We also did an interview with Meredith McCall, the actor who will be playing "Lady Bird" Johnson in Zach Theatre's upcoming play, "The Great Society."

Meredith McCall reflects on "The Great Society" from ZACH Theatre on Vimeo.

I love Meredith's interview but I do hear some car noise outside. I guess it's a balancing act when it comes to either stopping a good interview and trying to wait for sounds to clear or just realizing that you are on a "live" location and taking whatever comes.

We shot the interview with two of the Aputure Light Storm 1/2 lights. One through big diffusion and the other as a background wash. The camera was a Sony a6300 set to shoot 1080p. In retrospect I wish I had shot in 4K and down sampled. I've been testing the 4K capture lately and it's so nice.

Hard to get the room sounding perfect when you are faced with metal ceilings, concrete floors and metal overhead doors.... Ah....location work.

The danger of being "over-prepared."

There is a process that some of us in the business of photography go through in order to be extensively prepared for potential jobs that may be in our futures. The process consists of doing relentless, voluminous research about best practices in the genre, followed by creating lists of the gear "candidates" that are best suited for the particular projects, followed by the acquisition of the gear, followed by obsessive practice with the gear, and then, after all this work, the gear and training meet the realities of the actual job and everything just pops like a soap bubble as we come to understand that we could deliver AMAZING but that the client just has the budget and inclination for GOOD ENOUGH. 

This is not intended to be a  screed against clients, per se, but a mea culpa of our own complicity in the hallucinatory process of preparation that's fostered by the stories and fabrications of (authentic???) practitioners of our craft on the web. 

Of course, the underlying reason for the existence of the web has changed from a being a portal for the democratic dissemination of information and opinions into a giant selling bazaar, hawking everything from porn to the latest camera. The selling requires the creation of the intertwined twins, need and want. In order for you to want a new camera you need to become convinced that your existing camera (or lens, or light, or tripod, or car....) is now not sufficient to do a process that will ultimately profit you. You read "articles" about how a new product enabled some likable and jocular imagined competitor provide clients with end product (the result of using the new product) that is demonstrably superior to the product from your woefully outmatched, current product. There has to be an implicit promise that the new product will generate more happiness for you by making you more competent and more proficient. The new product should also "lift" your stature in the eyes of your clients. If you have clients...

Here's an example: We get a call requesting that we shoot some video for a product that a person wears while walking over rough terrain. The video will be of a man walking over uneven ground and going up and down hills.  We immediately go into research mode and start looking at videos, done by others, for similar products. We see lots of video of incredibly smooth and stable tracking shots (shots where the camera is following alongside the moving subject) and we dive into researching this style of tracking shot. We see videos that show this shooting method using Steadicams, Dollies with track, hand held gimbals and more. We bore down to find the best of the best scenario. In a shoot on scrambly terrain it might be the use of a Steadicam. That leads us down into a thorny thicket of options, from relatively cheap to ones a dear as a house, and we spend the time trying to find that fictive divide between budget and production value. 

Then we talk budget with our client. "So, we're pretty sure we can get a SteadiCam operator and his assistant for about $3,000 a day and use this camera package at $650 a day because according to the operator it works best on his rig... And so we'll need a camera assistant to set up the camera and that's going to set us back $1,800 and we'll need some support crew in case we need to light and also a digital tech to pull the footage off the camera wirelessly and make sure it's all okay." 

And you look over at your client because they have a curiously blank, almost fearful expression on their face and they have obviously stopped listening to what you are saying. You realize that you allowed yourself to stumble into a marketing driven rabbit hole and you were unsuccessful in pulling your client in along with you. Then the client tells you that they used to shoot this stuff with the video on their iPhones but they kinda thought it would be nice to have something a bit better, you know, if the budget isn't too crazy.  

At this point it (should) dawn on you that what they really wanted (but didn't know how to describe) was for you to put your nice camera on a tripod with a fluid head and just do a paning shot while the talent walked though parts of a nice, hilly park. And, NO, they don't want the final footage in 4K because they aren't set up for that; and NO they don't need to have you arrange for craft service because it's just going to the the three of you and there's a nice Whataburger Restaurant about a half mile from the park. 

I've been through this a number of times. It's really more about listening to the actual needs of the client before anything else. 

