I had a blast in Iceland. What would I recommend for a photographer traveling there in the Fall/Winter?

It's an unusual contrast to go from warm and sunny Austin, Texas to not so warm and not always as sunny Iceland. Here at home we get many more minutes of daylight in the morning and evening. The sunrise on the day I left Reykjavik was around 9:15 am. The sun is generally gone by 5 pm. 

Since the span of daylight is limited I suggest that you plan the longest parts of your travel to various sites so that your arrival at each site is just before sunrise so you can be in place if the light happens to be good. That might mean getting up a couple hours earlier and traveling in the dark. By the same logic you'll want to make sure you're in a good spot for the last light of the day so if you work your way backwards through your schedule you might be at a location less than an hour's drive from your home base and you'll want to stay and work the scene until all the light vanishes, returning to your hotel in the dark. 

I'm suggesting you work with your guide or driver to determine when the best light is on the scenes you want to photograph. It can be frustrating to arrive at a dramatic mountain only to arrive after the eastern sun has become western sun; if your mountain view means shooting from the east. You'll either end up with a mountain in shadow or the baldest sky imaginable....

We spent so much time talking about winter wear before I left but cold temperatures aren't that big of an issue unless you plan to trek in to somewhere remote, leaving your car or mini-bus far behind. Most of the time basic jackets, long underwear and good hats and gloves will do you just fine but I do suggest that you bring along some rain proof over-pants for getting close to waterfalls and to continue shooting in light spray and rain. My cheap Texas coat and my standard REI gloves and hat were more than enough warmth. I can't imagine being comfortable in a giant, puffy down jacket unless you go deep into the interior and walk for long periods on glaciers. In which case I'd venture to say that the warmth of your feet is more critical. 

I did bring a dress sport coat, tie and button down shirt but I can tell you that I never found a place that required it. Iceland is quintessentially casual. 

Here are some gear recommendations: Lots of places get iced over and while the country's people do a good job of keeping most roads clear some of the walking paths, sidewalks, et al, can be slick as the devil. If you can get a pair of crampons that fit on the bottom of your hiking boots you'll be a lot more stable in a lot more situations. REI has sets for as cheap as $50. You can get better ones for more money... But even the basics beat walking on ice with your Vibram soles, especially on glaciers with dangerous drops on either side of the trails. 

I also strongly recommend another product I routinely buy from REI. They are Buff brand headwear. They are really stretchy microfiber cloth tubes that you can wear as a scarf, or pull up over your mouth and nose to protect your face or even devise a balaclava to augment under a stouter hat. I'll update this entry once I shoot one. I used mine as a scarf, and as a face shield on most days. Small, light, cheap --- it fits the bill for me. I even used it as a camera protector.

Bring two pairs of really good hiking boots. You might think this suggestion is crazy but hear me out.

When I was running every day I used to rotate through three pairs of running shoes so they'd last longer. One day on and two days off give the dense foam padding that constitutes the sole of the shoe to reform after the compression of a long run. It also give the shoes a chance to dry out entirely between use cycles. 

If your hiking boots are water proofed or water resistant and you wear good wool socks you'll find that going from cold glaciers to warm vehicles will cause your feet to sweat. Having two sets of well broken in boots will allow you to change out every other day providing the boots with ample dry time in dry, warm rooms. Change those socks everyday too.

If you are not on a low energy tour you need to be ready to walk. A lot. Uphill and downhill. The last thing you want to lug is a big-ass camera bag filled with every lens and camera you ever bought. The weight will quickly make hiking a hell of a lot less fun and the imbalance of wearing a bag over one shoulder will make trail walking a bit dicier and increase the chance that you might fall. Choose a good, well designed backpack. Or better yet, grab the lens you need and a favorite body before you leave your vehicle and begin your hike. One camera around the neck trumps 20 pounds swinging by your side any time. My usual motif was to clamp a 12-100mm Olympus lens on the front of one of the G9 cameras, dump an extra battery in my pants pocket (to keep it warmer than my coat pocket) and to leave the Think Tank photo backpack in the car. It's just not that practical to change lenses when there's flurries of snow, sleet, or consistent drizzle. Eventually you'll have a change in luck and some (un) lucky drop of water will find your sensor and ruin your day. With a big, comfy jacket on you'll surely have space for the matching neutral density and polarizing filters for your chosen lens, along with a protein bar and a compass....

If you are heading to Iceland specifically to make photographs of the great outdoors you are probably giving some thought to which cameras and lenses you'll be bringing along. I think it would be smart to think about what your final use of such images would be before making any final selections. If my goal was to make wonderful gallery prints I would struggle because I'd want to bring along a stout tripod; something heavy enough to be mostly impervious to all by the most violent winds. If 40 x 60 inch display prints are what you have in mind you're probably thinking full frame cameras and fantastic (heavy) lenses. But slow down and give this some thought. If you are on a tour with other people you'll be limited by the time and energy expending tolerance of the group. If you are in great shape then, Bravo! you can leap from the vehicle and charge to the furthest point in order to set up and start shooting. But you'll usually be time constricted by the tour guide and group. The phrase goes something like this, "Okay, let's spend 45 minutes here and then we need to get moving to our next location if we are going to see everything by sunset." 

