On Topic: My Photographic Homage to William Eggleston.

"Red C'Art from Trader Joe's."

©2019 Kirk Tuck

What is the preferred, end result of all this camera ownership for me?

This is from a print of my friend, Sarah. It was originally shot with a camera that just made square photographs. It turns out that squares are the format that's seems best to me for making the kinds of portraits I like to construct and, also the kinds of portraits that I like to look at. I blame Irving Penn and Richard Avedon for their strong influence when it comes to formats. My one push of non-compliance with their work is that I never learned to enjoy the 8x10 format with the same enthusiasm.

I can set the Fuji cameras to shoot squares and when I look at the EVF or the LCD I end up composing in the square with a beautiful field of black framing the image.

The Pentax K1 I recently bought also allows me to set a square crop. If I use live view I see the crop in the same fashion that I do on the Fuji cameras but if I use the OVF I see a strong square made by thick lines overlaying the 3:2 ratio finder. While that's not as elegant as looking through the Fuji EVF, I'm happy to have the guidelines. The more restrictions I can add to my composing the happier I am with the end results.

I made some square portraits yesterday. Not quite dialed in just yet; not ready for public sharing, but a nice twinge of nostalgic resonance.

on a different topic: I seem always to talk about cameras I've just bought or have circled back to use with more frequency and this gives the appearance that all cameras are incoming and that none ever leave the fold. Since I subtracted a camera and a lens yesterday from my inventory I thought I'd mention it here.

I hadn't intended, really, to get rid of anything in the moment but I have a photographer friend who was flirting with the idea of adding a small, Fuji camera to his equipment selection. He shoots mostly architecture and has a Leica S2 and also a Nikon D850 and D810 but he likes to travel with his wife just for fun and has become dis-infatuated with carrying heavy cameras around in places like Santa Fe or Carmel.

We've talked about some of the advantages of the Fuji cameras and lenses over the past few months and he narrowed down the travel cameras he was interested in to the just the little Fuji X-E3 and the 18-55mm f2.8-4.0 zoom. I had one that I liked but once I brought the two X-Pro2s into the mix my embrace of the X-E3 loosened up a bit. My friend also pointed out that I had many duplications in the Fuji system and, with ownership (and near constant use) of the 16-55mm f2.8, I really didn't need the pixie zoom as well.

He dropped by yesterday with the pretense of just wanting to handle the camera and lens and, well, one thing led to another which led to him leaving with both. I think he'll like that small system for travel and I actually like having some extra space in the equipment cabinet. But all empty space wants to be filled...it's almost inevitable.

Just wanted to let you know that we let one go. Not for the first time. Won't be the last time.

Bottom line? The finders on the X-Pro2s are more compelling. I'm happy to trade smaller size and weight for user effectiveness. YMMV.

When do you "get" old? Who is in charge of your perception of aging? How does your approach to healthy living aid or hamper your photography?

"Old" men with no beer guts, swimming fast. 

I have an acquaintance who is about my age. When I think about him he seems at least ten years older than me. He's just a bit taller than me but he weighs a good 50 or 60 pounds more. His belly hangs over his belt and he's always got a sore back. The sore back is his go to excuse for not wanting to/being able to exercise. Then there are the sore knees (most likely from supporting excess weight) and the sore feet. His idea of recreation is to sit on a couch with his wife and binge watch shows on Netflix. His idea of exercise is walking from his car to the grocery store or from his car to the local Starbucks. He imagines that everyone "dumb" enough to run in the Summer will keel over and die. He has been deeply involved in nearly every fad diet you can think of. He went all vegan last year and lost 20 pounds. Then he rediscovered cookies and ice cream and gained back 25.

He'd like to get in better shape, and with three college degrees is smart enough to understand and calculate the cost/benefit calculus of exercising and improving his diet, but he is addicted to sitting in front of his computer for hours and hours each day researching websites and watching videos... and snacking.

He's had a number of health issues and his doctor tells him he is "pre-diabetic."  Thank God he's not also a smoker.

I understand that bad habits of a lifetime are hard to break. I understand the process of getting in shape for the first time in decades is uncomfortable and not nearly as much fun as already being in good shape. But there's nothing other than this acquaintance's own reticence to make lifestyle changes that stands between him and better health; and potentially a longer life. He's just continually making the same choices because those choices seem to be the path of least resistance and are more comfortable, in the moment.