But it is easy to drive ourselves nuts in our mania to be "ultimately" ready for anything. I remember a conversation I had with a very good sound engineer a while back. I was trying to get him to tell me exactly what wireless microphones I should get to do my video work with. He asked me what my primary use would be. I told him that I mostly do single person interviews in corporate locations or in the studio. He told me I'd get better sound with a nice supercardioid (shotgun) microphone. I told him "EVERYONE IS USING LAVS!!!" He thought that was a cute idea. 

I bought two sets of Sennheiser wireless microphones. About $1500 bucks worth of stuff. Then I listened to a really great video that the sound engineer had worked on. The audio was perfect. Rich and detailed but with no apparent noise at all. My wireless mics sounded flat. Like the equivalent of low dynamic range in audio. The sound I was getting was boring. 

I went back to the sound engineer and peppered him with questions. He suggested I get, and learn how to use, a decent shotgun microphone and a boom pole. I did. He was right. It sounded better to my ears but the microphone didn't sound nearly as good as his video had. He asked to see my microphone and I pulled out my shiny new Sennheiser. He asked me to show him how I used the microphone; how I placed it. How far from the talent?  

He suggested that we test it. I did it my way and then he did it his way. He got closer, he angled the microphone down a bit more towards the talent's mouth. He set his levels a bit lower. His test made the microphone sound so much better. His last shot was this: "A decent microphone, used with knowledge and skill, will sound so much better than a costly microphone in the hands of someone who doesn't know what the hell they are doing...!" And then he stared right at me until the exchange became a bit uncomfortable. 

My compulsive desire to be "ultimately" prepared for getting audio led me down the same path that we hate as photographers. It's that moment when someone looks at one of your images and asks, "What camera did you use to get that picture? It's great!"  Since most of us are "technically inclined" (gear nerds) we seem to love stuff that's wireless even when the people who make the big money in the business love stuff that's hard-wired. 

I'm not saying we shouldn't be prepared but that preparation starts with understanding the client's budget and needs and not by trying to be prepared to shoot the next Star Wars episode. There's a range. It's good to know where in the range your project falls and then to make it successful given your time and budget. If the camera is the magic bullet in the equation then I would say you are already starting behind the eight ball.

The bottom line is that the need that creates "over preparation" probably comes from some feeling of technical inadequacy. We're trying to compensate for our imagined (or real) shortcomings by buying our way through a job. In fact, in most cases, the gear is secondary to the skill set. 

Who needs really great gear? The guys who already know what they are doing and are doing at such a high level that the difference between a $5,000 tripod head and a $12,000 tripod head makes their job even better. I'm not there yet. Not by a long shot....

The importance of "B-roll" in video production. A hard lesson for me.

super A.D., Ben, grabs for all the "B-Roll" he can find!

The hardest thing of all in creating good video is not getting the color right or the footage sharp. Some would say the hardest part is always getting good sound. But for me the hardest part of the process is the edit. And the stumbling block for me is that I have a hard time understanding the vital importance (in the edit phase) of having lots of great "B-roll" to choose from. 

First of all, What the Hell is B-roll? Most of the video work I do involves shooting interviews. The interviews can be about new products, new processes or about something that the interviewee has done that is interesting. My somewhat linear mindset leads me to want to shoot the interview the same way I'd shoot a photographic portrait. My brain was programmed by years of still photography to compose a very nice frame, get my lighting as close to perfect as I can and to pay attention to the main event; the actual interview. 

But if you are creating video that's watchable you need to understand that having a person stare into (or near) the camera lens and talk can get pretty boring pretty quickly. Also, since we seem to be culturally evolving into a new species that learns almost exclusively by seeing, we need on screen images of the things our interviewee is talking about for the audience to better understand the content. Finally, we need scenes and associated imagery to cut away to in the event that we need to make an edit to the primary footage. After all, the way video works best is to get your audience into the story. Technical glitches are a quick way to pull them right back out of your story and move on to something else. 

In the video Ben and I are currently on for a healthcare client we have an interviewee who gave us a tremendous interview session. The technical problem is that she said great stuff but it was spread across different clips. We wanted to piece one very tight and coherent program out of these little gems of content but every time you make a cut from one clip to another there is a jarring difference in the overall continuity. The person's body might be in a different posture, hands in a different place, even the expression might be much different (if the light or sound is different; that's on you!). 

So, when we want to join different clips we need something else to cut away to to keep the audience from seeing the obvious visual hiccups. That's the primary role of B-roll. It is footage that gets inserted into your program either to show something that relates to what your narrator or interviewee is saying or to provide a way to disguise cuts between clips. The best situation is that B-roll will do both. 

