Which Nikon am I interested in right now? Here's a clue, I'm not putting in any pre-orders....

The Nikon which has my complete attention right now is the D7200. Let's get this out of the way up front: There is nothing exceptional about this camera. It's not full frame. It's not mirrorless. There's no 4K video. The buffer isn't as nearly-infinite as the newly announced D500 and D5. It's not particularly sexy. So why would I want to waste my time considering it?

Because it represents really great value for the price and it would come in very handy when photographing shows on the very deep stage at Zach Theatre, and the extra reach of the cropped sensor would also be great for tight swimmer shots. This camera represents the third generation of this particular body style, the second generation (improved) with the 24 megapixel chip and for about $1,000 it could be the perfect all around shooting camera for someone heavily invested in Nikon lenses. 

Recently, DXO declared that the sensor in this camera was the highest quality imager in all of the DX kingdom. That means if you don't need to put backgrounds completely and relentlessly out of focus you can do just about anything you could do with more expensive Nikon cameras with this one. If you don't need full frame you could buy this camera instead of the D750 and use the difference in pricing to buy a really nice lens. The camera is also something I like on an emotional basis: It's a mature product. All the bugs appear to have been worked out in the previous evolutions.

It has most of the cool stuff that I want. It's got two SD card slots. It works in automatic modes with older, manual focus (but auto indexing) lenses. It has AF micro adjust (but not the new, automatic version). It has a pretty healthy raw buffer for someone who likes to shoot portraits. I owned and used the D7000 and the D7100 cameras and loved the form factor, weight, etc. The cameras all felt rugged to me and, if you treat them with care, should last right up until you crest the 150,000 shutter actuations. And maybe beyond. 

I mention it because I am actually considering buying one as a back up for the D750; mostly for those times when I want to leave the memory hog/D810 at home. One camera for the wide to moderate focal lengths and the D7200 for medium focal lengths to more extreme telephoto. I considered a second D750 but I just didn't see what having a second D750 added to the mix. The D7200 gives me 50% more reach and puts as many pixels in play in that zone as the D750 does on wider (uncropped) shots. When used as a "B" camera for video I get the same "flat" profile that seems to work well for me, under some circumstances, and I pick up more depth of field --- which is great for a camera that might be run autonomously.

While everyone seems to be in a race to acquire full frame cameras there is a simplicity to the DX format that appeals. I shot with one the other day and it reminded me that a shutter and mirror that only have to cover one half the sensor size of full frame can also have less vibration (less mass to stop and start) and lower audible noise. 

I may get one. I may not. But there is a strong argument for a well made camera with these specifications and performance parameters nestled in at that price range. 

Finally, comparing specs with the newly announced D500 I'm kind of at a loss to see what I lose by choosing the cheaper option. I'll presume the quality of the sensors is close and the handling is pretty equal. If I shot sports I'd want the buffer, but that's about it. The promise of 4K is a little dubious. Here we are in 2016 and the camera's 4K is really UHD. The top fps at UHD is 30 fps and the output via HDMI on the  D500 is a meager 8 bits at 4:2:0, so even if you do spool out the content to a digital audio recorder it ends up wrapping a thin codec in an upscale wrapper. 

In the end, I feel like the D7200 is really a statement. It says, "Are you sure it's the camera that needs improving? Really, are you sure?"

The Crazy People Left at Kodak Are Launching a Crazy Camera. Super8 all over again?

This is NOT the camera that Kodak is introducing. This is a Nikon R10. It is Super 8 as well.

In the early 1990's I was commissioned to make a video for a company called, TechWorks. They made computer memory products and they wanted a big, dynamic video to show at MacWorld. We used my favorite model of the moment, a bright script and a transition from grainy, black and white film to saturated BetaCam color video to tell the client's story. We had a lot of fun doing it and the video project was very well received. Even the tagline was fun: "Byte Me!" The ad agency made "Byte Me!" candy bars to give away. It was good, old school marketing. 