I have a friend who is a couple of years younger than me and he's the opposite of the acquaintance described above. My friend just broke the world's record in his age group for the 200 meter, long course backstroke. He still competes in triathlons and is a national contender in his age group. He's good about diet and I can't remember ever hearing him say he'd been to his doctor. He's got great muscle tone and not much body fat. None of this came about by accident. He was a UT swimmer in college who never stopped exercising and he exercises, generally, for at least a couple hours a day. And yes, he holds down a job, is raising three younger kids, and still has time for fun stuff. But he makes choices. He gets out and makes time to exercise because he can't imagine anything more fun. He passes on the donuts and margaritas. I never see him wolfing down scones, candy bars, Frappucinos, etc. It's a consistent pattern of combining discipline and goal setting in order to see the long term advantages to his short term behaviors. And yes, he can do 50 push ups without breathing hard or breaking a sweat.

We all get to make a choice. Which guy do we want to be? Which protocol will best benefit our active working lives?

Some people couch the choice for fitness as being something for which you must give up something else. If so, I have absolutely no clue what people would need to give up other than their resistance to movement or their habitual sweet tooth.

But what does this have to do with commercial photography? Or even recreational photography?

I don't know about everyone else but I find commercial photography (especially working outside, on locations) to be physically demanding. Where a hobbyist can carry one bare camera and a single lens the professionals are usually bringing along redundant camera gear, lighting equipment that they may or may not have to use, modifiers for the lights and support gear for everything (tripods and light stands). They may walk miles a day with the gear, or pushing a heavy cart with gear. There are rarely convenient elevators in industrial settings. You'll probably have to climb some ladders... Sometimes you have to walk a mile or so to work to get to more remote locations. And you might need to be able to do all this in weather extremes.

Clients aren't interested in whether or not you are tired, your back hurts, you are out of breath. None of that is their responsibility. They have engaged you to complete a job which you accepted in complete awareness of what was required. In order to do the jobs and make the fees you need to be in good enough shape to complete the contracted tasks. Whether you are 63 or 23 you are engaged with the same set or parameters and you have accepted the same scheduling and rigor. Being in excellent shape means more profit, more efficiency, more accomplished in a day, more fees.

Being out of shape means being miserable by midday, having to cancel work days because of a lack of energy, or from the exhaustion that comes from not using muscles and the whole cardiovascular system on a regular enough basis; such that normal, physical work seems...extraordinary. And clients who are confronted with a photographer who isn't up to the task of shooting and moving through a job, physically, will almost certain NOT book that person again.

If you are a hobbyist/photo enthusiast you don't necessarily need to be worried about your income stream as a result of self-induced poor health but if you are not fit you most certainly cheat yourself from getting full value from opportunities. If you sign up for a landscape phtotography workshop in a remote location but you don't really feel comfortable walking more than four or five hundred yards from a trail head you'll miss so many opportunities to see and photograph amazing sights. If you book a trip to Rome to photograph in the streets but you haven't stayed in good shape by routinely walking for hours with your gear over one shoulder you'll most likely truncate your daily schedule and miss so much.

You are paying for the potential in every shooting opportunity. You pay for plane tickets, hotel rooms, meals in restaurants, entrance fees and so much more. How sad if you can only enjoy half of the potential of your vacation/shooting trip/personal project. It's like paying to see a good movie and having to leave halfway through.

I'm pretty sure the difference in exercise perspectives is a combination of factors but there are certain cities (and neighborhoods within cities) that are more focused on fitness. Austin, Texas, Boulder and Colorado Springs, Colorado, Eugene Oregon, etc. are places where so many people in the total population are regular, and consistent, exercise fans. The same places seem to have community support for healthier eating and lifestyles. And then there are the rural and rust belt communities where fitness (real fitness, not a half hour at Orange Theory or twice a week at Yoga) is an almost foreign concept. Where pushing into momentary physical discomfort for a long term benefit is laughed about and minimized.

I would guess that where you live and the kind of people who surround you have profound effects on your personal perception of what even constitutes true fitness. My advice for people living in exercise deserts, and in places where traditional American diets prevail, is to pack up, sell your house and move to someplace far healthier and then change your own perception about what you can accomplish to improve and preserve your health. It's a hell of a lot more practical than staying put and complaining about being tired, cranky, fat and unmotivated.

Cruel advice? Maybe. But would you take the advice if the majority of the last 20 to 30 years of your own life were much, much better than they would otherwise be?  I would.

Just back from morning swim practice. 3,000 yards knocked out by 8:30 am. Already planning on that long afternoon walk.... What's on your agenda?

The "first look" preview, hands-on preliminary review, raw files shot and processed analysis of the ancient Pentax K1. And a couple of lenses.

