Ah. Zeroing in on the sweet spot. Spending a few hours at the Day of the Dead Parade and celebration in downtown Austin. Camera and lens in hand.

I was sitting around after swim practice today thinking about trying out a different camera and that new lens that came in yesterday; the Voigtlander 40mm Nocton. While drinking some wonderful coffee (one of the few things I have mastered in my long a sometimes frivolous existence)  it dawned on me that the annual Day of the Dead parade must be this weekend. I used my friend, "search" to see what the schedule was. Today. Oh joy! People in costume parading around in my downtown and being mostly happy and open to being photographed. Especially if you ask nicely. Lens test central.

My first intention was to put the lens on the Panasonic S5 and give it a go but the lure of the ancient Leica SL overwhelmed me and I grabbed one out of the drawer, tossing an extra battery into my pocket (the battery carefully wrapped in plastic....). 

I got to downtown about fifteen minutes before the parade started and took a few moments to just chill and enjoy a rare bright and clear day, but one with temperatures in the 60s and not the 90s.  Then I started looking for things to photograph. I guess I should say, "people to photograph." 

At this juncture I should admit that I am a frame glutton. If one frame is good then why don't we stick around and see if the next one will be better? Eh? and the next dozen after that..

I went for a photo walk once with a psychiatrist who was my exact opposite when it came to photographing. He would spend minutes (long, long minutes) carefully composing and re-composing and jostling around before taking even one frame. Once he found whatever he was looking for his face would take on a grim expression as though he was trying to will the camera to stay perfectly still and then he'd take one frame. One shot! And then he'd move on. There were no experimental adjustments; nothing. Just that one frame. Reminds me of the old Texas Rangers motto: "One Riot, One Ranger."  He'd have about 20 frames to play with in Photoshop when he got home. 

Me? I'm happy shooting until I get bored, tired, hungry or chased off by a big, glowering boyfriend. I'll work the angles try to get different poses from complete strangers and tax the crap out of my camera battery. Just watch me. I can be photo reckless. 

Today was an open schedule for me. No place I needed to be. So I stayed downtown for a few hours and really gave that new lens a workout. I ended up plowing through 1007 .DNG frames between 11:45 and 2:45. Of those 1007 about 400 made the cut into the first round of selections and 67 of them became finalists. It's not that bad of a ratio and I find that I'm a fairly quick editor. 

I hate to intrude on people but on the other hand I have never been accused of being shy. If I see a face in the crowd that I like I walk up to the person and ask them in as humble and vulnerable way as I can if I can take their photograph. Of the 100 people I asked today no one said, "No." That's a good day. A really good day. 

One of the things that photographers on the forums say a lot is: "that lens isn't sharp wide open. Why would I buy a fast lens if I can't use it wide open???" On the surface the idea makes sense but then you start thinking about the car analogy and I trot out: "My BMW 540i could go 140 mph. I never drove it faster than 90. But I really liked the leather seats and the German fascination with minimal cup holders." 

Seriously though. Some apertures are held in reserve for those times when getting the shot is more important than getting the sharpest photograph you could possibly imagine. And it's the same at the opposite end of the aperture dial. I'm more scared of f22 than I ever am of using f1.4. Scary diffraction.

So, in my old, soft, muted green sweatshirt and a comfortable pair of pants with too many pockets, along with a bucket hat, I walked around looking for faces or scenes or human connections that seemed like they would make fun photographs. If I came in close to take portraits with the little 40mm lens I tended to use apertures like f2.0 and f2.5. I shot raw so I could really evaluate the resulting photographs instead of risking that my haphazard technique might obscure my assessment of the results. Bad technique masking otherwise good performance.

I tried taking a few images in black and white just to see if the lens did a good job in that realm. And I've included those images as well so you can make an assessment. I'm no Michael Johnston but I'm working on my black and whites too.

In many ways it's easier to take photographs of strangers now. I think there are so few photographers left (other than cell phone camera users) that most of us are, to the younger generations, someone's grandparent who is behind the times and is incapable of giving up his "boomer" hobby and getting with the times. The people I cajole for the gift of their time seem more patient now. More compassionate. I think they see the white hair and think, "poor thing. He's wandering around aimlessly, probably doesn't know where he is but he seems quite harmless. let's humor him...." But I'm shameless. I'll take any advantage I can get. At least no one yells at me anymore.

I did actually run into several photographers while I was downtown. There was one man (in his early thirties) with his wife and two kids and he noticed my camera at the same time I noticed his. I was much more impressed. He was carrying the one camera that I think of as "the king of cameras" and perhaps the best camera I have ever used. It was a Mamiya 6 camera. The one that shoots square film and had a three lens system to support it. (This writer turns as looks at the 36 by 36 inch black and white print of a beautiful model on the Spanish Steps in Rome who was immortalized at least to me by one of the same cameras many years ago). 

