My friend, Chris, says: "You date the cameras, you marry the glass."

I think about that now every time I buy a camera or a lens. Which is the alpha product and which is the submissive and subservient product? There's a certain thrill to buying the latest camera because you are accessing the "latest technology" which usually means a better sensor and a better surrounding electronic infrastructure that supplies faster processing and, by extension, more detailed and effective processing.

On the other hand a good lens is a thing of beauty to real photographers because it makes every sensor that much better. And a great lens has both a clarity and a character than shines through despite which camera in the system you use.

I'm happier buying m4:3 lenses than I was when I was buying into totally closed systems because I have a range of choice when it comes to bodies. I can use my Sigma, Panasonic, Leica, Olympus lenses interchangeably on any m4:3 body from Panasonic or Olympus, and maintain most of the features of the lens/body system.

I'm looking at a new lens for the system that I would never consider if I were locked into a single system scenario. I want to reward myself for finishing up the novel with a brand new Panasonic/Leica 42.5mm f1.2 but I haven't finished building the rationale yet. That pesky college bill that's coming down the pike means I need to up the amount of self-delusion I need to generate to make plainly irrational purchases.

I haven't hit the new tipping point yet, but......

Some updates.

To date nearly 60,000 (sixty thousand) people have taken my free course on Craftsy.com. My two other classes are doing well. Not 60K well but right in line with everyone's expectations.

I turned over a final manuscript to my editor and book designer last weekend. The novel, an adventure with a professional photographer dropped into a web of intrigue and deception while on assignment at a big foreign trade show (write what you know), is complete and is now being cross checked and elegantly designed to be the best looking e-book on the entire market. It should be available in the next few weeks and I won't be shy about trying to promote it.

Ben has successfully graduated from high school and has selected a wonderful, private college in the northeast U.S. and will head there at the end of the Summer. We are proud of his achievements to date and especially happy that his braininess and general good character earned him some healthy scholarship offers.

My swimming is undergoing a new evolution as Tommy Hannan, one of our new coaches, is placing a LOT more emphasis on kicking. I feel faster (and more exhausted) already.

I am loving the video files I've been getting with the GH4 and hope to have a fun video to share by the end of next week.

WELCOME TO SUMMER.

Another Enjoyable Evening Making Photographs for the Theatre. "Vanya" at Zach.

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Now, on with the show.....

Cassandra and Vanya practice voodoo...

©2014 Kirk Tuck

It was a moist and muggy afternoon and I was packing up to go shoot a dress rehearsal for my live theater client, Zach Theatre, here in Austin. This was my first time to shoot a dress rehearsal on the Topfer stage with the two, new (to me) Panasonic X lenses: the 12-35mm and the 35-100mm. Both have 2.8 maximum apertures and are weather resistant (which never comes up in theatrical documentation....). I had just spent two full days earlier in the week putting the new GH4 through its video paces and I felt like I had a good handle on its capabilities re: ISO limitations and focusing. 

I packed the two lenses, the GH4 and a GH3, along with two extra batteries (unnecessary) and two extra memory cards (totally unnecessary). I also brought along a second GH3 body with a lens adapter. The second GH3 body hosted an ancient Nikon 50mm 1.4 lens and it was set up to shoot monochrome. I brought it along just for fun. I thought about including a monopod but my experience with the in lens I.S. on both lenses convinced me that it would be a non-essential burden. I left it in the studio. 

"Sonya" makng a point.

©2014 Kirk Tuck

The two primary cameras and lenses fit in my smaller, Domke bag and I dragged the third camera along over my left shoulder. Security blanket? Mindless distraction? Who knows?

It was my intention all along to use the longer zoom on the GH4. Most of the images I would be taking didn't require capturing the full width of the stage and I knew from experience that I would be able to handle 90% of the work with a 70-200mm equivalent. I was anxious to put the GH4 to a real world (for me) test and this was a quick way to put 1200 frames on the camera and lens in short order under fun circumstances. I've often said that the only way to really get comfortable with, and to understand a camera, is to spend a lot of concentrated time with it. I figured two full video shooting days and a three hour dress rehearsal would be a good start.

