The final piece of the puzzle.....

 

The Tilley Hat. 

We're shooting a day long campaign tomorrow with the new Fuji MF. What am I bringing as a "just in case" back-up camera and lens?

 

A hot day to run around the Hike and Bike Trail.

But...nice clouds.

For most of my career I've taken back-up gear with me on location shoots for clients. Why? I think the answer is obvious. If you can't make a photograph you will have jeopardized all the time and preparation that you, and more importantly, the client have invested into a project. Having a "safety" in the equipment case can save the day. I know that current digital cameras are more reliable than ever before but accidents can happen. Do happen. You can accidentally fumble the primary camera as you go to place it on a tripod. Somebody can trip over a tripod leg. Or you may have gotten a camera that just dies on its own. Mysteriously. At exactly the wrong moment.

When we go on location tomorrow we'll cap off weeks of preparation time, scouting, sourcing fresh produce as props, and ad agency time spent pitching the concept and doing all the backend work of getting a project to fruition with a client. 

You can't be responsible for everything that may go wrong during a shoot day but you can take steps to ward off "Murphy's Law"; or at least lessen the impact.

I've always taken a back-up camera and back-up lens with me on photo assignments. It's rare but I have had a small number of incidents over the last 40 years of working where a primary camera stopped working and we had to rely on our back-ups. The clients were thrilled that we didn't need to scrap a shoot, send models home, or watch a couple thousand dollars of produce go bad. And, the ad agency that hired me didn't have to explain a "failed" choice to their clients.

On one shoot, on a hot and dusty day in San Antonio, we had not one but two Hasselblad MF film cameras fail during a shoot. It was project for a big box retail chain, weeks in preparation, nearly a dozen talents on a rented baseball diamond, clients and ad agency personal in tow. 

The clients were nervous when the first camera jammed up. They were relieved when I pulled a second camera out of a case. When that one failed half an hour later they assumed that we were screwed. I could always have blamed a near sand storm for the failures but it was a lot cooler to pull a third camera body out of the case and continue on until the assignment was complete. (All the cameras repaired, cleaned and adjusted and then worked fine thereafter). 

That made a huge impression on me and it's probably why I don't leave the office for a job without a plan to overcome equipment failures. A mainstay of the plan? Redundant gear.

Tomorrow we'll be working with the Fujifilm 50Sii camera and a couple of Fuji lenses to shoot big assemblages of fresh produce positioned on Metro shelves. All against a nine foot wide, white seamless background. The final images will be used for "wraps" on big, refrigerated trailers. The images will be used in sizes around four by six feet each. Using an iPhone as a back-up just won't work.

I'm packing the camera case right now and in addition to the Fuji 50Sii, its lenses and four batteries, I'm also packing the Leica  SL2 along with its 24-90mm lens and its four extra batteries. Either camera will do the job. If I have to go with the Leica I'd want to use the in-camera, multi-shot, high resolution mode --- just to maximize potential results. I hope I won't need to switch gears/camera systems but the gear will be there if I need it.

Same with lights. We've designed the lighting to work with three Nanlite FS-300 LED fixtures and their modifiers but I'm packing two extra lights --- just to be sure. If something goes down I'm not going to sit cross-legged on the floor trying to troubleshoot a complicated fixture. I'm going to toss the offending unit back into its box and move on to a working unit. I am a better photographer than I am a service technician and we are working around a schedule; with a team in tow. 

In my mind it's not just "nice" to have back-up gear. It's part of the business philosophy. You need to be able to deliver the work. Otherwise everything falls apart. 

I'm out of practice with logistics. That's what I get for flirting with the idea of retirement. I'm doing pre-production all day today. Charging stuff, packing stuff and figuring out the best way to set up on location. There's a lot of gear and that's usually fine but I have another shoot, for a different client, scheduled right after swim practice on Friday morning.

That means we have a quick turnaround after the shoot tomorrow. We'll wrap around 5 p.m. and get back to the studio by 6 (traffic gods willing). I'll need to unpack everything, put all the stuff in their appropriate places and then set up the studio for a white background photoshoot the next morning. 