Since my brain seems hard-wired to go straight for the obvious I end up running the "A" camera in most projects. I have a good, linear idea of the overall outline of the project and I'm off and running from point "A" to point "B". I'm busy following the map. But I am not incapable of learning. In solo projects I set up a second camera to run during interviews which gives me a different point of view to use in my edits and I try my best (with a meticulous shot list) to get as much footage that is relevant as I can. But if push comes to shove it's the direct interview that always takes precedence. 

Recently I was beaten over the head with just how useful and necessary good B-roll could be. My assistant director on our healthcare video project spent the shooting day with a Sony RX10iii camera in his hands. We set both the primary shooting camera and his camera to the same codec, the same white balance and fps to give us a fighting chance at mixing the footage in the edit. 

Everything I shot the A.D also shot, but from a different angle and different magnifications. He also shot details and close-ups and reverse angles. In all, he shot about twice as many clips as I did but, in my defense, my camera was running all the time on interviews...

When we got back to the studio my A.D. started editing the footage based on the outline we created. We had just done a Lynda.com refresher course to learn what was new in Final Cut Pro X 10.3 and were both excited to try using the "flow" transition tool to cut together the interview (which would serve as a primary narration track) from the jigsaw box full of clips we had at hand. The flow tool is a great transition tool where audio is involved. It seems to understand that we're piecing together two different clips of audio and automatically makes the transitions almost (audibly) invisible. 

As you may guess we had dozens and dozens of clips butted together and while the audio was more or less seamless the visual cuts were obvious. That's when my A.D. started diving into his treasure chest full of B-roll. Stuff I never thought about came out. A super close up of a stream of fresh, hot coffee filling up a coffee carafe in the kitchen. An ethereal shot of a bowl of lemons. Numerous shots of the products shot in an artsy way with a moving, handheld camera. Lots of angles of our main talent athletically piloting her wheel chair in a park, at a lake, at a restaurant, getting in and out of her car, having a meeting, etc., etc. 

He seemed to have the perfect cutaway shot for every contingency and I marveled as the project grew from a barebones documentation to a full blown, visual narrative. Video is so much richer with images that bolster the "main" footage.

Since my current A.D. is "on loan" from his college I'll be looking for a new assistant director/editor to work with in February. First on my list of question for them will be, "tell me your ideas about shooting B-roll..."

It's good to figure out where my blindspots are so I can work on them. From now until it becomes second nature I'll be carrying a "B-roll" shot list with me on every assignment. Yikes. So much harder than the camera work. At least for me.

Always learning.

Learn the plan. Execute to the plan. Then make a new plan.

I think there are two kinds of workers in the world. There are those that want to master the process in front of them and then keep doing the same process over and over again as long as they get a paycheck. The idea of learning new things seems threatening and difficult and is to be avoided. Then there are workers who become restless after mastering one craft and are ready to move on and learn new things all the time. Many people are incremental learners while a different group are explorers who benefit from frequent flashes of satori and then move off to try something completely new. 

From an economic point of view it would seem that people who avoid new tasks and new training would have a financial advantage because they have attained (for the moment) a tested mastery which is efficient in its regular application. It's a tested process; all that remains is to frequently activate the process and monitor it. The downfall of this approach to working life is what generally happens during periods of technological disruption. The process (and the worker) become unnecessary and retraining must occur if the paychecks are to continue. 

The slower, or more reticent a person is to embrace new training the less financially stable they become. For the second group, the people who would rather starve than do the same process over and over again are experts in retraining because they do it constantly. 

I've watched so many disruptions to the imaging business in the last twenty years. First was the move toward digital imaging and away from film. I heard countless people, who had mastered the basic steps of shooting with film, renounce digital and maintain the use of film in their businesses long after the writing was on the wall and the need to transition was obvious to everyone else. The slow to adapt perished, financially. It happened with post processing. It happened in transitions from early cameras to more capable cameras, and it's happening again as demand for video eclipses falling demand for producing photography as a commercial business.  It happened to specialized studio car photographers who saw their talents superseded by CAD experts who could take a digital wireframe and "skin" it in any flavor, color and texture. Voila, instant car... Those graphics suppliers are thriving because they've mastered a process that emerged from a previous,  disrupted discipline. 

