SmallRig in use on the Sony A7ii.

Lately, my "go to" camera for doing portrait work in the studio and on location has been the Sony A7 ii. It's the 24 megapixel model and if you look around you might be able to find a lightly used one for around $1,000. The High ISO Whiners would tell you that it's noisy above 3200 but I'd say that if you are really, really picky, and have no idea of how to use the noise reduction features in any of the major post processing programs, you might not even want to use it over 1600. When I put on strong, strong reading glasses and press my noise against my computer screen while diddling the magnification to 100% I can see the noise as clear as day....

But like the fool I am I bought one anyway. And even more foolishly I used it this year to create hundreds of portraits. Which clients happily paid me for. Go figure. I should probably hang my head in shame since none of my full frame cameras focuses faster than I can pull them out of the camera bag. I feel horrible anxiety when "real" pros saunter by with their Nikon D500s since I know I will be unable to photograph my clients (with studio flash) at 10+ frames per second. I hear how great the 153 AF points are but end up wondering why a camera that advanced doesn't have eye auto focus. My A7ii doesn't have it either but the A7rii and the a6300 both do; along with 400+ focusing points... But, once again, I digress. 

I wanted to write about the SmallRig cage I bought for the A7ii and to show you what I meant about holding big lenses stable on tripods while shooting in the vertical orientation. The lens in question is the Rokinon 135mm t2.2 Cine lens. It's pretty front heavy. Sometimes, when I use it on a camera mounted directly to a tripod it droops. And droops can be embarrassing. Especially in the studio. 

After I bought a cage for the a6300 and saw how well it stabilized the camera and transferred the stress of the tripod connection to its own structure I was anxious to try one with the A7ii. This cage fits very tightly and the feel of the construction is just like the cage for the a6300, very high quality. 

The following are a few images from different angles....

So, if you are one of those guys who always handholds cameras, doesn't own a tripod or only uses puny lenses, just ignore all of this and go on doing your craft in the way which you've become accustomed. We're not even grading on a curve here. But if you have a wimpy, little camera and a plump, oversized and front heavy lens you like to use you might consider some sort of "camera prosthesis" to handle tripod work.

While we are on the subject of cages... I did put a XLR mixer and a monitor on the cage on the A7Rii today to record a quick testimonial video for a financial services client. It was great having everything right at hand instead of clamped and cabled away. Can't wait to get the A7 cage set up optimally to be able to move with the camera and watch the image on a 7 inch monitor mounted just above the camera. Should make moving shots just a bit more fun. 

I had such a good experience using the new "cage" on the Sony a6300 I ordered one for the A7Rii.

SmallRig "Cage" for the Sony A7Rii. 

I recently wrote about ordering a "cage" for the Sony a6300 camera. It's kind of a video thing. The cheese plate surfaces allow you to add shoes for things like microphones and attachment points for things like digital audio recorders and external monitors. The one I bought for the a6300 was very well made and sturdy. The way the rig is designed it holds the camera in place firmly. I can still access the battery and the memory card. 

But there was a bonus that works well for me as a still photographer as well. By anchoring the camera firmly in place, and then giving me lost of quarter inch female sockets everywhere, I am now able to use the small camera with heavy lenses in the vertical orientation on my tripod. In the past a heavy lens would pull its nose down and I was loath to over tighten the tripod screw for fear of damaging the camera. Now, with the lens on the camera, I can orient the rig to make the camera vertical and the stops on the rig hold the camera and lens in place. No more droop. Sounds like a small thing but it means a lot to me in terms of working vertically with bigger lenses. 

Once I figured this out it just made sense to do the same thing for my bigger, A7Rii and A7ii cameras. I ordered a rig/cage made specifically for those two cameras and it came (as promised) today. Now I have a place to attach a microphone that doesn't let the microphone poke me in the forehead as I use the EVF. 

It more or less completes the "run and gun" configuration for those A7xx cameras when using them as video snapshot cameras.  There is one built in shoe on the right side of the rig as I hold it but I will be adding another shoe to the left side of the rig to hold a small XLR mixer box. 