We chatted for a few seconds and I left him as he took photographs of this family, faces all well painted, with his iPhone...

I ran into blog reader and fellow Austinite, Don, who was shooting one of the Fuji X-Pro cameras and had a second camera over the other shoulder. And I ran into fellow Austin pro photographer, Chris Caselli who has been photographing this yearly event for the Mexic-Arte Gallery for years. He also teaches at a local high school. He was one of the guys out in the thick of it today with a fill flash blazing...

I hope you click through the images in the full screen mode so you can see why I like these small prime lenses with fast apertures. There is something fun about being able to drop out background details when you want to that's cool. And also something fun about using the kinds of lenses we started out with. A nod to sentimentality, at least.

I don't know how I spontaneously became a group photographer here but I did get this group set and ready so that one of their associates could snap a photo with an iPhone. 

this young woman asked me to photograph a small group with her friends. 

She handed me an iPhone and asked (nicely) if I knew how to use one....

At least she was gracious about it...

always good to make at least one test shot in full sun...

and, happily, there was a low-rider component to the parade this year. 

Some really fun cars...

Considering this one as the company car at VSL. Lots of space in the trunk for gear....

But is it electric? At least it's prettier than a Tesla...

the color and contrast from the new lens and the Leica  SL

seem more than adequate for me.

Don. Austin photographer.

there is that Mamiya 6 I was coveting...

"The Mamiya 6? last time I saw it was over there by the gorditas.

Yes, I actually asked them to pose with the phone because that's what they were doing 

when they caught my attention. 

Yes. Those are hotdogs wrapped in bacon sprayed with mayo.

A fiendish plot by cardiologists to ramp up demand...

My favorite shot of the day. Everyone should be able to identify their favorite shot of the day. But they are fully capable of changing their minds the very next day.

I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank the folks at the 

wonderful W Hotel for the gracious use of their rest room facilities which are

always sparkling clean and welcoming. Now, could they please explain to me

why they have a fire in the fireplace in the middle of the Summer 

heatwave? I would guess it's so they can justify keeping their A/C

at 68°.

The "rig" as seen in a mirror. 

And finally....the coffee/bokeh test. 

And yes, the lens is adequately sharp wide open. 

 

I've been testing out camera and lens combinations. I want to take one camera and one lens with me on vacation. Not a bag full of gear. Today was sadly revealing...

I was looking for this: a full frame, L mount camera with a very small footprint but very big performance. I thought the best camera to take on my on vacation would be the Sigma fp. I love the look of the files I get from the camera and it's the smallest full framer I own. I think it's still the smallest of all full frame cameras extant. I've been working with the camera a lot and in controlled situations it's just flat out charming to work with. But out on the street? That's a whole different story. 

Oh sure, I can shoot with it pretty fluidly if I use the big finder on the back to isolate and magnify the LCD image. But if I want to use it in its smallest configuration I want to ditch the finder, and also ditch any sort of handgrip for it. And this makes the camera much tougher to use.

To complicate matters I also want to use whichever camera I bring with a very small and fast prime lens in the 40-50mm realm. Just to toss a bit of chaos into my choice matrices I did a bunch of research and found the best eccentric lens choice one can imagine. Fedex delivered my Voightlander Nocton 40mm f1.4 (MC) Classic today. Along with an M to L mount adapter. Love the lens but it is fully manual. Manual focus, manual exposure, etc. and that compounds the halting usability of the fp as a "street shooting" camera. 

Fortunately I tend to be the kind of photographer who likes to test out things that seem like a "great idea" just to make sure they actually are before I get somewhere and totally regret my choices. It was cloudy and gray today so I put the fp together with the V-lander 40mm and headed over to South Congress Ave. to actually work toward my own little proof of concept. I gotta say that I failed miserably. 

I kept hitting a button somewhere which changed my auto-ISO to either ISO 8 or ISO 124,000. Neither of which were anywhere near optimal. If the subject was darker than the prevailing light then the LCD image was more or less useless. I quickly discovered that the focus peaking at wider apertures is a sucky adventure destined to leave one with soft images most of the time. I also learned that I will miss every other shot as I punch in to a magnified setting to actually achieve focus. 

I am ditching the idea of using the fp in this way (and on this trip) and tomorrow I'll put the 40mm f1.4 V-Lander on the Panasonic S5 and try out that combo. 