I would say that you'll get better and better photographs (as opposed to pure technical superiority) if you consider smaller and smaller cameras. The reason being more efficient access to the right spots, great depth of field and equally good color. 

My target for my images, after much self reflection, was always going to be web based display. I'm not a passionate landscape photographer so my intention all along was to share images with friends and family over the web. I also wanted to use selected images to illustrate various blog posts here. 

Given my usage parameters there were four formats that would have served me better than 35mm style full frame. And that's a personal statement not a blanket one. Either my micro four thirds cameras and lenses or a very good APS-C camera and lens would be very close, in most handhold able light situations, to the quality one would get with a full frame camera but you would get one to two extra stops of handhold ability by dint of greater depth of field and the ability to use faster shutter speeds in either smaller format and get the same depth of focus. In the m4:3 world my choices would be the Panasonic G9 or the equally good Olympus OMD EM-1.2 coupled with the (now legendary) Olympus 12-100mm Pro lens or the Panasonic/Leica 12-60mm f2.8-4.0 lens. 

In the APS-C camera I'm guessing my best choices would be the 26 megapixel Fuji XT-3, with its new BSI sensor or the most current Nikon or Sony APS-C cameras with those companies' good lenses on the fronts.

In retrospect, the camera I should have taken (along with a massive collection of fully charged batteries) would have been the one inch sensor, Sony RX10 IV. It would have been the perfect (and most generous) collection of focal lengths, giving me a wide enough 24mm and a super telephoto that reaches out to an equivalent of 600mm!!! In good lighting it's got great image quality. Maybe not in the ball park of a full frame, or even the other two formats, when it comes to making enormous prints but, as I mentioned, my use is on the web. On a screen or on a phone. Because that's how my audiences look at most work. And they are mostly your audiences too. 

I was happy to have brought along Ziploc plastic bags (the big ones) because we were constantly going from 28 degrees (f) outside to an overly warm mini-bus all day long. I thought I might not need to use the bags to prevent condensation at first. It only took one experience of having the filter in front of my 30mm lens frosting over to make a true believer out of me. I'd bag my stuff before re-entering warm environments and keep it there until I ventured out again. Worked like a champ. 

If I were heading to Iceland again to make images of nature I'd make sure to take a graduated neutral density filter that worked on my primary lenses. I know how to get my skies more dramatic and darker in Lightroom but a graduated ND gets you closer to what you'd really like to see and can get you a little better quality overall in the photos. Ditto for a dedicated circular polarizing filter. 

Take more memory cards. I usually just shoot either raw or Jpeg but I wanted to be able to mess around with files during a slow January (perfect excuse for raw files) and at the same time have the files ready for a quick run through SnapSeed and up onto a gallery to share with other participants, day-by-day (perfect excuse for good jpegs). Shooting both filled cards quicker. I also bracketed more than I do in studio or controlled lighting situations because, even though it's assumed you can do a bunch of corrections in post it's even better to get a perfectly balanced exposure in camera. So, remember, digital is free (written with a smirk) except for the amazing amount to time you'll waste dorking around with the work...

I made a bold move. I told all the attendees that it would be a good idea to bring a tripod and they got good use out of them when we tried taking photos of the "northern lights" but I didn't feel like hauling one around, didn't care about the northern lights so much, and decided to forgo the tripod. I figured that with the in camera image stabilization of the G9 I'd be in good shape. And you know what? I was. I even got reasonable 20 second exposures for the Aurora Borealis by steadying my camera and lens on a convenient rock. For stuff in daylight the I.S. of the camera was more than adequate. You decide how much you want to give up...

I do suggest you take along a small but powerful laptop computer so you can back up your daily take of photographs in a second location. If you are really, really careful you could also bring along a big, USB 3 memory stick and put all your work on that as well. I used my laptop to stay in touch with friends, family and clients, to check weather, to do quick research about the places on the next day's itinerary and much more. 

Here's a few things you could leave at home, at least if you are staying at the Canopy by Hilton Hotel in the city center: You don't need to bring plug adapters for any of your chargers that get power from USB plugs. In my room there were two powered USB plugs at the desk and two by my bed. I could power my iPhone from one and my batteries could charge plugged into the other. (Love the Wasabi Power battery chargers that run off USB power. They charge two Panasonic batteries at once!). I did bring and use a plug adapter for the Apple laptop computer but just an blade adapter; no transformer needed. So, if phones, cameras batteries and computers don't need a transformer then you don't need to pack one. 

I'd leave all the flash equipment at home except for, maybe, one small flash that you could use to pop some light into a person's face if they happened to be backlit. Probably overkill for anything other than a quick group shot somewhere. 

