A couple shots from Kirk's Panasonic Lumix S5 Monochrome...

After reading more about the marvelous psychological benefits of using a "real" dedicated monochrome camera instead of trying to fool myself by just setting any old camera into a monochrome mode (profile) I finally saw the light and decided I had to take action if I was to truly understand the complex and nearly overwhelming process of seeing in authentic black and white. And oh did I take action!!!

I got out an Exacto knife, pliers, a few different-sized screw drivers and my handbook on coding custom firmware and went to work modifying a Panasonic S5 I had laying around. I haven't tried this yet with one of my Leicas but if it works out I'm right on that edge...

I tried to tidy up my workspace to keep dust in the throat of the camera to a minimum. I took the lens off the front of the camera and got to work. Getting the tip of the Exacto knife just under the leading edge of the filter stack on top of the sensor was tricky work. It took hours to pull everything up, and lots of trial and error. Getting a grip on the edge of the (hated) Beyer Pattern filter was the hardest part. It's a very thin bit of filter -- but tenacious. That's where the pliers came in quite handy. There were a few rough spots where I unintentionally nicked the actual sensor but those wounds were mostly on the edges so I taped them off with thin pieces of duct tape and eventually, after much trial and error, programmed the camera processor to ignore the last 10% of the edges when making files for final output. 

Reprogramming the camera was more effective after I realized that I needed to start from scratch and totally re-write the operating system, tweak the controllers and then come up with an authentic and aesthetically pleasing mathematic set of formulae for rendering true black and white. Complete with an automatic lifting of shadows and an increase in dynamic range to nearly 16 stops (required to get more wiggle room for highlight recovery). While I was working on the interface between the mechanical systems and the electronics I decided to go a step further and disable any video functions and any software controls for video. Now it appears nowhere on my menus. I also re-wrote the menus so they would display a Comic Sans typeface as I find that more readable and to interfere less with my very precise monochrome thought process/workflow. 

I have to confess that I made a number of unsuccessful attempts on the project over the course of the last several weeks and in the process I had to "sacrifice" a few camera bodies. Well, at last count, five S5 bodies. But they are pretty inexpensive now that they've been replaced by the S5ii. I have succeeded in electrocuting myself several times with lithium camera batteries but the only damage was some burns to my skin, the only damage was some burns to my skin, the only damage was some burns to my skin...

The camera is now semi-functional and I'm in the middle of my beta testing. I have yet to zero in on the milky, soft, super low contrast look that other photographers who are driven to work in monochrome seem to find pleasing. I'm used to seeing a wide range of contrasts in prints from classic photographers so seeing 95% of each frame rendered as a "contrast free" middle gray is....  a bit disturbing. But I'm sure I'll get used to it....over time.....

When I look at modern practitioners who profess to "love" monochrome I am confused that they seem to conflate "monochrome" with only landscapes and indeed, only landscapes bereft of any deep blacks, pure whites or any sort of mid-range contrast. I'll chalk this up to me being a pure tyro in the world of black and white. In the past I have only printed B&W for a very few years and only with a very few formats or film types. I guess I spent from 1978 till about 1996 in my own black and white darkroom and have only printed maybe 10,000+ black and white prints from hand processed black and white negatives over that course of time. I'll admit I have not printed from all negative film formats, just half frame, 35mm, 6x6, 645, 6x9cm, and 4x5. Oh....and some contact prints from 8x10 inch negatives ---- but that sure doesn't make me an expert. Nope. 

I guess when I look back at the several thousand large, double-weight black and white prints lying in cases in my office what I really miss most with digital B&W now is being unable to print the resulting files directly on to silver paper. Stuff like the luscious Ilford Gallerie, Seagull Portrait, and Agfa Portriga. But now that I have more or less finished with the complete make over of an S5 it's only a matter of time until I figure out how to replicate all those meager, past, film experiences onto a modern ink jet printer. Is it really true that all of them distill down the big, juicy files from 12, 14, or 16 bits down to 8 bit files as they write out the results? That's the next thing I need to look at. Building my own 128 bit monochrome printer. Can't go halfsies. 

The image above is of one of my most prized possessions, the heart of my coffee making experiences.

The image below is what confronts me right now. Tree trimmers for the next door neighbors who have succeeded in parking their truck and a pile of fallen branches right across my driveway. Just when I started having a hankering for BBQ somewhere else....