I like the way the rig bulks up the camera for better handholding as well. Nice when video gear also enhances still photography handling. We'll see how it goes but I'm already thinking of researching to see if they have one designed for the RX10 ii. ... 

A Holiday Special: Try either of my Craftsy.com Photography Classes and You'll get 33% off the class price.

Here's the link: http://craftsy.me/2i2oha1

It's Monday. Back to business and clients.

Two weeks ago I photographed the entire staff of a high end, commercial real estate development company. I got to extend my practice with the style of portraiture I've been working on for most of the year, which is largely about blocking offensive interior light and then mixing whatever is left with a main light from either a scrim or soft box, powered by a big LED light. It's a style that works best in big spaces or long halls where one entire side is lit by windows. It's a bonus if there are nice, big shapes you can toss out of focus in the background...

A sample from an earlier shoot for a different client.

When I was first contacted by the client we discussed the style I wanted to use and I cautioned them that I couldn't commit to doing it unless I could come by and scout their location to see if I could find appropriate backgrounds. I dropped by and was offered the conference room; countered with a long hallway that had glass fronted offices on one side and windows to the outside on the other. 

We set up and shot on a Weds. afternoon and finished up on Thursday morning. I like to schedule this way because we can come to downtown in the mid-morning, miss all the traffic and then get the portrait subjects that like afternoons on the first day, followed by the "morning" people on the second day. We pack out in the early afternoon; again, missing traffic altogether. 

("Missing Traffic" is the number one trending subject in Austin conversation as we challenge second place, Los Angeles, for the honor of second most congested city in America. Thank you to all the refugees from unhappy areas of the U.S.A. for your help in growing our city in so many annoying ways !!! And, no! I don't want to hear how much better the kombucha is in Portland, or why we are not appreciative enough of NYC-style bagels...).

I brought along two light blockers. One for the warm white fluorescent fixture overhead and a second to both reflect the main light and block another source of weird fluorescence. I lit the set up with one big LED light into a large soft box and used a second LED, bare, to kick some light into the background. Over the course of the two half days I met and photographed about twenty people. We were able to schedule everyone but the guy who was home with strep throat. 

As a courtesy to both the left out employee, and to my client, I made a point to schedule a session for him so there wouldn't be gaps in the coverage and so no one would be tempted to mix an impromptu cellphone image in with my other hard work. I had the time this morning. 

I came back to the same area of the set up and used the same lighting design but I did change cameras and lenses. The first time I used the Sony a7ii and the 70-200mm f4.0. They worked great. But I have a hard time sticking to doing things the same way over and over again so this time I pared down to the a6300 and the Rokinon 85mm f1.4 lens (actually, the Cine t1.5 version...). Shooting one stop further open than I did with the first combination gave me depth of field that matches up nicely with the other work. I shot about 120 images and noted that I still had 96% battery power remaining. 

The scene looked so good through the camera that I was tempted to toss a microphone on the top of the hot shoe and also do an interview on video. But I remembered that no one had requested the service and it would be a bit insane to just start interviewing people at work with no real agenda.

I've done my quick color correction and messed around with contrast and exposure, and I've uploaded a gallery to Smugmug.com for selection purposes. Today's shoot was a reminder that I need to write a bit more about the Rokinon lenses that I've worked with this year. Some of my favorite images have come from the 100 macro, the 85mm and the 135mm t2.2. None of the lenses were introduced this year or I'd have another "Camera and lens of the year!!!!!!!" article to pen.

I do have a favorite microphone of the year but that's for later this week... And now? Some images.

The Wall. Best Austin location in 2016.

This week's "Best Camera of the Year." 

"They" keep making commercials in Austin. Now the pedestrian bridge between south and north Austin is so littered with camera crews, sound engineers and make up people that there are pedestrian traffic jams in the city. It never stops! Nice shooting rig but DAMN look at all the crew. I guess somebody has to pay them and feed them...

Here's the basic set up. A blocker above to kill the fluorescents a reflector to the side for clean fill and two soft boxes jammed together for the lovely LED main light action.

Reverse view. The chair is to stand behind and have a place to put your hands, if you are the subject. It serves to anchor the subjects. I very rarely have people actually "sit" for a portrait. The clothes get wrinkles and the postures generally suck. NO SITTING!