Still walking around with 2012 camera prejudices? Don't think "Mirror-Free" cameras focus fast enough? Watch this:

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up8K_xd_iwU&list=UUqpOf_Nl5F4tjwlxOVS6h8A

I love the camera reviews that are done by the Camera Store on YouTube. Their spokesperson, Chris Nichols, is bright, fun, informed and very good in front of a video camera. For most cameras they are definitely part of the information well I go to with my bucket to find out about new camera capabilities.

In the video I linked to above they test the continuous auto focus, tracking autofocus and point to point, single autofocus of the top four mirror free cameras: The Sony A6000, the Fuji XT-1, the Olympus EM-1 and my personal favorite, the Panasonic GH4. Their control and comparison camera is the current king of the hill for action shooting, the Nikon D4s.

Things I learned from shooting video for two long days with the Panasonic GH4.

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My new food lens. The 35-100mm f2.8 

Panasonic X lens.

My friend, Chris, and I shot video at one of our favorite restaurants this past week. The restaurant needed a nice video spot to plug into their website and we needed some fun stuff for our reels so we pitched the project.

Ravioli with Pesto and tomatoes.

Panasonic GH4 with 35-100mm f2.8 lens.

©2014 Kirk Tuck, for Asti.

We wanted to do a quick paced, day-in-the-life of the restaurant, from opening to closing, with a series of shots of food, food preparation, cooking, serving and even a shot of a couple walking out at the end of a nice evening. We scheduled two days to shoot the project with two people operating cameras. We did only one interview so most of the stuff we shot did not require having a sound person on hand.

I used the new GH4 Panasonic camera as my shooting camera and Chris used a GH3. Since our project will end up on the web, required tons of individual shots, and since I'd be editing it on a non-state-of-the-art computer we decided to shoot everything in 1080p at 29.9x frames per second. We used reflectors but did not use lights. We were looking for an available light aesthetic and, since we were shooting while the restaurant was open, and filled with paying customers, we wanted to be discreet and unobtrusive.

Enough with bad "AD SPEAK." Stop calling your small camera "mirror less" and start calling it "MIRROR FREE".....

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.


I can almost guarantee that your camera will get more respect. "Mirrorless" implies that it is lacking something while "Mirror Free" implies that a burdensome vestigial device has been removed from a modern design.

Likewise, could we lose the incredibly confusion "Micro Four Thirds" format name and start calling the format something sexy and fun? Something like "Super 35" which means it's almost the same size as standard, Hollywood movie film.

Let's steal advertising know how from the 1980's and start calling it the "Ideal Format" instead. (used by makers of 645 medium format cameras in the era).

Or, better yet, let's call it: Ultra Frame. Just because we can......

Notes about finishing a project. A long project. And, by the way, welcome back!

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 an 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. 

DVD of the Novel in the foreground. My writing computer, 

Nastasha, in the background. 

I have this older Apple MacBook Pro with silver keys and I've been using it over the last three years to edit the final version of a novel I have been writing, on and off, since 2002. It's not really fair to say I've been writing it for that long since the bulk of the story and the writing was all done in that first year. What really happened is that the novel needed re-writing and editing and proofing and .... real life kept getting in the way. Some years prosperity delayed the work. The photo projects were coming in fast and furious and I made the choice to maximize my income in those years. Then the lean years happened and I concentrated on instant money makers, like writing non-fiction books about photography.

There always seemed to be a good excuse to do anything but finish the novel. A big job. A giant recession. The blog.

But I finally put my proverbial foot down and set a deadline. That deadline was 5pm today. And I missed it. But only by an hour and a half. At 6:30 pm today I turned over a DVD to my graphic designer so that she could design the looks and feel of the book in a program called, InDesign, and then convert the whole project to the .mobi format for use on Amazon.

This project is one of the most fun projects I have ever done. I love the protagonist and I must love the storyline because I've probably had to read it at least 100 times and I still like it. I still tear up at certain parts and I still feel the suspense in others.

But it's also been one of the most oppressive projects I've done because it never stopped. There was never a satisfying hard stop. And I'm used to projects that last a day, a week, or at most, a month. Not twelve years.

