I am posting lots of pictures instead of words because I think the period of my technical relevance is waning. Everyone is already an expert in everything having to do with cameras. All that's left is to do the art.

I love paths that curve and arc. This one runs down to the Lamar Blvd. bridge.

When I started the blog back in 2009 there was so much to write about. Photography appeared to be growing by leaps and bounds and there was a seemingly insatiable audience of people who were anxious to learn whatever they could about photography. And lighting. And the business of photography. Now it feels like we've lived through the upper curve of a sinusoidal wave of interest and innovation and we're heading for the inevitable trough. 

I looked back today at some of the things I've been writing about, like micro four thirds cameras and electronic viewfinders. The push back, in our comments,  from most people doing photography at the time was pretty remarkable. Everyone assumed that we'd continue with the status quo and live on a rich diet of incremental DSLR improvements. Everyone assumed that pros would always use Canon and Nikons. They also assumed that we'd always be using optical viewfinders. To read some of the comments back then one would think that the inclusion of EVFs on good cameras was the work of satan. 

But the photo world has matured, flattened and become fully researched and rationalized. I'm sure most people reading this have handled most of the same cameras I have. Most have paid more attention to the owner's manuals than I have and most can tell you all the shortcuts you can implement with various function buttons on your new cameras. Which I cannot.

Although very few of us are engineers or scientists here there are many discussions all over the web about technical aspects of imaging grounded in high physics and arcane optical theory. Even my dentist and my lawn guy love to wax on about "micro contrast" and "noise floors" and "shot discipline." If I need to understand how lens designs create optical signatures I need go no further than to the woman who cuts my hair to have a full on discussion. Sensor technology? I go to my barista for that.

But the sad thing, at least for me, is that when the internet has succeeded in gifting us all with the same knowledge and the same proxies of experience then there's not much else to really discuss besides whatever new product is lurching through the gear pipeline (which we mostly want but mostly don't need) and the actual photographs that we take. All the other stuff we used to talk about is instantly redundant because the minute it is written and published by anyone it diffuses into the marsh of general knowledge like India ink in my glass of sparkling water. 

I wish I had a willful lack of self-awareness because I could have monetized what I know through a series of mostly meaningless workshops. Entertainment thinly disguised as photographic workshops....

But really, all I have to share is my own work and my views about how I do the work. And the last thing I would recommend here is that someone slavishly copy my methodologies since they are not really well founded, technically,  and are certainly suspect aesthetically. 

We are mostly technocratic males here and it would be healthy if we could all just meet face to face for coffee or beer. We could talk about so many things that are more comfortable and information rich than just what lens to choose to take pictures of that intense red fire hydrant against the rich green carpet of grass spreading out behind it like a.....green screen. 

But most of us will only meet here. And even sadder than the homogenization of subject matter is the understanding that most people love what they, personally, shoot and are indifferent to other people's work. Maybe talking about them "shootin' irons" is easier and more fun because it is surrounded with the excitement (as in gambling) of risking large sums of money. 

People repeat the old saw of being tired of the endless discussion of gear, gear, gear but the statistical reality of blogging is that every gear post here out pulls every post about aesthetics by a factor of nearly 10:1. For those few non-math majors here let me say it like this: If I put up a post about making an image or having an experience making an image (and that post doesn't concentrate on cameras and lenses) then about 200  people will click on it and read it all the way through. But if I put up a post about the new version of an old, but popular, lens about 2,000 people will read it in the same time frame. To really goose readership all one has to do is write a controversial review/editorial on a popular piece of Olympus, Canon, Nikon or Fuji gear. A mirrorless versus DSLR piece is also a sure bet!

If I could make a reasonable argument that the Fuji XT-1 is a piece of garbage and everyone shooting with one is delusional and certainly will never make art with one, I might be able to scrape up fifteen or twenty thousand readers in the same time frame. (Sorry, can't really make that argument). So even though everyone gets all high horsified about relentless gear posts ("tut, tut, let's talk about the art...") they are like a cigarette smoker who professes trying to quit. They denounce the drug and then step outside "just this once" to light up. 