So, what did I charge the client to come back, set up the lights and photograph the one straggler? Not a dime. I offered to do it for free. I wanted the continuity of images on the website. I was already being well paid. This client is a rich source of continuing recommendations. Call it a holiday gift, an accommodation, a favor. Sometimes the cumulative value exceeds the amount we might bill. And, it gave me a chance to compare, file-to-file between the A7ii and the a6300. 

I made it downtown and back in time to walk with Studio Dog and eat lasagna for lunch. Now I am blogging while supervising some pre-holiday landscaping. Life is good....

One of the "secrets" of good, quick, consistent color balance and post production efficiency is to get a good, repeatable custom white balance in every shooting location. I always use the same target (a Lastolite) and the benefit is not walking into the color correction blindfolded.

Still time to order stuff from Amazon.com. Use the link below and make my holiday a bit rosier at no cost to you. Thanks! (you don't have to buy the book but the link will get you to the site).

Content added after initial upload: 

I find that it is often a smart thing if you make a few empty frames of the location on which you are shooting a portrait. That way, if someone can't be photographed on the original location you can always drop them into the background in post processing and better match the rest of your take. Goes a long way toward maintaining a consistent look when needed. Just a thought...

I was a bit amused when I read that DPReview had selected the Nikon D500 as their "camera of the year."

The Nikon D500.

It reminded me of the introduction of the Nikon F6 so many years ago. The F6 was launched long after the mass market (both pros and hobbyists) voted with their pocketbooks and abandoned film for the siren song of digital imaging. The camera came with a premium price and though I was hanging out with dozens of working professionals at the time I never met a single soul who splashed out cash to buy an F6. And I've never seen one in the field. Why? Because as great and perfect and proficient as the F6 might have been every person who may have been part of the market for that camera had already moved on...

In 2016 the D500 will appeal to diehard DSLR fans and cheap (or poor) sports photographers. But it's really not a significant, new product. It's more of a tweaked old style product. A D7200 that shoots more quickly. Or, a D300 that has a much better sensor and shoots more quickly. It's still big, heavy, kind of a dog to shoot video with, and embarrassingly bereft of a state-of-the-art electronic viewfinder. 

Not everyone wants to change away from camera styles and form factors to which they have grown accustomed. Not everyone who is even modestly invested in Nikon's system will be anxious to switch to something else. And that's great. But it hardly makes more of the same an interesting choice for "camera of the year." 

I think the honor should go to something brand new and different. I'd nominate the Hasselblad mirrorless medium format camera because it's new and different; and when they get the firmware sorted out it may also be a really good image maker. If that's not your cup of tea I'd be happy to nominate the Sony RX10 iii which is just now starting to get its due from reviewers who are taking a second look. The combination of a miraculous lens and truly great video at an "affordable" price point is eternally tempting. 

For sheer performance and usability my personal nomination for my camera of the year has to be the little Sony a6300. If those bastards at Sony had just seen fit to put in a headphone jack I would be tempted to call this camera near perfect. It's small and light, has a great sensor and great performance, shoots fast, focuses well and does very, very good, 4K video right in camera. Yes, the a6500 came out this year as well but it's nothing more than an iteration, at a higher price, of an already well sorted camera. I find the touchscreen to be an "anti-feature" but I'll admit that the in body I.S. would be worthwhile. I'll stick with the a6300 as my recommendation because it's a proven commodity and makes me smile when I use it. 

The Nikon D500 is resting on the legacy of the past. It's the camera that most of us grew up with but photography is changing quickly and the power and performance of a good shooting tool no longer has to weigh a ton and cost too much. 

Yes, with cameras like the Fuji XT-2 and the Olympus EM-1 mk ii, and the Pentax K-1 in the mix I was surprised to read about DPReview's choice. In fact, I kept looking for the "this article sponsored by Nikon" disclaimer somewhere near the post but I could never find it....

Sometimes the sky just looks so good you have to go out with a camera and make photographs...

Every square inch of downtown Austin is under construction. It's getting to be bizarre. It's almost as if the real estate investors have forgotten a simple rule, "whatever goes up must come down..." But that's a story for another blog post. 

