybe that's why they called the 1960's and 1970's the "golden age" of photography... It was largely done by impassioned artists and not geeks with the hots for working out the SNR on a graph.

I was cleaning up the studio this week, in anticipation of painting the walls, when I came across a metal case full of 1/2 frame transparencies.  Most of it is portraits of Belinda from the 1980's and Ben from the 1990's but there were a bunch of slides I shot in San Antonio that I always liked.  So I decided to give the much maligned flatbed a test run.  I tossed on the slide holder (holds four) and revved up the Epson Scan Software (runs with no hitches on OS 10.7).  

The images above and below were all shot on some day in 1980.  That's what the slide mount says. That's 32 year old film technology in a small space.  I was pretty amazed at how well it holds up when scanned.  If I remember correctly I was using a standard FT camera with the 40mm 1.4 lens.  The meter had long since given up the ghost so I was dependent on guessing and conjecturing.  Which is kind of scary given the limited dynamic range of color slide film at the time.

These informal tests tell me lots of different, unconnected things. First they tell me that, for around $160 new right now, the Epson V500 is a pretty darn good, all around scanner.  Just about perfect for the person who is knee deep in digital but still wants to tool around with film.  It tells me that the half frame format was capable of doing good service up to 8x12 inches for most uses. The lens seems sharp and snappy for something created over 45 years ago.

I can see that I was able to focus manually much better thirty years ago but I'm convinced it's a practice thing rather than whole scale disintegration so I'll keep practicing.

Finally, looking at the images reminds me that there was so much less to decide on back then.  If you left the house with a pocket full of 100 ISO daylight film you made due with that.  If you left the house with one lens and a body you tried to squeeze the most out of that combination.  Largely, everything else is just a distraction.  

I'm not saying I hate digital or I'm only going to shoot film from now on but I would like to be on record as saying that someone could satisfy a big niche of the market by putting out a digital camera with only five controls on it:  Focus. Aperture.  Shutter Speed.  Color balance.  ISO.

All the rest of the stuff we keep getting is just bullshit to fill our minds with mush and make the process of taking photograph harder than it needs to be.  If we had fewer decisions to make we sure have a hell of a lot more concentration on what's in front of the camera.

And, to the smarty pants who will write and tell me how I can turn off all the unwanted items, I have to respond:  It's not the same thing as designing elegantly in the first place.

Raspas by the Alamo.

The black and white conversion in SnapSeed is not bad.

Late in the afternoon, fishing at the old Perdanales State Park.

A few years back there was a magazine in Austin called, Texas Life.  It was a bold upstart that intended to go toe to toe with the heavyweights like, Texas Monthly.  They ran out of money and in a matter of months were gone.  But while they were rolling we did a lot of photography for them. At one point we did a fashion-y piece about the outdoor life in central Texas.  Fishing, hiking, taking a long swims in cool streams...that kind of thing.

I photographed these two models using my favorite camera and lens of the moment.  A Leica R8 with a 180mm Elmarit Lens.  These are from e-6 slides scanned on the Epson Perfection V500 Photo scanner.  It's a different look...

The Leica R series cameas and lenses never got the press that the M series does.  Probably the more conservative and traditional body put it directly in competition with the much less expensive Canon and Nikon flagships.  Kinda tough to justify spending twice as much for the tool...unless they are better.

Street Photo for Father's Day.

Street shot from San Antonio.  Originally created on color slide film and then scanned on an Epson V500 Photo flatbed scanner.


It's coming up next saturday. Father's day. I can hardly wait. I haven't been at all subtle. I've been leaving little hints all over the house. Notes on the front door.  Notes on the bathroom mirrors. Even notes on the TV screen.  My wants are simple, my needs even simpler. I've worked hard to be a good dad and I'm ready to sit back and be showered with teenage appreciation.

So, besides a $50  cash loan (shot in the 1980's....) what's on the list?

I'm looking for just a few upgrades.  To start with a new MacBook Pro with a retina screen would be nice but it's a little bit out of the price range capabilities of a non-working 16 year old.  So I've made some adjustments...

I would like to get my hands on an OMD EM-5.  I'm still resisting getting one for myself because I want to see what else hits the market this summer, but, if someone were to buy me a black one as a father's day present I couldn't bear to return it....

