Sony swings for the fences and ends up a little short. The hands on mini-evaluation of the new A7's.

Gloria. One light. Samsung Galaxy NX camera. 60mm Macro.

Man, those product shots that show up on the web from Sony always look so great. When I saw the first salvo of PR photos of the A7 and the A7r my drool response was nearly simultaneous. And if they'd been in stock at the time I would probably be $2200 poorer right now. But it didn't turn out that way and chances are it probably won't turn out that way although Sony will still make a sale if the RX 10 is as good in person as the specs lead me to believe it might be.

On my way to the PhotoPlus Expo I found myself musing about heading straight to the big Sony display and getting my hands on one of the cameras. I thought for sure I'd be fondling my future path in the Sony system. But instead of walking away in love I walked away wondering about the idea of manufacturing en charrett. En charrett is a phrase made up by 19th century French architecture students who would work on projects while being pushed on a cart to the place where the designs would be judged. They would work on their projects right up to the deadline (and one imagines that there was always a lot left undone before the bell rang.....).

The Sony booth had a square table in the middle and A7 variants tethered to the top on all four sides. Here you could fondle both of the models to your heart's desire. So, I pick up the A7r, set the diopter for my eyesight and click the shutter. And in that moment it was like finding out that your beautiful date is also convinced she's been abducted by aliens and that the entire world is less than five thousand years old. The loud, high pitched click of the shutter was stunning. Absolutely stunning. At least I was stunned.

Here you have a camera with no flapping mirror and it generates more disagreeable decibels than a moving mirrored Pentax K5-2 and at a more hysterical pitch. Ahhh. I thought to myself. I just need to enable the electronic first shutter and all will be well. Then the second of many shoes dropped. The denser sensor of the A7r (the high res version) doesn't support quiet.  I mean electronic first curtain shutter. Oh well. I thought, and I moved on to the regular A7 and looked for the EFC in the menu. Even after I enabled that setting the shutter was still irresponsibly loud. And that's when I  started making a more critical survey of the entire package.

The camera is just about the right size for my hands but it is less well finished than the a99's I'm used to using. The design of the exterior just feels more primitive as though it came from a more primitive facility, from an earlier time. The squared off prism is an acquired taste I suppose, but it's one I'm having trouble acquiring... Then I moved on to the AF speed which will be of more interest to other than to me. It's not as fast as the a99. While the really good contrast detection AF systems are pretty darn good they aren't up to fast action. While the a99 is not stellar in this regard it is quite a bit better than the A7r I handled and modestly but obviously better than the AF in the A7 (which is supposed to incorporate PD-AF elements on its sensor.

Finally, even though the body is sized to fit into one's hands in a nice way (and especially with a small prime lens mounted on the front) the new, smaller size means the camera is a considerable handling mis-match for lenses made for the original Sony FF cameras. The large Zeiss zooms and the big 70-200mm G lens are totally out of step with the more compact body size. In fact, if you are using legacy glass from Sony along with one of the adapters your shooting profile (where the lenses are concerned) is bulkier than with the larger a99 body. And that just doesn't make sense.

While the body is smaller than the a99 once the lenses and adapters are mounted the difference between body sizes is trivial in the overall profile. So, in fact, nothing is gained except for the ability to use a wide range of older lenses with appropriate adapters.

The A7 with the 35mm f2.8 prime is a nice sized package.  But the camera itself just doesn't shake the feeling that it's still a work in progress. At some point they will have 8 or 10 good, dedicated lenses and the system will probably come together. I get what the guys at Sony are trying to do but I'm not sure they tossed it into the market in the exactly the right way. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it will sell and sell well. After all, it's a full frame camera with a great sensor at a very reasonable price. If most of my use for the camera were in the studio I'd commit to the 36 meg version and get an adapter right now. The noise wouldn't keep me up nights. But......

There's one more thing that irks me on this camera and on the Samsung Galaxy NX camera (which is in the same price range) and that's the fact that the menus include an "Airplane Mode" to turn off the connectivity features. That connotes to me that otherwise the camera is on and trying to connect all the time. I think cameras should only connect then I ask them to. But I am part of the graying of photography and my disconnection always hits right around the spot where someone tries to tell me how advantageous it is to stay connected all the time. Screw that. Sometimes I want to be in charge.

If only Sony had gotten the shutter right.....I could live with just about everything else. 

in other news: Belinda and I finished working on, The Lisbon Portfolio. The photo/action novel I started back in 2002. I humbly think it is the perfect Summer vacation read. And the perfect, "oh crap, I have to fly across the country" read. It's in a Kindle version right now at Amazon. The Lisbon Portfolio. Action. Adventure. Photography.  See how our hero, Henry White, blows up a Range Rover with a Leica rangefinder.....