We wanted the first half of the project to be edgy and contrasty, moving images of a beautiful girl having to work on slow computers because of the lack of affordable memory. Clocks ticked by, screens froze up and our dejected and frustrated actor slumped around and dispassionately drank a lot of coffee. Things were more upbeat in the second half; after the discovery of fast, cheap memory modules!

As the creative director I borrowed from what my film friends were doing at the time and shot the first half in black and white, Super 8 film. We shot a lot of footage with wide and tight shots of everything. We went through probably 20 x 50 foot rolls of film. We had the film developed and transferred onto video tape. We edited from the tape. 

The character of the grain and tonality of the film showed through even though this project preceded HD TV by years. I'm still thrilled we shot it this way. 

My memory of the R10 (which I still have) was that it worked flawlessly and, as long as you knew your way around an incident light meter you could come away with some really nice material. 

We went on to other things and forgot all about trying to shoot on motion picture film after Nikon introduced video-in-our-DSLR cameras with the D90, which was quickly copied by Canon in the 5Dmk2. Well, it seems like nostalgia, hipsterism and sentiment have conspired with Kodak to try and bring back the past. 

Just yesterday Kodak announced, at the CES (Consumer Electronics Show), their newest imaging device .... a Super 8 film camera. The genre has been updated a bit to include some digital video help in the finder department, along with some direct sound support, but the camera seems to be pretty bare bones otherwise and the single focal length lens on the front isn't awe inspiring.

The big issue (as always) is price. The price to buy the camera (estimated around $750) and the price to shoot (about $75 per roll for 90 seconds of shooting time --- included development and scan to digital service at Kodak) seem steep for most applications. If you are a working pro looking for an effect, on a paying project I guess that twenty rolls of film with processing will only run you about $1400 but if you are a hobbyist just plain around then it's going to cost you $$$ FOURTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!

I'm looking forward to seeing one of the cameras in the flesh. It may be interesting enough to be worthwhile. But I'm going to guess that sticking six fresh alkaline batteries in the old R10 is going to be at least as interesting and perhaps a bit more effective. I can't blame Kodak for trying and I wish them all the best in this endeavor. Maybe eventually they will get back to re-inventing digital still cameras. Here's a link to Kodak's microsite for this: THE FUTURE OF OLD SCHOOL FILM

Totally off topic: Thank you Alamo Drafthouse, for making movie watching enjoyable again!!!

One of the perks of being self-employed is working one's own schedule. I've been wanting to see the new Star Wars movie but I didn't want to brave the holiday crowds. I also hate going to conventional movie theaters where the crowds over the last decade have embraced such nasty practices as: Talking non-stop. Getting up and walking around during the feature. Bringing along children who are too young for much of the content in adult movies. And the worst!!! Talking or texting on cellphones during the movie. It's been years now since I've been to a mainstream movie theatre. I much prefer to either buy the DVDs six months after everyone else has seen the movies or....

Go to the Alamo Drafthouse chain of theaters. Why? Why indeed.

The Alamo Drafthouse theaters allow you to pick your seats online. They forbid (absolutely forbid!!!) talking during the main features. And they forbid people from talking, or texting, or even looking at the lit screens of their cellphones. When I say, "forbid," I really mean it, and so do they. The staff will warn you one time and if you infract again they remove you from the theater with no refund. They've been doing it for years and they are dead serious about it. I love it. I absolutely love it. Now I won't go and see movies anywhere else.

Here's my movie going strategy: Wait three weeks from the release date of the movie you plan on seeing. Select a day in the middle of the week (Tuesdays and Wednesdays seem best). Select a show time that starts before noon. Check on the lobby computer to make sure no one is sitting near you in the seating chart. Re-select seats if necessary. Pee before you go in. Sit quietly and enjoy movies they way they were intended to be seen.

Ben, Belinda and I all went to the 11:20 am showing of The Force Awakens. The LucasFilms 4K projection was phenomenal. The other eight people in the theater followed the rules exactly. The movie was perfect and director, J.J. Abrams, should be sainted for his work on this film and his previous successes with the last two Star Trek movies.