And while I'm at it I've heard some nice things about the Panasonic 14mm lens.  But if you're going to get me the 14mm you might as well get it with the GF-3 body because it's not that much more.

I can always use another one of those great Fotodiox 312AS LED panels that changes color temperature.  One can never have too many and they're great for quick lighting set ups.  But I wouldn't protest if Ben and his mom went in together to pop for a Lowell Prime light...

I lent a fellow photographer three of my Elinchrom D-Lite 4's and it caused me to realize that five would be better than four when it comes to lighting inventory.  The D-Lites have been flawless performers at a small price.  Nice to have one more back up.

I know this  will come as no surprise to long time readers but----the Nikon D3200 has piqued my interest.  24 megapixels and a lens for only $699?  Freakin unbelievable.  And as I'm on record having said,  "There's no law that says you can't have more than one really cool camera."  Just to  experiment with, you know...

If the OMD EM5 doesn't make the cut could we settle for one more EP-3?  I need something to hang the 12mm lens on when I'm carrying multiple bodies for shoots...

Do I think Ben is going to go for any of the stuff above? Naw, but I can always dream.

I think the real trick for father's day is memory cards.  They're scalable and always in fashion.  I'd like a few more of the Transcend 16 gb SD cards.  But if money is an issue I'll be happy with more 8's.

And I'd like one more set of Eneloop double A batteries, if possible.

Wait, wait, I forgot that I wanted a new table top tripod and a few umbrellas.

Ah well.  Maybe a necktie with a picture of a Leica on it and a hand drawn card.  That would work too.

Quick note on scanning.  I do all of my scans, both print and film ( medium format and 35mm) on an ultra cheap Epson V500 scanner.  I used their canned software as well.  I am very happy with the results I get and don't want anything better.  If there's any interest from people who still have film then let me know and I'll write a piece on how I scan stuff.  I've heard the v700 is a bit better.  But I haven't tried it..

I have one suggestion for every father on your list:

Coming up soon....

K.B. Dixon's Book, A Painter's LIfe, is wonderful. Perfect Summer reading.

"Bullshit is a preservative.  There is nothing better for a reputation than a hopelessly convoluted analysis by one of the tenured gods of critical commentary."


----an excerpt from A Painter's Life,  by K.B. Dixon.

I've never met Kenneth Dixon but I just finished reading a second book by him.  It's not about photography, per se, but there are so many tangential tentacles...  The book submerges the reader into the day to day life and thoughts of a painter named, Christopher Freeze, by way of a mix of conventional narrative, passages from Christopher Freeze's journal, and pithy, witty excerpts of reviews from critics.

Freeze grapples with issues that plague all artists:  How to start. How do you know if what you are doing is any good? Where will the money come from? How to balance the time needed to create art with the time needed to actually sell enough art to have the time to do the art.  Dixon's character is flawed, self-indulgent, effete, and enmeshed in a lifestyle that straddles the academic world, the art world and the small, personal world of the artist.

His characters' observation are both witty and bitchy and entertaining.  It's a wonderful book to read because it's like looking into a gold fish bowl at an occupation that most of us will never understand.  But at the same time photographers always seem to be grappling with the same basic issues:  What is inspiration and how can I get some?  Why can't I just photograph?  Why do I have to waste time doing all this other stuff.

But the book is also a wry and slightly subversive tweak at the art industry, the critics, the dealers and the amateur collectors.  Freeze's observations about the patrons of the gallery are wonderfully cynical...

The character, Christopher Freeze, ruminates about his relationship with his art dealer, his painter friends and rivals, and his wife.

The book is extremely well written.  Not in the sense that it speeds you through a pyrotechnic plot with rampant adrenaline and harrowing twists and turns but in the sense that one really enjoys the way the words come together.  His writing is both spare and elegant, and profoundly funny.

It's a book of observations.  Of judgements and opinions.  But mostly it's an explanation of the ongoing conflict between life and art, told with dry humor.

Two observations about Dixon's books:  1.  I wish I could write even fractionally as well as Dixon.  He's never obtuse or wordy.  He has an economy of style that's effective and pleasurable.

2.  Every time I picked up his book and read for a while I saw some of my flaws in his character and there was a sense of recognition. (Cheap therapy?)  He very accurately described the split nature of an artist constantly frustrated with the need to consider the market and the need to spend time and energy in actual creation.

