Sunday, December 08, 2024
hanging out over on South Congress Ave. Having fun just people watching and detail snapping. A calm and relaxed walking adventure.
The Pool at the San José Motel. The steps...
It's the 8th of December. Christmas is just around the corner. I have just one job left to complete before I put the "closed for vacation" sign up on the door (metaphorically). I know a lot of people get stressed during the holiday season. Some are overbooked and, even worse, sometimes overbooked with family that brings its own level of stress. Some are running out to time to work a full forty hours, deal with kids, and still have time to shop for gifts. Gifts that may run up some credit card debt that might linger for months... Forget leisure time, exercise, healthy food and the pursuit of hobbies.
I categorically refuse to participate in the stressful parts of the holidays. I'm happy to help out but you won't find me volunteering to organize the swim team party, bake a cake to take to a dinner party, or assemble bikes and complex toys for anyone's kids. Nor will I willingly go to the NPR singalong at the state capitol, or drink spiked apple cider or it's sinister companion -- eggnog. I won't decorate gingerbread houses and I no longer am able to visit my parents or grandparents because they have all passed away.
And, since all my neighbors have strung enough lights to blind airline pilots traveling at 30,000 feet, I don't feel at all compelled to drag my butt up onto the roof of my house and string endless strands of light in order to feel included. Or even more emphatically I won't copy two of my neighbors by hiring services that send crews of workers to wrap every tree, post, railing or edge of roof with yet more lights. I've already had to install black out curtains in my bedroom as a result of their holiday gusto! Seriously, if I need a reading light at night all I have to do is open my curtains and steal a couple hundred thousand watts of their X-mas cheer.
Nope. My plan it to get a nice gift for my spouse, drop some cash on my son and distribute very nice bottles of wine to my friends who deserve it. Except for the non-drinking friends, I'll have to figure that one out. But the basic idea is to celebrate by taking time off for quiet reflection --- which basically means long walks with cameras.
Today is a perfect template for the next 17 days. The swim practices on Sunday are an hour later than the ones during the week or on Saturdays. My crew was in our lane and swimming punctually at 9 a.m. Several members at the practice seem to have worn themselves out the night before at the UT football game. But we muddled through anyway.
After a hearty breakfast I thought about what I wanted to shoot today and decided it would be fun to see what was happening over on the ever popular S. Congress Ave. strip. I sat for a few minutes in quiet meditation, waiting for the universe to inform me about which camera and which lens would be best for me today. Surprisingly it was a camera I somewhat slighted in a blog post yesterday. The SL2. Seemed the universe was looking to redeem that camera's reputation. I attached the Sigma 45mm lens since I mentioned the mania for 40mm lenses several times in the same article. That's it. A high resolution camera and a smaller, more agile lens. Ready to go.
The walk seems to be the important part of the outing but I did have fun running into an old friend who has been out taking photos in Austin for at least the last three decades. He was having coffee outside at Jo's with three other photographer friends. One of them recognized me from a daylong cinema lighting workshop I used to give in support of a filmmaker's filmmaking classes. He reminded me of a fun demo we used to do. We'd get chunks of big, broken mirrors, put them in huge darkroom trays, shine a gelled light at an angle to the tray so that the light from the mirrors reflected on a wall about 45° to the other side of the tray. Then we'd jiggle the tray so the reflections would wiggle, dance and mimic moving water. It was always a popular thing to do with a lighting class, the students of which were just learning how many possibilities there are with light. Those were cinema workshops we did nearly 30 years ago!
I wanted to photograph more people out on the street today but to be honest most of them looked boring to me. Most were of the same general demographic. Most were overweight. Most were dressed in generic clothes. And, as I am as shallow and judgmental as they come, few opportunities gelled or had the potential to gel. So I took another path. Signage, ornaments, scenes and stuff. Most of the images will get tossed as soon as I finish posting this but that doesn't minimize for me the value of the walk. The exercise of seeing. The practice with the camera or, even as indulgent, a sort of reaffirming of the value to me of the Leica SL2.
Some bloggers can't see the difference between cameras, or cameras and lenses. It always seems very, very obvious to me. I would suggest that having spent a lot of time shooting very few images but thinking ab out them too much is a less practical way to learn to see photographically than to spend even more time shooting a zillion images and a practice ranging across dozens of cameras because when the data sample gets big enough the differentiating characteristics and patterns of camera file personalities becomes clearer and clearer. More and more defined. Like everything else observation of differences takes time and work. Not just time.