The combination of a really well done feature, and the nostalgia of having watched the Star Wars films of the past many times, was a powerful, emotional mix. I had a blast.

Then we headed out for a nice family lunch. I might take a nap after I post this. Being my own boss can be really fun! Especially with a little help from a brilliant theater company.

Well done Alamo Drafthouse! We'll be back again and again. Yes, leaving the cellphone in the car. One less thing to think about.

An example of using a large source very close to a portrait subject. I like the drama that is also provided by the unfilled shadow areas.

Model: Lou
Camera: Leica R6
Lens: 90mm Summicron
Film: Ektachrome 64
Lighting: Profoto flash head in a 40 by 50 inch softbox.

Originally made as a teaching example for a course in cinematic lighting I did in conjunction with Steve Mimm's Austin Filmworks workshops. Circa: the mid 1990s.

Oh Boy! Nikon announces two new DSLRs and the frothing begins. I got an e-mail from the local dealer this afternoon asking if I'd like to pre-order some for March delivery...

©2000 Kirk Tuck. All rights reserved. Film. Medium format. One frame at a time...

I was putting together my invoices, receipts, bank statements, credit card statements and royalty reports for the laborious process that is small business, federal tax reporting. Drudgery that seems mean and continues after having just sent away most of my available cash in the service of the final quarter estimated taxes for 2015. I just shake my head when people ask about my "tax refund." If you are self-employed you quickly realize there will never be a "tax refund."

It was in the middle of this accounting funk that I got an e-mail from Precision Camera. I had been offline most of the day, trying to get work done and keep online shopping to a minimum and I was unaware of Nikon's big announcements. I clicked through to the pages that the retailer had set up and read the specs for the Nikon D5 and D500 cameras and then I headed over to read the press releases from Nikon that went up on DP Review. So sad that I also wasted a few minutes reading the comments underneath the official announcement. The lamest comment was from someone who was shocked and dismayed that Nikon didn't include a swivel-y screen on the D5. Hmmm.

From there I went to the Nikon micro-site for the two cameras and then I turned everything off and continued to sort papers.

What do we make of the announcements? Well, I was smiling as I read the specs for the D5 camera. Love the tight reins against runaway megapixels and happy to see Nikon's first foray into 4K video but then, minutes later, depressed that the 4K into the D5 is limited (for in body recording) to a whopping 3 minutes! Really? Really? Then why bother?  Oh, I am sure you can drop another $2K into an outboard digital recorder and shoot for as long as you want but that kind of misses the point of buying a camera of this stature. It should be able to at least match the video performance of the Panasonic GH4 from two years ago (and currently around $1,000) but hey, that would make too much sense. I couldn't find the specs to tell me if the D5 uses a pixel match crop for 4K (which would mean all lenses become much longer) but I did notice that this is the case with 4K video on the DX model, the D500.

Still, if you are into stills instead of video, there's a lot to love about both of the cameras. The D5 will shoot 200 14 bit, uncompressed raw files at 12 frames per second before it hits the buffer and the D500 will give the same basic performance at a slightly slower 10 fps. I'm sure focusing is insanely good with both cameras. I'm equally sure that the new processor is fabulous.

But I think the one hot, cool, neato feature that both cameras share is a new, mostly automated AF-microadjustment process to calibrate lenses for accurate focus at the sensor plane. I want that for every camera I ever buy.

So, for the non-Nikon shooters, what exactly did they announce? The D5 is their new, flagship, sports addict camera. It's the high end. It's $6500. Just a thousand shy of the Leica mirrorless SL. It's a big, brutal camera, built to the highest standards and jam-packed with the latest cool stuff ---- at least where still photography is concerned. It's much like the 1Dx cameras from Canon. Not the highest resolution sensor but best of the breed for high ISO performance and a compromise between resolution (20mp) and overall speed. This is the Nikon camera to buy if you need rugged and reliable more than you need ultimate resolution. For most of the stuff we shoot for clients we'd never know the difference in quality between this and the D810.