You don't need cash, traveler's checks or anything like that. If you've got a popular credit card, like a Visa card, you are ready to go. Everyone everywhere in Iceland used credit cards instead of cash. It was the closest manifestation of a cashless society that I've ever seen. Even folks buying a Snickers candy bar just popped their cards into a reader, signed and walked away. Much more fun that the currency conversions of the past. I spent $ZERO cash for nine days. Kind of nice.

Several people, for whatever reason, were shooting with nothing but their phones. Mostly the latest or just past generation of iPhones. And you could have knocked me out with a cotton ball when I saw the quality of images they were getting. If you want to go on a photo tour with your phone certainly don't let a snotty instructor talk you out of it. You may be getting better images than they are, even though ( or perhaps because ) they have massive amount of professional (last decade) gear. 

Finally, leave you attitude and your politics at home. The tour director and I were on the same page about this. We made it a rule not to discuss home land politics while on tour. The potential discord of a heated discussion could have ruined the trip for people on both sides. Just leave it until you get back home and they you and your uncle Bob can argue to your heart's content over Thanksgiving turkey. 

That's all I've got.  Maybe I'll head out and buy a new camera today. It has crossed my mind.....

And, of course, as all the experts know, it's "impossible" to photograph buildings of any kind with a small sensor camera. There are laws against it.

 I have been told several times that Panasonic cameras can't "handle" red.

But I disagree. 

this is actually the house (behind the church) of the president of Iceland.

While there isn't a need for much security they do discourage 

you from ringing the doorbell too early in the morning.

I think they also do a good job of rendering blues. 

And differentiating between different shades of blue.

An external showcase for some of the great photography at a small 

gallery in Reykjavik. 

There's that pesky perfect red again....

In all seriousness I do find that people run into color problems when they are overly reliant on automatic white balance.  Cameras try hard to get things right but it's so, so much easier in broad daylight (full sun), cloudy days and subject in areas of open shade, to just select the right little icon from the menu and set it. Then the colors don't shift from frame to frame. A real consideration when using Jpegs where post production color correction is less accurate and certain. Every photograph could make their own post production easier and get better color results by using the WB Presets or doing a custom white balance. Easy stuff. It becomes second nature over time. Like putting on one's seat belt when starting up a car...

Nice green, I think.

The Leica/Panasonic 15mm f1.7 lens is a very expressive and capable lens. And very affordable for the rendering quality it provides.

Lighthouse or beacon at the harbor in Reykjavik, Iceland. November 2018.

I used to dislike wide angle lenses in general, and focal lengths near the traditional 28mm full frame equivalent most especially. They all seemed too wide for shooting people but not dramatically wide enough for the kinds of subjects that could be well exploited by a more obvious wide angle perspective. 

I bought the L/P 15mm f1.7 on a whim. I had a store credit at Precision Camera and wanted to fill out the missing nooks and crannies of my m4:3rds inventory with focal lengths that I rarely use...but might...someday. I think the feature of the lens that pushed me to purchase it was how much like my Leica M series rangefinders it looks. There is an aperture ring, click stopped in 1/3 stops, that has a perfect tactile character and the lens adds no significant bulk to any of the cameras I use. 

When I do use a wide angle lens on a m4:3 camera it's a pretty good bet that narrow depth of field is not my primary consideration. Since I'm not trying to show off my ability to focus on next to nothing in a wide, establishing scene I am  happy to use this lens at middling apertures like f4.0 and f5.6. It just so happens that the lens is particularly sharp at those settings. And, like most traditional photographers, I do feel compelled to have areas of high sharpness somewhere in my images. 

There are a few photographer/reviewer "experts" who can't figure out the (fantasy) focus shift on lenses made for small sensors but neither my camera nor I had any issues getting the focus right where we wanted it. Most wide angle lenses have a bit of curvature of field; it comes with the territory. But if you focus a flat (test target?) on its edge with a wide angle you might find the center less than sharp. But guess what? Most really great wide angles aren't designed as flat field lenses. Too many imaging compromises involved. That's why we embrace various lenses for what they can bring to the table. 

In this case it's a very good ability to distinguish between colors and tones, something beyond "analytical" that's more in line with the way we optically process scenes with our own eyes. The lens's lack of gross, hamfisted transitions between gradual tone shifts leads some people to discount the sharpness of this lens but the sharpness is certainly there and can be exploited if you process correctly --- or you can just leave the GH5S in a nice Jpeg setting...

This lens is teaching me to appreciate a focal length I had passed over for decades. That alone speaks to me of its potential and its performance. Not bad for a small and lightweight addition to my backpack.  If you own a current Panasonic or Olympus m4:3 camera you might want to consider this lens. While I have several very, very good zooms that cover this focal length I find the different "look", the small size, and the fast aperture a compelling alternative. With this lens on a camera and the 42.5mm f1,7 in my pocket I feel ready to handle a wide mix of photographic "errands." You might too. Or you could bitch about field curvature instead.

A mystical early morning expression of man's obsession with duality.

Next up: hermenuetics. 

When you are photographing are you exercising your gear muscles or exploring your favorite subject?