A warning. Cameras are easy to break and I don't recommend doing any 

repairs or modifications yourself. It's likely that you'll have the same 

problems I did on this project: cut up fingers, ruined cameras that at 

one time had such promise. And the scorn of your photographer friends 

who can't seem to understand your insistence on customizing your

cameras.

Satire.

 

Might be cheaper for me just to see a therapist and learn to love my cameras as they are...

Shooting outdoors with augmented natural light. Image created as a candidate for a book cover. The editors went in a different direction.

I was writing a book about some aspect of lighting and I decided to shoot a bunch of variations for possible book covers. I asked an attractive friend to pose for me. Since it was work I paid a modeling fee. This was exactly the look I wanted for the book cover but there is a tradition/precedent/agreement in book publishing that while the author has editorial control over the contents of a book, because the cover image is part of marketing for the project, the publisher has authority over the front and back covers. I'm sure if you are a super-hotshot-legendary novelist currently residing in Santa Fe you can make your own rules with the publishers but we newbies don't have that kind of power.

The subject of the chapter I was going to use this image as an example of was about modifying sunlight by using translucent modifiers. A fancy way of saying those pop up reflectors that allow you to take the covers off and shoot through white diffusion material. Cheap to buy and easy to use. 

I decided I should do this image exactly with the method I was writing about so I put up a 50 inch round diffusion disk on a stand between my model and a hazy sun. The image had everything I wanted to write about going on in it. Blonde hair for highlight detail. Jet black shirt for shadow detail. A great out of focus background.... just for the heck of it. 

The image was shot with a Nikon D700 camera using a 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 lens and just the diffuser on a light stand.  It's an image I was quite happy with. Nothing over the top. Nothing too dramatic and certainly  an image that would be easy to replicate for a reader of my book. 

I can't imagine that a current Leica or Sony camera, or a more prestigious lens would have given me better results. Sharper? Maybe but I think this one is sharp enough on the model's face; which is where I wanted the attention. More resolution? Sure. Maybe four+ times the resolution. But the original would fill a book cover with 300 dpi's of information so to what end? 

Image created on December 19, 2008. At 3:15 in the afternoon. Can't believe that was almost 15 years ago!!!

Just reminiscing while other people discuss monochrome cameras. I'll get around to that as soon as my Q2 Monochrom gets here.... gotta test these weird and off the wall conceptions of preferences for myself...

A Popular Question This Month From Blog Members is: Should I buy one of the Leica SL (original) Cameras? "I found one used at a good price..." My answer will be fraught with contradictions.

A bit of background: The original Leica SL digital camera is a weird one. Hold one in your hand and you'll immediately understand why so many people believe it is built to a much higher mechanical standard than anything else on the market; especially back around 2015 when it was first launched. It seems like it's carved out of a block of solid alloy, the buttons are perfectly positioned and weighted, the EVF is still highly competitive today,  and the thinner AA filter, fine-tuned to perform better with Leica M lenses on the edges (as compared with other brands' integration of the tele-centric nature of digital sensor with older, especially wide angle, lenses) made it Leica M user desireable. The last point, the Leica SL's sensor pack design was a big deal for people who already own, use and love Leica's vast line of new and used M series rangefinder lenses. Many people who adapted those lenses to other brands of mirrorless cameras found that sensor filters in most other new cameras were (and are) too thick and reduce the sharpness and contrast of M series lenses a lot. Especially in the corners. The SL was the first mirrorless camera I know of that worked at tackling that problem. 

And the fix doesn't just benefit Leica M lenses. There are numerous really good lenses that were designed before digital came along that have degraded performance when used on most cameras (because of the sensor stacks) but show huge "improvements" when used on an SL. Or an SL2 for that matter. This is why power users of legacy lenses and most M series lenses were interested in the first SL.

Added to that were the advantages inherent in a mirrorless design such as constant preview, fast frame rates, the ability to use a great EVF in conjunction with all different focal lengths and the ability to preview ones potential images right in the finder or on the screen. And the Leica color science.

The SL upped the ante with its build quality. It is one of the few modern cameras that can truly boast weather resistance and from one of the few camera makers to label the camera with an IP 52 rating. No guess work about reliability when it comes to dust and moisture intrusion resistance. 