Remember, you can download the free Kindle Reader app for just about any table or OS out there....

Which cameras have caught my interest right now.

This is Naomi. I photographed her while surrounded by lots and lots of people holding Nikon promotional bags. I used one little Photogenic strobe ensconced is a small strip light, aimed at a big, white diffuser. It was done with the Samsung Galaxy NX camera and the 60mm macro lens. 

As you know if you read the blog I spent three days in NYC at the PhotoPlus Expo. Part of the time I was working; showing off the new Samsung camera and playing around with light. The rest of the time I was walking around the exhibit space trying out new stuff and exploring the what's new aspect of the show. I saw lots of the same old things but I also saw some fun new inventions and got to handle some recently launched cameras....some of which made me smile in a good way.

Let's start with the interesting stuff. I think Nikon finally launched a product that's hard not to like. It's their new little underwater system camera, the AW1. It's waterproof, freeze proof (down to 14f) and shock proof. It's part of the Nikon 1 system so you've got a very good 14+ megapixel, one inch chip and the system includes two waterproof lenses. It's about time someone created a replacement for the Nikonos! The camera will use all the Nikon 1 series lenses (but is only waterproof with the two specialty lenses. It generally comes bundled with the all purpose zoom lens. I'll buy one for the times I want to get in the pool and photograph or videotape (1080p) from underwater. I handled the camera and found it to be nice and solid. I kinda like the silver finish because it will be easier to find at the bottom of a camera bag.  Good for Nikon for a well thought out specialty product. One that many of us need and at a price most will be able to afford. To find out more or order yours click this link.

 I just want to give Nikon another thumbs up for their fun 

display of the AW1 camera. They basically built a terrarium 

and partially submerged the camera and lens in water. Nice. 

And the display was well crafted.

The next camera that caught my attention was one that's been out since last Spring and it's one that I had overlooked entirely. It's the Panasonic G6. It's a smaller. lighter, cheaper version of the Panasonic GH3. I recently had occasion to see some really wonderful video from the GH3 and immediately rushed over to Precision Camera and bought one, along with the standard zoom and a perennial fave of mine, the Leica 25mm f1.4.  My intention is to make the Panasonic system my primary video system. While the Sony a99 has much to commend it for video the Panasonic files just flat out look better. They are more detailed, sharper and have a less "compressed" feel about them. 

I walked over to the Panasonic booth just to see what they had in lenses when I came across the G6. It's beautifully designed and breaks with the new enthusiasm for making everything look like a rangefinder camera from the 1950's. I understand that the image quality of the G6 is no better than its predecessor, the G5 but I like the implementation of focus peaking which comes in very handy for use with legacy lenses and I love the body style. The final tipper for me was the beautifully done EVF. A really well done one for a camera that's currently selling for about $638 with the (well regarded, new version) kit lens. I'll take one. If the color in video is a good match with the GH3 I'll use it as a "B-roll" camera on smaller, guerrilla style video projects. But of course this now puts me right back into the lens buying situation that I've largely avoided by sticking with the Sony SLT system for such a long (relative to my previous buying patterns) time.

By the way, while everyone in the film world keeps getting elated and then burned by Black Magic 4K video camera announcements and then endless delays, there's a solid rumor that Panasonic will be introducing a 4k version of the GH3. People are tentatively calling it a GH4. If the rumors pan out then it may be a camera that will drive sales for Panasonic in both the video and the still markets to a much greater degree. Especially if they keep the pricing relatively the same.

I was also impressed with the direction Panasonic took in doing their booth at this year's show. They set up an interview setting and did multiple camera interviews with GH3's on big, fluid head tripods. There was a console set up with multiple monitors and an editor/switcher. They were making the point (well) that they really get the whole hybrid: video+still market that's quickly growing into the next hot thing in imaging. Well done. Now if only the representative who came over to answer my questions had been up on his product knowledge....the first thing I asked about the G6 was about the ability to use a external microphone. He claimed that the G6 didn't have that capability. Further exploration revealed the port on the front, under a flap. Even further inspection revealed complete manual control of audio levels and level meters on screen. Send that sales guy back to market presentation school....

So yes, I am currently buying up some additional Panasonic stuff but I know that when I talk about video it bores the bejeezus out of a lot of people here so I'll just leave it at that....

