It was nice to get out and do a commercial portrait this morning. Fun to work with a clunky, heavy 90mm f1.25 manual focus lens.

 

Another self-timer masterpiece. 

Somebody tell this guy he looks too damn serious.

I've been making portraits for a particular downtown law firm for about eight years now. When they hire a new attorney the firm's managing director sends along an email asking about my availability. I respond. We set up an appointment. And since I've gotten more and more adamant about not missing swim workouts in the morning we've pretty much landed on having me arrive at their offices around 10 a.m. to set up lights and a camera. They schedule the portrait to take place at 10:30. That gives me time to grab coffee and breakfast after the swim ---- as long as I remember to pack all of the gear the night before. 

The gear package is simple and manageable now. After having shot over 100 different portraits for the firm I've got a good handle on how they want their images to look and where on the floor works best as a background. With a good gear moving cart there is no need for an assistant on jobs like this. Sure, if I was trying to shoot ten or twenty portraits of ten or twenty people in a bunch of different locations in the offices, I guess an assistant would come in handy. But we usually just photograph one person per engagement. I arrive, we photograph, and I'm back out to the car by around 11. Eleven thirty if we need to spend a bit longer. It's nice. I respect their time and they never question how much or how little time I take to do the work. The fee is always the same. 

Not having an assistant does mean that once I set up what I think works for lighting, composition, etc. I have to use the self-timer on the camera to test my set up. It usually takes a couple of tries to get what I want. But it's not a big deal. 

Today I photographed an attorney in a small conference room. But I really wanted the background to be the same hallway that's in the photo above. After I finished photographing him I picked up the camera and tripod and walked over to shoot that background with no people in it. We couldn't set up there today for the session because it's a passageway that gets a lot of traffic and the firm had multiple clients coming through. But a quick ten frames with some focus bracketing meant I could decide after the fact if I wanted to change backgrounds for the shot. 

I used only two lights to make my portraits today. A big Nanlite LED fixture with a 60 inch umbrella and a small LED panel light that I used to punch up the background a bit. It makes re-packing easier when you don't use every light you brought along. The floor to ceiling window in our conference room helped. A lot. The attorney was nice and interesting. We had a good connection. The shoot went quickly.

I packed everything back into two cases; actually, one case and one stand bag, and then I stopped by the front desk where the person who mans the phones looked up, smiled and handed me a small square of white paper with a QR code printed on it. I pushed the cart over to the long row of elevators and waited for the audible and visual signals that let me know which elevator to ride on back to the lobby. When you have a cart in two you can usually count on the "live" elevator being the one the furthest from where you've parked the cart to wait. Elevator "whack a mole."

Once in the lobby I steer the cart across the open space to another row of elevator doors. These "lifts" take people to the various floors of the attached parking garage. When the building first opened I remember marveling that the building management had little business card holders in each parking garage floor's elevator lobby. The cards were neatly printed business cards which told you on which floor you had parked your car. It was a thoughtful touch. No doubt thought up by someone who often forgets where their sedan ended up...

I used to dread this particular parking garage. It had nothing to do with the overall design or even the size of the spaces. No... it was because there is only one exit lane and before the pandemic the office building and its garage were busy places. People were constantly on the move.  I had two or three experiences in which the automated parking machines refused to read the QR codes on the little white pieces of paper I'd been given. My get out of parking jail free cards. There would be a steady forming up of cars behind me while I tried and tried to make the infra-red reader compliant with my needs. 

What I discovered is that two things generally happen in this scenario. One is that you push the "help" button on the machine which wakes up someone dozing the security offices, which are hidden from the tony guests and aloof tenants of the building. The guards understand that the people whose ire can interfere with their own happiness expect NOT to wait in line behind some vendor who seems incapable of executing one of the basics of downtown survival. The guards will prefunctorially raise the barrier and wish me well. The other alternative, when the guards can't be roused, is that one of the impatient lawyers or captains of industry stuck behind me will get out of their car, stalk over to the machine and wave their own, personal magnetic card in front of the reader and free me from my embarrassing inability to de-park. They are able to open the gates of the corral. I try not to make eye contact as I murmur a "thank you" and then get the hell out of the garage --- just in case the automated barrier bar changes its mind and holds me captive even longer. 

Since Covid the garage has lost its threatening potential. The elite are working from home. The worker bees don't generally come and go from the garage in the middle of the work day. The QR readers seem to have all gotten firmware upgrades and, maybe, now I just don't care. 