That means working in the studio until 9 or so. If I don't get set up on Thursday night I have to skip my swim in the morning and do it then. A choice I would be loathe to make.

By noon on Friday I should have the morning shoot completed and that allows for an afternoon of post production on both projects. If I'm efficient I'm looking forward to a weekend that's free and clear of work obligations. 

B. might be right. It may be easier to just retire..... but not yet. 

Back-up gear is stuff you don't want to have to use but it sure is a nice "safety blanket" for an anxious photographer. If the next three or four shoots work out well with the MF camera I'll bite the bullet and get a second camera in that system as well. It just makes sense.

Does all this talk about medium format cameras mean I'm getting ready to get rid of all the full frame Leica gear and move on? Naw. I've hit the point where I don't need to move old stuff out to buy new stuff so I'm just having fun cycling through, and back around, from camera to camera. 

I'm pretty excited still to shoot with the Leica SL gear. I just got booked on two day project to shoot BTS (Behind the scenes) on a food show. Everything from personality/celebrity photos to action shots of food prep to making beautiful images of the "hero" plates. I'll be three Leica SL type cameras deep on that assignment; along with a box full of lenses. The final back-up camera there? The Leica Q2. 

I expect to go through a couple thousand frames over two days. Pre-prep will include charging lots and lots of batteries for the cameras. You can never have too many charged and ready batteries...

Back to the packing for tomorrow. Stay cool. 

The unimaginable has happened. I'm nearly certain it was a mistake or a moment of radical incoherence but....

 I was making fun of Tilley Hats on Amazon.com with a friend and I "accidentally" ordered one. It was on sale. 30% off. Whatever excuse I can find. It arrives tomorrow. I'm taking the day off to walk around town and see what all the fuss is about...

This is how bad the heat stress has gotten ----unsupervised shopping insanity and the general destruction of my reputation as a fashion forward influencer on the web. 

Photos tomorrow. 

Blank space. discarded copy. Sadly self-censured. Taking all the fun out...

But the lead is: Tilly Hat + Kirk

Sunday, August 20th. 2023. Midday, Urban Landscape Photography.

current favorite camera of all time: The beat up, oldest Leica SL I own. It's just wonderful. Like an old, broken in pair of jeans. current favorite lens for Leicas: The Voigtlander 50mm f2.0 APO-Lanthar. Sharp like a scalpel. Bursting with personality. Goading me to enjoy the "miracle" of vignetting...

Tree with intersection. Finished with diagonals.

A brick billboard for taggers. (note: parallel sides. Yay! me.).

The new Texas fad of "grass tanning." The trees will be next.

the number one, must have Summer car accessory. Get a back up. Just in case.

I tried one of the Lightroom presets for the sky. Tropical neon. Never again... maybe.

today was "red car" day on the walk. I seemed to have seen them everywhere...

They had me at "ring pops." 

Store mannequins doing double duty directing traffic.

Meditative mannequin. Looking outward to infinity. 

Summer wardrobes. Big water bottles. Weird cars.

Towers. Version one. With birds and wires. 

Towers. Version two. No birds, no wires.

fencing. Epée. Riposte. Sabre. Chain link.

Hallucinogenic wiring for train engines. Lovely color choice.

coming nearly full circle. 

Cooler today. Only 105° (f). 

I woke up with a weird and rebellious thought this morning. Our neighborhood is in the middle of an extended bout of people buying up 50 and 60 year old houses for anywhere from one to two million dollars and then tearing them down and building four and five million dollar houses on the lots. The original neighborhood was mostly a nice collection of 2,000 to 3,000 square foot 3:2 and 4:2 houses on big lots. The lots have to be big because ours is one of the last small neighborhoods with septic systems. Septic systems need drain fields. Hence the bigger lots. 

I get a little riled when people buy up perfectly good houses and then scrape them off the lots. And I'm starting to be annoyed by older couples, empty nesters, who believe they need five thousand square feet of living space, covering most of the square footage of their lots. Delusions of grandchildren visiting frequently...