At the time of launch it was a damn expensive camera, retailing for $7450.00 without a lens. In today's dollars it would be closer to $9,000. A lot to pay at the time for a camera which had few workable, full frame, L mount lenses available for it. That was a tough sell. Now the L landscape has changed. Between Sigma, Panasonic and Leica there are dozens and dozens of really great lenses available for the system. 

It's a great camera and, about a year and a half ago I bought two of them on the used market for about $1,800 each. Both cameras with all their boxes, packing materials and accessories. I wanted them originally as backup units for my then newly acquired Leica SL2 (current model). I didn't imagine that I would get much use out of them at the time but looking back the SL has been my most used and most enjoyed camera from 2022. The color is really beautiful and the files are sharp in a way that other cameras aren't. 

But would I recommend the SL as a budget entry into the L mount system for people who, unlike me, aren't besotted by nostalgia for all things Leica? Nope. Not really.

If I tossed off my history with Leica products (many M series rangefinders, way too many R series cameras and lenses, and several compacts) and just wanted to concentrate on building a workable and productive system around the L mount I would, today, go in a different direction. And I'll tell you why. It would be all about image quality, budget and the fact that camera body performance and value are two things that rarely improve from generation to generation. Nor does resale value.

If I were to buy today I might eschew both the low cost option of the SL (no matter how cool it really does look and feel) nor would I make the same choice I did and buy the SL2. Without considering budget I would instead lock in like targeting radar on the middle ground. The Leica SL2-S. It's the same rugged body as the SL2, the same menu interface, the same beautiful EVF, and even better color science. But available for about $2,000 less than the SL2 when purchased brand new. I have seen used prices lately as low as $3600. It's also been bundled with several different Leica lens options at prices low enough that you can end up getting the included lens nearly free. 

While the SL2 has 47.5 megapixels the SL2-S has only 24. But I see that as an advantage, not a detraction. In my experience too many pixels in a camera which does not have scalable raw file capability is mostly a burden. And since the SL2-S sensor is newer, and a BSI version, the high ISO performance is much better than its more expensive sibling. Finally, it's got great specs for video--- though I realize some of you think that video in a predominantly stills oriented camera is the Devil's Work. But all-in-all, if you are interesting in getting a Leica mirrorless, FF camera the SL2-S clicks every box. 

If I decided that I just liked the L mount system and the chance to use some of the great Leica SL lenses but didn't want to chase camera specs and obsolescence I'd make different different choices in 2023. If it came right down to it I'd be hard pressed to choose an SL over the Panasonic S5 or S5mkii unless I really needed the advantages provided to hard core M lens users. 

The S5 wasn't on the market yet when I started plunging into Leica L compatible cameras like the SL, the SL2 and the CL cameras. The Lumix S5 came along just a bit later and the S5ii  really just hit the consumer space last Fall. 

I did end up buying the original S5 at launch and, with the exception of the mid-level EVF resolution I've found the camera to be without many flaws, and none of the flaws rise to the worn and stupid phrase: Deal Killer.

If budgets were tight, or if I didn't give an armadillo's butt about the Leica Legend and the brand allure I'd skip the Germanic camera sculpture garden and go straight to a brace of S5ii cameras. On a tighter budget? Right now you can order the previous model, the S5, and get it bundled with a Panasonic 85mm f1.8 lens for the lofty low price of just $1497, new in a box with a USA warranty. 

The one disadvantage besides the loss of snob appeal of the S5 cameras is the lower res finder. But other than that, and maybe the depth of the sensor stack, there is nothing to complain about with the S5 cameras. 

It's a camera that's got the same basic sensor as the newest Leica SL2-S, the same general high ISO performance and it's smaller, lighter and, for most people, more comfortable to handle (size and weight+grip). You can also buy inexpensive generic batteries for the Lumix instead of having to splash out $285 each for Leica SL/Q2 batteries. And no generics are available for those pricy cameras. 

The S5 has a couple of other advantages over the Leicas but they are mostly features in the video space. The audio adapter for the S5 will allow the use of several XLR terminated microphones and will provide phantom power for professional mikes that need it. It's an amazingly good device for videographers. Especially the "one man crews." Oh, an if you get the newer model, the S5ii, you'll also get faster AF because ..... PDAF.