Austin is currently experiencing the lowest temperatures we've seen in over a year. When I woke up this morning the thermometer on the outside of the house said it was 25 degrees (f). I made a cup of Irish breakfast tea, with milk and a little sugar, and then I grabbed a fresh towel and headed to the pool. As you know, if you read the VSL blog on a regular basis, my masters team swims year round in an outdoor pool. It's heated but still, on days like today there's a huge psychological barrier involved in making if from the nice, warm locker room to the pool about 100 yards away.

We have insulated covers on the pool at night to retain heat so the first arrivals at the pool help our coach pull off the covers and roll them onto their carrier. When the covers come off clouds of steam roll across the pool like a fog in the background of a 1950's werewolf movie. It's a leap of faith to plunge in but we do it every morning. I am cautious and wait for the first person to make a move. Once I see that he or she suffered no hypothermic shock I'm ready to plunge in. 

It was cloudy this morning and the low temperatures (you have to remember that we are in no way acclimated for this!) were exacerbated by a gusty, 30 mph, north wind. It's the kind of Sunday morning that one just puts one's head down and pounds through the workout for an hour and a half; not much chit chat since surfacing to talk is almost painful. 

Today we did a bunch of individual medley sets to start. Nothing like swimming some butterfly to really engage with your body on an early Sunday morning...

The most painful part of today's aquatic adventure was exiting the pool and making it back to the locker room while soaking wet and being pummeled by the north wind. Coffee never tastes better than it does after the swim+chill combination. I didn't keep track of the yardage today but I'd say we got in our 4500 to 4800 typical yards. Maybe a bit less since so much of it was breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly. It's always easier to rack up the yards if you are doing distance freestyle sets but, hey! what's the fun in that?

Since it was a typical Sunday I had breakfast, read the NYT, and then headed to the studio/office to meticulously retouch ten rush portraits and then bill for four different jobs, spread across three different clients. No one seems to have gotten the message that we just happen to be in the middle of the end of year, holiday season! But that's okay because I really enjoy the billing...

Once I got the important stuff out of the way I checked the weather again and was pleased to see that the temperature had climbed to 30 degrees by 2:30pm. Perfect for a long walk through the city. 

I layered up, found my Craftsy "swag" hat and grabbed my favorite camera of the week; the Sony a6300. I vacillated between taking the 18-105mm or the little, Sigma 60mm f2.8 Art lens. In the end the Sigma won. I'm loving the a6300 these days because I am finally intimately familiar with the menu and loving the quality of the files I've been getting from that little camera; both in stills and in video. 

I wondered around for the better part of two hours with the camera and lens and only gave up shooting when the failing light pushed me past ISO 6400. I'd shot about 200 frames, and even in the freezing temperatures the battery indicator was showing 80% full at the end. Certainly not reflecting the hysteria about Sony batteries that I routinely read on the web...

As I come to grips with the demise of traditional photography and wrap my head around a more software, firmware, hardware combination of stills and video I am less and less attracted to the "nods" to yesteryear in camera interfaces and more interested in exactly how much the camera can do for me. The flexibility of the RX10 series is probably a major reason I like them so much. They cross over between the disciplines well. As does the a6300. 

I shot the a6300 as still camera today but left the SmallRig video cage on the body. It handles a bit better for me that way. More surface area for my hands. More to hold onto. My one compromise for still imaging was to take the (for stills) vestigial handle off the top of the rig. 

I got home as the last light faded from the sky and I could just make out the giant Christmas "tree" and its hundred foot strands of light from Zilker Park. I put the camera battery on the charge and started playing with the files. There's nothing earth shattering in the folder. Just fun juxtapositions of color and hard angles. I'll more than likely erase the whole folder in the next day or so. The idea is really never to go out and find a masterpiece for all eternity. No, the real plan is to go out and look at the world and just marvel at how different it is every single day. The camera is a basic foil that lends the pretension of an artist at work. It gives me grown up permission to do something ultimately non-productively fun and joyful. The camera gives me the cover of somehow being at work while hiding the fact that I'm really just soaking it all in. 

