I've always had a queasy feeling about ad links in blogs so from this point on we're going ad free. With one or two exceptions...

building by night. A handheld shot from a park bench.

When I started the blog it was as a vehicle to share my angst, adventures and even fun moments resulting from nearly always have a camera in my hands with a group of like-minded photographers. After a while I started using the blog to promote a series of books I was writing about photography for Amherst Media. When the books started being sold on Amazon.com it seemed sensible to advertise the books here on the blog to help with the marketing. After all, with every book sold through Amazon I eventually got my royalty share from the publisher as well as a small commission from Amazon. Double dipping at its best! (Don't worry, it didn't cost buyers one cent more....).

Since that worked so well I decided to do what all the other bloggers seemed to do and extend my use of Amazon ads to cover more photo products like cameras and lenses. But that always felt a bit disingenuous to me. I'm not a highly technical reviewer and most of my reviews were based on my very limited, and sometimes specialized, approach to photography. I could write with an authoritative bent but I was always aware that there were many aspects of every camera I wrote about that didn't interest me. Just as there were whole swaths of menu items that I never got around to using. At some point I got into reflexively adding links to lots of stuff I was writing about and the writing got bent a bit in the direction of acquiring gear because I kept getting regular, small but addictive financial rewards for doing so.

After writing a lot this year and cutting out almost all links back to commercial sites and commercial products I realized that I never really wanted the blog to exist in order to provide any sort of financial return beyond perhaps having a potential client stumble across the writing and taking a chance by hiring me. 

As of now I'm discontinuing all affiliate advertising on the VSL site and will, if I have time, go back and remove ads from older posts. I'd like to see if my subconscious writes better when there is not even a whiff of influence from potential affiliate commissions that might drive me to blunt my scathing assessment of a piece of gear, or my desire to write stuff that's a bit more controversial; more combative. 

I will reserve the right to use the VSL blog site to sell off old gear that I own from time to time or to market my own services and any product I might invent, design and make (not bloody likely....). 

If you miss the ability to click through links, support a site, and buy products I would recommend that you hold that thought and head over to the onlinephotographer.com, make your purchase and then come back here and continue reading. (Mike's business model is completely different from mine...).

I think it will be refreshing to just write about, and discuss photography (and swimming, etc.) without the idea that we need to buy more stuff or review stuff in order to have a nice dialogue. I hope you feel the same. 

No more ads here. No more subtle suggestion that it's time to......upgrade, improve the inventory or just get a buying adrenaline dose. We'll just keep writing and reading about life in photography and everything I like around the edges. I've cancelled my affiliate account so none of the ancient links should work anymore. Probably good since half the stuff on the older posts is no longer available . I hope you can live without the additional layer of commerce. Let me know in the comments. KT

the tripod that requires a two person team to set up....

the secret of doing lots of street photography is wearing the right shoes.

No, I am not trying to sell the building attached to this sign...

In defense of standard, slow, zoom lenses. What's not to like?

Musee Des Beaux Arts. 

 Many photographers I know, and many photographers who broadcast on YouTube and DP Review, look down on any zoom lens that isn't f2.8 or faster all the way through its focal lengths. The idea being that you'll finally be able to shoot in low light situations without difficulties. Another part of the supposed allure is "bokeh" (which really refers to the quality of the out of focus areas but which has been bastardized by common misuse to mean any out of focus background) or one's ability to easily throw a background into an anonymous blur of visual ambiguity. At a certain level there is also a wide spread belief that because "faster" zoom lenses are bigger and more expensive they are able to make images of better quality. By that I mean higher sharpness, butch-er contrast and more resolution.

Most of the f2.8 standard zooms are 24-70mm focal length range lenses which, for me, means some wasted engineering at the wide end and a total lack of happiness at the (modestly) long end of the lens. They are certainly not providing a focal length at the "telephoto" end that I find useful. Too short by about 30mm....

In addition to being frightfully expensive (and too short) the 24-70mm, f2.8 zooms are much heavier than their more pedestrian counterparts. Unless one is constantly shooting in low light, or training to carry weights around all day, these lenses represent an overkill case that's almost funny. My preference in lenses, regardless of your chosen system, is the new classic 24-105mm f4.0 or the Nikon version, the 24-120mm f4.0. Yes, you might "lose" a stop at the wide end but you'll gain a much great range of focal lengths and, oddly enough, you might find the slower lenses to be just as sharp at f4.0 or sharper.

