My next camera? A really professional combination for still+video producers.

Panasonic GH4.

You'll probably remember that I fell for the Panasonic G6 at the Photo Expo last Fall, bought one and then subsequently bought two of its big brother, the GH3. I have been using the GH3's for video and still work since November and I am convinced that it beats the video performance of any un-hacked DSLR currently in the market. The video is wonderful. And lately I've had the opportunity to compare the video output to much more expensive, dedicated video cameras and I've found the GH3 video to be close. Certainly competitive for all but the most rigorous and technically demanding programming. According to my friend, Frank, the difference between good video cameras may be less important than the difference that good versus mediocre lighting design...

At any rate I am happy with the GH3s and they've staved off my yearning for an OMD EM-1 by virtue of their dual photo/video nature. The one feature that would be nice to have in the GH3s would be the same kind of in body image stabilization that the top Olympus cameras feature. As for image quality I'm pretty sure that when I shoot in raw I can match files pretty evenly.

But here's the deal. I don't really need the GH4 just for video. The video in the GH3 will work fine for the next year or so of production. The market is shifting to 4K video but not so rapidly that we need shift today to stay relevant. No, the real reason to add one of the new cameras to inventory is the handful of improvements and additions Panasonic have made.

The two that come to mind for me as a still shooter are the improved shutter with 1/8000th of a second top speed and a faster sync speed: 1/250th versus 1/160th. The shutter life is also rated at twice the life of the GH3 or 200,000 actuations. 

As a videographer the major reason to add a GH4 is the accessory that interfaces with the body and gives one dual XLR inputs for professional microphones. It's a usability issue more than anything else. 

One thing I like about the introduction is that the basic camera body is largely the same as its predecessor. That means the buttons are all in the same place, there's good chance they didn't screw up the menus and that means I'll know my way around the camera from the minute I pull it out of the box. Maybe they'll even keep the same battery type. 

Should you get a Panasonic GH4? I guess it all depends on what you do with your cameras and where you are in your camera buying cycle. I'm definitely on board but it's because of the shift in my business. I'll be testing the heck out the camera to see just how much good still work I can squeeze out of the sensor before I dump the FF stuff I'm using for some portraits. But all in all I think the writing is on the wall. Smaller, faster, better and more workman-like than most of the cameras I've come across. Now, if we can just keep the price point under $1500. 

on an unrelated note: I will be speaking this evening at the state capitol. My speech ending up being positive and uplifting. Most of it is true. And wouldn't you know it, the schools are closed again today because of the freezing weather. It's 30 degrees (f) and there's no snow or ice anywhere. But they closed the schools just to be safe. Amazing and, even as a Texan I'll admit====it's downright wimpy. But ATPI tweeted that the conference is totally on and the classrooms are open and ready to go. It should be fun. 

Testing. Testing. Always Testing.

Poor Belinda. We have so many half finished portraits of her... So many times I say, "Don't worry about your expression/shirt/hair/something else, this is only a test." And I mean it at the time but then I look at an image and think that I really like it and I want to talk about the technique so I want to share it and the next thing you know it's up on the web, here at VSL and I'm sure she's mortified that people in France or Malaysia might be saying, "Can't that woman do something with her hair???"

So, I was too cold and lazy to go all the way to the other side of town to buy a warm, brown background for this afternoon's shoot of two different executives so I did what any self respecting eccentric does and bought a tube of paint instead. And I proceeded to paint onto a white seamless background.  It's actually a mix of paint and cold coffee. I thought, since we're in a drought we don't want to waste water.

I painted the background before lunch and it had big brush strokes in it but I figured it would dry smoother and after I had some cheese enchiladas everything would be okay. But it wasn't quite what I wanted in terms of texture so I decided to shoot some tests. Since every one in the universe is suddenly bored with the Sony RX10 I switched gears and decided that today's portraits would all be made with a Sony a850, at 100 ISO and to put an extra spin on things I'd use an ancient Hasselblad 150mm Sonnar f4 lens on an adapter with the Sony. Yeah, that all seems rational to me.