The other advantage comes from the camera's more parsimonious use of electrical power. Since it's not powering up a nearly 6 million dot EVF it doesn't suck battery power at the same rate. So the cheaper batteries also last a longer time. Bonus, bonus.

Choosing the right camera seems tough but if you are logical about decision making it's really not so hard. Once you get over the idea that you "need" a nearly 50 megapixel sensor you've won half the cost savings battle. Once you decide that you probably are never going to buy and use manual focusing M series lenses you can let go of the idea that you "need" a certain sensor stack of filters and color pattern arrays to get the best from your camera. Now you are free to choose the Lumix instead. 

Your rich Leica friends may tease you but your even wealthier banker friends will applaud your financial restraint over a piece of gear destined mostly to be used as a hobby device. In case you haven't heard, commercial photography is in the process of being cancelled altogether by our robot overlords. 

Doing it all over again? Two S5ii cameras. A smattering of the f1.8 Lumix prime lenses. The 24-105mm zoom and a hard stop. The reality? I'm not pressed to economize so I can buy with my emotions instead of my brain. With that being the case I think you can count on me to keep chasing the ever elusive "value" of the Leica brand. It's more fun for me. But that's probably material for my therapist (if I had one...). 

Bottom line? Buy what you can afford AND what makes you happy. Always good when those two parameters intersect where you want them to. 

Happy times.

Going back to basics. How I set up my camera for minimum surprises today. Brand and model neutral ideas.

 

Many years ago I had an epiphany about auto exposure and the quality of the resulting images. I'd been using what were state of the art cameras at the time (film era) such as the Nikon F5 and the Nikon F100 and using them in my favorite auto mode: aperture priority. I knew enough to tweak the exposure compensation if the tones in the frame were really light or dark. But back then, as now, I find that cameras are easily fooled by things like deep shadow or bright light sources. One of my more experienced (and wise) friends suggested an exercise for me. He told me to use a fully manual camera and to follow the Kodak instructions for setting exposures on that camera which were printed either on an inserted instruction sheet in each film box or as printed on the interior of the film boxes themselves. 

I found an old printed sheet for Kodachrome 64 (ISO 64) transparency film and I taped it with clear tape to the bottom plate of my old Leica M4. When I went out into bright sun the paper "meter" told me to always use 1/250th of a second f8.0 (or an exposure combination that equalled that EV). The idea being that if the light didn't change it wouldn't matter what tones were in the subject matter because the exposure was determined by the actual light falling on the subject. In bright sun it would always be that value! 

There are always caveats. The exposures were most accurate, depending on the time of the year, from about two hours after sunrise to two hours before sunset. There were other settings recommended for cloudy days, heavily overcast days and also open shade. All of them delivered fairly accurate exposures but the one for bright, direct sun with hard shadows? Always....right....on... the money.

I worked this way on one trip I made by myself to shoot in Paris back in 1988. I used the Leica M4 and a 50mm Summicron. I did not bring a light meter, instead I used the Kodak method. In the evening, when I switched to Tri-X film I used the exposure suggestions I found in the Kodak Photo Data Guide (which I still have --- in case I need to calculate reciprocity failure of 4x5 sheet film with long bellows extensions) which informed me that a good base for ambient fluorescent light was 1/60th of a second, f4.0. 

You realize of course that you can change the aperture and shutter speed to whatever settings you like as long as when combined they equal the same exposure value = EV. For example, if you'd rather shoot at 1/500th of a second you'd set your f-stop to 1/3rd stop less than f5.6. And Bob's your cousin. Or 1/1000th of a second with an f-stop of f3.5. Etc. etc.

When I realized that I didn't have to spend today waiting for the refrigerator repair person all day (that was yesterday) I happily went to swim practice and then, after a nice breakfast with B. I grabbed a camera that is fast becoming my favorite and headed downtown to burn off some of the stress of my ongoing "appliance trauma." Walking around with a nice camera and an empty mind was a good start toward calming me down and beginning the process of recovery from rampant customer (non) service abuse. Is the refrigerator finally repaired? Who knows? It's cooling now but will it maintain this level of performance after four or five days? History is bleak on this one...