This is scary if you were fixed on the idea that you would learn how to pose people and how to use a still camera the same way over and over and over again, getting exactly the same results and billing the same amount of money each time. Especially scary when the market for what it is you have learned to do begins an accelerating decline. It's like passing out from blood loss. By the time you realize you are losing consciousness from blood loss it is likely too late for you to put pressure on your own wound and take other lifesaving actions. The people who survive are the ones who take immediate action. Better yet, survival is most probable, at least in our industry, for the people who constantly look to the future and prepare. And continually learn.

About two years ago I looked at the general advertising and business marketplaces and did some research. Fees for photography were stagnant and demand for most photographers working in the commercial markets was down. On the other hand video had surpassed still imaging (by a good margin) on the internet and was becoming more of a mainstream advertising and marketing tool for companies large and small. On and off the internet.

When I looked at video from the point of view of a photographer I could see that there were things I could bring to the process that were desirable. I have vast experience lighting with all sorts of tools, including the constant light sources required by video. I have spent a good portion of my working life directing people who end up in front of my cameras for one reason or another. I was pretty sure the ability to direct people, and to build a rapport with them, would also be a worthwhile skill in the video production business. 

My weak spots were the nuts and bolts of audio, the aesthetics of making the camera move, or making the people in front of my camera move, and in the editing. While I love to tell stories I needed to learn how to tie visuals together, from idea to idea, in a way that would not take people attention away from the story. Finally, I needed to learn the toughest lesson for most photographers: that we are not trying to make one achingly beautiful image we are trying to tell a whole story in a believable way. And that has been the hardest thing for me to learn. 

At some point in the late Fall last year I started to set out some goals and guiding concepts for my work in 2017. I had experienced success in putting together large and small video projects in 2016 but I could see that I would have to commit to learning more and delivering more expertise if I wanted to grow the video side of my business this year. My goal for 2017 is to have 50% of my business income derive from producing video for clients. That's a big change for someone who has depended on only still photography income to provide for everything in the family budget. At times I feel like I'm walking into a long dark hall...

So, how do I retrain? I try to learn all the time. I've read dozens of books on audio and video production. I've worked through books on scriptwriting and editing and, after every bit of new knowledge comes my way I grab a camera and a microphone and practice what I've learned with a camera in my hand. I find that I have to try each step for myself and internalize it before I can really understand it. In down time, like waiting for the next person to come into the Acme conference room for a portrait, I write small scripts and map out related visuals.

My best sources for much about making good video comes from the online learning resource, Lynda.com. The depth of information about Final Cut Pro X alone was worth a year's subscription. Watching Anthony Artis hook up a mixer to his video camera and set the controls was perfect. The tutorials on composition made me re-think much of what I do as a still photographer. 

While I've spent hundreds of hours reading, watching and learning, the one black hole in the process is watching the "free" channels on Youtube and on various websites, about video. On almost every site the content is nothing more than an endless stream of product reviews. If you allow yourself to get stuck in the review sites you'll waste massive amounts of time learning about new gear and fueling your addictive desire for the latest and greatest stuff. And that sucks away the time you need to spend actually learning the basic processes and concepts. You'll become an expert in the various camera and microphone models available with little practical knowledge beyond how to turn the units on. 

I've worked hard to stay away from the gear review sites and it's paid off for me as the owner of a photography business. The last camera that I bought was a Sony RX10iii some nine or ten months ago and I slowed down my "need" to learn about new products to the point where I have bought, in 2016, and now own, far fewer cameras than I have since the days of film. It's liberating because instead of learning that the new "miracle" camera has 2 Db less noise at ISO 1250 than last year's miracle camera I am learning where and when to point the camera I have at the right subjects and to meld them together nicely in post. 

If I were to recommend a strategy to someone who wanted to learn how to shoot good video I'd tell them to put off buying anything until they read a book about writing a script. And then I'd have them watch a series of tutorials on editing. Then I would have them read Blain Brown's book on Cinematography. Only then would I suggest that they buy (or borrow) some gear and get to work on their practice. Because, forearmed with intent and basic knowledge, they would understand what it was the gear would help them to accomplish. Too often the gear is just an unused trophy. A monument to one's purchasing power and credit scores. 

Here is a lesson. Pick up your favorite video camera, zoom the lens to about the equivalent focal length of 50mm, point it at something or someone and record, handheld, for 30 seconds. Just 30 seconds. Then look at the results on a 60 inch television. Now you understand why you need a tripod. A good tripod. 