I've been thinking a lot about photography for the past week. And I've been wondering what it is that makes photographs really, really good and really, really interesting. I think, because I've discovered more photographic stuff that I should be thrilled to have photographed but wasn't, that I've divined the difference between people who actually create art and those who are fixated with showing off their skills and the last iota of potential in their cameras and lenses. See: Most camera reviewers...

I've looked at a lot of landscape photography as I've dug into photography in general over the years and I'll have to say that there are some people (Ansel Adams comes to mind --- even if you don't like his style, or Elliott Porter...) who have done it incredibly well and there are multitudes of people who have no real point of view, no real appreciation for the land in front of their cameras, but who love go out and make sharp, saturated landscape photos. When the later group talk about their photographs they don't generally speak of their love or reverence for the land they snapped, instead they want to discuss which apochromatic lens they used, or which yak leather the craftsman who made their view camera used for the bellows, or lately, just how many pixels live on their best camera's sensor.

It's almost binary. You can tell the people who have a reverence and appreciation for the actual geographic areas in which they shoot. There is a deeper understanding and a more complex relationship between the space in front of the camera and the user behind it. When I see work from someone who is in love with, say, the west Texas Desert (James Evans) I am able to see and understand that he's dedicated his adult life to learning the code of his chosen (and cherished ) landscape and that his photography is powered by a lust to share his vision of an almost sacred place.

It's a feeling I see very rarely as I look through galleries from famous workshop photographers who market their "knowledge" on the web. This different set of photographers seems to chose random landscapes based on how well they will photograph and how adroitly the land can be exploited as an anonymous canvas for the photographer's technocratic image construction. Their goal is to maximize things. Even to the point of essentially destroying whatever magic crept into the image by mistake. They extend dynamic range until the images become comically flat and then attempt to salvage whatever is left with mid-range contrast boosts, intense saturation or arcane compositions. Their goal has little to do with sharing their vision ( vision = an interest, attraction, affinity, lust for the subject as opposed to the manipulation of the subject for audience approval ) and everything to do with showing off what they understand to be their skills.

It's the same thing with architecture buffs. Some see the beauty of a design by a fellow artist; one they appreciate and admire, and so they undertake to showcase and interpret the subject. But there's a second group who seem to have settled on architecture since it doesn't require the subject's willing collaboration,  or the time commitment of truly exploring a landscape, etc. They are experts in researching, selecting and showing off optical mastery through their collections of "state of the art" perspective control lenses, and high resolution cameras. They would have you believe that all the latest stuff is critical to their mission. It makes one wonder how they ever created the legacy images they put out in decades past. And all the while the real masters can use just about any camera because they're busy finding the perfect angle and returning again and again to find the perfect interplay of light and the design created by the architect (and his team).

So, what the hell does this have to do with a commercial photographer moored in Terminal 4 of the JFK airport?

Well, in the last few decades I've photographed landscapes with all sorts of cameras and for all sorts of clients. I mostly suck at it. I can get the general technical stuff right; you can learn that in a book or off the web without breaking a sweat. But I have no real appreciation for any one landscape (if you exclude the urbanscape of my home town.....) and what I generate is pleasurable eye candy the selection and execution of which is well within the skill set of just about any knowledgeable and attentive amateur. My Interest in the Subject is lacking and the result is obvious to any discerning viewer: A Kirk Tuck landscape is ...... no big deal. And certainly I've never been able to define a style that's my own. Why? It's not a subject I'm keenly and passionately interested in. I love to photograph the landscape of people.

As a thoroughly adequate professional photographer I was invited to accompany a group of photographers for nine days in Iceland, ending yesterday. I could give the participants advice about using optimum apertures, figuring out the correct exposures, how to investigate different angles, points of view and, via different focal lengths, how to play with perspective. Some of the advice was good and general; like using foreground and mid-ground objects juxtaposed against a more distant background in order to create depth in a shot. Probably the best skill I shared was how to cheat a landscape image in Lightroom in order to create more dramatic skies without actually having to composite a new sky into the scene..... (Hint: HSL).

But what I could not impart was the thing I don't possess: A true and abiding love of the subject. And it made me look to my own shortcomings since we were competently placed in front of many absolutely gorgeous natural wonders. Iceland was foreign yet familiar to me. As a non-landscape oriented generalist I have the subconscious belief that is probably shared by the techno-boys: that all mountains are pretty much the same and it's our job to tame them with brutal and efficient technique. All lava beaches are similar; if you've shot one you've shot them all. I generated a lot of landscape images but I've yet to see one in my voluminous take of images from last week that perks up my attention and makes me long to re-visit the scene. I am not compelled when looking at one of the images to fall in love with the subject. The actual reason to take the photograph = the exploration of a subject that we love. You don't create the appreciation for a subject with a formula of graduated neutral density filters, contrast taming layers and all the other dodges..