Okay. So the Pentax K-1 is a big fat, DSLR that sports the same basic 36 megapixel image sensor found in the Nikon D810 (which I used for nearly a year) and has lots of interesting features and user interfaces. I read the DP Review when the camera first came out but at the time it fell right off my radar as we were knee deep in either Sony or Nikon high resolution cameras (A7Rii and D810). The one Pentax camera I owned previously was an impulse purchase, a used K-01 concept camera; in bright yellow. I liked the files from that camera but ultimately sold it because I didn't like using cameras with no viewfinders.

I picked up the camera last week because it looked so cool sitting next to a growing display/pile of old Nikon cameras. I liked that the Pentax logo was big and bold and splashed across the front of the camera. So I bought it without having any lenses and without any real plan. But I will say that the price I ended up negotiating was hundreds of dollars under the prices I currently see on E-Bay and in Amazon's used gear. So, I brought the K-1 home with my usual plan of making this a personal "art" camera and not letting it grow and metastasize and take over my studio/office with yet another system binge and purge. But, of course, I would need a lens....

Which led me down multiple rabbit holes. Pentax was one of the last camera makers to stick a toe into producing full frame cameras and as a consequence there are many APS-C coverage lenses for the system but few, new, designed for digital, full frame lenses. Then there is a whole raft of zany lenses called "limiteds" which also feature zany focal lengths. Then there are transitional lenses which would have been designed for full frame film cameras and then carried over, unchanged,  into the digital age. It was a bit bewildering but once I put everything into a spreadsheet and started the analysis process I made a few blundering purchases. 

I'd read many, many good things about their new (2016) 28-105mm f3.5-5.6 lens and since it had so many clusters of letters I figured it must be good. It's HD + WR+DFA (digital full frame)+ ED+DC. The consensus out on the web is that this is a very, very sharp lens and my early use of it seems to bear that out. The lens does not feature image stabilization but that was a selling point of the camera (it has I.S.) so we're all good there. 

Everything you see here was shot with the zoom lens with the aperture mostly pegged at f5.6. I'm sure the camera is providing some internal software fixes but my take is that the lens is sharp and flare free. I'm thinking it may be one of those under-spec'd but over-engineered lenses that trades f-stop speed for sharpness and a general reduction of aberrations.  I was happy with everything I shot with this zoom. It's also small and light, and kinda pretty. 

In fact, I felt confident enough to bring the camera and the 28-105mm along with me to the technical rehearsal of the "Ann" play at Zach Theatre and to use it for about 100 of the photos (out of 650). Even though I had to increase the ISO to get in the same exposure ballpark as the faster Fuji lenses I didn't seem much of a performance hit or too much increased noise in the files. 

But, try as I might I never seem to be happy with an interchangeable lens camera until I've got a 50mm I can bolt on the front so back I went and searched until I found a 50mm f1.4 (not the $1,000 version!!!) for around $135. It's one of the old fashion screwdriver drive models but the camera handles it fine and it's not too noisy. I worked with it a bit today, just to test it, and I thought it was nice. Nice like a Nikon 50mm f1.4D or a Canon EF 50mm f`1.4. Mostly plastic on the outside but capable of making nice and detailed photographs once you've stopped it down past f2.0. By f4.0  or maybe f5.6 I'm sure it's nearly as sharp and contrasty as a Ming Thein approved Zeiss Otus.

Having been burned lately by USPS delivery, and seeing that my 50mm f1.4 AF Pentax lens was to be delivered via the same service, I also ordered one more 50mm 1.4 lens but this one is a manual focus SMC lens and it's coming via Amazon's own delivery service, sometime tomorrow. It was cheap and I bought it as insurance because I'm thinking of getting out of town this weekend and going down to San Antonio for a bit of street shooting. I thought a faster lens might come in handy when shooting in restaurants, museums and other interior spaces. And I had no confidence in the Postal Service. But they upped their game and delivered on time and, more importantly, to the correct address ---- this time.

I haven't had time to shoot a lot with the new K-1 camera and my growing coterie of lenses but I do have some favorite features and one or two gripes. 

Pros: 

1. I got a professional, full frame, high resolution camera with a fairly modern Sony sensor inside for a song. 

2. If I turn off the LCD I get tons of life out of one battery (but, of course, I did buy one aftermarket battery as a back up). 

3. The camera has lights all over the place that you can turn on by pushing one button and they light up the exterior the camera body enough to do things like see how to orient and attach lenses in an otherwise dark environment, or which buttons on the rear of the camera do what. There's even an LED in the memory card compartment to show you the slot for easier insertion. Very cool. 

