Camera reality check. Go back 10 years and see what a point and shoot camera of that era can do. Even with a CCD sensor.....

The steps to the Topfer Theatre at Zach Theatre campus.

I gave myself a Sunday afternoon challenge....

I've been buying state-of-the-art cameras lately as if my photographic existence depended upon them. Just a few days ago I went over the top (even by my standards) and ordered a second Lumix S1R body. Can you blame me? If you've been shooting with one (along with the Lumix S Pro lenses....) you know just how good that camera can be, and it's that good without having to wait for all the stars to line up correctly. But do you really need to hemorrhage money to get decent photographs? Is it mandatory or just pathological? Yes, I know what the financially prudent among my readers will say.... no mystery there. 

But is it all about the gear?  Naw. While it's fun to buy cool stuff, and to see stuff come out of the camera files onto your computer screen that only a year or two ago would have taken your breath away I started to wonder just how far cameras have really come. Or do we just remember our older cameras in a pessimistic and dismissive way as a adaptation of our new camera rationalizations?

So, here was my Sunday challenge for today: I hunted through the studio to find my oldest and crappiest(?) digital camera still remaining in inventory. I would take that camera out for a walk through part of downtown and see just how many decent shots I could get in one hour. I would use no tripod, no filter, no fancy (first aid) post processing and no attachments of any sort. I would use the camera only in its Jpeg setting but I'd give it a fighting chance to do okay by using the camera's highest quality Jpeg setting. 

The only extra help I gave the camera was to intercede on white balance and to step in an adjust overall exposure with exposure compensation when I disagreed with what I was seeing on the small and primitive rear screen. 

I did not pick a ten year old, full frame DSLR with some esoteric lens. Nor did I pick some (for that time period) state of the art APS-C camera with a cherry-picked optic either. Nope, with the exception of the S1s and the S1Rs, the only other digital camera I have left in the entire office/studio/or house is a Canon G10. It was introduced in 2008. It has a very small, CCD sensor and it coughs up files of about 14.7 megapixels. It did not achieve parity with the most recent VSL acquisition; the Lumix S1R. 

I charged the battery for the G10 about a month ago and was happily surprised to see that the camera still registered a full charge. I outfitted it with a 16 megabyte, class 10 SD card and set the ISO for 80. My experience informed me that going much about 100 ISO would make the camera work that much harder....

I parked at Zach Theatre and headed across the beautiful pedestrian bridge and into downtown proper. If I shot in full sun I changed the WB to the sun icon. If something was in open shade I chose to shoot in "cloudy" and if I was inside in mixed light I just punted and went with AWB. I chose (as I almost always do with every camera...) to use the center focusing point and to use S-AF. 

It's important with these smaller sensor cameras to be a bit sensitive to diffraction effects caused by stopping down too much so I tried to stay as close to wide open as I could with the 28-140mm equivalent lens. When I got back to the studio and looked at my take on the computer monitor I was a bit shocked to see just how nice I thought the files were. The two major fixes I did use in Lightroom's develop panel were the camera profile (which corrects for vignetting and lens distortion) and the check box that fixes chromatic aberrations. 

I shot for one hour, took a break for one of my favorite downtown lunches (grilled Cuban sandwich and Iggy Pop coffee at the Royal Blue Grocery, right across the street from Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop (owned by Lance Armstrong...) and then headed back home the same way I came. 

While the G10 won't compete when it comes to dropping backgrounds out of focus or making huge files or giving me noise free files at high ISOs it certainly does a great job when you use it in the envelope of  opportunity in which it excels. Shoot these small cameras in great light and with good operational technique and you'll be a bit surprised that your newest Sony, Nikon or Panasonic camera isn't really that much better. And then you'll remember that you dropped twelve grand or so on your new system but you bought the G10 from a friend for a couple hundred bucks.... Sobering, no?

Anyway, you'll have your own opinion about the quality of the files but I won't hesitate to bring the G10 out with me if I'm on task with something secondary to photography but not comfortable leaving the home base camera naked. It's always fun to shock oneself with a bit of reality therapy. We'll see how long that lasts...

The one thing I have to admit is that I find it fun to challenge myself by using a very old, low spec, used camera to take images. You really do have to tighten up any sloppy technique if you want the machine to shine. Maybe the extra care and concentration on optimization I apply to the G10 will transfer to my work with the cameras that aren't on the edge.....  Kind of like doing a closed fist drill in swimming and then being amazed when you can go back to swimming with your open hands.....

Click on the images to see them bigger!

The red and green are perfect, color-wise. CCD? 

 A menu simple enough that even I can handle it...

I think the dynamic range is just fine!

I spent some time a week ago photographing some new material for Esther's Follies. They have a new cast member. She's great!!!

Chelsee J. On a magical apparatus. Part of her performance is assisting with 

Ray Anderson's magic.....