The car heads towards home and I don't dissuade it. It's cool, gray and rainy outside. The car heater keeps my Birkenstock exposed toes warm. As I get closer to my neighborhood I remember that Ben came home from Japan on Saturday and we had him over for dinner last night. Of course I remember all that but I'd forgotten to remember that I was so happy to see him home and well that I handed him my fresh bag of precious coffee from Trianon Coffee thinking that after having been out of the country for two weeks that he might not have fresh coffee for his first work day back. Today. But after I gave him my prize coffee and waved goodbye, as he drove off last night, it dawned on me that I wouldn't have coffee in the morning now instead. 

I drove by past the turn to our house and continued on to the coffee oasis. I ordered up another bag of Columbian Medium Roast Organic coffee and, since I was there, a cortado and a very, very nice walnut scone. I ate half of the scone and saved the rest for now. For when I would have afternoon coffee and take random breaks from post processing a dandy series of photographs of a kind lawyer, and also a break from my rhythmic typing that creates the machine code for the blog. The scone was delicious then and even more so now. The perfect capper, with more coffee, for a late lunch. 

I know, I know. For you ten shots in a portrait session and you've nailed it. Perfectly composed and precise exposure. Perfect expressions and each one profoundly different. I wish it worked that way for me but when I start talking to a portrait subject while taking photographs I can actually see their hesitation and reticence to open up melting away. By frame 35 we're done with figuring out where each of us fit in the hierarchy/pecking order and there is a relaxation that shows in their face. By frame 60 we've got genuine, warm smiles and more engagement. By frame 90 we're sharing stories about where our kids went to college and where they are now. And we have become at ease with each other like old friends from the same fraternity, drinking beer on the porch, and all guards are down. The photographs feel animated and perfectly sorted. I know I've got good stuff --- in spite of myself. And it mostly comes at the end.

For me a nice portrait session is never ten minutes of "look left. look right. chin up. A bit more smile" ten frames and you're moving them out the door. I'll take half and hour if I can get it and longer still if I think we can do better. There is comfort in taking one's time and trying to collaborate closer and closer. 

The other side of the coin is that you quick and assured shooters have time to skate into MacDonalds for a Fillet O Fish and a trash can sized diet Coke while I have to hunker down in front of the computer and figure out what to do with a hundred or more similar frames of a person I've just met. And since I pay a lot more attention to the human exchange than I do to the screen on the back of the camera I've also got to make adjustments to the cropping and composition. I've got to pay more attention to getting into the circle of non-confusion as it relates to colors and the way they look on human skin. I've got to go through all the frames and toss out the ones that are out of focus ---- because --- I'm using an "old school" manual focusing lens at perilously large apertures. And then I have to output the files that pass the sniff test and upload them to an online gallery for client consumption. After which there is the hot wash, personal to myself briefing of what went wrong and by how much and what should I do to make everything better the next time. 

And therein lies the real fun. Sure. We could do it all faster. We could do it all in a compressed manner in which ten files or even fifteen are the sole visual distillation of the sitter's existence in the commercial marketplace. But I'd like to think that by going deeper we can offer something that very, very few other working photographers want to try. The fast shooters consider the slow and virtuous session to be inefficient. A waste of valuable time. Not a profitable way to run a business. But what do I know? I don't want to short change the subject. They deserve to have something better than "satisfactory" to act as their avatar. Besides it's the fact that for me it still has to be fun, meaningful and unique. Or unique enough. And I do enjoy the social process as much as the technical stuff.

I've done portrait shoots every which way. Rushed cattle calls. Time limited CEO sessions. Long, luxurious personal sessions with beautiful friends. And the ones I like best are the sessions that we do without regard for time, budget or outside guidance. Just two people trying to make each other look good. 

I added noise to the file above to cover all manner of post processing faults. But you're not my client for that portrait, you are my audience. And I like the noise. It's fun. 

I'm happy today for any number of reasons. The equity markets are up so I feel richer. The shoot went smoothly and well so I feel like I'm still a professional at this. But probably the biggest bump of happiness was when the three of us; me, Ben and B. were sitting around the dining room table yesterday evening listening to Ben describe his time discovering Japan. The meals he most enjoyed. The hotel in Tokyo. The Ryokan in Kyoto. The six course breakfast there. The miso soup. The coffee served at the very end of the meal; like desert. And we marveled at the wonderful photographs Ben took with his iPhone and his determination to see everything all the time. But even better... he made it back safe and sound. And he seems so....adult. So sure.