There were two people on the tour who were obviously in love with nature and the land. They dove into their imaging tasks with big smiles on their faces. When they shared their images at our dinners they spoke of the beauty of an ice formation, the particular majesty of a particular mountain peak or the way the soft light played across harsh cliffs being dusted with sleet, rain and snow. Their love for the subjects was palpable and the difference in quality between their work and mine was a stark contrast. Mine was....efficient. Formulaic. Predictable. And the ultimate put down: It was colorful. But from my companions there was a visual poetry that glorified not the camera and lens --- or even technique but a hunger to show us what they saw when they looked at something they loved. They were glorifying the subject, not the process.

This is the reason I'll never be a first rate landscape photographer. It's largely because I am not in love with the land or the experience of being out in nature in the same way the two from the workshop were. I might enjoy standing quietly with my camera hanging down by my side, just soaking up the entirety of a wonderful site. Smelling the salt spray of the sea while looking up at monolithic cliffs and feeling the cold wind try to wend its way through layers of warm clothing to touch my skin. But it never touched my soul the way other subjects do.

I put a photograph of my friend, Heidi, on the top of this blog. It's a symbol for what interests me in life; what drove me to be "a photographer." I love connecting with people and trying to interpret and share the beauty I see in their faces. I could work endlessly with the people I find fascinating and never tire of the exercise.  If I photograph a landscape or a cityscape or a coffee cup it's probably because there are no people near by who are ready and willing to be photographed in the moment but make no mistake, I feel the superficiality of my efforts every time I pick up my camera and aim it at anything that doesn't have eyes, and the ability to smile in some way (this includes dogs.....and a few very noble and evolved cats).

It's somewhat embarrassing to admit that I'm not a good photographer at all subjects. I only have a fighting chance of creating something I consider to be really good when I'm making a portrait or documenting something with people. I can photograph a technical product, get everything in focus and well lit but I never feel as though that kind of image I've made sings any sort of song to people. The images mostly just sit on the page. But in the theater, and with people in a dance of portraitist and subject, I feel as though, with diligence, patience and collaboration I can make something I can revisit again and again. Something I'm happy and proud to share.

Maybe, if you've hit the wall and you are bored or unsatisfied with the photographs you've been producing it would be a good exercise to sit quietly and consider what subject first drew you in to photography. Divine what is was that made you sit up, take notice and become enthralled. It could be that you've been mistaking mastering a skill set with the real magic of being a photographic artist and coming to grips with interpreting the subject you love. The only power I think photography really has is to share a vision of what you love with other people who will appreciate the same subject. Whether your camera is more or less sharp, or whether you can get more or fewer degrees of tonal differentiations is so very secondary to whether or not your audience can really FEEL that you connected with a certain subject and were enthralled to the point where you felt you had to share what you saw with other like minded people. Everything else is just like playing scales over and over again on a piano. Your fingers may fly over those keys but don't fool yourself into thinking you are making music....

I get that practice is good and nice gear is fun to have but I'd wager that Glenn Herbert Gould could have sat down at that old, untuned spinet piano in your living room (after you take the plastic off the couch so you can sit down and listen) and bring you to tears because it would be obvious that his subject was the music he played and not the instrument upon which he MADE music. Think about it before you load up and go out looking for random pictures in the near future. A little time spent divining what genuinely drives your Vision could free you to be a great photographer.  Much more so than deciding on which camera might best show off the skills that --- let's admit --- we all share. The appreciation of a subject and your way of visually honoring that subject ---- now that's the real skill. Passion drives art, not technical skill or even mastery. Jan Saudek > go look him up. You'll understand.

Impatient to get back to the Austin routine.

The family's social director is not pleased with my repeated and prolonged 

absences in October and early November. I promised to get home tonight and stay put 

until Thursday, but then I'm back on the road for a corporate shoot

in fabulous West Virginia Friday.

As the bloggers, reviewers and vloggers stay focused on trying to whip up hysteria and lust for full frame sensor cameras and drones I have a different focus which mostly centers on using various kinds of cameras for real, paying clients on actual jobs for corporations, associations and various companies all over the place. As a kind of general disclosure I make about $100 per month in associate commissions from Amazon.com as a result of people clicking on links in my posts, and the reason for the small amount of income from that source is probably self-evident to frequent visitors here. I may talk about cameras but I have no placed ads or permanent links to vendors and I only occasionally put a link in an article, and those are generally for equipment ( or books ) that are so exemplary that I feel compelled to introduce my readers to them. In the last month I might have included five or six casual links to gear that I found useful in my every work day. And please keep in mind that my "real" work is making photographs and videos for picky clients at advertising agencies, and in-house marketing professionals, not making jazzy photos for readers or potential click through audiences. 

I did not go to Iceland for 9 days in order to piece together material for a vlog or blog post, I went there because a tour company hired me to provide photographic consultation to a group of non-professional photographers. It was a paid gig not a content creation escapade. I write this because my last post (about the death of various types of cameras) generated unwanted comments from various Camerati. I thought it only fair to outline my situation in order to add some weight to my opinions (and they are almost always only opinions).