It's like knowing you should file your taxes but putting it off for twelve years. Things just pile up and the non-ending nature of it all means that the project is always right there, over your shoulder. You really can't start something new. You need that sense of completion.

I thought that this week would be a perfect one in which to finish once and for all. I stopped writing on the blog and I pushed most assignments into the future. But there is one project I just couldn't turn down. That was to shoot a video for my friend, Emmett's restaurant, Asti, here in Austin. Chris Archer and I had been looking for a fun video to do that included food and lifestyle and this one was dropped into our laps. We spent all day Tues. (until late, late) and most of the day Weds. shooting food prep, food cooking and all manners of behind the scenes restaurant stuff with a brand new Panasonic GH4 and a Panasonic GH3. So much fun.

And while I wanted to sit down and edit right away I was able to resist the temptation and work with discipline on the novel.

I spent all day yesterday and today putting in finishing touches and making sure the timeline calculated out. I fixed unintentionally changing names. I proofed for the 50th time and still caught stuff.

So now I'm done and my "team" is ready. Belinda is designing the look and feel of the book and making the final conversions. Ben and I are shooting all the components for the cover and I'm busy investigating the best way to get an e-book up onto Amazon. My procrastination is over. The ego part is done. Everything else is step by step mechanics.

The schedule? We're aiming to have the final, formatted design ready for upload by the middle of June at the latest. The book should launch within a week of that date. As soon as the copyright submission is complete and we have an ISBN number I'll start letting you in on what the story is all about. Suffice it to say that if you are interested in PHOTOGRAPHY you'll probably love the book.

If you have a wealth of knowledge about putting e-books up on Amazon, and you've been through the process yourself, could you post knowledge and guidance in the comment section here? It would be much appreciated.

On another note: I've spent some quality time with the GH4 as both a video camera and a still camera and I'm going to start sharing information about our use of the camera starting with tomorrow's blog. If you are interested in that camera be sure to stay tuned.

Thanks for your patience this week in dealing with a quiet blog. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to toss down the "novel" laptop, just over here to the desk and start banging away on something short and fun. But I must say that it was the process of finishing that made this all worthwhile to me.

I'm glad to be back. More to come tomorrow.

(and by the way, we lost two followers over the fallow period, if you are not already a "follower" of the VSL blog I hope you'll consider designating yourself as such. It costs you nothing and allows me to see that there really is a dedicated audience for what we share. Thanks!)

AHH. Down time. Taking a week off to finally finish the novel.

I started writing a novel about a photographer, caught in a web of intrigue at an international trade show, back in 2002. Life got in the way many times, compounded by the almost universal bane of artists and writers everywhere, resistance. To read more about the idea of resistance and how it relates to the arts please pick up a copy of The War of Art, by Stephen Pressfield.

I've put off finishing my writing project for every imaginable reason. Anxiety attacks, cardiac scares, assignments out of the country, kid soccer games, swim practice, blog writing, gratuitous camera testing and so much more.

Every time I sit down to proof read I think of some new thing the novel "needs" or some way to make a passage clearer. But I'm at the point now where the inaction and resistance of getting this project done is starting to effect everything else in my life. I feel like I'm in some sort of hellish holding pattern and I'm bound and determined to get this book done and out by the end of the month.

I will be publishing it on Amazon. It will be a kindle book and, if I navigate their system correctly, you should also be able to order a printed copy instead (or in addition = optimist). My plan is to have the final editing and proofing done by the end of next week (May 24th deadline)  and have Belinda design and convert to ePub the following week. After that we'll upload to Amazon and announce the availability.

I would love to sell many copies of the book but at this point it's just important to me to get it done. Completed. Launched. Out.

To that end I'm taking a break from blogging until after the 24th of this month. I'll miss the witty repartee with my smart readers (of whom you are one; of course). I'll miss the refuge of being able to duck out of real work and come here to play with words. But we'll settle right back in after the birth of the book.

I always wanted to write a novel. Now I have. The final step is unleashing it into the world. Stay tuned for more and please come back and read more after the 24th...

With nearly 1900 previous blog posts to pick through you might want to catch up on your reading. I may have already written the very thing you most wanted to read.....

Thanks. Wish me luck.  Kirk