Here is a lesson. Take your camera to a crowded park, a food court at a mall, a busy coffee shop. Bring along a friend then turn on your camera and interview them in one of these environments, using the built-in microphones in your camera. Take everything home and listen to the resulting audio on a good pair of headphones. Congratulations! You now understand why you need more flexible microphone solutions. 

Here is a lesson. Go out without a script and shoot some pretty video. What ever catches your eye. Go home and watch it from beginning to end. Oh Boy!!! You just realized why a script is so important...

In each case the learning experience has nothing to do with the need for better gear, sometimes just the right gear. Or the right planning. Or the right subject matter. 

Here are some things I learned this week: Intellectually it seems  very straight forward to stand behind a camera for two hours and document a corporate conference. You will be behind a camera that has a long zoom lens and all you really need to do is follow the corporate speakers as they amble around on the stage and talk. Oh, and you'll also need to pay attention to the sound. 

But there's the initial question of just how to compose the frame. Should you be tight or loose? How can you smoothly change direction with the speaker? At 600mm will adjusting the focus with the ring on the lens cause visible camera shake? How much headroom should I leave? 

I learned to separate the monitor physically from the camera so that I can change batteries on the monitor without effecting the camera. I was unsure of what to do when I stopped to change a monitor battery because I would be unable to keep the speaker in the frame and to follow him. My solution was to slowly zoom out to a wider shot of the stage, adequately covering all of the speaker's habitual "race track," lock the camera down, change the battery and then zoom back in slowly while picking the speaker's motion up again.  It actually worked. 

I have so much to learn but learning is so much fun. I have my first video assignment out of the country at the beginning of the next month, right after yet another video project for a tech company, and I'm already deep into research about the best way to bring in the equipment I'll need. 

The upshot of all this is that I am very excited to wake up and get to work everyday. There's just so much new stuff to think about. And it certainly seems to keep the business rocking along. No complaints from the CFO; even after dropping some serious money on new lights. It's all fun. 

Trying to be a better videographer is making me a better photographer. Let's see if trying to be a better scriptwriter makes me into a better blogger....(sigh.)

Momentarily fatigued writing about video. More fun today writing about portraits.

Michelle 2016.

This is a photograph of my friend, Michelle. I have photographed her off and on for about 25 years now. I feel like we were just kids when we first met and started working together. I cast Michelle in a bunch of print ad campaigns in the 1990's and she came across as the perfect (aspirational) young "soccer mom." In fact, I considered her to be the gold standard for the higher end real estate projects we were routinely called on to produce.

She got in touch recently and asked me to take portraits of her to use for public relations in her speaking career. I was more than happy to oblige as I have a beautiful black and white portrait of her on the wall, just to the right of my desk. Looking at it gives me a boost of confidence when I'm working on bids and proposals because I can look at that print and know that I have been able to produce work I love in the past, and there's a better than even chance that I can do it again. I'd say, given that I've had the print on the wall since I moved my office here 20 years ago, that Michelle has already pre-paid me a hundred times over for any new portrait I might make of her now.

This image was done with simple lighting and straightforward camera work. The lights were studio electronic flash with one head into a big, big modifier to the right of the frame and the second light in a small, 12x16 inch, softbox between Michelle and the background.

The camera was a Sony A7Rii and the lens was the (too sharp) Sony 70-200mm f4.0 G.

I did a bit of post production to soften Michelle's skin tone and retouched a few wrinkles around her eyes. You might not like retouching and you may think I've overdone it but this is more like what Michelle looks like in my mind's eye. And what I wanted to create was an honest, kind, happy, warm image of someone who embodies those qualities.

In some senses a good portrait is part of the routine nature of my business. But to me, when it comes to friends in the studio, it's more an opportunity to catch up, share good news and bad news, and bolster each other to face the future with optimism, and a sense that we are all connected to each other. Some more strongly than others.

Here is a photograph of Michelle from an earlier session (1992).

She helps me understand that beauty transcends time.

It's not about size, weight or form factor. No, the reason to use mirrorless cameras is for the features, the video and the EVFs. Forget about the whole size distraction.

My favorite "mirror-free" cameras are not grotesque little feather light waifs. I'm not choosing a camera because I am too wimpy to haul around a stout machine. No,  I choose my cameras based on the performance and feature sets they offer. And, unless you are medically impaired, you should too. 