My idea was to buy the lot next door to ours, tear down the houses on both lots, Join the two properties together and then put two "tiny" houses on the big, combined property. That's it. Just  two tiny houses. About 450 square feet apiece. One for me and one for B. Maybe we'll build a dining pavilion right between the two homes. Everything else goes into landscaping. Kind of the antidote to excess size and minimal taste. Might be fun.

On the other hand. We can just stay the course and watch the California-fication of Austin springing up all around us. Either way my current pronouncement is: "Long live the mid-century ranch houses." Destined to be collector's items --- in a big way.....

circling back to actual photographic talk.... that APO Lanthar lens is quite something. A good bit better than my iPhone lens I think. 

 

Professional Tip: Always bring a ladder.

The aftermath of a morning golf photograph...

I met with my friend and sometimes client, Dr. Jim Grubbs, for lunch last Monday. He showed me a comp the cover mock up for his third book about golf and psychology. He asked me to photograph it for him. 

Yesterday I pulled out the camera and lens I wanted to use and made sure I had charged batteries, two formatted memory cards and that all the settings were in the ballpark for use on a sunny morning. Since it's been hotter than Hades here for a long time it was just a reflex to grab a 4x4 foot white sheet of nylon fabric and a couple of clothes pins for use in covering up the black camera, lens and dark camera bag ---- there's not a lot of shade on a putting green...the direct sun on gear is contraindicated during the Austin Summers...

I knew I wouldn't have to light anything but as I was going over the shoot, step-by-step, in my head it dawned on me that a bit of elevation was going to make the shot work better. Jim's scouting photo was nice but he's also about 6 foot five inches tall and I'm 5'8"; his perspective is different than mine when it comes to shooting at a down angle. I knew I'd want some space to back up (literally "up") so I could get the perspective right.

That meant bringing along the step ladder. The ladder is six feet tall and the only way it would fit inside the Subaru Forester is if I reclined the passenger seat all the way back. But you know what? I'm over trashing the interior of my cars with dirty ladders and accidental upholstery destruction. But, for the first time in my long career I finally have a car that has a built in roof rack and crossbars. 

I felt like blue collar craftsman using bungee cords to secure the aluminum ladder to the top of the car. But it was great. It didn't fall off on the freeway and snarl traffic or kill someone.  I can't wait to buy a roll of nine foot seamless and attach that to the topside as well. Hell, give me time and I'll have an entire studio full of stuff tied to the racks...

My sleek Forester will eventually look like one of the those overloaded car/trucks from the FSA photos of the Dust Bowl times in the Great Depression. Or, maybe the VSL CFO will step out, take a look and shut down my plan. Calmer minds prevailing and all that. 

Jim arrived early, carefully planned out his shot and got it set up and ready. I arrived punctually at 9 a.m. and walked over empty handed to check out the props and the angles. We made one small adjustment. I went back and grabbed the ladder and the Fuji GFX 50Sii with the 35-70mm lens. Took one more look and then climbed up three steps on the ladder and started shooting. Damn, those 16 bit, uncompressed raw files are big. About 108.5 megabytes apiece. On the other hand they sure are hard to screw up. Get onto the target and you can post process a "bullseye" nearly every time. 

We started shooting at 9:05, did a few variations, shot a few with passing cloud cover and then called this part of our project completed. Time at the finish was 9:12. The ladder went back on the car and, after a nice handshake, and a quick schedule check to get the book's interior shots on our calendars, I was heading back home. Seven minutes for a book cover. A new record for me.

The shoot was a good reminder to always think about bringing a ladder on a shoot. We might not always use it but it sure is handy when you need one. 

This will be my third book cover for Jim's golf books. Relaxed, fun, happy shooting. Almost like being retired. 

 

I had to go scout for a project today. Back in the saddle.

Mitakon 135mm f2.5 on the Fuji 50Sii. Full frame.

100% crop just below. 

My favorite creative director asked me to do a photography assignment for him. It involves photographing fruits and vegetables in bins on shelving. The images are for a regional food bank. They'll be using 6-8 images as wraps for large, refrigerated trailers. Since my creative director friend is smart, and since we'll be shooting at the client's location, he decided that we should scout the project. We should go look at everything we could.