So, what about the lens? Well, like most lenses of any quality it's very, very good in the center; even wide open. The corners don't really sharpen up until f4.0. At most of the wider stops the lens has vicious vignetting (which is transparently corrected in Lightroom) and there is a bit of barrel distortion which is also easily compensated for. I love the look of the images with this lens and I think the best thing about it is the really small size. Just tiny. 

I love the focusing lever I guess because I spent a lot of time working with Leica M cameras and lenses back in the 1980s and 1990s. The lever falls right under my fingers and makes manual focusing as quick as I remembered it could be. 

The lens was on sale at B&H (and at other places) for $399 and I thought it was worth the risk. I've decided that I really like it and will go forward with my plan to use it on the trip. Now we just need to find the "just right" body to use it on. More on the search and testing tomorrow. Here are some photos I took during my hour on S. Congress. These were all done in short order with the Sigma fp and the Voightlander Nocton 40mm f1.4. At least it was fun to get out and walk around.....

 

OT: 67 year old enjoys morning swim practice. Looks forward to more photography.

 

As on just about any other day I dragged myself out of my warm, cozy bed, slipped on a sweatshirt and a well worn pair of pants and padded to the kitchen to make a cup of Irish breakfast tea and toast some super bread. I glanced at all the headlines and looked at the stock futures on Yahoo Finance. Did a quick search through the overnight emails. Rinsed my tea cup, brushed my teeth and headed out the door. 

Destination: Swim practice. 

We have three options for practices each day. There's the 7 a.m. workout for people who need to be at work by a certain time. They trend younger and more... driven...hardcore. There's the 8 a.m. workout which used to be a bit tamer but lately has had the ante raised up by a new coach. At 8 we talk less and swim further. And then there's the noon workout which is well coached but it's understood that some people might customize the workout presented on the board and relax a bit more...

I used to be a dyed in the wool 7 a.m.-er and during the early days of the pandemic, when we were trying to spread out attendance to manage proximity, I was an ardent 6 a.m. attendee. Lately, I've aimed for the middle ground and now am most likely to show up for the 8. 

Today was a bit daunting. We started with about 1200 yards of warm up (48 pool lengths) and then hit the main set. It was written like this:

6 x 75 yards. 50 of those yards (two lengths) were butterfly and 25 were freestyle. These were on a 1:15 minute interval.

300 yard freestyle at 85% pace.

6 x 75 yards. 50 of those yards backstroke and 25 yards freestyle. Also on a 1:15 interval

300 yard freestyle at 90% pace. (descend completion time by 5 or 10 seconds). 

6 x 75 yards. 50 of those yards breaststroke and 25 yards backstroke. Same interval.

300 yards freestyle attempting to descend the time from the last two 300s. (good luck!).

One fast 100 I.M. (a lap of each stroke)

200 yards of freestyle to warm down. 

About 3500 yards (about 142 pool lengths, many flip turns, much hard breathing) of fast paced, multi-stroke swimming by 9 a.m. A great way to start the day out. 

I'm thinking about going back for the noon workout, just because....

Later this afternoon B. and I are going over to the HRC to hear a talk by Laura Wilson and to get a copy of Wilson's new book. A great way to wrap up the day. 

This is the first year in a long time that I've let a birthday slip by without getting a fun camera as a self-gift. But I'd never let a birthday week pass without lots of swimming. Gotta keep those priorities straight.

guilty admission. I do have a lens headed my way. It's a Voightlander 40mm f1.4 in the Leica M mount and I also have an M to L mount adapter coming with it. Trying it out over the weekend as a small, fast, light lens to match with the Sigma fp as a pared down travel kit. More words coming once I've put my hands on it. 

Who has opinions about dive watches? I mean real dive watches. 20 ATM or better. Preferrably PADI certified...

I spent one of my few remaining days being 66 working over at one of my favorite client's offices. It was a reminder that the business of photography can be fun.

 

Photographer standing in for his own tests. At the same time sadly ruminating that

he will very soon be 67 years of age. Tragic. At least the client-folk were kind and 

welcoming....and careful not to make jokes about the youth-deprived...

nor did they leap up to help me carry things ---- which is always embarrassing

no matter how well intentioned.

I actually had a blast photographing yesterday. It felt so nice. I was working at an accounting firm. One for which I've made portraits each year over the past ten years. They office just across the lake from downtown and are a quick 5-7 minute drive for the Visual Science World H.Q. The atmosphere was light and stress free and the food, all day long, was wonderful.

For the first nine years of portraitizing their various associates we were locked into using a gray, seamless background and very traditional lighting. Some of these constraints came from the company's headquarters located outside Austin. This year was a giant sea change. The marcom people at some far off office decided to refresh the images of all their hundreds and hundreds of employees, spread over most of the USA. They sent out guidance for local offices which warmed my heart. 