The other camera is the D500 and it's touted as being (finally) the replacement for the old, D300s, DX (cropped frame) pro camera that Nikon introduced about eight years ago. DX shooters have been pining for a replacement camera ever since. This camera is also a 20 megapixel camera but the pixels are closer together since they fit on a sensor that's half the size of the sensor in this camera's bigger brother (sister?).

Nikon would love to market both of these cameras as "revolutionary" but, in fact, they are just evolutionary iterations of cameras that already exist. Yes, both are Nikon's first efforts in incorporating video beyond 1080p but both are UHD instead of full 4K resolution. Yes, the ISO settings go up to nose bleed heights but that's no guarantee that the higher ISOs are much more usable than the ones in todays D7200 or D4s. Yes, the cameras are faster to shoot but for most of us that just means more files to wade through in our search for the perfect frame.

My initial thoughts? The D5 looks yummy and cool but it never even enters into my business equation for cameras. It's performance is at some arcane edge of diminishing returns that may make sense for a sports shooter or photojournalist but wouldn't really add anything to my work that the D750 isn't almost as good for. If I needed the speed I'd wait for people to start dumping their D4s cameras and then buy one of those on the used market.

No, it's the D500 that really looks like the camera that Nikon would love to sell boatloads of. But does it even make sense at the price point? What does it bring to the table besides speed and higher ISO when compared to the D7200 (which DXO recently declared to be the highest quality DX system on the market)? I'd like to try the UHD faux 4K but I know the sensor crop (which gets the unit down to m4:3 crops) would drive me nuts and might not be nearly as good as what you can already get with the Panasonic GH4.

All in all, my strategy will be to wait and see what everyone else brings to the table and then, if there's nothing that's really compelling, just continue on with the Nikon stuff I have and the Olympus EM5.2 cameras. If I really want anything else it's just that I want a second Nikon D750 body to round out the camera harem. Some days I just feel like having a body with a 50mm over one shoulder and a second body with a 135mm over the other shoulder. I think having matched duplicates trumps having one of the latest and greatest and another of a previous generation. Better that everything match --- that way I don't get confused when the going gets going.

How do the rest of you Nikon shooters feel about the introduction? Will you be rushing to buy one of the two new bodies? I'm always interested to read other people's rationales....maybe I'll steal a good rationale and use it on my CFO... couldn't hurt.

I have a video question for all the digital video users here that have more experience than I. Flat versus "WYSIWG" for scenes where high contrast is not an issue?

When you dip your toe into the web looking for information you get....a lot of information. Most of it is contradictory and many times what you read as "best practices" runs counter to what you experience when you test things out for yourself. Into this category I will place, "expose to the right", "more (or less) pixels are always better", "You must always shoot RAW", and now, "You need a flat profile or a log profile to do professional quality video."

I understand the theory behind S-Log and the need (desire?) to have the longest tonal range you can get, because you think it may give you more dynamic range, but is it really better to shoot everything in a flat or S-Log profile for work where you have lots of control over light? I'm beginning to think it's one of those artificial, "this is the way we do it" barriers to entry in the video world. A hurdle to jump over, both intellectually and technically, in order to get your "pro" badge to sew on your jacket sleeve. But, as often is the case, I could be wrong. 

How I long for the old days when I shot a lot of Super8 film and all you really needed to do was pick the film emulsion you liked best and then meter carefully.......

This all comes up for a couple of reasons. One is that I just upgraded the firmware in my Olympus EM5.2 cameras and one of the improvements is the addition of a "movie" profile that is only intended for video and only accessible when in the dedicated movie setting (movie camera icon set on the mode dial). The other is that I've been working with files from the Panasonic fz 1000 and I find that the files are better looking if I shoot them (lit, interior interviews) exactly the way I want them to appear when I am finished with a project rather than when I use a flat profile and try to do larger curve corrections or color changes in post production. I've developed a method centered around "shoot the way you want it to look" rather than "shoot it super flat for post." I think the super flat S-Log files might be malleable enough to take big corrections if they are coming from enormously expensive super cameras like Arri Alexas and Sony F55, with super high bit rates and 4:4:4:4 Pro-Res files, but I'm pretty sure that most consumer cameras already bake a lot of compression into their video files and making big changes in post production pushes these files past the breaking point. 