It's been really annoying for the past few days to read what the sallow forum dwellers have been writing about the Panasonic GH5. There is a contingent of supposed camera users who are eager to dismiss the GH5 out of hand because....."It's as big and heavy as a DSLR!!!!!" (Imagine added whining and posturing).  As I understand it the value proposition of the GH5 has very little to do with trying to achieve a midget-sized camera and everything to do with just beating the crap out of the competition when it comes to the raison d'être for its existence. Video high performance coupled with photography core competence. So, in a day and age when Canon and Nikon can barely manage making 4K possible in their camera bodies (even the really expensive ones) the GH5 can shoot 4K at high bit rates, up to 60 fps. And it's been announced that the camera will be able to do 4K 10bit 4:2:2 when it's finalized. Plus, when you are shooting video the camera will still be able to auto focus like a bat out of hell. Red "Disney" eyes blazing. And all this without the 29.99 minute time limit or even a hint of overheating.

Then, on the still side, there's 9 frames per second with full AF between each frame. And a super high res rear monitor. And, and, and. Even the battery life is in the same ballpark with the traditional DSLRs.

So, you get the state-of-the-art in video technology combined with fantastic specs for still photography, along with a giant warehouse full of features and all these dolts can think about is that the camera is almost as heavy as they cameras they profess to love. I guess we are now really living in a fact-free, rational thought-free society...

Yes, dear readers who have Nikons, Canons, Pentaxes and Mirandas, I get that you don't want to do video with your cameras and that you feel as though your cameras are still highly capable of making pretty pictures. I agree. There is no need for anyone who is happy with their status quo to rush out and make camera manufacturers wealthy. But many, many, many of the new features do help working people make better images, better movies, better corporate videos and so much more. 

I would understand a carpenter in 1982 having little use for a word processor but you have to understand how excited we copywriters were when we started using WordStar 1.0, mastering the necessary 2,035 keyboard commands and all. It meant that we could write and re-write, and correct our re-writes, with an efficiency and speed we had never experienced before. Without White-out and without carbon paper. The mirrorless deniers are basically saying, "What the hell is wrong with a Remington type writer? It worked for Ernest Hemmingway, it'll work for me!" But now look. No one I've met has used a typewriter to write a blog. Or typed a post A.D. 2000 report. Or a letter (do other people still write those?). 

People who have $2,000 to spend on a new camera shouldn't really make their buying decision on whether or not their two year old can pick the camera up and carry it around all day. It's not the cleverest part of their astute decision making process. They should look at the tool and sum up how well it does the things they need to get done and then add in the new features that might make their work more efficient (auto focus stacking anyone?). 

I owned and used the GH4 a year or two ago and it was a great camera. Judging by the things I've read about the GH5 it should deliver video performance that rivals dedicated $10,000 video cameras while also providing a very high level of still photography ummmph. 

I've found that when I have purchased a few mirrorless cameras they had one design flaw. I'll use the Olympus EM5.2 as an example. It was fun to shoot and the images it takes are pretty darn great but it was just too damn small. So small that Olympus couldn't even fit a headphone jack onto the body. So small that even my small to medium sized hands spent most of their time with the camera looking for something to hold on to. My workaround was to go out and get battery grips for all EM-5 cameras in my possession. Only then was the camera nearly perfect for everyday use. 

I've railed before about people who want a camera that fits in the pocket of their pants. I don't understand their strange point of view. Why not just stick an iPhone 7 in the pocket and be done with it. But no, they are on a crusade to find an interchangeable lens camera that's truly pocketable. We call that insane. 

So look at my favorite "mirror-free" cameras. They are, for the most part, big and bulky, not frail and diminutive. The RX10iii is big. Really big. But it delivers so much. And it works so well. 

Then look at my Olympus EM5.2 in the photo just below. The battery grip brings back competitive amount of square inch space while upping the handhold ability quotient. 

Above and below are two of my favorite full frame cameras; the A7Rii and the A7ii. Once I have them outfitted to match battery life and hand hold-ability of traditional cameras they certainly feel better but they bring with them all the real features that make a "mirror-free" professional lifestyle so enjoyable. Those features would include, easy-peasy live view, the ability to use an incredibly large selection of lenses, instant entry into efficient movie modes (with tons of extras for movie making), pre-chimping via the EVFs and so much more. None of which is predicated on, or makes necessary, small size or lightweight. No, the reason most mirror-free cameras are smaller is the form following function thing. Fewer moving parts makes for better tolerances and greater reliability. The freedom of designing without having to consider a mirror box means that designers (if they were rational) could design their cameras to be optimized for ergonomics. It will just take time to figure out the right sizes now that the steam engine innards have been relegated to the past.