Moving on to the next pretty, shiny object I played with.....The Fuji Xe-2. It looks killer in black. The EVF is great and it's still being bundled (as was the Xe-1) with the really terrific 18-55mm f2.8 to f4.0 zoom lens instead of the cheaper 3.5-5.6. The camera felt really nice and made me wonder for the hundredth time why anyone would buy a x100s when they could have a camera with equally good sensor performance that also allow the use of different lenses. Sure, I would have fun with a x100s but I'd spend nearly every day bemoaning the fact that the focal length bolted permanently on the front of the camera is not at least a 50mm equivalent... The smaller cameras without EVFs from Fuji make no sense to me but then I'm not in the demographic for them so I've given up trying to figure out the rationalization. All the Fuji stuff looked really nice but that Xe-2 is the one that hits the sweet spot for me. Will I get one? Naw. I'm fooling around with some of the m4:3 stuff again and having fun.

While I was attending the show I also had occasion to have a nice dinner with the new president of Imaging for Olympus USA, Mr. Harry Matsushita. We were joined by five other photographers and a handful of public relations folks. During dinner we were passing around a couple of the new OMD eM1 cameras fitted with 12-40mm f2.8 lenses. It was the first time I had handled the new camera and I can see what all the excitement is about. The camera feels remarkably solid in my hands and the focusing, even in our dark dining room, was snappy. Actually impressively snappy. 

Most of the photographers at the dinner were Olympus faithful and it was fun to share stories about launching digital imaging careers with Olympus products like the classic E-10 and then the legendary E-1.  My involvement with Olympus digital cameras goes all the way back to the Camera DL-500 (I think that's the model...it actually had an EVF and it was a whopping 1.5 megapixels. Circa 1998).

If Olympus keeps knocking it out of the ballpark with solid cameras and genuinely wonderful single focal length lenses I predict they will eventually steal profound industry market share from Canon and Nikon. You can already see the approaching tipping point if you look carefully.

What was I looking for that I didn't see? I would have loved for Samsung to come out with an EVF equipped version of their very good NX300 or a step up model from the NX20 with a better EVF.  I was also looking for Nikon or Canon to break out something new and splendid that's different than the same old DSLR construct. Didn't see it.

What about Sony?  I'll save my take on Sony's A7 and A7r for the next blog. It's a subject that WILL step on toes so I don't want to muddy up the positive stuff I talked about here. 

Did I have fun at the show? You bet. 

Naomi collecting cameras.

Yes. Today is both my birthday and the day we celebrate the 1700th blog post.

I mini-celebrated my birthday last night at midnight+1 by having a Jack Daniels over ice on a JetBlue flight flying through a wild lightning storm somewhere over Arkansas. And I celebrated the hunting and pecking that created the 1700th blog post of the Visual Science Lab by making a nice cup of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. And by typing in a more leisurely fashion.

This is an in front of the scenes shot of my model in NYC. Nick and I both got to choose one model. I chose Gloria from a stack of head shots and Nick chose Naomi. I'll show you here image in a later post. Didn't really matter who picked whom as we switched around and took turns photographing each other for all three days.

I am one year older today. No wiser. No richer and no less happy. It was a great trip to frenetic, exciting New York but it was even greater to get back to the laid back quiet and lush and ample personal space that Austin affords.

Please stayed tuned to VSL for loads of opinions on new gear, big changes and a week long analysis of the world of photography. Spoiler? It's changing all the time. And so is the market.

In the next few posts well talk about my hands on evaluation of the new Sony A7 and A7r cameras, the Panasonic G6 camera and the Olympus em1 camera. I'll also talk about an interesting monolight I played with and some direct cheap soft boxes. All fun stuff. 

Gloria. A happy, one light set up. In the midst of chaos.

I will readily admit to being a spoiled photographer. I like working in a studio with lots of space and lots of quiet. I like being able to work uninterrupted and at a leisurely pace. And I love having everything set up just the way I want it. When I imagined going to the PhotoPlus Expo in NYC I imagined that all the exhibition spaces would be enormous and we'd have lots of space to spread out, create majestic lighting designs and work at a tempered pace far from the retail excitement of the show.

When I got to the Samsung area the first day I was pleased by the general design of the booth until I saw the tiny area in which Nick Kelsh and I, along with our models, Gloria and Naomi, would be working. The actual lit space couldn't have been more than ten by ten feet and the lights were attached to a truss frame and could only be moved by union electricians. The glamorous Swiss flashes I'd imagined turned out to be very inexpensive Photogenics and the 4x6 foot softbox that I imagined would be the Nexus of my lighting demos had been shrunk down to about 24 by 36 inches. We had a background light with a scoop and two small strip lights on the sides, each with their own Photogenic monolight.