I wish that Pentax made an f4.0 constant aperture zoom lens in the 24-105mm range, or even better, in the 24-120mm range but, sadly, they don't. What they do make for the full frame K-1 is a nicely compact 28-105mm f3.5-5.6 zoom lens that makes very good images, indoors and out.

Counterintuitively, I took the 28-105 with me to Canada to shoot in just about every situation. Belinda loves museums so the big Musee Des Beaux Arts was fixed on the radar from the beginning of our trip planning. I knew that it would be mostly darker rooms with brighter lights just on the painting and sculpture --- but my interest was not copying art work but making photos of the interior spaces, the venue and the people appreciating the art. In the "olden" days I would have taken several different prime lenses, each with a fast f1.4 or f2.0 aperture. But this was vacation/holiday and I just didn't have the energy to switch, switch, switch lenses all day long. Not if an alternative existed...

The advantage of a mid-brow, standard zoom lies in its smaller size, lighter weight and also its lower acquisition price. My total investment in the system in hand at the museum was about $1500. That was the price of a used, but mint, K-1 body, with 36 really nice megapixels, and a brand new standard zoom. One of the key features that makes the K-1 a good travel camera is that it has really great high ISO performance and very effective in body image stabilization that works with every single lens you attach to it.

Instead of relying on a wide aperture to provide a fast enough shutter speed to both hold the system steady and also freeze subject movement I went in a different direction and depended on the camera to produce clean raw files at ISO 1600 and 3200 while leaning on the I.S. to allow me to shoot at shutter speeds as low as 1/15th of a second with no real image quality concerns. Even when stuck at f5.6 and 105mm I felt that the images were as good as any I'd gotten with older, fast lens techniques. It also meant that I didn't need to carry along multiple lenses or multiple lens and camera combinations.

The Chinese Gardens at the Botanical Garden.

Where a small, less highly spec'd standard zoom comes into its own, though, is in exterior photographs during the day. Overcast, sunny, raining, etc. It doesn't really matter as long as you have a camera that delivers ISO performance that matches your taste in ultimate image quality. For the image just above I was shooting at ISO 100 and f8.0. I'm sure my shutter speed was somewhere around 1/400 or 1/500. I can't really imagine what advantage an f2.8 zoom lens would have had in this situation. By f8.0 nearly every lens I've used performs very well and having both the extra zoom range and the smaller lighter profile made for a more enjoyable shooting day.

The reality of lens design is that lenses with smaller apertures can be made to a higher performance standard than faster lenses with bigger glass elements. It doesn't always happen but the math points to smaller lens elements being easier to make and quality ensure. I presume that there are also more difficulties in assembling and calibrating the more complex designs required by faster lenses.

I think Pentax struck a nice balance between price ($499 US) and overall performance. But I'm also impressed by the lens I left at home; the Panasonic Lumix 24-105mm f4.0 (constant aperture). 

The optical performance of the Lumix is really superb with the lens mostly at a high level for sharpness and contrast already at wide open. I find the two ends of the focal length range to be excellent at f4.0 while in the middle ranges, if you want the corners to be sharp you might need to stop down to f5.6. The lens and S1 camera together, using dual I.S., are as close to perfectly stabilized as I've found across all systems for sensors bigger than micro four thirds. And its performance with the 24-105 is close to that of the Panasonic G9 with the Olympus Pro 12-100mm. Pretty amazing.

Given the sensor performance of the S1 I can only imagine that the system would be great for travel. It's too bad I wasn't ready to bring it along on our travel adventure but I didn't have enough hands on experience yet with the camera to be comfortable. Next time.

Anyway, don't reflexively turn your nose up at a slower-than-f2.8 standard zoom lens. You may be passing up a sharp, well behaved optic that fits into your travel and shooting parameters much better than a more "prestigious" fast lens. And you'll save enough cash opting for the slower lens to pay for the plane tickets for your next adventure.

That's all for now. Write as comment. Tell me about your favorite mid-range zooms. I'd love to know what's out there.....

OT: Expectation versus cold, hard reality.

My expectation, based on years; no, decades! of experience was that the water in the Western Hills Athletic Club outdoor pool would be at or near 80 degrees when I arrived for swim practice at 8:15 on Saturday morning. The club consistently chills the water in the Summer or heats it in the Winter in order to try to hit a range of between 78 (on the cool side) and 82 degrees at all times; rain or shine, heat wave or frosty cold front. Someone got lazy last week and decided that Austin's rare cold snap would be short lived and inconsequential. They decided to wait on firing up the heaters for another time...