Now they are looking for "authenticity" and a glimpse of people in their environments. No more tight "head&shoulders" crops. Now they want to see both shoulders and and not too tight a crop on top. And happy days! They like the idea of a horizontal (landscape) aspect ratio. One that more or less conforms to the classic 4:3. 

Since the company offices here are close to home I dropped by on Monday to do a quick scouting mission. The marcom folks wanted the backgrounds to feel "office-y" but to be pretty much uncluttered, out of focus and denuded of knick-knacks. I needed to make sure there were four or five locations on their floor that would work so we could cycle through and get some visual diversity across about 20 portraits. The scouting was quick and pleasant. My direct contact as sweet and welcoming as ever. 

I had an urge to go totally minimal on this adventure, just a camera and a tripod, but my business brain talked my hippie, sandal wearing alter-ego out of it and insisted that I bring along a couple of lights and one big, pop-up diffusion disk that could reduce the savage glare and odd specular highlights of the ceiling mounted fluorescent lights that criss-crossed the ceilings. 

My basic plan was to position each person with an appropriate background in the right position, put the big diffuser directly over the subject's head and then fill in with an umbrella equipped LED light to give the light some nice direction and also to smooth out the flow of the existing light. Otherwise it would have all been top to bottom, too much contrast, with no side angle to sculpt faces. The horror! 

Everything fit into a large, Manfrotto rolling case and I tossed in a 50 foot extension cord which also came in handy.

My first impulse was to shoot everything with a Leica SL and the 24-90mm Leica zoom but at the last minute I tossed the little, bare Sigma fp into a corner of the case along with five extra batteries. When I left the office to head over to the client site I was thinking of the fp as a backup camera. Just included in case the SL went belly up and became electronically comatose. But by the time I arrived, no doubt influenced by VSL reader Greg H. and prolific blogger, Michael Johnston, I was ready to go all in with the little fp instead. And when I say, "bare" I really mean it. I didn't bring along the big chimney finder nor have I gotten around to buying the EVF that's now available for the fp and the fpL. I spent the day looking at the screen on the back of the camera. 

Funny thing is, by the end of the day I was totally acclimated to this very rudimentary way of composing and working. All rear screen. No eye level viewing --- well, unless I held the camera at eye level and did "dirty baby diaper hold" --- which I did not!!! 

The nature of shooting basically available light portraits in an office environment means you'll want to use a tripod. Which I did. 

Since I got the Novoflex tripod adapter for the Leica 24-90mm lens I seem to be using that lens for more and more portrait work like this. And why not? The lens is amazing good and the only reservations I had were about its use in a vertical mode on a tripod. It's so heavy the lens and camera package starts to droop no matter how tightly I screw in the tripod screw. All that's over now that I have the tripod adapter! I'm so happy to be able to use the lens unfettered now. 

Speaking of: very, very happy, I'm thrilled when clients have state of the art coffee and espresso machines in abundance. At my client's offices coffee is encouraged, elevated to an art form, and one could maintain a vibrant caffeine buzz all day long. Easily. For no reason whatsoever one of the office managers swung by a favorite donut shop and bought gourmet donuts for the staff. There's a place in Austin called "The Salty Donut" and they make amazing (but way, way too sweet) donuts. At nearly $5 USD per donut they better be good and the quarter sample I tried was. Did they buy enough? Yes, they had a dozen left over at the end of the day. They asked if I wanted to take some home but I demurred. I need to be able to fit in my pants from day to day...

So, cappuccinos and donuts first thing. Then they catered in box lunches for everyone. Great sandwiches on artisanal bread. They also ordered a few Cobb salads in case anyone wanted to cut down on the gluten and eat more green stuff. For a photographer used to bringing along a lunch in a paper sack, or taking a lunch break out to fight the traffic and lines just to stave off hunger, this was starting to feel a bit... heavenly. 

Around 3:30 the HR staff started setting up a buffet line, a cooler full of exotic beers and a table with some sort of wine-based cocktails. The catering arrived and it was full scale Indian food from one of the city's favorite Indian restaurants. I asked "why?" and the staff smiled at my lack of worldly cultural knowledge and then informed me that it was for the Diwali celebration. The lobby got decorated with posters and twinkly lights and the party started ramping up around 4:00 pm. I guess there were 30 or 40 employees left in the offices by then and they had a wonderful time. I also got invited to come back for the monthly book club meeting. There will be prizes, lots of fun food and an open bar. Something tells me they are taking employee retention quite seriously. 