So, it's a great day. I've replaced the gifted away coffee. I've used my cameras today for good and not for evil. I didn't exploit anyone.  I've dodged looking at the news. I've eaten fun meals. It's all a snapshot of one moment but I'll be happy to put a frame around the day and call it perfect performance art. 

Gotta tell you, that crazy, cheap lens is pretty nice. So is the zany Fuji GFX. But then so is that scone that was in the brown paper bag on my desk until just a few moments ago. 

Hope your week is off to a great start. 

Back in the office. Polished the computer and the hard drives. Sorted cameras. Sat back and admired clean, white walls. Went swimming.

If you like the look of a 40mm, full frame lens you might be interested in grafting a

Carl Zeiss ZM 28mm f2.8 onto the front of a Leica CL. It's a nicely compact

package that makes really nice photographs. Unless you are afraid of the smaller

format. And the fact that the camera has been discontinued. Still.....

it looks so darn cool...

The studio looks great. I'm just now moving everything back in and trying to come to grips with the idea of leaving the walls bare for a while, just to enjoy the "blank canvas" bright white look of it all. This morning I moved the computer, hard drives and printer back into the office space and hooked them all up. I would have done it earlier but I was reluctant to spend a lot of time inside until the paint smell receded and mostly vanished. That was today. 

I love the clean look so much that I'm getting more and more serious about tossing tons of extraneous stuff out. I've got a bag full of microphones, mixers, cables and more microphones and mixers that I'm going to take to the camera store and "trade in." I'd try to sell them online but I have no patience for things like Ebay. I'd rather donate stuff than wade through the pathos and insecurities of online buyers. 

Same with buying stuff from individuals. I'll buy a lens or a camera from a good friend but I'm always hesitant about buying stuff online from anywhere but a well known retail store. Or the same retail/web storefront. I like the guys at Camera West. I'm happy to bite the bullet and pay a bit above market price for used gear at The Leica Store Miami. And, of course, for lots of new stuff there's always B&H Photo. Each of these vendors does a good job of standing behind the products they sell and taking care of their customers when things don't turn out as intended. Not so with strangers online who seem to vanish at the first sign of trouble. 

For the first time in a long time I'm not really in the market for anything. I thought I might resell the two Leica CL cameras but I took them out and used them again and I'm right back in love with them. I've found that Leica stuff holds my interest in a different way than other camera brands. Take the Leica SL camera for instance. It was launched in 2015 and the sensor tech in it is older. It's strictly contrast detect auto focus which drives a lot of photographers around the bend. It's hefty and the battery life is less than stellar but it's adorable, solid and the files that come out of the camera, when used well, are really quite good and, in many ways very different aesthetically than the files that come out of most other (non-Leica) cameras. 

If one purchases a brand like Sony I think a lot of the reason for that choice is to stay up to date with the latest features and technology. If that's a primary reason to buy than it's only logical that those are also the good reasons to want to constantly upgrade. To keep up. Since the Leicas are constantly at least a generation or two behind when it comes to features, and some pizzazz technology at the time when you buy them new, you come to understand that maybe we're buying them for different reasons. 

Since I'm not really in the market for a new camera or lens I find myself rotating through the existing inventory with a sense of new discovery. As in: what have I overlooked before?  On Monday I'll pack up a few LED lights, grab the Fuji GFX 50Sii and head over to my favorite law firm to make an environmental portrait of an attorney. 

I'm delighted to do so because it's a chance to re-visit the TTArtisan 90mm f1.25 lens. Yes, it vignettes quite a bit at the edges of the medium format sensor and it has some geometric distortion built in, but it's also a fast, fun lens. I'll shoot at a safe aperture to start out. "Safe" from the perspective of ensuring enough depth of field to cover from the tip of the attorney's nose to the backs of his ears. Once we have an ample number of keepers I'll ask if he'll collaborate with me by hanging out while I make more exposures at wider and wider apertures. When we're operating in safe mode while doing commercial portraits I mostly stay "North" of f5.6. Venturing as high as f8.0. But after we've got good stuff in the can I want to venture all the way down to f2.0. I know the lens has wider f-stops but by f2.0 the depth of field is so shallow that anything under f2.0 and you're just showing off mindless bokeh rendering techniques, not solving an issue that needs resolution. (And I'm not sure the lens is sharp enough at and near wide open to make this kind of tiny slice of depth of field viable....). 