The client H.Q. is on the other side of town. We were scheduled to meet there at 2:30 this afternoon. I left the house early because with Austin traffic you just never know. Add to that the temperatures and tempers on the road and, well, it's better to take it easy and risk arriving early. 

It was a routine, almost stereotypical scouting adventure. The facility is huge. We all met in the lobby. I was joined by the C.D, the art director, the client's marketing director, and one of her associates. We looked at the trailer that would get the wrap. We discussed the proportions of the photos and how they would be applied to the long, horizontal structure. We walked through one of the huge refrigerated food warehouses to get an idea of what kinds of props/products we'd be working with. And we scouted for some location in which to shoot. 

It's really good to do a scouting trip before a shoot. You can prevent a lot of misunderstandings and lost time on the shoot day. For instance, if you are going to shoot a shelving unit that's six feet tall and four feet wide and you don't want to see a lot of perspective distortion between the front legs of the shelves and the back legs you'll need to back up a bit, use a longer than normal lens and also have space behind the shelves to put up a white background and to light that background separately. What a client thinks might work and what actually does work can be vastly different. 

Moving produce (fruit and vegetables) from a very cold storage space into a warm and humid shooting space will cause a bunch of condensation on the products. Might look good or it might not. In shots like this control over the final look is important....

We ruled out one shooting location because the closest electrical outlets were about a hundred feet away. We ruled out another location because, well, it was on a different floor and also on the other side of the facility. By the time we left we had a working agreement on where and when we would do the job and a good idea of how to proceed. That's a time saver. And an anxiety preventer in anyone's book. 

A good scouting adventure tells a photographer: The best location at which to photograph. Where to get ample electrical power for lights. How to schedule the most popular conference room because it's the best shooting location. What to expect in terms of styling the product. Where to load in on the day of the shoot. Who the decision makers on the client side are. And how long the set up and actual photography will take. 

We have a tentative schedule and I feel more comfortable about the details of the job. I think it was worth the time and travel. Even if my car did tell me that the temperature out on the road today was 114°. 

There's another step before the shooting day. The art director and I need to have a phone meeting to discuss technical stuff. Like, how he wants the files and how big he'd like the files to be. The "look and feel" of the lighting. And who will be responsible for styling the shots. We'll get into that tomorrow. 

But for today it seems like were pretty much on target. 

I read a review on DPR of a lens I had just tested. Don't know if it's sample variation or what but......

A former staffer for DPReview posted his assessment of the TTArtisan 90mm f1.25 lens on that site today. He suggested that the lens he shot with was "soft." After I read his piece and looked at his samples I went back to look at the images I made with the lens to see what it was I might be missing. 

In a way we might be comparing apples with oranges since my lens is outfitted with a Fuji GFX mount and his was mounted on a Nikon Z9 --- which leads me to believe that his is outfitted with a Nikon Z lens mount. 

There are lots of things that can contribute to a lens being perceived as "soft." It could, in fact, be the design or manufacturing of the lens. There's a reason some products are less expensive than others. But it could also be a tester's unfamiliarity with a new camera and how best to use its manual focusing aids. Or it could be an issue with the way image stabilization is being used with a lens that doesn't "speak" to the attached camera. It could be that one of the reviewers is just settling into middle age and over-estimates the acuity of his eyesight and his ability to sharply focus on a screen. It could be too much Seattle coffee causing hands to shake. 

Or, I could have been wrong. But I dragged this 100% crop from my recent take and looked at it carefully. It seems sharp to me. Sad that good lenses get trashed because of bad reviews. I remember Roger Ciccala at LensRentals remarking that they test five or more copies of a lens when reviewing it. They want to establish a median parameter that can take into consideration sample variation. And they also test with the camera on a tripod which allows for very careful manual focusing. And, what we may be seeing is a combination of handholding and a very narrow plane of sharp focus. Breathe in and it goes one way. Breathe out and it goes another way.

I'll stick to everything I wrote about the lens here: https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2023/08/i-finally-got-to-spend-some-time.html

 It stands in stark contrast to DPR's assessment of the lens. I'm okay with that but I wish I knew how we got different impressions and, maybe more importantly, different results. We might never know.

100% Pixels. Grabbed from a very small fraction of the full frame.