The sales numbers for gear are illuminating. The market for cameras tanked hard, and I think it's going to tank even harder this year. It's not because ardent photographers have embraced phones with cameras it's because huge numbers of ardent photographers have moved on to something else. Their interest crested and plunged. When a market troughs there's nothing to do but ride it out and enjoy actually doing the craft instead of talking about it. Even if that's not nearly as much fun...

I think everyone here knows that I am a commercial photographer. The market is currently better than it's been for years. Some sort of inverse relationship between the popularity of the hobby and one's ability to charge for it.  I intend to keep writing the blog from that point of view and showing what I am working on and what I am interested in. 

I sound like broken record lately, vacillating between Olympus EM5.2 cameras and Nikon's traditional DSLRs, but the reality is that's my current focus and I'm not anxious to rush out and buy or borrow new stuff just to satisfy our collective need for a geardrenaline rush on a weekly basis. Maybe part of the reality of the craft right now is about settling in with what we have and doing actual work. Wouldn't that be novel???

I was walking along, writing things in my head, when I saw the clouds playing with the street lights. What a lovely sky!

Austin Morning Sky.

More images from a walk through the park with a nice camera and an old lens.

This is one of the trails that leads to the Barton Springs Pool.

To the left is the stream that connects the pool to 

Austin's Ladybird Lake. 

At various places along the stream people sit in the cool water

and while away their time making balanced rock sculptures

from rocks they find on the bottom.

The water is always cool. Mostly 68 or 70 degrees (f). 

At the other end of Barton Pool it comes bubbling up from underground.

People who pay admission to the pool usually keep their clothes on. 

People who swim in the stream instead are less likely to do so...

In the morning there are many canoes at the open air canoe rental shop.

By noon on a hot day there are none left to rent. 

This is the trail that leads away from the pool toward downtown.

We have miles and miles of trails around the waters that flow through

our downtown area, most covered by old and new trees for shade.

This bridge takes traffic over the creek on Barton Springs Rd. 

On a hot afternoon paddle board people and canoe-ers glide under and linger for 

respite from the powerful sun.

I walked all morning and on the way back to Barton Springs and my car I saw hundreds of 

fit, young people paddle boarding, canoeing and running through the park.

It certainly gives weight to the graffiti on the column in the image above....

These stairs lead down from the running trails that interconnect around

Zilker Park to the pool at the north end of Barton Springs Pool. It's area that 

people frolic in when they don't want to or can't pay the $3 admission to the 

big pool. 

All images: Nikon D610+Tamron 20mm-40mm zoom.

Lovely day for a walk.

Oh Gosh! Do you think that lens is sharp enough? Do I need an ART lens? Do I need to get that Otus lens? Will people make fun of me if I'm not using an "L" lens? Will the "gold ring" make my image better? But what about cameras? Which one......

Match up the leaf crop below with its position in the image above...

The answer to everything is: "Yes." But only if I'm the seller and you are the buyer.

(spoiler: twenty year old lens. third party. my cost? $120. Is is sharp enough? ---- Duh.)

Good Morning Austin. What's going on at Barton Springs? Let's go see.

All blog images today taken with a Nikon D610+Tamron 20-40mm SP+a good attitude. 

If you want to photograph a popular place in Austin without a lot of people in your shots you might consider doing your photographs in the earlier part of the mornings. It's been my experience that millenials are like vampires, they rarely rise before noonish...

Some food images shot with the Olympus OMD EM5-2 in the high resolution mode (40 megapixels). Shot at Cantine Restaurant in Austin, Texas.

My friend, James, and I have been working on a video for an Austin restaurant's website. We shot lots of kinetic footage on our first day, both using handheld EM5.2 cameras and a box full of different lenses. Our footage, while technically similar in terms of color palette, etc. couldn't be more different stylistically. I stay on scenes longer and I shoot more conservatively. He shoots with much narrower depth of field and moves quickly. In the end both styles work well together to moderate the whole piece. The second day we went back so I could shoot high res stills of some of the food while James shot video of the same set ups. 

I felt that I had recently mastered the hi-res feature in the camera so I chose to use it for all of the non-moving imagery. I switched back to normal settings when shooting subjects like the "wine pour." 