As far as vignetting goes I tend not to use the 4:3 aspect ratio since various other ratios don't include the far corners and that's where the darkening is most pronounced. Even 3:2 sidesteps most of the vignetting that this lens delivers. Finally, the closer the subject the less vignetting occurs. 

In the end, knowing myself as well as I do, if I find myself shooting a lot of portraits with the Fuji GFX I will almost certainly buy the 110mm f2.0 lens which is almost universally adored by people who use the system. But not until I've hit a wall with the 90mm TTArtisan lens. Not today.

Outside of the commercial portrait arena all my other "fun" work recently has been shot with various cameras set to black and white. It's this week's trend. And with all the controls and presets available now in Lightroom black and white has become such a joy. I like boosting the contrast and I like making images darker. The scenes seem more realistic when I darken them and the increase in contrast makes images a bit more exciting. I'm so over endless tones of mushy grayscale that I almost can't look at flat images anymore without feeling a tremendously underwhelmed.

Shooting all the time sucks up memory space in the office. Currently have six 12 terabyte drives attached to the iMac Pro. Three of them back up the other three. I'm also using a couple of fast SSDs for temporary work. Stuff I'm processing in the moment. The trade-off for speed is limited size. They are each 1 terabyte. Seems to work as long as I continue upgrading, migrating and transferring. But it's a constant reminder that film was/is a pretty robust back-up medium. 

Finally. Having a blast at the pool. Yesterday I swam with an outrageously fast swimmer who won gold in the Sidney Olympics. The coach paired us up in adjacent lanes in order to mirror each other. It's a training method in which one person leads and the other person tries to mirror their stroke cadence and pace. It's a great way to learn subtle (and not so subtle) stroke improvements. Then we did a set of 50s in which my coach set (too fast) targeted repeat times for me, and my partner would estimate how much time difference in our starts would allow him to sprint and try to catch me. He pushed off the wall about five seconds after me. The logic behind the exercise is that trying not to get caught, or trying to catch a leading swimmer, on each repeat makes each person act, maybe subconsciously, more competitive and thus makes each one swim faster. Outside their comfort zone. It worked for me. I probably swam those ten 50 yard "races" faster than any I have in about 15 years. 

My fellow swimmer caught me five out of the ten times. I sprinted well but thought he might be holding back ---- just a little. It's one thing to try racing against someone about half your age but it's another thing entirely when that person is a six foot four inch tall former record holder who never stopped swimming. A bit intimidating? Yeah, I guess so... Required two lunches afterwards... and a long nap.

Winter is coming to Austin sporadically. Cold and wet today. But that means something different to us here than it does to people in, say, Montreal. Cold here is 60° and wet is --- well, wet is the same. Still, it's nice to break out sweatshirts, jackets, etc. Can't wait for another 20° drop. Then I can pull out the trench coat and pretend to be a 1950s spy. Fun with winter clothes.

 

Painting complete. Client (me) happy as a clam. House and office nicely refreshed.

 

We'd been meaning to re-paint the living room, the guest bathroom, that ceiling of the screened in back patio and, of course the studio, for a long, long time. Like 26 years a long time. I guess the fact that it wasn't urgent is a nod to the quality of the paint the last homeowner used. But it was time. Beyond time. And now I can't believe we lived with the quickly deteriorating paint for as long as we did. 

I'd like you to believe that I volunteered to climb ladders, scrape paint, re-caulk long beams positioned high up, and also to bleach the ceiling of the patio to remediate some small moldy cultures. I'd like to tell you that I couldn't wait to clean the abused white walls of the studio/office to prep them for my expert application of new paint. I'd like for you to believe that I relish hard work like this. That I have no fear of heights and love to hang out on the top two steps of twelve foot ladders. All carefree and relaxed. I'd like to write all those things with a straight face but I would worry that B. might read this blog post and write a pithy and much more honest rebuttal. Showcasing my reticence to do anything really productive around the house.  And I would be so embarrassed.

But in my defense I have been here every day to answer questions, help out, make coffee for the two man team that our painting company sent over to do the actual, hands on work and also endure the smell of drying paint. Just as I am certain that I'll be writing the check when it's all said and done. 