I love photographing theater. Especially good, funny, topical theater. Like the kind I find at Esther's Follies, on Sixth St. in Austin, Texas. I've been photographing for Esther's Follies for a couple of decades and a recent book published about the incredibly talented troupe is filled with my photographs from over the years. https://www.esthersfollies.com

The cast at Esther's Follies does hilarious political satire and comedy (nailing both sides of the aisle) and, for as long as I've been going there a big draw is an irreverent but wonderful magic act by renowned magician (seriously: internationally famous!) Ray Anderson. 

When he does his feats of magic he calls on the services of one of the glamorous cast members to serve as his assistant. Chelsee J. is his able assistant these days. She gets chopped in half, defies gravity, is levitated out of a pool and much more. Since she's a recent recruit I got to make some images of her (Above and Below) along with our regular show documentation. . 

Photo assignments at Esther's are the antithesis of many Zach Theatre shoots. At Zach I mainly shoot in a documentary style during a technical or dress rehearsal (or both). I don't do any lighting and we don't set up shots at the rehearsals (we might do set ups in a separate session....). At Esther's I drop by and set up three or four lights (generally electronic flash mono-lights into generous umbrellas) and we run through fun set-up shots that showcase the current skits, gags, magic, and ample song & dance. 

We give the flashes a real, old fashioned workout; sometimes shooting six or seven hundred shots during an afternoon session. 

Last week I photographed everything with one Lumix S1 camera and the 24-105mm f4.0 Lumix S lens. The combination worked perfectly and the AF never missed a shot. 

I love going back and forth between the theaters. Keeps me from getting rusty, or too complacent with one style or the other. If you come to Austin you owe it to yourself to catch a show at Esther's Follies. Soft-brained liberal or cold-hearted, cruel conservative? Doesn't matter = you'll leave with a big smile on your face, certain that the other side got it worse....

Funny sometimes to go and look at the analytics to see what posts from the past are trending on any particular day. Like one of my favorites from 2011....

From today's walk through downtown and around the lake...

but here is the post from 2011.

https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2011/10/were-back-both-of-us-all-of-us.html

I was so much smarter then....

Walking in a soft, Fall rain with a camera and an old lens. Getting wet is part of the process. Makes you appreciate getting warm and dry....

This is the view of downtown from the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge just west of downtown proper. 

We had a lovely Thanksgiving and I hope you did too. But after spending a lot of time socializing it's nice to spend a bit of time doing some walking meditation with a camera. Even if it is raining and a bit chilly. 

Natives like to think of Austin as a first tier city where everything is super-cool and something outrageously fun is always happening, but I'm here to tell you that it was like a ghost town in downtown the day after Thanksgiving. I walked through about two miles of tall buildings and shorter shops and only saw a few dozen people out on the streets. Well, a few dozen in addition to the homeless. 

I did a few assignments earlier in the week which involved people and some lifestyle and I got a lot of use out of my new über lenses (the Panasonic S Pro 50mm and the Sigma 85mm Art) but on a walk through a quiet urban environment, wrapped on all sides by a gentle, misting rain, I thought a more subdued and understated lens would fit better. I reached across my chaotic desk and grasped my older 50mm Contax f1.7 lens and put it on the front of the S1R instead.

It's actually a good fit. Literally and figuratively. The cheap adapter seems to do the job just right and the lens is really pretty good at making photographs. Okay when used wide open but much, much better at f4.0 and f5.6. Still, in a side-by-side comparison the Lumix lens is like tech from an advanced civilization. Not that you'd really see much difference looking on a website...

The old, Carl Zeiss lens does one thing much better than the Lumix Pro S, it lightens your walk-around burden and makes the camera/lens package pretty perfectly sized for recreational imaging. For some reason I've warmed up to it on the S1R body more so than I have developed any affection for the Sigma 45mm f2.8. But I'll chalk that up to being more comfortable with a lens I've owned across years and camera systems rather than as a mark against the Sigma.

I didn't have a rain cover for the camera and lens but I tightened up the neckstrap so the camera would sit up under my left arm (I wear the strap on my left shoulder). My arm, in my voluminous hoodie, blocked most of the rain and mist and I also cover the top of the camera with my favorite bandana as an extra layer of protection. I understand that the camera is supposed to be splash resistant but the lens and adapter are bare and bereft of casketing and protective engineering so I'm loathe to take chances. No matter. It barely slows me down. 

I do love these kinds of days. It's one time at which all the dynamic range in the world is largely meaningless as the water in the atmosphere and the close cloud cover render the shadow/highlight ratio as 1:1. You won't really be worried about blowing highlights on a day like today...

Curious to hear if anyone (besides me) took advantage of the open box sale at B&H on the S1R. I paid $3700 for my first one so I couldn't resist dollar cost averaging and paying $1800-something for a second one. We'll see if "open box" is all it's cracked up to sometime in the middle of next week.... I hope that great return policy is still place. Just in case.