So I decided I'd need someone to sit in and let me play with the light so I could see  just how that background was going to work out. I walked into the house and cajoled Belinda and she came to my aid.

What a nutty camera rig. So, I have the Flex Lens Shade on the front of the lens. It can be bent to any sort of angle or position to block stray light. It's attached to the hood of the Hasselblad C T-star Zeiss  150mm f4. I have the lens attached to the camera with a Fotodiox H-blad to Sony A adapter.

The camera is an ancient Sony a850 shooting raw files.

The trigger on the top is a Wein SSR Infra Red trigger that I've had for 25 years. 

Sooooo much more fun that a radio trigger.

Here's my main light. It's some sort of Elinchrom moonlight firing into a Balcar Silver and White Zebra umbrella left over from the 1980's. It's covered with a Photek 60 inch soft lighter 2 sock.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

This is the reverse view from the back of the studio. Note the 

pop up reflector for fill. Simple tech.

To get exactly what I wanted out of the background light I used a grid spot on it and then covered with with a sheet of diffusion.

As we say in Texas, "This here's a backlight. It's another Elinchrom moonlight firing into a 22 inch dish, also covered with a diffusion "sock." 

No shoot would be complete without the hand painted (and truly disposable)

burnt sienna background. 

Of course, no article would be complete without the view from 

where the magic all happens, right behind the camera.

So the test revealed that at f5.6 I'd get exactly the amount of texture I wanted in the background. The test was successful. f11 would not have worked. An hour later the client came in and we laughed and talked and shot images. The web gallery has already been posted and we're moving on to the next thing. Just another fun day in the studio. 

I decided to type this right now just to keep my fingers warm....

BIG REMINDER: I'll be speaking at the state capitol at 7:00 pm tomorrow evening. There will be a room filled with young minds. I will try to say some smart stuff, some inspirational stuff and some motivational stuff. If I feel like it's not working out I'll just default to telling funny stories. Wish me luck.

Aida. For Zach Theatre. Classic studio lighting.

All material ©2014 Kirk Tuck and presented exclusively at www.visualsciencelab.blogspot.dom  If you are reading this on another site, without proper attribution it is not an authorized use of the material. If you are reading this on unauthorized site DO NOT CLICK on any links in the body copy as it may infect your computer with serious viruses. Sorry to have to put this warning here but a recent search turned up dozens of similar infringements. Thanks for your authentic readership. 

©2014 Kirk Tuck, All Rights Reserved.

I've been cleaning up the studio/office and throwing stuff away like crazy. I've tossed out white formica and endless worn frames and pounds of shredded old invoices and correspondence. As the studio becomes less visually cluttered my desire to do more portraits seems to grow. Clean slate syndrome.

I was heading out the door to buy another roll of seamless just now. A light brown. Kind of a burnt sienna. But I detoured to Michael's art supply store instead and bought a tube of acrylic paint that matches perfectly. I'd rather paint what I need on the endless sea of white seamless I already own. Seems more fun and wastes less paper. Also saves me a long drive through our "treacherous" arctic conditions....still 26 degrees here in Austin.  Now, where did I put my paint brush?

The above was shot in the studio against a black background. Main lighting is a medium octabank while the backlight and side light are both small soft boxes used in close and at very low power. Shot on a Kodak DCS 760C camera with a Nikon 60mm micro lens. f 5.6-8  

All material ©2014 Kirk Tuck and presented exclusively at www.visualsciencelab.blogspot.dom  If you are reading this on another site, without proper attribution it is not an authorized use of the material. If you are reading this on unauthorized site DO NOT CLICK on any links in the body copy as it may infect your computer with serious viruses. Sorry to have to put this warning here but a recent search turned up dozens of similar infringements. Thanks for your authentic readership. 

It's a cold night in Austin. We don't sit outside when it's cold. The wind goes right through our flip flops and makes our feet chilly.

A cold November day in Paris.