As with the first day of video I brought along a box of lenses for the cameras. Some were older manual focus lenses from Pen FTs while some were newer. The most used lenses (by me) were the Sigma 60mm, the Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8 and the 40mm f1.4 Pen FT. James seemed drawn to longer focal lengths and shot with stuff like the 70mm f2.0 Pen FT and even a Nikon 105mm f2.5 ais. 

At the end of the shoot the restaurant manager asked me if I would shoot the community table near the back of the restaurant and I was happy to comply. 

I went back again today for lunch and had a great meal with my super-tech friend, Amy. She's an electrical engineer and it's a joy to understand the latest technology through her eyes. As we were having lunch I was watching out of the corner of my eye as another photographer and his assistant came through the door to shoot the food and make a little slider enhanced video.

Their methods, location selection, etc. were much different than the ones I made but I guess that's what makes this job so interesting...

At any rate, here's the stuff we shot on our afternoon of food photography:

The Cantine Salad.

Rotisserie Chicken.

Salmon, cauliflower, capers and tomatoes.

Porchetta.

The community table.

Cocktail shakers at the bar. At the ready.

Used in the high res mode the colors are exemplary and the endless detail makes post processing a breeze. I'm warming up to the EM5.2. I can hardly wait to share the video with you and am amazed that you can now buy such a talented camera for only $900. 

The world of work is changing with every new toy.

Forget the toys, read the novel...

Panasonic announces a new camera that might make m4:3 users upgrade. It looks great on paper, with one exception.....

What's not to like about the latest announcement from Panasonic? It popped up on my radar this morning because the announcement is all over the web. Here's the main stuff we like: The body style is super groovy. Very retro and aimed at photographers who are nostalgic for the cool, self contained, rangefinder style cameras of the 1960's and 1970's. The EVF is one of the new, high density internal screens that provides something like 2.6 million pixels to provide a detailed finder image. The camera  features Panasonic's respected 4K capabilities and it should be a very decent video camera. The thing that most people will be excited by is that it's the first micro four thirds camera to feature a sensor that provides more than 16 million pixels. Thom Hogan reminds us that the scale up from 16 to 20 million pixels only gives us 13% more resolution. Pretty sure that's not going to make a huge difference but then again, you may be one of those shooters who needs every last pixel for some giant prints.

The camera is a bit bigger and bit heavier than its predecessor, the GX-7, but I think that's a good thing on both counts; more space to lay out buttons and give our fingers a bit of relief space and the extra weight will probably mean steadier shooting.

The camera has built-in image stabilization but it goes one step further (when using Panasonic lenses that are so endowed) by using the I.S. in the lenses at the same time. Apparently the combined stabilization from both body and lens makes for a steadier image than either method used individually. I can only imagine that combining the two is a direct result of the inclusion of a much faster processor that can do the math required to optimize both sets of moving parts in tandem. Seem Moore's Law keeps improving cameras in a way that is different than just stuffing more pixels on a die.

So, better finder, better I.S., 4K video, more resolution (and presumably the same or lower noise!) and better handling all add up to a mature and potentially delightful new imaging product. What about my caveat in the headline?

It's not really that big of a deal but when I read through the specs I see that, while the camera has a port for the use of external microphones there is no port for headphones with which to monitor said external microphones. That instantly relegates the GX-8 to Fun secondary art camera for me. But the omission isn't a big deal if you never really intend to do much video or if you are happy shooting double sound with an external recorder instead of using audio that comes directly into the camera.

I think the camera is quite handsome and I'd like to have one in the silver finish. It looks very much like the Company's L1 (See DPR for illustration and review), digital 4:3 camera from about eight years ago. I handled that camera and liked its ergonomics as well.

If one were transitioning from a massive DSLR this might make a good choice for a first, higher end, foray into micro four thirds, but the equation is much different if you already own current Olympus products. Switching to the GX-8 as the primary camera would be scary since Olympus must surely have something new up their sleeves such as a revision/upgrade of the OMD EM-1. Remember that the launch of that camera happened during the October Photo Expo show nearly two years ago. Seems like it's just about time for something new to come out.

I'm hesitant to buy a GX-8 until I see if Olympus leapfrogs them again with something special. Choices, choices.

I wonder who will be pre-ordering this one?