The 45m Sigma lens is one of my favorites. Until recently I owned two of them but after a certain point I realized that the duplication was a bit silly and so sold the second copy. The one I kept has more wear marks, more miles, and to me that makes it more fun, more valuable. Since, as I stated above, I think the mileage in the process trumps the time spent not shooting much at all.
All photo walks start out with a warm-up session during which your brain, your hands and you eyes all get integrated and start working in concert. I like to look for scenes with color or shapes, or shapes and colors. I shoot a lot knowing that I can delete mountains of images after I give them a quick look through. Very little needs to be archived. More needs to be thrown away.
After several hours of watching, walking shooting and talking with people I knew or was meeting for the first time (the owner of the Citroen for example) I realized there was left over spaghetti with meat sauce in a container, in the refrigerator at home, just waiting for some lucky soul to warm it up in the microwave and feast on it. I decided to rush home and beat the crowds. It was good. Really good. As much fun to eat as the SL2 was to shoot. You know....it's really a darn good camera. And fun to shoot with. More like that.
The Stetson classic, Open Road hat always beckons to me to buy. The same as the Ricoh GRIIIx used to. But I'm almost certain that if I drop $285 on a hat I'll discover when meeting younger and blatantly honest friends, that I look dorky in the hat and wasted the money I could have spent on them....
Still. The do look pretty cool.
Imagine how disappointed I was when I discovered that these cakes are fake. Just fake.
A permanent ornamental feature at Home Slice Pizza.
Take your holiday season nice and slow. It's not a contest.
Saturday, December 07, 2024
Why is it that I think I want a Ricoh GRIIIx but just can't bring myself to hit the "add to cart" button? It's not the cost rather it's the belief that I already have something much better in the category.
bulked up for serious art shooting.
I've read all the reviews. Even the ones in Mandarin. I thought about which trousers might be a most appropriate nest for this most pocketable of cameras. I dreamed about lightening my gear load. Dreamed about walking through a big city for a full day with nothing weighing me down. How could I go wrong?
Then I played with one. It's a squirrelly little dude. Kinda like holding onto a bar of slippery soap. And I shot some test shots. And I watched as the battery drained in front of my eyes. And I squinted at the rear screen and every minute of my test run I wished the camera did this or that a lot better than it does.
Someone finally sent me a big payment last week and I was, for the moment, flush with what I would call, "transitory cash." Which, it plainly says, is cash that's on the move. Either to pay for something real or to squander yet again on photo crap. But with cash at the ready I casually, slyly, almost as though on a whim, cruised to the B&H website to see about actually buying one of the most popular compact cameras on all of TikTok. Second only to the endangered species called the Fuji X100V8 or X100VI or whatever. Doesn't matter what you call the faux rangefinder Fuji because you can only get them by trading a kidney on Ebay. And even then you might not get what you asked for. Almost certainly not.
When I arrived at the B&H website I was crestfallen to find that all the variants of the GR111 were back-ordered and out of stock. So I bought some of Charles Manson's Elon Musk's crypto currency instead and called it a day. When I dropped back by B&H this evening, days after my first visit in search of GRs several of the models were back in stock but try as I might I couldn't work up the necessary enthusiasm required to go through with the usual reckless buying transaction.
Why? I blame the camera I'm showcasing here. Now. It's the original Sigma fp and it's not much bigger than the GRIII. Well it is bigger where it counts --- in several places. First of all it has a bigger, juicier, full frame sensor. Not just a full frame sensor but a back side illuminated (BSI), 24 megapixel sensor. The second place where it is positively engorged by comparison is in the size of the battery. It's not a great battery but it sure is bigger than the skinny sliver of a battery in the GRs.
It handles the same as the GRIII cameras in that one looks at a rear screen to compose and shoot. And it's small. But to be fair it's not quite small enough that one's Levis are going to swallow up the camera in one of the pockets.... But you can always store an extra SD card in the watch pocket!
Left in a barebones configuration the Sigma is small and unobtrusive. But the fact that it can be configured for lots of different (and professional) uses is a huge plus. Here's the secret to my preference for the Sigma over the TikToker photo favorite ---- the fp has the ability to use all L mount lenses and since it has an L lens mount you can also, with adapters, use all of your Leica, Voitlander and Zeiss lenses on the camera. If you want flexibility with the GR111 cameras, with their fixed lenses, you'll need two. One for wide angle vistas and one for normal photography. That can be a lot to juggle. And two takes up prodigious pocket space.