I know. You've written to tell me. It's minus 276 degrees in your home city. The polar bears are digging through your trash cans. Your four wheel drive vehicle is locked under thirty tons of black ice and you've been without power for weeks.

But it's a matter of context. You signed on for that kind of abuse when you stubbornly stayed north or foolishly moved there. We didn't sign up for this kind of meteorological abuse. We don't have the parkas lined with the down of a hundred geese. We don't have the boots that are bigger than camera bags, in fact, we barely have heaters. They are an afterthought in our air conditioning systems. 

So we're hunkered down and burning the furniture in the fireplace to stay warm. It's supposed to get down to the low 20's in the hill country tonight. Do you have any idea how cold I'll feel when I walk from the locker room to the outdoor pool in the morning? It's going to be raw. But at least the pool will be heated to 82(f). And the locker room concierges will have the hot towels ready when we get out. But really! Is this any way for people to live? 

Think I'm being "insensitive"?  You'll get your turn when Summer comes and we have another season with over 100 days over 100 degrees. With the humidity. Then you can gloat.

Photographing furniture. And getting it just....right.

This is an image from the early days of digital imaging. Back when four megapixels was pretty stout and brag worthy. My art director and I were doing a bunch of images for a high end furniture retailer called, Scott and Cooner. Art director, Lane, had the idea to use a beautiful musician named, Chrysta Bell for some of the shots. He thought she would enhance the appeal of the furniture.

Now, I've learned more recently that it's impossible to do any sort of work like this without at least 36 megapixels under the hood but we didn't know that back then. We were unhampered by our own ignorance.

I was transitioning from film to digital and my clients had already gotten a taste for the speed and the lower production costs of digital and they asked for it. We dragged our usual collection of Profoto electronic flash units and soft boxes along and had light stands strewn about all over the place.

But here's the weird deal: We were shooting all of the images with my favorite camera of the moment, the Olympus E-10. Look it up. It was pretty wild. A fast, permanently mounted zoom lens (ala the Sony RX10), an optical finder and a usable screen on the back. It shot 4 megapixel files on CF cards and it had an itty-bitty buffer. Why the e-10? It was actually the first true 4 megapixel camera on the market (leaving aside the nose bleed territory of the Kodak cameras of the time....).

The lens was a 35-140mm f2-2.4 equivalent with a 2/3 inch sensor. You had a choice of ISO 80, 160 or 320 but only a madman would have ventured past 160 and I'll conjecture that we never moved it past the 80 setting because we didn't want to see primitive digital noise.

The camera had the usual studio PC sync port as well as a standard hot shoe so we were good with all kinds of flash.

We shot about 48 set ups in a long day and I still have them archived and sitting around.

While I'm sure the photos would be much more interesting if taken with today's cameras (sarcasm alert) I am still somewhat surprised at how much we were able to get done with such primitive equipment.

We shot 130 jobs with that camera the first year we got it and the average project budget was somewhere around $2500. Not a bad return for a $1995 investment in the tools of the future. Here's the DPReview review: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse10

Taking a day off from the mirror less future.

Leica R8. 90mm Summicron. Film.

In the process of getting my presentation together I happily run across a forgotten magazine cover. Proof that there is a profit motive for photographing beautiful people.

This is a magazine cover we shot back in the 1990's. The art director for this medical magazine called me and asked me to make a nice photograph of an attractive woman. I had someone in mind and made a call. We did a quick shoot with a very large soft box and a 35mm camera loaded with AgfaPan APX 100 black and white film. I selected a frame while I stood in the darkroom watching the film dry and I printed it a couple of hours later. I sent the art director an 11x14 inch fiber print. He loved it. ( the image above is a reduced sized scan of a printed cover ).

Interesting that we worked without a committee construct and approve a layout. We worked with minimal input from the art director. The input consisted of, "please give me a vertical."

We didn't need to send contact sheets back and forth. We didn't need to scan or e-mail or share on Dropbox. There was no retouching. No sharpening. No skin smoothing. And everything worked out fine. 

Streamlined. 

Trust.