But back to the photography. My biggest beef with modern cameras is their legacy of being confused by what I want exposed correctly. The cameras all want, in their own way, to analyze the scene through the lens, divide it into many squares, apply algorithms to the variance in the squares and then delivery a verdict. It can be a little off, a lot off or just wildly incorrect but it can be fixed by taking time to assess the image in review and then applying an informed amount of compensation, and then shooting again. That seems time consuming and burdensome to me when there are simpler and more elegant methods. 

With the Leica Q2 in hand I hurried to my reserved parking space near downtown, parked and then took a moment to set up my camera in a very old school fashion. I guess I should call it the Kodak Paper Meter Method to give some credit to the (once) Giant Yellow Father. This entails doing something you can do with any camera; modern or ancient. As long as you can control the shutter speed and aperture settings separately and manually. 

I set the ISO to the base of that camera. It's 50. It's not an interpolated 50 or a mythical 50. It's just 50 ISO. Same as on the Leica SL2. A third of a stop slower than the "real" ISO 64 found on the Nikon D850. The idea is to get the richest and most noise free file I can. Also to be able to  use middle and wider apertures without having to resort to an electronic shutter. 

I then set the WB to the "sun" symbol. Which, on most cameras, should give you a fixed color temperature of 5500 or 5400 Kelvin. According to all my tests and all my readings, as long as the sun is your primary source of direct light (not filtered through clouds) it will always be accurate. As in CRI 100. The sun is, after all, the gold standard. 

Then I set the shutter speed to 1/250th of second and the aperture to f7.1. I would have set it to f8.0 if I had been shooting at ISO 64....

The final touch was to move the camera lens from AF to fully manual focusing. On the Q2 you get hard stops at both ends of the scale. You get a very, very nice distance scale and a depth of field scale on the lens as well. When you focus manually you can set the camera up so that a touch on the focusing ring magnifies the center image for super fine focusing and, if you want it, you can also add focus peaking indications to the magnified image. Voila. Now you have a fully manual camera in every respect.

If you are shooting with the f-stop just shy of f8.0 and you are using a 28mm lens on a full frame camera you have a fairly deep depth of field and most of the time you can just "guesstimate" the distance and set it on the lens's focusing ring (unless you are cursed with a fly-by-wire focusing lens....and no manual clutch).  If you are diligent and you practice you can shoot with barely a thought lost to focusing. Or to spending the many hours of reading and trial and error you might have to spend to master some of the more "mystical" auto-focus modes in a modern "nanny" cam. 

If you've set everything manually you can essentially just point and shoot and be almost entirely certain that the shot will be technically perfect. This method does nothing to ensure that you've pointed your camera in the right direction. If you want a photo of the Beatles you have to be sure and aim the camera at the Beatles!

But there needs be no other thought process to slow you down. It's relatively fool proof. Even an Austin photographer can be remarkably (technically) successful with this methodology. Trying this doesn't require much diligence.....as most of these "straight out of camera Jpegs" can attest. The only alteration is a reduction of size so that I'm not uploading 50 megapixels files to the web. But I find this method heads and shoulders above automation in any brand camera if it's consistency and accuracy of exposures that you really want. Oh, and turn off dynamic range expanding options. If you feel that you really need them it's better for you to just shoot the files in raw and do that sort of expansion in post. At least there you'll have some modicum of control over the results. 

I walked. I photographed. I looked at distant objects. I cursed GE under my breath like a madman. And I tried to let the afternoon wash me clean like a fresh shower of sunshine and the detergent of a good walk. 

I think that falls under: "mental health" initiative. 

some captions below.  where I thought they were useful.

Spring time clouds in Austin are puffy, detail filled and have depth. Lovely.

I have shot the alley mural at Esther's Follies many, many times but the 

color out of the Q2 today was exemplary. This image is exactly as I saw the 

color with my eyes.....after taking off my Polarized sunglasses...

Not a particularly good image but a chance to use the Kodak suggestion for open shade.

I love the sign to the left of the door that commands a strict dress code. 

Especially in light of the place looking like a rat trap and also 

having a big ad on the wall for cans of White Claw. Pure class. 

the vertical sign used to be for a downtown department store called "Yarings."

the last downtown department store in Austin was "Scarborough's" but it 

shut down many, many years ago. In the early 1980s. 

I've been to Paris about a dozen different times, in all seasons, and I've 

never seen Parisian Women wait in line for anything but the rides 

at Euro-Disney. 