I was a bit dismayed (because I am so spoiled...) but it never seemed to slow Nick down and so I took my cues from him, bucked up and worked with what we had. It was part of a re-learning experience. By working with smaller, less expensive lighting (and a lot less control over the atmosphere) I had to push myself to work in a different style and with a much different cadence. It turned out to be quite refreshing and even.....fun.

The image above is one of my favorites from the show. I'm wedged against a counter and the counter is covered with sample cameras. On the other side of the counter are clumps of photographers who are alternately watching what I'm doing, shooting their own images of Gloria with any and every camera brand under the sun, and asking questions of the booth staff and of me. One gentleman had parked himself to my right and was demanding that I immediately stop what I was doing and shoot sample video for him to evaluate on the spot. The noise level was amazing as every booth doing a demo was using their own portable PA system to amplify their presenters (as were we). The idea of working under these conditions had never really occurred to me before.

The way we had the Samsung Galaxy NX camera configured was to enable it's wi-fi capabilities and send the images, as they were being taken, to a 60 inch, 4K television screen above the booth. That way everyone in the crowd could watch my every fumble and misstep. But they'd also see, honestly, how the process of taking portraits might work. The camera would do three things simultaneously: It would write the files to the internal microSD card, write the files to a group Dropbox account for easy access by the client and also send a full res, clean screen file to the television monitor.

All my photographic life I've looked through a viewfinder and composed and shot. With this camera I spent the three days doing portraits by looking at the big screen and using the on screen touch controls to focus and take the actual exposure. It's a different way of looking but it works really well when your preview screen is a 60 inch, super high def TV instead of a three inch LCD on the back of the camera. I don't need my reading glasses to see the menu on the 60 inch screen....

It's also a great way to review images you've shot with clients, or, in this case 50 or so of your new friends who you are demo-ing for. I'd shoot for a few minutes, review the images, make my selections of ten or so and then configure a slide show on  the camera which would wirelessly play the images on the big monitor. If someone had a question about sharpness or wanted to look at the shadow detail of Gloria's jet black hair I could touch one image, bring it up full screen and using my fingers in the cellphone squeeze or separate method, enlarge the image to see parts of it. What a quick way to dispel a preconception about sharpness of noise in the shadows....

In any case I am proud of the image above, done in the chaos I've tried to describe. While I am sure Samsung would like for me to make the case that the camera was the linchpin for the image it also showed me that the tools are secondary to the intention. Our intention was to make the best portraits we could with the tools at hand. I don't need to hedge about this one. I really like it without equivocation. More so because it was created in such a wild (for a quiet portrait photographer) venue.

In the end good portraits are much more about a collaboration between photographer and sitter than anything else...

More to come.

My Most Amazing "Find" in the entire PhotoPlus Expo in New York this week was.....

Photographer, Nick Kelsh.

photographed at the Samsung booth with the Samsung Galaxy NX Android camera and the (incredibly good and drool-worthy) 60mm f2.8 macro Samsung lens.

I didn't know what to expect. Nick and I were thrown together by the public relations agency. But I quickly came to understand that I had been given a really nice gift. 

We were in NYC to promote the new camera which we've both been using for a while. I got to the Javits Center quite early the first day but Nick was there before me. He was fine tuning lights and getting stuff ready. He's tall, thin, wiry, happy and intense all at once. And smart. I liked him from the moment we shook hands.

At 60 Nick has been living photography nonstop since his early teen age years. He is masterful with people. He's the kind of guy who does a quick demo for an eager crowd, makes amazing work look easy, and then he literally wades into the crowd asking, offering and inviting people to come up and shoot the camera for themselves. He helps them get oriented. He guides them gently.  He makes them feel comfortable, smarter and more courageous and by the time they hand the camera back to Nick they feel like they've made a friend and learned from a wise mentor. And for a short spurt, they have.

Nick went on first of the first day of the show and I stood by and watched and I learned more about lighting and posing portraits in a short, concentrated burst than I have in years. I like tripods, Nick tossed his away. I like to be in control. Nick likes to collaborate. But he never relinquishes the artist's final say.

By the end of the three day show I felt as though I'd made a friend for life. We're already planning future projects and I came home encouraged, inspired and buoyed up by his example. Wow. 

Go see his work: http://www.nickkelsh.com

And look at his teaching website: http://howtophotographyourlife.com

I thought I would be enthralled by the new cameras or the new lights at the show. I had no idea the best feature of the show was the guy I shared the Samsung demo stage with...

Golden Oldie about EVFs....

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2012/01/kirk-4.html

This one came up in a bunch of searches today.  It's something I wrote for  Michael Johnston's blog a while back. In light of recent announcements I thought it might be fun reading. Again.

Smooth sailing into NYC. The fun starts tomorrow. Best, Kirk