There was something both sad and cathartic about this particular process. I had no idea that moving all the clutter from the top of my desk and clearing off piles of stuff would be so emotionally fraught. It dawned on me that this was yet another signpost of change and transition. 

The office space looks so clean and Spartan right now. Right at this moment. I'm hesitant to start bringing stuff back in which will have the unwanted effect of cluttering up the room. For another 25  years. 

The bare white walls are so minimalist right now. Like an austere NYC art gallery.  I'm guessing this might be just the motivation I've needed to purge about 80% of the old gear, modifiers, old work, etc. that this room has been housing; like a mini-museum with metastasizing clutter syndrome. 

Drop by. Maybe I can persuade you to leave with a small parting gift. A C-Stand anyone? How about a couple hundred feet of heavy duty extension cable. Some nice, well used frames? Who needs some long rolls of white seamless background paper? We'll pay you to take it....

Since we rehabbed and re-painted the guest bathroom I can now 

invite friends over for dinner without having to apologize for the 

tattered condition we once experienced in this one. Now it seems 

like a wonderfully neat place in which to wash one's hands. 

The painters covered every piece of gear and furniture with plastic.

If I had done the job I would have convinced myself that I would

never drip paint. And then I'd have spent a few days trying to clean up the mess

followed by months of rationalizing how artistic it is to have white speckles 

applied randomly around the room.

A Nanlite LED spotlight shrouded for protection.

And I may be lazy enough to leave it just l like this and to tell everyone

that it's an expression of modern decor. I'm sure that will go over well.

The painters have departed. I should move the stuff I positioned outside back into the office space before it rains. But I'd rather take a nap. Watching other people diligently working can be exhausting. 

Global Shutter arrives. World radically changed within hours. Early adopters already ensconced in the Photography Hall of Fame. All previous cameras rendered useless.

 Here we go. The GSO. The global shutter onslaught. Breathless bloggers and video influencers have also changed history by declaring that Sony has invented a whole new way of capturing images that no one else in the world had the foresight or technology to create. 

Well.... maybe not so fast. I think a small company that designs and produces imaging sensors solved the technical stuff of G.S. well over a decade ago. For that matter Arriflex, Red, and Panasonic have been using global shutters in high end video cameras for.....a long time. Quite successfully. Sony basically fine-tuned the sensor and imaging pipeline technology in order to help you fill up memory cards much more quickly, in a consumer camera, and with many nearly identical frames. Just like video.

Don't get me wrong. I think global shutters are, in theory, a great idea. They solve some problems. But whether they are the problems we needed to solve is yet to be determined. Is a super high frame rate a good thing? Maybe, but maybe it creates a worse problem by allowing one to generate so many nearly identical files that memory cards quickly fill up, hard drives get overwhelmed and editing time extends egregiously which cuts down on time for human enjoyment. 

Here's a prediction: As soon as global shutters trickle down to affordable, consumer digital cameras, and the "feature" of an "endless frame rate" arrives with them software companies will almost immediately come out with "AI" software that learns your taste in photographs and automatically winnows down your take in a folder. Effectively homogenizing your vision based on what you already did in the past. Work that falls outside your software's learned "taste" parameters gets dumped. Even if it's something you thought to try in a new way. The software will require faster processors and bigger, faster SSDs to operate. In one camera purchase you've created a new need to upgrade vital parts of your computer and your image processing. 

A fact check: Loss of quantum efficiency. Global Shutter sensors can't currently take advantage of BSI technology and depend on older semiconductor tech. Current sensors used for global shutter photography are between one and two stops less efficient which equals one or two stops more noise. 

And then there is the engineering workaround to delivering speed; and speed is what lies at the base of a global shutter implementation. Each file that comes off a sensor; each frame, must be processed by the camera. Hundred thousand dollar movie cameras get around the need to process their files in camera by dumping all the raw information off the sensor and directly into large scale, high speed memory. Super fast SSDs. The raw results (flat, dark, low saturation, etc.) are only made "visible" and workable in post production. Or, in movie cameras, review outputs that have their own adjustable Log profiles.