In the same vein, my trip to West Virginia this coming week will be centered around photographing environmental portraits of various key personnel for a national company that specializes in huge infrastructure projects. It's a simple equation: I travel to the location and make the photographs in a style we've collaboratively concocted. I try to read my client's mind and get results that please us both as much as it's possible, given the vagaries of the location and the on site "talent." My client is depending on me to produce usable work, at a minimum, and really good work if all goes according to plan. In exchange for being able to use the images (licensing) they will cover all of the travel expenses and write me a check for thousands of dollars (actually, they will probably send the money as an electronic fund transfer. That's more normal these days).

Later, when and if I write about how I did the shoot, you, the reader, can be certain that I wasn't just jacking around shooting snaps  of my coffee and croissants and writing pie-in-the-sky bullshit about some camera or lens; I'll actually be writing about something I own, bought with my company's cash, and used frequently, and I'll be talking about how the equipment performed for real clients rather than some imaginary client that fits the camera shopping public's (misconceptions) idea of what a client might want from a photography assignment. And before you think of what I write as just anecdotal stuff, please remember that I've been doing well over one hundred assignments per year for at least the last 30 years and have a spouse who works as an art director/production designer at an ad agency that handles the advertising for one of the world's top three computer makers.... Oh, and my son is working in high tech public relations. I think I have some useful understanding about how this business works from the inside out. And no, I don't own a selfie stick....or a drone.

That I put in 17 days of commercial photography in the last month and 14 days of that was traveling out of town on assignment for three major clients should have accrued me some decent credibility when it comes to understanding what gear works and what doesn't. And that's why I continue to slag the various big review sites; their writers have shallow or non-existent experience working directly for the very same clients who, the writers insist in articles, are demanding 100 megabyte raw files, nothing but full frame, and all the other bullshit the content producers crank out in the service of the American marketing arms of camera makers from around the world.

So, I just spent a total of 22 days of photography using nothing but Panasonic G9 cameras and in all respects they filled the bill for me, and more importantly, my clients. Just thought I'd mention this. It's the real, real world...

Now, I thought I'd add a very embarrassing story of a major failure I committed yesterday. No clients were hurt by my mistake but my own pride took a bit of a beating.....

I've been accompanying a tour group of photographers across Iceland and we've all been working in high winds, low temperatures and unpredictable rain storms. We brought Ziploc bags to prevent condensation when coming in from the cold, waterproof material to hold over the cameras in hand during an unpredictable downpour at times when we were out in the middle of nowhere with no convenient shelter, and most of us shot between 2,000 and 4,000 shots during the long week. No cameras were rendered unusable. No cameras or lenses were lost to weather. In fact, the one failure of the week was mine and took place ten minutes from my hotel. 

It happened like this: Yesterday was the windiest day of our adventure. In Reykjavik the winds whipped up in gusts up to 50 mph, the temperatures hovered near the freezing point and the wind chill was even worse. I looked out from the rooftop terrace of our hotel to see big whitecaps in the harbor and the wind driving sprays against the rocks and seawalls and then dozens of feet up in the air and over the sidewalks. It was like a Hollywood disaster movie. But in the distance was a beautiful sunset with rich warm colors against an azure blue, and the light kissing the tops of the mountains visible across the bay. 

I bundled up in my (perfect) $39 Costco jacket, my Sherpa hat and my warmest gloves, grabbed a G9 and paired it with the (weather sealed) Olympus 12-100mm Pro lens. I stepped out into the wind and the deep freeze and headed toward the harbor to capture the drama. I dodged intermittent sprays of salt water and realized that by the time the spray got to my location it was already transformed from seawater into bullets of frozen sleet.  I got to a vantage point close to the seawall here I could document the angry waves tossing fire hydrant style bursts of water up and over the walls toward the city. The waves were wild but the sunset was almost pastoral. A wonderful contrast. I lifted the camera to my eye and pushed the shutter button. Nothing. I turned the power on and off. Nothing. Had I bricked a new camera by exposing it to the invasive, intense spray? Damn. What a sorry way to end a great trip....

Then I put my back to the wind and started troubleshooting. My face could not be more red (because of the windburn) but I was embarrassed and ashamed. I'd taken the battery out to put it on the charger about a half hour before coming out and had forgotten to put it back in. To make matters worse, the back up battery I almost always had in my pants pocket was sitting back in the room in another charger. Here I was with a perfect scene (and a great set of equipment in my hands) and it was all lost because of the simplest of errors (and omissions ).  I trudged back through the high winds and got back to the hotel. I rode the elevator up and grabbed a couple fresh batteries but when I came back out of the hotel the sun was gone, the clouds had won and everything that I wanted to captured had changed. 

Here's my "professional" tip for the day: Remember to put a battery in your camera before venturing out.

I'm currently sitting in JFK airport killing time and waiting for my connecting flight back to Austin. It's going to be a long afternoon.........

Is it true? Is the micro four thirds format dying out? Will it be extinct in no time? And what about DSLRs?

I've been reading a lot of stuff on the web and it seems as though the Camerati have decided that from now until the end of time there will only be full frame mirrorless and that no company will spend even a thin dime to do R&D on anything "less." The predictions have all smaller sensor sized cameras disintegrating into dust, being cast out of moving cars like cigarette butts, and being abandoned by users and dealers quicker than egg salad gone bad. They may be right but are they "right" to think so?