When I got to the pool there was a sign just inside the main entrance to the facility letting everyone know that the heaters had not been on and that the water temperature had dropped to about 70 degrees. That's cold. At least for thin blooded Texans that's cold.

Quite a few swimmers looked at the sign, grumbled, trudged back to their cars and drove away. A smaller crew stayed and decided to give it a shot. I was expecting entry into the water to be shocking. An instant, whole body awakening. But it really wasn't bad at all. The aversion to the 10 degree drop is more a matter of state of mind than dangerous reality. I stood on the deck in my swim gear for about five minutes before I jumped in and started the warm-up (and, really, it was a warm up). The cold air on my skin caused the water to feel much less cold on first contact, and by the time I finished the first, fast 400 yards I found myself acclimating just fine.

The interesting thing about the cold water is that we all rested less between sets, swam the sets harder and faster to stay warm, and actually put in more yardage than normal. At the end of the workout (10 am) we'd knocked out 4500 yards, or close to three miles of fast, engaged swimming. Our expectation of comfort was replaced with the reality of bracing cold. Our expectation that it would be a routine workout was replaced by a need to get in more yardage to stay warm and to keep our toes from turning blue. 

When I left the pool and headed for coffee my arms were already feeling the increased effort. I wasn't quite "sore" so much as feeling muscle tight and muscle fatigue. It was such a psychologically pleasant feeling that I went back again Sunday, knowing the pool was still not heated, to do it all over again. 

If you had told me before I got in my car to head to the pool on Saturday morning that the water was 70 degrees I probably would have saved myself the five minute drive and decided to substitute my swims this past weekend for a few leisurely runs. But, in retrospect, I learned I could swim fast and well in water that was different. It's nice to know that we are, in a narrow band, able to be flexible and to still perform. 

Beats the hell out of watching Saturday morning cartoons and eating donuts.

My Review of the Pentax HD-DFA 28-105mm f3.5-5.6 Zoom Lens.

Full frame. See 100% detail crop just below...

After looking over a fair number of images from the 28-105mm Pentax lens, when used in tandem with the K-1 body, I've come to the conclusion that it's a really good lens and if you decide to embrace Pentax's vision of a full frame camera system this might be the lens to buy. It's not the fastest of the Pentax full frame zooms being offered but it does have the most usable focal length range and it doesn't mind being used wide open, at its maximum apertures. 

Let's start with a physical description of the lens: It's small for a lens that cover the 24-36mm film gate but it feels dense, and heavier than expected, when you pick it up. It does not have an external aperture ring so you'll always be using one of the camera controls to set your f-stop. The filter ring at the front of the lens is 62mm and the supplied cap is the pinch type and it's made of thick plastic; not thin or chintzy stuff. The lens is supplied with a cloth pouch and a petal-type lens hood  that can be reversed onto the front of the lens for transportation. Please don't be a dweeb and shoot with the lens hood reversed. It just doesn't make any sense at all. If you are too lazy to use the lens hood you should just throw it away. Anything else looks lame.

There is a small, almost vestigial focusing ring positioned closest to the the back end of the lens (the camera side) and I can't imagine wanting to use it instead of the AF in one of the K series cameras. The front ring is a very long (from front to back of the lens) zoom ring which has a nice rubber grip. Focal lengths are marked on the grip at 28,35, 50, 70, 90 and 105mm. 

In deciphering the lens description from the lens barrel markings the "HD" stands for high definition and means that the lens was constructed and coated to work with high resolution digital sensors. The D-FA means it's a digital lens that covers the full 24x36mm frame. ED connotes the use of extra low dispersion glass in the optical construction while "WR" means that the lens has been made weather resistant with the application of gasketing. Finally, the lens is "DC" which means it has built in motors and doesn't depend on noisy "screw-driver" mechanical connections to the camera in order to focus.

The lens features a nine bladed, rounded aperture which generally means better bokeh, and I have found this to be the case at nearly every focal length and focusing distance. The lens weighs in at 1.33 pounds and has an optical construction of 15 elements in 11 groups. Included are two precision aspherical elements, an ED element and an anomalous dispersion element. A bit more sophisticated than a typical "kit" lens, for sure. 