Current users of high end still cameras have been spoiled. With current frame rates from mechanical shutters cameras have time to take raw data and profile with white balance settings, contrast, saturation and other settings in order to make a pleasing and (hopefully) representative smaller file to delivery to your camera's rear screen or EVF for your immediate viewing or preview and review. The files have been profiled, your camera settings incorporated, etc. It happens to every frame that comes through your camera. Otherwise you couldn't really make much of an evaluation when reviewing the images on your camera screen. 

But here's what is almost never mentioned about cameras and speed, it's the compromises between the throughput of the camera and the amount of time and processing power being lavished on each frame. In order to give you the faster frame rates that many desire something has to be streamlined. To keep costs down parts in the camera (sub processors, main processors, GPUs, etc.) have to be evaluated and compromises have to be made to meet budgets. You could have better color and lower noise out of current sensors if you were willing to pay in terms of battery use, overall cost and increased camera body size (to handle thermal issues...) but too many consumers only see the top level specs. Those are resolution, frame rate and PRICE. 

Price being the ultimate "deal killer". But also the compromises required to hit a price point have a direct effect on image quality. As far as speed goes, all else being equal, the faster you pull frames through a camera's pipeline the less time the camera's working guts have to apply processing to each image. If cost and frame rate are fixed conditions for a camera (to hit the all important price point) then the maker cuts cost in the invisible to consumers areas. They can take a slower imaging processor (the unit that applies corrections and writes output data after files come off the sensor) and reduce the number and/or complexity of the operations the imaging processor undertakes. Do you wonder why very high end Phase One cameras work in the realm of 16 bits while many popular Sony full frame cameras work in the pedestrian realm of 12 bits? It's because churning out highly detailed and data dense 16 bit files requires more (and more expensive) parts and processing. It's also a reason why cameras with very high degrees of color discrimination process files at a slower speed than the one's which paint files with a broad and not very discriminating "brush." 

Color discrimination is the process of breaking file's colors into finer and finer differentiations of tone and hue. The finer the color discrimination the more accurate and nuanced the color coming out of the camera. Less color discrimination and you get a less accurate representations the colors in your images. Would you personally rather have more speed or more color discrimination, the ability to work with files that have higher bit depths, and files in which noise is treated with a scalpel instead of a sledge hammer?

Granted, faster and faster processors will narrow the gap. But only if the makers of cameras earmark the speed increases for file quality over speed and throughput. 

So, yes, the new camera with the global shutter from Sony is an engineering marvel but like any camera it's host to a number of compromises. Higher noise, vis-a-vis current top line 24 megapixel BSI sensors. Lower dynamic range. And almost certainly a processing pipeline that includes 12 bit processing as the default for all raw files. But you do have the nice features of being about to shoot with flash at any shutter speed and the ability to use super high shutter speeds. But with much more limited dynamic range.

Oh, and I almost forgot, the ability to fill a 256 Gigabyte memory card in the blink of an eye. 

Processing. As in most computer based endeavors how processing power is used is a continual trade off between consumer candy features (speed) and real, state of the art image quality. Just sayin'

If you are heading to the Olympics next year to shoot still images for Sport Illustrated or Obscure Sports Quarterly and you are horribly unsure of your skill, timing, etc. A new camera with a global sensor might be just what the editor ordered. Hold the shutter button down long enough and you'll have something for A.I. image selectors to choose from. Every new technology that trickles down into photography has some  positive use case, but that's separate from everyday value to most photographers. 

I'm sure the new Sony A9III is a miracle of sorts. But every photographic miracle comes with some sort of balancing compromise. Old saying.....there's no free lunch. 

OT: Crazy Times at the Pool. What was I thinking???

 I'm happy to be swimming with a competitive team now that I'm 68 years of age. Every workout seems sweeter. Every little victory delicious. Just finishing a hard set seems more fun.  More rewarding. And, interestingly, I'm not slowing down. Much.

Today we were coached by Jenn. She's our toughest coach. 

The warm up was standard fare. 400 yard swim, 400 pull, some kicking sets, A thousand yards with which to loosen up the muscles, find one's rhythm and get the heart rate up. But today's main set was intense.

We did two sets of 20 x 50 yards. That's not so unusual but the intervals were. We were asked to choose a "challenging" interval for the first set of 20 ( times two lengths...) and then choose an interval that was five seconds faster per 50 for the second set. My lane mates chose 45 seconds per 50 for the first set and then 40 seconds per 50 for the second set. Mercifully, there was a break between the two sets. But a "break" at swim practice still means doing yardage. For us it meant a 300 yard dolphin kick. But that was restful compared to the main sets....