I know it's different for everyone. One reason I don't really care about the size of cameras (having hauled old Hasselblads around on vacation) is the fact that in my working life we're hauling around lights, cases full of modifiers, lots of light stands, tripods, diffuser frames and all the other materials we need to make photographs that sell. If I had a Guggenheim grant and the requisite coolness factor I would love to roam around with just a single camera body and a lens. But that's rarely the case in my day to day work. Even the smallish a6300 blossoms with more and more stuff. 

And neither were the early mirror-free cameras shrinking violets either. My original Sony R1 was as big as most of my "professional" cameras and bigger than some. While it was early tech it showcased something that I've come to like about one of Sony's camera design philosophies: The idea of building a "no holds barred" lens as a permanently attached part of the camera system. It worked on the R1 and it seems to work well for many of their other Cybershot cameras. It's not the way to make cameras smaller. Just better.  And I'm really OK with that. 

A quick story about videotaping the opening session of a regional (north American) sales meeting for a client. Just some nuts and bolts.

 "LBJ" Played by Steve Vinovich at Zach Theatre. Coming soon. 

I've always been on the advertising side of photography, film and video. I've been involved in making TV commercials since 1985 and in making photographs for ads even longer. My one "cross over" into public relations and special events has been the photographic documentation of corporate events. Sales meetings in Maui, customer showcases in Madrid, Rome, Paris, Lisbon, etc. The corporate meetings have always been fun because I get to learn new information and at the same time practice my craft for hours and hours a day. 

I've recently been branching out and I've been delivering more video services. All kinds of video services. This morning I had the opportunity to videotape the opening session of a sales meeting for one of my clients. Usually, I roam the events with a still camera and try to catch interesting moments, but today I was standing behind a tripod on a riser, next to the A/V "command center," making a two hour and seven minute video documentation of the executives (and a motivational keynote speaker) on a black draped conference center stage. The challenges were there but it was a fun time trying to pit the things I've been learning over the last year against the chaotic nature of a series of live presentations. 

The event started for real today but it started in my mind the day last week that we booked the job. I started planning for how I would shoot and how I might handle worst case scenarios. My imagined scenarios ranged from complete camera failure (bring back ups) to the meltdown of the audio (have multiple sources) to the grim idea of an unlit stage with black drapes (solution? hang your head and cry, but make sure the audio is perfect....). 

Over the weekend I was able to get in touch with the A/V guy at the Westin Hotel where we would be providing our services. I drove out to meet with him yesterday and he had already put a set of risers exactly where I would have put them in the ballroom. He had an XLR cable running from the sound board he would be managing, right over to my camera. He'd thoughtfully provided a power strip, just in case I needed to plug in something. I was so happy I hugged the guy. 

My worst case scenario for audio went something like this: I'll be on a platform in the middle of the room, about a hundred feet from the sound board. I'll need to grab sound from the board with a portable audio recorder running into a wireless transmitter, then into a wireless receiver that is connected to the camera. Can't imagine what might go wrong in that scenario (sarcasm implied). But I knew it would be less wrong than trying to tape down 100 feet of coaxial cable running across a crowded conference ballroom.

My back-ups, if the sound board/wireless idea went south, were, in order, grab the second set of wireless gear and get a microphone near one of the loudspeakers. My last choice was to put a shotgun microphone on the camera and pray. Luckily, Steven at the Westin was all over it and the audio was perfect from beginning to end. 

I knew which camera I wanted to use but even waffled there for a few moments. I thought the RX10iii would be a great choice but I worried about how well I'd be able to focus it. I also worried about the battery life and the 29.99 minute cap on run time. I briefly toyed with the idea of renting a "real" videocamera or, alternatively, using the a6300 with a the 70-200mm. I did few tests and decided to go for it and use the RX10iii; and I'm glad I did.

Some tips I've learned from the video camera operators I worked with on shows like this in the past. 

1. Get the venue to set up two riser stands that are about 24 inches high. These will ensure that you get over the heads of the audience in front of you. You'll want two, one right in front of the other. Your camera/tripod goes on the front one and you go on the back one, that way when you shift your weight the camera doesn't wiggle and exaggerate the motion via the 600mm focal length. 