I have several full frame Nikon cameras floating around and I also have an ample number of smaller sensor cameras rattling around in the cupboards in the form of Panasonic GH5s, G9s and GH5Ss. I also have a good sampling of lenses and I'm hungry for more (so be sure to sell them for next to nothing if you are planning to abandon the system --- especially if you are getting ready to dispose of your Leica/Panasonic 50-200mm lens....).

While I may not have a test lab filled with really cool camera test gear I have, over the course of the last 30+ years, shot well over a million frames and I've looked at most of them before tossing the majority in the trash. I've learned a thing or two about the process of photography and the process of making technically good images and I don't think the difference in digital formats is the same thing as the difference between the older film formats that we seem nostalgically tied to as usable analogies for digital.

I've shot over 3,500 images with a Panasonic G9 this week and there are very few I would reject for technical issues. I certainly understand that, with perfect technique, the images I could get from my Nikon D800e might have more useable resolution, overall, and (subject dependent) slightly more useable dynamic range we're really not talking about shocking and massive differences but more in the range of: at 20 by 30 inches and larger I may be getting 5 to 10 % more detail from a print. When viewed on a phone, an iPad, a laptop or even a 27 inch Retina screen I don't think there's enough difference to justify the extra nuisance of bigger, heavier, slower and less stabilized cameras. And when it comes to 4K video my GH5S just mops the floor with even the latest and greatest camera system competitors.

Many will argue that the all important bokeh (and what most people mean when they state this has nothing to do with the traditional, Japanese meaning of bokeh but is meant as short hand for: very limited depth of field as a result of using a wider aperture, on a longer lens, on a bigger format sensor) is not as good on a smaller camera and they might be right. But a faster lens fixes that pretty quickly and a lens that covers a smaller format can be designed to be sharper and better corrected than lenses that have to cover a larger sensors. I would offer as a rejoinder that being able to achieve a deeper depth of focus at a faster shutter speed or lower ISO is perhaps a more important set of parameters for everything from landscape photography to street photography, and even corporate photography, where getting strategic focus zones sharp is more valuable to more users than the obverse. After seeing lots of examples from iPhones and advanced Android phones I would also say that we're at the start of a generation of computational photographers whose cameras or post production programs will offer them a post-shot choice of how much and where they would like the focus to drop off in front and behind a subject.

It's like all those people who tease me for liking to compose in the camera in the square format who wax on and on about how much easier it would be for me to just shooting in a 3:2 or 4:3 format and then crop in post. They'll soon be lecturing us on how much easier (and more realistic it is to do your depth of field control after the fact ---- so you can more effectively fine-tune the results. And yes, they will also use the argument that you don't need to shoot black and white modes in camera because the post production control is so compelling....

If we remove the implied, organic advantage of the bigger format; more control over putting more stuff out of focus, and are instead provided that control by the camera makers or by Adobe, then all of a sudden the need to carry a bigger format camera vanishes.

I've also read lots of puffy writing about how the "real promise" of m4:3 was that we'd all have access to lenses that were so tiny we'd need to handle them with tweezers and so light that they actually float when unattached to cameras. The writers of these screeds huff and puff about how big the (specialty) lenses for the smaller system have become but it's so much bullshit. Yes, the bigger, professional zooms are bigger and heavier. But I've become better acquainted with two lenses for the m4:3 systems that lay bare those exaggerations in the service of choice justification. They are the Panasonic 42.5mm f1.7 and the Leica/Panasonic 15mm f1.7. Both are very small and very lightweight while being extremely sharp and capable, even wide open. If the 42.5mm f1.7 is too much for you to handle then you have medical issues and not camera choice issues....

Just as 35mm photographers re-oriented an entire generation of photographers away from Speed Graphics 4X5 inch cameras, and Rolleiflex medium format cameras, the m4:3 cameras have the potential to re-orient our generations of photographers to leave behind the legacy assumptions about what's necessary to create good work and what is just a safety blanket of justifications based on knowledge that had more to do with film grain and less to do with digital sensors.

The "Aha!" moments for me were my use of the Panasonic G9 and then the GH5S. The GH5S is a wonderful (counterintuitive) portrait camera while the G9 may be the best all-arounder I've yet used. The G9 is fast, facile and the 20 megapixel sensor is easily capable of great results in all the lighting conditions that make any sense to work in. If you need killer low light performance you can certainly drop cash to get faster and faster lenses but do you really always work in Stygian darkness? I heard so much about the limited hours of daylight in Iceland but I've been able to effectively photograph all day long with the smaller frame cameras. If you shoot landscapes you'll want a tripod and if you have a tripod and a still subject you should be able to do miraculous work in any format. Especially as computational features continue to abound, like the high resolution modes on Olympus and Panasonic cameras.