4. I tried out the multi-shot feature which shoots four frames and combines them in camera. It works! Big files and nice detail when using the modern, 28-105mm lens. Not so much difference with the older 50mms. 

5. Contrary to earlier reviews it focuses just fine. Using live view you can even get rudimentary face detect AF. 

6. Did I mention the huge logo across the front of the pentaprism finder? Based on my years of experience there won't be anybody else at your next professional shoot sporting a bunch of Pentax gear. It seems like a lonely, lonely system. Just be sure to have your Pentax Manifesto ready to go in case someone challenges your choices....

7. It's a delicious antidote to the overweaning crowd of technophiles chasing the latest and greatest stuff. They may not even be aware that Pentax cameras exist, much less that there is a semi-modern, full frame model. You may take the awards for eccentricity on parade. What???? No 4K Video???

8. Believe it or not but the battery is sooooo interchangeable. It's the same one as used by the Panasonic GH5!!! WooHoo! Pure battery re-use. 

Cons: 

1. Every old codger who still shoots with Pentax can't wait to tell you about those fabulous legacy lenses from the 1960's, 70's, 80's and 1990's. Even the ones that really suck (because they have amazing bokeh....). 

2. You can't just stumble over to Amazon.com and pick up a new 85mm f1.8 because....most lenses don't exist in the Pentax universe (well, except the ones from yesteryear. But we're mostly over manually focusing and stopping down...). 

3. Sony and Nikon users will tease you for owning a dead system. Canon users are too scared these days to have opinions. 

4. I'm downrating it from a Gold at 99% to a Silver at 80% because the K-1 doesn't have an EVF. 

5. I'm further downrating it to a 78% Copper rating because it's too customizable. 

I'm keeping it around for all those (once a year) times when an art director thinks they might need a full frame camera file. And sure, I'll eventually buy a fast 85, 90, or 105 so I can show off that artsy, shallow depth of field. 

Now, here are some photographs....

OT: What better family bonding experience than a five mile walk around the lake in 102 degree, late afternoon?

The kid is in a housing transition and will be moving into his own place in a week or so. In the interim he's staying with us. I'm having a blast. Neither of us is working on a regular schedule right now (we're on self-induced Summer breaks) so we're hitting all the priority stuff: hanging out with Studio Dog (and making sure she's not eating cicadas), having lunches, and running errands. Last week Ben helped me out with a three camera video shoot and tomorrow he promised to take a look at my editing attempts (which I hope he radically improves upon) but today we decided to get some exercise and walk around Lady Bird Lake (which used to be "Town Lake").

When we left the house it was a balmy 101 but during the walk we got the benefit of some addition heat and humidity which pushed the measured temperature up over 102 and the "feels like" temperature to about 107. We didn't care, we've both run the lake trail on way hotter days, and besides, we were walking instead of running.

We got to talk about finance, the state of the markets, the ups and downs of working in a P.R. firm that specializes in high tech start ups, the state of the photography industry, the state of my progress in settling my mom and dad's estates, and how the whole modality of work is profoundly changing.

On the way home we cooled down with some iced coffee from our neighborhood Starbucks. It's been like an incredible vacation for me to be able to spend so much time with my kid.

I had two pieces of advice for him today: Don't ever stop running, walking and being active because you want to be able to do it when you turn 63!!! He's got about 40 years to ponder that.

And the second piece of advice I gave him was career advice. I told him, whatever you do don't become a freelance photographer!!! Just don't.

He's pretty level headed and far less impulsive than me. I think he'll be fine.

The photo above is from a high school cross country race. I remember that day and the idea of running three sub-six minute miles in a row in 96 degree heat was shocking to me. But it never seems to phase him....

Good times.

A different method of theater photography was in play last night.

Actor Libby Villari as Gov. Ann Richards in "Ann." 

A play by Actor/Playwright, Holland Taylor. 

Like most theater photographers I have two different approaches to shooting live theater on the stage. During the final technical rehearsal, when (usually) 99% of the stage, costumes and props are set and finished, and there's no audience to consider, I like to use shorter lenses and get as close to the stage as I want. I shoot a lot with a 16-55mm f2.8 but I also get tight shots from angles all over the theater with something like the Fuji 50-150mm f2.8. It's a great way to work, and a side benefit is that you are always in motion as you look for the best angles and compositions, and then put yourself in the right spot to catch them.  Exercise while working!!!