2. You'll want a feed (cable) from the sound board that the A/V people are using to mix in the sound from all the speakers' lav microphones, along with walk-in music, etc. I vote for a single channel of audio (mixed down) that comes to me as an XLR plug. It's a line level output so you can't take it straight into a consumer camera like the Sony RX10iii directly; the signal is too strong! You'll want something like my little Beachtek D2A which has a line/mic switch for each channel which puts a "pad" in between the line signal and the camera. 

I set the Beachtek to give me two mono signals instead of stereo on the off chance that I'll want to run a safety microphone in the vacant channel.  (Yes, it was part of my strategy...). The Zoom H5 also allows you to pad a line input and will also give me two totally separate channels. 

A lifesaver on the D2A is a little switch labeled "G1" and "G2." This switches the ground phase and comes in super handy as it did today. When I hooked up all my stuff there was a nasty hum in my headphones. One flick of that switch killed it. 

3. Figure out what the dominant light source for the stage is well before the start of the program and set that instead of relying on AWB. Today we worked with tungsten/halogen spots and the "lightbulb" setting was right on the money. 

4. Wear comfortable shoes. Go to the restroom before a 2 hour program starts...

5. Use manual focusing. With a detailed, seven inch, external monitor you'll be able to punch in and check focus from time to time to make sure what you see is really what you see.

6. Set up focus peaking on your monitor but also double check focus by punching in. Just to make sure.

7. Modern executives love walking back and forth across the stage as they speak, and some love walking out into the audience. Make your pans nice and smooth and be ready to ramp up your ISO as they leave behind the lovely light that was created for them on the stage. Just remember to make slow, smooth pans when you follow them around...

8.  Forget about trying to capture the Power Point stuff on the screens adjacent to the main stage. You can get a copy of the slide deck and output them as Jpegs then add them into the program as B-Roll.

9. Listen carefully for any electrical hum in your sound mix. It's probably coming from a power cable crossing a microphone cable. That can be fixed but only if you do it before you get rolling.

10. I find that if I'm paying too much attention to the subject matter of the speaker's presentation I lose track of my duties as a video documenter. I mostly ignore what the speakers are saying and pay attention to keeping my ever pacing presenters near the center mark on the monitor screen.

Today's set up: I had the camera (RX10iii) mounted in a cage with the monitor mounted up and to my left (top of the frame).  I had the Beachtek D2A mounted on the other side, also at the top of the cage (my right). The monitor is somewhat battery hungry (and the older Sony NFP-550s I have for it are aging quickly --- they were left overs) so I used an A/C adapter and ran the monitor from that. Since my RX10iii has a headphone jack I plugged in my headphones directly into the camera. The output from the D2A went into the microphone input of the camera. The left channel was the signal from the sound board while the right channel was the output from a shotgun microphone sitting in a cold shoe next to the Beachtek.

The 29.99 minute limit on continuous recording was much less of an issue than I assumed it might be. At any time during a recording cycle you can hit the red record button to stop recording and then immediately hit it again to start a fresh 29.99 minutes. I got into the rhythm of starting a clip and then looking at my watch. When I hit the 25 minute mark I would start looking for an organic gap. Something like applause at the end of a presentation or the arrival of a new speaker. The gaps in between clips never fell on a live spot in the program.

The camera ran for two hours and eight minutes (from the walk-in to the walk-out) and never missed a beat. No overheating, etc. I got about one hour and 50 minutes of runtime from one camera battery but I was too nervous to let it go down the last 4%. Since the camera was mounted on a cage and the show was rolling I just grabbed a small USB charger battery and stuck the cable into the camera's USB port to provide enough power to get me the rest of the way through the program.

I never worried about the memory card. I was using a Transcend SDXC U3 card with 128 GB of space on it which would have given me a bit more than five hours of record time shooting XAVCs 1080p.

The show wrapped and I packed everything up and headed out the door to the car. Our raw video came in at about 49 GB but after rendering it and outputting it in the client requested MP4 format the final size on a memory stick is just shy of 20 GBs.

This was fun for me. On Weds. we'll be back at the Westin in the afternoon to catch the closing speakers for the meeting. At the very end of the program they will be playing a three minute interview of a client of the company, which Ben and I filmed and edited last week. Should be fun to shoot the event video at which one of my own videos is being shown.

I like bouncing back and forth from video to stills. Still photography work is something I'm pretty confident about but video has so many moving parts it's still a fun challenge for me to get just right. And what is life without a challenge?