The things I find interesting are probably droll to most readers. Old machines, painted a hundred times. A dress in a window. A building framed against an abstract sky. Meaningless on one level and yet as meaningful as anything else humans do in their short lives. Walking around in the cold, looking for nuance and warm coffee beats the hell out of "getting a jump on those first quarter tax estimates!" 

Don't ever forget that we are all entitled to have down time and fun in as wonderful a proportion as we desire. Screw being a serious adult. That way lies madness...

This dress in the window of this shop reminding me of a time long past. 

Interesting that the shop has several windows displaying much larger sized mannequins, wearing much bigger dresses. I guess it makes sense but what happened to "aspirational" fashion?

Custom cup holders for a bicycle.

Austin based Vodka company. "Shovel ready" for heavy drinking...

There's that sky I referenced. It looked pretty astounding this evening. 

I finally found a cost effective speedlight that works as a dedicated, TTL flash for current Sony cameras.

I've owned lots of different "on camera" flashes and flash "systems" over the past few years. I even wrote a boot about them back in 2007. I had things pretty well figured out when I was using Nikon Speedlights with Nikon cameras but I never really got the hang of using dedicated flashes with any of the mirrorless cameras I have owned...until now. The issue in the past always revolved around getting consistent exposures in TTL. I can get all the consistency I want if I shoot in manual mode settings but nearly every third party flash I've tried with Sonys denies me the use of HSS (high speed sync) and good, repeatable results with automatic flash metering.

When I owned the a99 and the a77 cameras I went ahead and purchased their top of the line flash only to have it repeatedly shut down after 15 or 20 leisurely paced pops due to an overly cautious heat/panic threshold setting. It made the flash useless for event work or social documentation.

I've tested some of the newer Sony flashes but just didn't want to bite the bullet at the prices being asked and risk yet another sissy flash that can't be used for real work.

I did a recent event using only manual flashes on camera and we (the camera, flash and I) nailed about 490 out of 520 exposures. The remaining 30 could be saved with judicious use of post processing. But I had to think about exposure all evening and it made my brain tired. It made me long for the bomb proof flash systems we enjoyed in the heyday of the Nikon F5 film cameras. The mental sweat of a long, flash-ridden event pushed me to do some research.

I found the Godox Ring 860ii flash and an identical unit under another brand called, Neewer. Since the specs, battery, charger and appearance were identical I saved about $40 by ordering the Neewer version.
Why did I buy this? Well, it has a healthy guide number but it also has two features that I am delighted with. First, it has a whopping big Lithium Ion battery that charges quickly in a very nice charger, clicks into place in the side of the flash and provides about 600 full power flashes with one charge. Buy an extra battery just for peace of mind and you are ready to shoot all day long. Even if you are a promiscuous shooter like me. Charge time is something like 2 hours.

The second feature that makes me smile is that the flash incorporates the new multifunction flash foot that interfaces with the same multifunction flash shoe found on all the newer Sony cameras. It is compatible with all six Sony cameras that I own. The flash provides full TTL automation and it also provides HSS for syncing out in the sun. Going a step further, you get a simple optical slave capability, built in. Set the camera to S1 or S2 and you are ready to use this flash as a slave with ANY other flash.
It also can be used as a master flash to trigger other flashes in it's family.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating so the day I got it I charged the battery, tossed the flash on top of an A7Rii, set it to TTL and started going around the house scaring Studio Dog by shooting everything in sight. Every exposure was on the money. Right on the money.

For about one third the cost of a comparably capable Sony model I now have the rock solid flash performance, in full auto, that I've been looking for in the Sony system. Every camera flash I own now is some new brand built in China. Not that the Sony flashes aren't built in China as well. All the flashes have two features that allow me to use them as a system in the same way we used to use our monolights and "pack and head" systems. One feature is the power ratio control. I can dial the power on any of six flashes from full to at least 1/64th power.  I can also set every flash to optical slave and use them together regardless of which radio trigger they want to answer to. It makes for a highly portable and mostly interchangeable system.

So many Sony peripherals are priced insanely. It's nice to find options that do a great job at much lower prices. I am happy with my purchase and recommend these flashes to other Sony shooters.