Then again, I am not a professional colorist so I could be doing lots of things wrong ---- even though I have been slavishly following every tutorial made for DaVinci Resolve, and Final Cut Pro X. 

If you have experience using the "flat" profiles with consumer cameras (Nikon D750, D810, Olympus EM5.2, a wide swath of Panasonic G and GH cameras, etc. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to correct me (gently) and give me the gift of your experience-based, knowledge largess. 

I think I have the audio pretty well figured out for right now....

Can we pause our fixation with camera bodies and talk about lighting for just a bit?

I've been re-reading Russ Lowell's incredible book on lighting called, Matters of Light and Depth. It reminded me of a subject we photographers never seem to talk about when we discuss lighting, and that is the role played by the distance from the light source to the subject being lit. We love to talk about stuff that's physical; like which softbox is best, or what kind of flash to buy, or which beauty dish will allow us to talk effectively to beautiful models, but the basic stuff seems to slip around the edges of the conversation.

One of my favorite ways to light portraits is the way I've lit the portrait of Renae, just above. I used a very large light source and I moved it in closer than one might imagine. I wanted to take advantage of the inverse square law. It seems that light falls off in some sort of math-y way that basically means every time you move a light away from the subject the light hitting the subject falls off by a factor of four with every doubling of distance. Double the distance? Cut the light energy by about 75%. Oh hell, you're all very smart, here's the formula:

  

But what it means to me is something less math-y. The idea means that when I put a light closer to my subject the difference in light intensity from one side of her face to the other is much greater than if the light is further away. This engenders light fall off. Light fall off is a tragedy if you are trying to evenly light a copy shot of an illuminated manuscript but a blessing if you are looking for some dramatic modeling of a human face. I want the light to fall off dramatically. It's a nice effect. One I love to use. 

If I use an enormous light from far away I get soft light that doesn't fall off very quickly. If I take that same light source and move it in very close I get the benefits of very, very soft light wrapped around the benefit of the faster fall off which adds back the impression of contrast. 

The parameter of distance in lighting is really, really helpful. If you need to light a group of five people, lined up parallel to the imaging plane of your camera sensor, and you want the light to be relatively even from the person on the left to the person on the right you could use one light and place it back as far as you can from the group. The light might be at a 45 degree angle from the group. If the distance is far enough the light from the lighting instrument will not experience dramatic fall off (think 25 or 50 feet away) and you may be able to use the image, illuminated with just one light source, with just a little burning or dodging (or both) in PhotoShop.

The "general rule of thumb" for positioning a modifier (which is the de facto light source in your equation; not the light instrument itself) for a portrait of a single person is to position it 1.5 times the distance that is equal to the diameter of the source (or modifier). So a four foot diameter umbrella would satisfy the formula by being placed six feet from the subject. 

I'm pretty bad at following the rules and generally find that I like my modifiers (light sources) to be much closer. How much closer? How about just out of the frame? When I shoot with my 6x6 foot scrim I rarely have the light radiating surface more than about 4 feet from my portrait subject. 

The point really isn't that there is a right or wrong way to distance your light source but the acknowledgement that the aesthetic/physics driven change can be used as an artistic tool to get a look that you want. 

I also use the opposite effect but mostly when I light interiors with sunlight. I love taking big, shiny boards (think almost mirror-like surfaces) on big fat light stands and bouncing sunlight from the surface of the boards (set up outside windows 25 or 50 feet from the house) and ricocheting the light coming from 93 million miles away into the windows. The fall off from one side of a room to the other is almost negligible. It's a much different feel and effect than you'll get from even the best implemented electronic flash units, used in the room. And it works. 

Next time you light it might be fun and effective to stop for a few moments and consider the optimum distance for your lights, commensurate with the effect you are working toward. 

Not as sexy as a discussion of the new Otus 150mm f1.1.2 lens but then, what is?

Such a fun thing to think about in the new year.