Some lanes chose to do their sets on more relaxed intervals but no lane selected faster intervals. We got into a pace we could sustain and which, for the first set, gave us about 5 or 6 seconds rest between 50s. The second set was almost touch and go. A few deep breaths between 50s. A second or two of rest. 

In the end we knocked out about 3300 yards in our hour workout. But man, those were some fast yards with micro amounts of recovery. I'd feel more smug about finishing a set like that except that our lane leader today is just a bit older than I am...  There is a lot to be gained by not succumbing to our culture's perspective on age and performance. We can do a lot more than most people imagine. 

Now, back to the house painting adventures... (going well).

After a weekend of pulling out stacks of paper, moving filing cabinets, rolling up carpets and other prep work for house upgrades there was a lot of pent up desire to be outside with a fun camera.

 

I've been shooting in Jpeg+Raw lately with the M 240, mostly to give myself a choice, when I review files, between black and white and color. The image above looked much better to me in black and white while most of the files below seemed to depend on color to carry the day. 

The Leica M 240 and the 50mm Voigtlander lens seem to be a perfect match. When I use wider lenses on that body, especially the 28mm, you have to move your eye around the finder to really see the frame lines with any degree of accuracy. And that's presuming that the framelines are accurate in the first place. A big assumption given parallax and the changing magnification as the lens focuses toward the minimum focusing distance. The 35mm focal length is the last stop before the inconvenience of wider angle lenses seeps in. I was going to go through the process of finding just the right diopter attachment so I would not have to wear my glasses with the wider angle lenses but I've pretty much decided that in the same way the Q2 is a camera with a fixed 28mm lens and the Fuji X100V is a fixed 35mm lens, the M240 might most comfortably be considered a camera with a fixed 50mm lens. At least the way I use it.

At some point, if I ever warm up to using the 28mm on the rangefinder I'll hunt down a very nice 28mm bright line finder to put into the accessory shoe of the camera. Then I'll focus through the regular finder and then compose with the bright line accessory finder. But for now? I'll keep sticking the 28mm on the front of the SL2 and be happy with it. Or, alternately, I'll stop worrying about where the edges of the frame lines are in the M 240 finder and just merrily shoot without making a big deal out of it. It's not like I'm using this particular lens and camera combination for client work, after all.

I could lie and chalk up the performance here to the fantastic dynamic range of a decade old sensor or I could be honest and admit that I started with a dark file, used an A.I. filter to accentuate the color and contrast of the sky, then made another layer in Lightroom and used the brush tool to select the area under the eaves and on the wall adjacent to the eaves and in shadow. Once selected I color corrected the underlying area (it was too blue), warmed up the white on the sign with the hand, and opened up the exposure on the underlying area as well. I finished it off by adding some clarity slider to the selection but not to the global frame since I wanted the sky to go out of focus. Lightroom makes area by area corrections much easier to do now and I rarely have to go into PhotoShop to get what I want.

Why am I happy with the frame above? Well, I screwed up the exposure by one stop. I forgot about the 1/4000th of a second limit and, using ISO 500 and f4.0, I overexposed and subsequently got into an argument with my camera. But I was able to pull back the details in the file by reducing the exposure in post. I'd read that the sensor in this camera and earlier M digital cameras had limited dynamic range but I think this is a repudiation of some of that reporting. Sure, if you are off by two stops I'm betting your file is screwed but one half or even one stop? Worth a try every time. Or....you could just take the time to get the exposure correct. (Red-faced with shame....). 

the City of Austin likes murals. They'll commission people to paint them on just about anything. 

Above and below= Two versions of the same frame. Color and "Monochrome" AKA: black and white. 

I went back and forth but after looking at them for a while I decided that I like the black and white version better. Not sure why. Retro charm?

Great idea but I'm pretty sure Willie doesn't want the job and wouldn't like the salary....

On this image and several below I used the Lightroom feature: Lens Blur to selectively blur the background. You'll note that because it analyzes the original frame to determine it's "depth" via a 3D mapping routine the focus falls off in a natural progression the further it "extends" away from the main subject. You can control the amount and intensity of the fall off as well as modifying the range of the effect. I absolutely love it and will probably never have to buy a fast lens ever again (kidding? maybe). 

A bit overdone in these examples but easier to see that way....