The flip side of the technical rehearsal (at least in our theater) is the invited dress rehearsal. Having a "friends and family" audience helps the actor(s) with their timing, their delivery, etc. and the audience responses to lines and gestures gives the actor valuable and immediate feedback. But...having an audience in most of the seats means that I give up the mobility I have in the technical rehearsals. We have to minimize distractions for them and the actor. There's a silver lining everywhere though and in the case of rehearsals I trade mobility for a totally finished stage look in the invited dress rehearsal. Everything is more polished and the lighting cues are generally rock solid, but because we have nearly a full house I am constrained to stay pretty stationary.

Out of experience, and trial-and-error, I've chosen to be at the center of the house on the row that divides the orchestra seats from the upper seats. It's a "pass through" row so there's a lot of distance between the seats in that row and the row just in front of us. I block off about 12 seats so I can have some (limited) range of movement (left and right) to get better angles, but for the most part I'm dead center and seated. 

I share this row with the house videographer who documents the dress rehearsal with a two cameras set up and an audio feed from the mixing board. His cameras are on tripods so he is locked into position. 

On anything but a one person show I use the 50-140mm f2.8 (75-210 ff equiv.) as my main lens because it allows me to go from a two or three person grouping to a larger ensemble group within the same optic, from my mid-house vantage point. I supplement that with the 16-55mm (24-82.5mm) so I can catch an establishing shot of the entire stage for each scene as well as wider shots of bigger groups of actors. It's a nice combo but for one person performances the 50-140mm is sometimes not enough reach from my spot to upstage. 

Yesterday I decided that I'd use the Fuji 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 lens as my primary shooting lens for "Ann" which is a one person show.  From the middle of the house I could reliably frame a "head-and-shoulders" shot and I could pull back to make a full body shot. If the actor got close to the front of the stage I could still get a head-to-toe shot at the widest setting by switching from horizontal to vertical. 

I had a blast using the lens for the play last night. The reach was amazing and the lens felt different to me. I did have the wider zoom along as an alternative and, since I am a former Boy Scout, I also packed the comforting 50-140mm f2.8, just in case. 

It took me a while to get comfortable with the different framing options but by intermission I think I had it down pretty well. With a long lens like the 100-400mm it's pretty important to use the continuous mode for the image stabilization so the viewfinder image doesn't hop around. I started out using the camera and lens on my older Leica monopod but in short order I realized that the combination of the XH-1+100-400mm image stabilization and shutter speeds starting at 1/125th and going up was more than enough to get consistently sharp images.

While people can look at various test charts, and argue about how many sharpness angels can dance on the point of a needle, I was able to shoot with the lens at its widest apertures across all the focal lengths and still get well defined eyelashes in most of the photographs. The ones that didn't achieve that level of sharpness are down to my rusty focusing technique more than any shortcoming of the lens.

And speaking of focusing technique....the light levels on the stage for this show were much more photographer friendly than in some of the recent shows I've been documenting. We're talking a couple of EV brighter, as well as more even (less contrasty) lighting. Because of this I was able to use face detect AF, sometimes at 400mm (600mm ff equiv.), with a moving actor, handheld, and out of 1200 shots the majority, maybe 90%, are focused right where I intended them to be. I count this as pretty amazing. It's a far better performance, vis-a-vis accurate focusing on actor's eyes, than I was ever able to consistently get with traditional DSLRs from Canon, Nikon or Sony. Reason enough for a theater photographer to switch to a mirrorless system!!!

I count the use of the 100-400mm last night as a total win. I'll use it for all the one person performances we produce in the future. Do I have a wish list for new lens features for the studio? Oh, just the same nonsense everyone else would share: I wish the lens would go wider. Something like a 50mm to 400mm  full frame equivalent. I wish it was f2.0 all the way through (but then I'd probably need a geared tripod head on a sturdy base just to use it....), and, finally, I wish Fuji would support my efforts to document theatrical art by sending me free copies of any long lenses they think might be useful in this bold and noble undertaking (self-snark implied; noted here for the lame of humor...).

Now uploading 720 nice shots for the marketing team. Then I can get on to the important stuff in the day; like where to swim this afternoon. Thinking it's probably going to be Deep Eddy Pool....

One of the most dangerous things I can do is to leave the driveway with money in my pockets. It's almost never there when I get back home.... Or: New Camera, now testing.

Now testing and playing around with the ancient Pentax K-1 and a HD  FA 28-105mm f3.5-5.6 lens. How very retro.... And, the only camera system I've never owned (other than the K-01 concept camera)...  Better late than never?  We'll see.

It's improbable but I have to ask... Or there any readers out there who actually shoot with the Pentax system? I'd love to hear what you think of the K-1.