But most consumers are as dumb as a barrel of hammers and if the smaller formats do die off it will be a result of millions and millions of people making choices based on bad information and a mismatch between their budgets and their use profiles because in so many situations the smaller format provides a better platform for the majority of users.

I predict that DSLRs will die a much quicker death as people come to understand the benefits of features like live view, the constant feedback of good EVFs and, yes, the smaller size and potentially smaller lenses. Who would want to start out buying a Nikon D850 if they could start with a Z7 instead? Only people irrationally wedded to the past or people with so many legacy lenses that they feel their only recourse is to eventually be buried with them like Vikings with their ships and weapons....

In three years no new traditional DSLR cameras will be introduced into the market. Canon, Nikon and everyone else will make the transformation away from pentaprism cameras at a rate that will make the advanced amateur embrace of digital (from film) look glacially slow. And that adaptation happened so fast it caught just about every camera maker flat footed.

Whether or not the smaller formats are well represented depends more on people understanding the advantages of the smaller size and of computational features than anything having to do with actual photography. Bigger is not always better. Sometimes just right is just right.

I can't imagine going backwards. I can imagine jumping up to medium format (maybe) but some of that is down to my own nostalgia, having spent well over a decade and a half shooting with Hasselblad and Rolleiflex cameras in the last century. It made sense then for any number of reasons but now, not so much.

I recommend anyone who thinks they MUST have a full frame camera borrow an m4:3 camera (a current one; let's not compare a Nikon D850 with an original 2010 Olympus Ep1...) and actually shoot the kind of stuff that's currently filling up your hard drive, and see what you actually see with your own eyes and not via the poison keyboard from the review site or video channel of a writer/vlogger whose income mostly depends on convincing you to constantly shop and strive for (an elusive and irrational) perfectionism.

All cameras will die off as single use tools once the phone cameras are fully charged up with computational craziness. Consider this, the processor in the latest iPhone is capable of 5 TRILLION operations per second. It has a six core main processor and an embedded 4 core GPU. With the right software in the camera camera it will add so much flexibility to that camera that it's only a matter of mastery before it's capable of handling most people's photography work better than traditional tools; or at least easier. And it's just going to get better and better.

When you can program in the look you want and the processors can execute it perfectly what exactly is the reason to argue about the need for traditional cameras? I've given up looking for traditional metrics in camera evaluation. The GH5 for instance runs rings around the A7xx Sonys for video performance and never, ever overheats. Why? Smaller processors have less energy running through them and they generate less heat. The Olympus EM1-2 kicks everyone else's butts when it comes to image stabilization. Why? A smaller mass 9the sensor) to move and more computational performance applied to image processing. And on and on.

What will die off? First the traditional DSLRs then the full frame mirrorless and finally, at the end of the old school camera extinction event, the m4:3 and one inch sensor cameras. If you hate using your phone for photos and videos you might want to start planning your retirement from the field. Me? I'm putting more resources into my Panasonic stuff and I'm also in line to get an Apple XR iPhone. Might want to use it for stuff. The people on my workshop/tour who've been shooting with their phones are getting astonishingly good stuff. The stuff from us "advanced camera users" looks pretty good too, but only after we sit around at night and do our post processing.

The future is relentless. Bet on that.

I may have given the impression that we spent all our time near Reykjavik but that's not so. ...

So far we've been to the Blue Lagoon, the glaciers near Vik, and Skogafoss, to Kirkjubaejarkaustur, the lava cliffs near Akureyri, in and around Akranes and Borgarnes, to the "Golden Circle" with the Geysers and waterfalls, we went inland to race around looking for the Northern Lights (for hours and hours), the geothermal baths at Laugarvtn Fontana, the Strokkar geyser, and one of my favorites, the Pingvellir National Park, standing between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. We also hit the Skogafoss waterfalls, the Myrdalsjokull glacier, and the rock formations and black sand beaches of Reynisdrangar, near Vik.

I've eaten lovely Plaice, Cod, Rainbow Trout, Arctic char and Salmon. All pretty much perfectly prepared. I also snuck in one magnificent burger at the Geiri Smart Restaurant adjacent to the Canopy Hilton Hotel, where we are staying.

I spent yesterday and today walking around the city and just relaxing. Now I start the odious regime of packing for tomorrow's way too early flights home.

We have one more event. We're doing a farewell dinner at the restaurant in the hotel. The same place we had our welcome dinner and that was superb. I'll say one thing about this particular tour, every meal that's been included on our itinerary has been absolutely first class.

I'm steeling myself for our return as we're traveling through two airports acknowledged to be among the worst of the major airports for international travel: KEF and JFK. By tomorrow night I'll be back at the center of the universe, Austin, Texas.

I can hardly wait to see Studio Dog and the rest of the crew. I can only afford gifts for one family member so I guess I'll be out looking for species appropriate souvenirs for the dog...... (kidding, just kidding --- maybe...).

If you go to Iceland I can advise you to bring along a camera. There's a lot of stuff to photograph...

Prices? Not nearly as bad as everyone says. About on par with Austin or San Francisco. Your mileage will vary depending on your tastes...