What resonated most for me was the underlying idea that work created for an audience, exterior to the artist, cripples the important work of the artist.  Everyone makes choices and finds a balance.  This book is a look at the shaky balance of one painter.

I've enjoyed Dixon's books because they reinforce ideas I like and make me feel at least minimally attached to part of a thread that runs through our culture.  There's a familiarity that runs through them.  Finally, the books are aimed at adults.  Not that there is anything unsuitable for children but the writing speaks to people who are living adult lives.  Making a living, trying desperately to do their art, trying to balance the need for a bit of isolation with the fear of being wholly forgotten.

If you want to read something fun and insightful I highly recommend it.

It's a novel.

Here's a link to Mr. Dixon's Amazon Author's page: http://www.amazon.com/K.-B.-Dixon/e/B002BRIL56/ref=sr_tc_2_rm?qid=1339559884&sr=1-2-ent

A quick review of one of the best cameras ever mass produced.

There are a zillion Nikon F2 cameras still floating around the photography universe.  There are two compelling reasons for that: 1. It was mass produced for over a decade; from 1971 to 1981, during a decade in which photography exploded exponentially as a hobby.  And this particular Nikon was the ultimate aspirational camera for most photographers.  2.  The camera is just flat out bullet proof.  It's like a giant squad of unkillable zombies.  It's the Energizer Bunny, it goes on and on.  And if it won't break it can go on giving pleasure to generation after generation of savvy photo artists.

Of all the cameras I've owned the Nikon F2 is still the only one I know about that has infinitely variable shutter speeds between 1/90th of a second and the top shutter speed of 1/2000th of a second.  No, I did not mis-type, you can set the shutter dial anywhere in between marked, click stopped shutter speeds and actually get controllable, fractional settings.

See the little ring of numbers that surrounds the base of the self-timer lever?  You can use that control, in concert with the control that surrounds the shutter button to set timed exposures up to 10 full seconds.  And the body?  Solid. Built of some kind of metal that won't melt, break, decompose or break.  It is even impervious to gamma and alpha rays.  Rumors abound that the Japanese tracked a meteorite of considerable size as it plunged through the atmosphere and settled in 300 meters of depth off the coast of their island nation.  Divers located the meteorite and took samples.  After rigorous testing by the JCIC it was discovered that the meteor's atomic structure was unlike anything on the periodic table.

In incredible secrecy Nikon, using a fleet of sixty enormous oil tankers and a system of air bladders the size of Rhode Island lifted the meteor intact (130.1 meters in diameter) and took it to their secret Fortress of R&D Solitude.  When queried by officials of several governments the people at Nikon gave out an official statement:  "Giant ultra-cool alloy meteorite? Never heard of it..."

Over the years they melted down this precious metal and made an alloy they called, "Inspirationium."

All Nikon F2 bodies were constructed out of this metal.  And it skewed the entire camera market.

Competitors came out with cameras built from stainless steel and then magnesium alloy at half the price but once a consumer touched the cool Inspirationium they had to have the Nikon F2.  Nothing else would satisfy them. Car payments were missed.  College funds plundered.  That product coined the phrase, "must have."

Several of these cameras have been on missions to space but most people have never heard of the top secret events in which a Nikon F2 saved the lives of everyone on a returning space shuttle.  The story goes something like this:  During lift off high speed video cameras captured footage of some heat shield tiles popping off the hull of the space shuttle.  Those ceramic tiles were a crucial part of the heat barrier that would protect the crew of the shuttle from the devastating heat of re-entry.  Everyone at NASA totally freaked out.  They were certain that the re-entry would be a disaster. The mission was kept secret because it was undertaken for some national security agency and recon satellites were being launched.

They tried to come up with a plan to save the astronauts but nothing else on the ship could withstand the hellish temperatures.  The  astronauts went on with their mission doing their space walks and talking wonderful images with their modified Nikon F2's.  Then one of the crew (an amateur photographer) remembered the rumors about the space alloy being used in the F2's and he frantically radioed mission control.  A quick satellite link up with Nikon (and much strategic arm bending concerning tarriffs and such) confirmed the rumor.  The space alloy had an incredibly high melting point.  It just might work.