The offshoot was that everyone I photographed was happy to be there, engaged in the picture taking and very happy to see what we'd shot on the little screen each time we finished with someone's photo. 

For all the odd review crap on various camera review sites one might be amazed to hear that the Sigma fp is able to autofocus at all. In the real world where non-brand-ambassadors take off their advertising blinders to shoot, the Sigma nailed AF on all 750+ shots using face and eye detection throughout. Gee, I didn't think that was possible except ---- I knew it was. That's a benefit of actually using a camera for a couple years. You really find out what it can do.

I packed up my one rolling case and headed out of the company's parking garage hoping I got good stuff. I transferred everything to Lightroom Classic this morning and breathed a sigh of relief. Everything is usable and most of it is very good. With some global corrections here and there it could be great. I envision separating the people from the backgrounds with the powerful new selection tools in LR and doing color corrections to each part of each chosen frame separately. Doing this will also give me the opportunity to introduce a bit more blur if I decide to toss caution to the wind...

The Sigma fp shot through nearly 800 images over the course of the day and did so on only two batteries. The second battery still had about 20% charge remaining. But I ran out of subjects. 

This was my last shoot as a 66 year old photographer. 67 looks bright. This is a good way to end work this birthday month. 

Today has been a relaxed, get things done day. We're trying to wrap up casting for a medical device advertising campaign that's scheduled for the third week of November. We've got front-runners for the two talents our clients originally requested and now they are adding one more. It's always something. 

But I did take time to go to Torchy's this morning for a breakfast taco, to the bank for buckets of cash to spend on my trip, and then to the pool for the noon workout with coach Jane. Swam 3,000 yards before lunch. Now heading out with a camera to enjoy the cool weather and bright sun. Thanks!  KT

Portrait of Rebecca L. An actor I met while photographing "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert." This image done for fun, after the rehearsal shoots.

 

I loved watching Rebecca perform on stage. She had this really great energy that the very best performers seem to be able to channel into the roles they play. I asked her to pose for me one afternoon near the end of the run of the show.

We used one of the reception spaces at the Topfer Theater. I used several LED lights in big modifiers and mixed their light with the soft light coming in through a bank of windows. 

The session only lasted fifteen or twenty minutes but it was enough to get a dozen or so "keepers" that we both liked. I reworked the post processing a little today, dropping the original saturation down a bit and adding some shadow contrast. I finally got the image exactly where I wanted it.

Camera: Sony A7RII

Lens: 135mm f2.0

Observation: Generally, the photographs you capture before or after the "official" or "assignment" images are the ones you want to keep. There's a different energy. It's a shared thing. And it's critical, if you can, to eliminate any other audience at your session.

Does anyone have a suggestion for a good English to Canadian phrase book?

I once spent a long week with a photographer from Wales (which I know is not in Canada...) and when he tried to speak English I could not understand a work he spoke. He insisted he was speaking English. I wished, at the time, that I had access to a Welsh phrase book. Even a glossary of nicknames for things like coffee, beer and cameras would have been helpful. Thankfully we had a few German friends along who were adept at translating...

Just curious which is the recommended phrase book for Americans heading to Canada? Eh?

Or perhaps this isn't an issue on the west coast.

(kidding. just kidding... ). 

 

I updated Adobe Lightroom Classic to version 12.0 on Friday and I've been playing with it ever since. The new features are great.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/whats-new/2023.html

That's a link the "what's new?" It's all good. 

SL2+Lumix 50mm.

 

SL2+45mm

SL2+45mm

We are in the middle of a weather change here. After two hot days (again...) we've got wind gusts moving through and rain on the way. Tomorrow evening we were scheduled to make an outdoor portrait of 16 surgeons with the downtown skyline in the background. You know, a classic sunset shot. But the strong prediction is for thunderstorms in the late afternoon. That's too bad because 5 or 5:30 p.m. would have been the perfect time to shoot. Now cancelled (or rescheduled). 

The recompense is water for the aquifer and water for my parched lawn.

After the weather front plows through it will be back to sunshine, rainbows and unicorns until at least Thursday. Ah, the drama of weather in my birthday week. Seems appropriate.

All of the images here were done with a Leica SL2. Additionally they were done with either the Lumix 50mm lens or the Sigma 45mm lens. Sadly, I like both lenses equally. No clear front runner even though the Sigma lens looks cooler. 

This will be the first birthday in many years that I have not celebrated by buying a new (to me) camera!!! I guess that turning 67 means I am becoming more mature and responsible. Just don't tell my friends. 

But as regards the absent camera purchase....the deadline has not yet expired....