Nothing beats an A to B comparison, right?

Top one is with the Lens Blur filter using default settings. 

The bottom image is unfiltered. As it appears right out of camera. 

Not a huge difference but enough. 

One click. that's it. No time having to select the subject, etc. 

This is either machine learning or artificial intelligence but whichever it is

I like it.

I used a "dramatic sky" filter from the LRC presets and toned it down by 50%. 

Is any day really complete without a dose of Mannequin? Especially a mannequin with what appears to be a pyramid in the background. 

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One Danger in Dealing with Retirement. Or even the Expectation of retirement.

 

I'm a sucker for clouds. Puffy ones stuck in contrasty blue skies, especially. 

After the painters got started B. took over managing our painting project today and I grabbed my camera and headed out the door for breakfast, a morning walk and a respite from over-prepping everything. The easiest destination was my current default, South Congress Ave. Shopping haven for the South side of town...

I was amazed to find convenient, on street parking just a few blocks away from a long time coffee favorite, Jo's Coffee. You've seen many images from Jo's; especially in the last few months. But today I went there for their breakfast tacos and a cup of drip coffee. They used to bring in other people's tacos to sell but they now make their own and they are delicious. Today I went for bacon, egg and cheese on whole wheat tortillas. Jo's seating is all outdoors. If you want to eat at Jo's or meet for coffee at Jo's you'll be doing it along with whatever weather Central Texas wants to provide in the moment. Today it was clear, clean and in the 70's. Yes, that's Fahrenheit. Perfect for coffee outside.

I'm still getting fully checked out on the Leica M 240. My biggest stumble today was forgetting that 1/4,000th of a second is as high as that shutter is going to go. I'm used to cameras that can crest 1/16,000th of a second and I keep wondering why, when I've got the exposure compensation set to minus one stop, my photos are still coming out overexposed. Duh. Maybe I should pay attention to the flashing 1/4000th in the finder and select a smaller aperture. It's a thought at any rate. 

I have a similar weakness for photos of clouds floating in fields of blue done in color. Not as edgy but....blue is universally peoples' favorite color.

When I got back to this week's temporary office (vacant bedroom now filled with much crap from the studio) I checked messages and saw two from friends. One is a fellow photographer who was inviting me over to his place for a late afternoon "happy hour" tomorrow. He's recently had both knees replaced so I'll probably go by my favorite Mexican restaurant and pick up some really good Queso and a bag of freshly made chips. Try to take the work out of entertaining. He's always fun to talk to, has a big, sprawling place with gardens all around and a lovely patio on which to sit and watch the sunset. And generally surrounded by artists and authors; a few of whose names you'd recognize...

The next message was from a long time friend and the former CFO of our advertising agency from back in the 1980s. She was calling to see if we could schedule a "happy hour" for Wednesday afternoon to celebrate both of our recent birthdays and to catch up. She's always been a financial mentor for me and is probably one of the real reasons I live in a nice house and can afford to hire painters instead of sitting alone in a tiny apartment covering cracks in a dirty wall with old, free posters from bad concerts. Her persistent mantra, early in my career, to save, save, save was delivered into much resistance. So I am in awe that her persistence is what carried the day.

We'll meet at a favorite neighborhood restaurant to share a bottle of wine and a plate of cheeses and charcuterie. And to talk about kids, retirement, writing and what to expect from this crazy economy.

The danger of having a bunch of friends who are slightly older than me and who have plunged into the adventure of retirement before me seems to be that the happy hour is gaining, week by week, in popularity. I tease a bit. We're all pretty mellow at this stuff. Two glasses of wine and we're usually happy enough and ready to head home. Still, it's habit forming and not the best thing if you are planning to swim hard the next day. A balance between social engagement and possible excess...

Hmmm. A photo project about America's fascination with happy hours. That might be fun. 

It's mid-afternoon and the painting is coming along well. We're about to see a second coat of white paint on the ceiling. Amazing how white a white ceiling can look when it's revisited and re-coated after two and a half decades. 

So, what's after all this painting? you may ask. Ah, well, then it will be time to replace the hardwood floor in the living room. And start on Winter landscaping. And re-visit the interior touches in my office. It just never stops....

Buying cameras is a lot more fun but it actually is nice to see fresh paint and it makes everything seem clean and new. And, I think for B. it is a lot more fun than buying cameras. Good to compromise from time to time.