Another space walk was planned.  This time it included three Nikon F2 cameras, superglue and two rolls of duct tape.  The cameras were placed over the spots where tile was missing and superglued into place.  The duct tape would certainly melt the instant the hull began to heat up but it would help hold the cameras in place until the pressure of the atmosphere  stepped in to take its place.  Everyone held their breath as the bandaged Shuttle began the descent.  The control crew on the ground was silent as they listened to the drama on their radios.  Radar from stations across the globe tracked the progress of the Shuttle.

Then......splash down.  The mission was saved.  And divers were sent to retrieve the cameras.

That alone would make an interesting story in itself but it goes on from there.  The retrieved cameras were returned to Nikon in Japan for a clean, lube and adjust and then sent back to NASA.  They only needed the saltwater rinsed out and few adjustments, other than that they were in minty condition.  A few years further down the road and budgets were cut.  The cameras were sold off at a public auction and rumor has it that one of cameras went to a famous fashion photographer in London, another is still being shot by some guy who does cigarette ads and the third one is used by a famous photojournalist who will, of course, deny that he's ever used a Nikon camera because he is, in fact, sponsored by a rival company.  But many of the assistants who've worked with him in the field swear that, when the going gets rough, and the Pulitzers and MacAuthor grants are on the line, one of the Space Shuttle F2's comes out of the bag with one of the legendary manual focus lenses and the real magic happens.  Every time.

Then there's the story of the CIA agent posing as a professional photographer in Rumania just spying the crap out of everything.  His camera prop of choice?  Of course it was an F2. The story is long and twisted but in the end he was caught red-handed by an assassin from the Rumanian government.  They faced each other and the CIA agent, Nikon F2 hanging around his neck on a leather strap, Nocto-Nikkor lens on deck, prepared to meet death with dignity.  His adversary lifted his silenced Makarov pistol and fired one shot directly at the agent's chest.

The bullet struck the Inspirationium shell of the camera which both absorbed all impact and then bounced the steel jacketed bullet right back at the assassin, striking him in the head and allowing the agent to escape.

But there is also the sad, sad story of the man in the hot air balloon who got too greedy.  He was trying to set a new altitude record for ballooning without supplemental oxygen.  He'd attained 30,000 feet and wanted to document his feat with his Nikon F2.  He was wearing it on a new, experimental strap the fit across his chest like a bandolier.  It was made of burgundy colored leather and it attached to the camera via the tripod socket. He called his strap the Burgundy Express.  But of course that single point of attachment was ludicrous and, as the camera twisted and turned on the strap it came loose and started to plunge to the earth.  Addled by the thin air our balloonist reached desperately for the camera and lost his grip on the safety ropes for the balloon.  In a flash he and the camera were accelerating toward terminal velocity.  The camera, with its small profile, accelerated more rapidly and hit the corn fields of Nebraska with a dull thud.  The balloonist landed directly on top of his own camera and was killed instantly by the impact.

But there was a silver lining to this story as well.  The camera, after falling 30,000 feet was sent to Nikon service for a quick CLA and, after an adjustment to the second shutter curtain, went back into service.  This time in the inventory of a photographer who had been struggling to succeed both artistically and in business.  Once she picked up the F2 her business picked up as well.
She went on to shoot for a number of major magazines, even shooting royalty.  And she's shilled for several other camera companies.  But you guessed it.....When the chips are down and the assets are on the block, out comes the F2 and in a matter of a few purchase orders everything returns to fashionable success.

Well.  That's all I really know about the Nikon F2 except that I have one as well.  It works.  It only takes film.  Seems you can't mix digital sensors with Inspirationium metal.

(for the painfully literal:  this is all fiction.  That means I made it up. )


I recently bought another F2 just so I'd have a back up.  I was amazed to be able to buy one for around $150. Perhaps the existence of Inspirationium is  a better kept secret than I thought.

Don't run out and buy a Nikon F2.  There aren't enough used ones to go around as it is.  And it's very complicated to use.  It has three major controls:  Focus, Aperture and Shutter Speed.  Too tough to remember without the manual.

Portraits? Read this interview with Kurt Marcus.

http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2012/06/11/kurt-markus-the-portrait-finding-your-voice/

Lots of interesting things to read over at http://www.aphotoeditor.com

Here's one of mine:

©Kirk Tuck.  Russian Girl on the Spanish Steps in Rome.