I've been shooting with it in low light situations and also in bright sunlight (trying to achieve maximum performance with the lowest ISOs) and have been able to rely on the maximum apertures to delivery good to great performance (best at the wider angles but still good at the long end). I've had very little flare even in flare prone shooting situations and when I stop down one stop the performance of the lens equals that of my 24-105mm f4.0 Panasonic Lumix lens at the same f-stops; and that lens is nearly three times the price of the Lumix. The only real advantage of the Lumix lens over the Pentax is the constant aperture and a closer minimum focusing distance. 

The Pentax 28-105mm trombones (extends) as you zoom but the focusing is internal. Even fully extended, at 105mm, the barrel and extensions are tight and not at all anxiety provoking. The lens inspires confidence because it feels "right" mechanically. 

I selected this lens over the available Pentax 24-70mm f2.8 because I value the focal length range of the 28-105 more than I do the extra stop at the middle of the range or the extra two stops at the longest end. If I need shallower depth of field at the 100-105mm range I have the Pentax 100mm macro lens which is an f f2.8 and which is nicely sharp and contrasty even when used wide open. The 28-105 is just a great walking around lens for 90% of the imaging most people would do. By adding the 50mm f1.4 FA and the longer 100mm macro along with the zoom I feel like there's not a lot of general photography I can't cover well. Additionally, the K-1, at 36 megapixels, gives me room to crop and fine tune. 

The camera and lens work in concert with the camera applying lens corrections to Jpeg files and writing the corrections into the raw files. The camera is making some obvious corrects to lens geometry but once made they are largely unnoticeable and I'd rather have the camera correcting them than spend time doing it myself. Of course, I would prefer a lens that didn't require computational (my new buzz phrase) corrections but I'll gladly trade that compromise for a lens that is nicely sharp, contrasty, has great color and is fun and easy to carry around. And that's the 28-105. I'd buy it again as long as my intention was to use it with a Pentax K-1 or K-1 mk2 body. More samples below: 

100% crop from the image above the written review.

It's a smartphone world and we're now elitists photographers of the first order....

It's fun to get out of town, travel, and see how stuff gets done in public in other cities/countries. Since college students are back in school, and young families have finished with their vacations and are back at school and work, the travel scene in early October looks to be a bit.... gray. Almost geriatric. Especially in a city like Montreal which appeals to people who like to see old stuff. Which isn't all bad since the people around you at tourist sites aren't generally getting blind drunk, screaming at the top of their lungs, diving off rooftops or whining for juice boxes and attention. The crowds we encountered in Montreal; from museums to historic plazas, were mostly comprised of tourists over 50 years old and moving slowly.

In one way this seemed to tilt my usual nearly subconscious, but always running, "camera count" a bit further toward "many DSLRs" and away from "completely overrun by smartphone cameras." Up to a point the older the male person in the crowd was the more likely he was to sport at least one DSLR or mirrorless, interchangeable lens camera. Habit? Training? Taste? Or a discomfort with the operational feel of using a smartphone for a primary camera? I'm going to guess that it's a liberal helping of all four factors.

Women over 50 in the crowd seemed equally likely to be sporting either a phone or a traditional camera, and sometimes both. One with which to shoot for posterity and the other for immediate visual communication with family, via Facebook, et al.

I've got to say though that there were a few times when I tried to get a perfect shot with my traditional DSLR camera, got frustrated because of things like a contrast range wider than the Grand Canyon, and ended up pulling out my iPhone XR to see if it could do a better job. In cases like dark interiors with vaulted ceilings the phone won; hands down. Why? Its processor is making calculations so quickly that it seems to be pulling some exposure components for the shadows and some to control for highlight burnout. It's creating images that are almost like HDR without even being set to HDR. That, and the fact that the image stabilization in the phone is phenomenal. There is some computational magic going on in the newest phones that allows them to punch far beyond their weight and into "Wow!" territory.

With a big exterior shot with lots of detail, the full frame, 36 megapixel camera was a clear winner. And the look of the files was......visually sexier.

It's true that the iPhones and decent Android phones have more or less taken the place of point and shoot cameras (with the exception of Belinda and her G15) and they've done so for the same reason that mirrorless cameras are becoming more and more popular = the user can see exactly what they will be getting when they make the exposure by looking at the rear screen. It's an image that has all the settings baked in and set. All the user needs to do is like the image and actuate the "shutter." Chances are the final result will match their pre-chimped image very closely. And that's a comforting thing. Pre-shot-previewing is faster and more sure than the old way of praying you'd get a shot right, reviewing it after the fact and then hoping you'd get another chance to do better. Added to this is the fact that the screens on the newer phones are bigger, brighter and much more detailed than the cameras most user are transitioning from.