A "Made in Germany" ping pong table. Serious gear for a serious game.

I wouldn't go bowling unless I could get a German bowling ball. 

Precision engineering is important for games. 

the pyramidal steps of the Federal Courthouse. Surrounded at the bottom

by tent camping homeless all the time but I get run off when I climb the steps and

try to photograph the building. Often by men with firearms, poor educations and bad manners. 

If I set up a tent out front I believe I would be free to spend all the time I ever wanted to tunnel into the building. But why? And what Netflix show will use this as a plot line?

Russian agents or Republicans bent on disrupting justice by living as homeless people in tents, 

spending night and day to tunnel inside.  My bet is on the Russians as the republicans would most likely get lost or sidetracked by the soft drink and candy machines in the basement.

Not political just observed behavior reporting. 

 In my experience Austin is one of the few downtowns in which food can be delivered from multiple restaurants for in-office lunches and can be reliably left outside the front doors of a bank building awaiting each customer's pick up of same. Well, here and in Tokyo...

That's all I've got today. I'm setting up an SL2 and a 58mm f1.4 for evening photos.

Still using the Kodak Photo Data Guide for a starting point. 

I'm beginning to realize why it is I like older, manual focus lenses. Even if I have to use adapters to get them onto my current cameras.

 

Modern, fly-by-wire lenses have a uniform fault. From my Leica 24-90mm zoom lens to my 35mm f2.0 Sigma, and just about all of the other AF lenses put on the market since AF became de rigueur all share the same fault, regardless of brand. They have no hard infinity stops, no depth of field scales and (most grievous of all) they lack distance scales. You literally can't "zone" focus them without having to pay a lot more attention to the process than you should have to. There are a few modern lenses such as the Pro S series from Panasonic and the Pro series from Olympus that have auto focus to manual focus clutches. Pull back on the focusing ring and voila, you are bequeathed both hard stops and also a distance scale. A big and accurate one. But modern lenses with this capability are rare. And not always in the focal length range you might desire.

One of the things that draws me to want the Voigtlander lenses I have been buying is just this thing. A repeatable and knowable distance setting feature for all of the manual focusing lenses. It's a godsend. 

I made the photograph above on a shooting trip to Rome. I was using a Mamiya 6 camera which makes photographs on 6x6 cm film. As with any larger format camera the depth of field is less than what we are used to when using lenses with the same angles of view on smaller format cameras. But even with a slight telephoto lens on the camera I was able to select a focus distance and understand what kind of depth of field I would have before even lifting the camera to my eye. In the days of zone focusing we were generally pretty good as estimating distances. 

I can't remember whether or not I just took one frame of this scene on the Spanish Steps or if I had time to tweak focus with a second frame but I was able to work quickly, nonchalantly and without the intercession of AF. And once you've focused well the lens maintains your setting whether you keep your finger on the shutter button or not. Once focused you are ever-ready...until the distance changes.

When I take one of the 40 or 50 or 58mm lenses out with me on a digital camera I always feel more in control over the entire frame when the lens I've selected is an "old school" prime with a great depth of field scale on it. If you haven't tried this way of shooting you might want to put an older, manual focusing lenses on the camera of your preference and give it a go. It could be a perfect way of working for you. 

Disregard if you are shooting football with long lenses... 

It's funny that in the old days, the days of ASA 400 Tri-X film I didn't really pay much attention to depth of field. When we were photographing in old book stores I defaulted to f1.7 on my Canonet camera because.....I kept running out of light.

 

And now it's a look I find wonderful and fascinating. Along with that 40mm focal length. 

Funny how, until recently, need was the mother of style. We needed more light. I opened up the aperture knowing I was hitting the limits of my ability to handhold the camera. But to my eye the out of focus areas in the background, as authentic as they come, make this portrait of a young child clutching a print magazine one of my favorite early photographs. I think I've been trying to get back to that basic level of making pictures ever since. 

What Now?

It's gloomy out there on the web. At least it seems to be for people who are interested in photography. I just read that Thom Hogan of Bythom.com is taking a month off. Maarten Heilbron, whose camera reviews on YouTube were always fact-filled, fact-checked and fun to watch has thrown in the towel on making camera reviews; mostly because the major camera makers have stopped spending enough on marketing to even be able to send out review cameras to reviewers. Not as give-aways but as temporary loaners. Maarten's post from a couple of days ago is entitled: "It's Over."  Of course there's the big story about DP Review shutting down as well. 