We'll keep shooting traditional gear for most stuff but...the writing on the wall is becoming clearer all the time. When sensors in phones get bigger it's armageddon for traditional camera makers.... At least for the use case of travel and tourism. I know, I know, you're the one guy out of a million who shoots sports and can't work without a 1200mm lens on a full frame body that shoots at least 10 (mechanical) frames per second. You'll have to wait for the next generation of phones....

The man in the center was both tour guide and the person who would quickly take each person's cell phone, line up a shot with the phone's owner in front of a cathedral and snap a few shots. 

He is doing it factory style, grabbing for a new "camera" with his right hand while handing back the "camera" just used. It's efficient; I'll give him that...

one of each.

And we complain that cameras are too big?

My favorite photography location in Montreal. Of course it would encompass food and (unrecorded) coffee.

There is a food market in Montreal that I found to be very much fun to visit, look at, photograph and play in. We took the Metro to the Jean-Talon stop on Tuesday morning, then walked a few blocks more to find the outdoor market. As the weather was still in the 50's and the day was sunny and nice, there were no winter walls up, no space heaters, no big coats to lug around. The whole market was wide open, breezy and top lit by hard daylight diffused through the white tent tops. As I understand it, the market at Jean-Talon is the biggest (and nicest) open air market in the city. Regular people flock here to buy the freshest produce, specialty foods, and things like maple syrup candies. The place is spotless, welcoming and a wonderful riot of color. 

We got to the market around 9:30 in the morning and started walking slowly through row after row of produce, flowers, and cheeses. I was hesitant at first to just snap away with my camera so I slid into my picture taking slowly to gauge how welcome or unwelcome it would be. In the markets in San Antonio there are even signs at vendor stalls attempting to forbid photography. It was definitely not the case in Montreal, at Jean Talon. I felt welcome everywhere. Especially so if I took the time to greet the vendor and smile. We struck up conversations with a young man who grew up in Calgary and suggested a car trip from Calgary through the mountains to Vancouver (sounds great). Belinda chatted for a while in Spanish with a vendor who moved to Canada from Guatemala about 20 years ago. He gave us hot peppers to take home (coals to Newcastle?). We spoke to a women who came from the south of France to follow her fiancé. They're moving back to France after he gets his degree... We spoke to the shopkeeper who made me one of the finest cappuccinos I've ever had. The conversation was universal; all about how friends change and vanish after they get married and have kids.

Each person we engaged with gave us samples, told us stories and suggested interesting places to see. I should have taken notes so I'd be prepared on our next trip back.

My camera and lens choice of the day was predictable: the only camera I brought was a Pentax K-1 (no back-up!!!!!) and I had a choice of only two lenses. I brought the 28-105mm for the day and it was beyond perfect. I'm just getting a handle on how sharp and snappy that zoom lens is. It's one of the best performing standard zooms I've used. I can see that the camera is making some big corrections for distortion and vignetting but with a 36 megapixel sensor there's a lot of information available to manipulate and I haven't seen a downside to the "computational" correction of the lens's few faults. 

Everything in this post was done with that lens. From close ups to more distant shots, it just flat out works. After spending the two previous days with this particular camera in my hands I find I've gotten used to it much more quickly than I anticipated. Pentax offers some weird controls and weird features but you don't have to use them. You can use the camera in the most straightforward fashion and never get bogged down with menus.

I actually gave up being a control freak for a while and used a mode setting that's marked, "TAV." It's essentially the same as having Auto-ISO in manual mode. You set the aperture you want and the shutter speed you think is best and the camera attempts to change the ISO to provide correct exposures. It's fun and mostly accurate but I often find myself wanting images that are darker than normal so I can mess with them without them breaking down in post production.

So, without further ado, here is my small gallery of initial takes from the Jean-Talon market. 

Belinda achieves mastery of the Canon G15. I tried to get her to 

take along the Fuji X-E3 and the 18-55mm but she says, 

It's too big.

Photograph of a happy person standing on St. Paul St. in Montreal. Soaking up some cool weather before returning to the Texas Heat Wave. Yes, we love the 50mm lenses.

B.Y.