Many of our favorite bloggers who wrote about photography and cameras seem to have aged out, or run out of steam and inspiration. Topics skew far afield and little nuggets of good, insightful information abut photography have become harder to pan for than gold. 

I find blogging is widely devolving into a cult of personalities in which the writers' life and life stories are given much more emphasis than the topics we originally sought them out for. Yes, it's nice to have well written articles but even better when they are on subjects we're interested in. 

Both Thom and Maarten provided numbers or anecdotal information about the overall decline of the camera markets and, by extension, the world of the profitable practice of photography. From them as well as other sources I think we can agree that at least in the short term the outlook is bleak. Especially when measured by camera sales...

The ever-growing and deeper piercing nail in the coffin for most photographers with a certain tenure in the market is generative A.I. If you think it's kludgy or not ready for prime time you need to step up your research a bit and I think you'll see that, in capable hands, the technology is going to be is devastating for professional photographers. The taking of headshots, product shots, and most lifestyle advertising will vanish as jobs. Or projects. Or sources of income. All that will remain are folks content to sit in front of computer monitors carefully describing what they want the robots to make for them. And, when it comes to commercial work, why not? Clients always seem to know what they want. Their accounting departments are loathe to pay humans for silly stuff like.....art. And making up whole worlds on the fly is a heck of a lot quicker and infinitely cheaper than sending out a human to do their best with reality. Fantasy is much more addictive and hence much more lucrative for advertisers. No cameras or shoe leather required.

I remember watching a movie in the 1960's called, "Jason and the Argonauts." It featured lots of stop frame animation and claymation. Those were primitive visuals and yet the audiences went right along with the action. Now we can drop a computer generated stand-in for Carrie Fisher into a Star Wars movie ("The Last Jedi") and not even be able to tell that the moving image of her character is totally CGI. No suspension of disbelief required. Seamless --- and at thirty frames per second.

We don't have to dislike or renounce photography to grapple with where we are at this point in time. When the gear talk goes away so will community. There is no future in writing about the philosophies of picture taking. Why? Because as much as people profess to want access to such material only a tiny handful will really read it or search for it at all. How do we know? Because the internet has tested that for decades. We love to talk about gear. We are bored talking about aesthetics, or any non-mechanical process. 

I know you're tired of hearing about my fucked up refrigerator and the ongoing saga of corporate incompetence. I know most of you couldn't give a rat's ass about my ability to swim or the happiness I derive from it. And seeing yet another tranche of images from Austin's downtown is just depressing. It's the same for me on other blogs. Snooker? Breathing machines? Vegan-ism as religion? About as interesting to me as the nuances of the competitive flip turn are to you. 

So. What now? Without a ready market camera makers will slow down new product introductions. Eventually Fuji will make sure everyone who takes photographs with a dedicated camera has access to a Fuji X100V and will then probably shut down. Why bother after full saturation?

Some kids will mine the used market for rangefinder, film Leicas for the next few years and walk around in the street shooting with 28mm lenses until the last sources of 35mm film dry up and the labs close down. A few people who lack other talents will doggedly soldier on over at YouTube to make walk-and-talk videos about whatever new cameras or old news comes their way. But everyone is seems to be moving on, ditching photography as we've known it and replacing it with automatic content from their phones. 

Seems like the perfect time to retire. 

Here's my current plan: I'm 90,000+/_  page views away from my content here having generated 30,000,000 page views. That's measured by Blogger and not including stuff you read on an RSS feed. Add in those numbers and it's several times more. But I can only measure what I can measure. When I hit thirty million page views I'll take a big long look at the trend lines and if they are, as I predict, falling off a cliff I'll take note, sign off and leave the web to the last few, standing and producing photography experts.

I figure we're about a month away from the target date. I won't see it as a defeat if I decide that we're done. I'll see it as the turning of a page and my adaptation to human evolution ( or de-evolution). But I will say one thing. Now I understand how newspaper editors, writers and photographers felt as the ground slipped out from under their feet. 

One thing I'm going to do over the next 30 days is to write only about photography, cameras, lights and lenses. I'll try to give the blog a fighting chance at relevance. Wish me luck.