With the Sigma you can go from an ultra wide angle lens to an extreme telephoto lens and everything in between. Pretty much everything fits. I've even had old Nikon F lenses on the front of the little machine. With the GRs you choose on nearly normal focal length or one ubiquitous semi-wide angle focal length and that's it. For all time. No matter how much your tastes or travels change.
I can tell you right now that the Sigma is a much more rugged camera. And it has a big heat sink on the back, under the screen, so you can keep shooting with it even as you are personally succumbing to heat exhaustion under a glowering sun.
I like using the fp with the Sigma 45mm f2.8. They seem made for each other. But some will shame you in 2024-2025 if you aren't zeroed right in at 40mm. Not to be sidelined I found a 40mm f1.4 Voigtlander lens (VM) in the drawer and an adapter to mount the lens on any L mount camera. Voila. Now I have a 40mm on my fp camera and it's two full stops faster than the lens on the GR. Trade-off? yeah. You get to manually focus it.
If you are intent on shooting video with either camera you'll find the fp much better spec'd out and you have the option of outputting raw video files via the micro-HDMI port to an Atomos Ninja monitor/recorder. Win, win, win. In desperate need of an EVF on your camera of choice? No go on the GR. Yes go on the fp. It's kludgy but it works and the image in the finder is really good.
The fp is also exceedingly weather resistant, and smackdown resistant. And if you are a contrarian you'll find far fewer fellow influencees running around doing street photography with the fp than with one of the various GRs. I guess it's all of this and a bit more that keeps me from rushing out and buying yet another little plastic compact camera. That, and the realization that I already spent the transitory cash.
Save yourself while there's time. The influencers are coming for you.
slimmed down for a walkable package with a nice grip.
for those times when you need pure, raw video and you wanna use that big Leica glass.
naked trim.
contextual appraisal of actual size.
of course you can use it with Leica and Zeiss M series glass.
in its most pure form.
weird grips and weirder lenses abound.
this camera made me guilty of using the dirty baby diaper hold.
considering adapting bright line finders in lieu of the big loupe.
Everyone talks a big game about good, ole Kodachrome but do they have the balls
to toss out five garbage cans full of old, useless K-chrome slides? And, if they only shot a few
hundred rolls do they even really know squat about the famous slide film? Call me back when you've
shot your first 10K rolls of K-64. And your first thousand rolls of K-chrome 200. Or your first
3K rolls of medium format K-chrome. Remember that?
Tell me again why people are regurgitating the history of K-Chrome once again.
Can't we let it die with dignity? It's not coming back.
Best (and only) camera purchased in 2024.
In an absolutely amazing turn of events I bought only one camera in 2024. While the year is not over yet I don't see any more pending camera purchases on the horizon. Not a one. Seems that after years of experimenting I finally found a mix of cameras that work well for me and which have slowed down or stopped my somewhat irrational desire to acquire more. Hopefully I will no longer be known as the photographer who changes camera systems "more often than most people change underwear...." Four years and counting with the same brand...
The camera I did buy was the Leica SL2-S. I bought it for two reasons. I mean two other reasons besides the primary one which was that I always just wanted one. But the two practical reasons are: 1. the camera's very good noise performance when used at high ISO settings and, 2. because it makes the perfect back-up camera (same body, same controls, the same menus, etc.) for the original SL2 --- or vice versa. Another reason, the importance of which ebbs and flows depending on the use case, is the smaller file size when shooting raw compared to the higher resolution SL2. Much easier to deal with for storage, processing, speed, etc. All of these reasons are based on actual use cases. Situations in which I found myself wishing for a good combination of really good image stabilization, great low light performance and manageable file sizes. All while fitting well into an existing system base.
I have a couple of the older, original SL cameras and I love them to death. Especially if I can shoot them under 3200 ISO, with shutter speeds above 1/125th (no I.S.) and mostly in daylight. The SLs are workhorse cameras while the SL2-S provides more performance and is a more evolved camera.
Prior to the introduction of the SL3 I would have positioned the SL2-S as the best of all the SLx cameras. While the SL2 has nearly double the resolution it comes at the price of more noise. Not a lot more and certainly not much more if you intended to downsize your raw files, but more noise nonetheless. In a direct comparison between the SL2 and the SL2-S I find the later camera, which is a bit heavier, to feel more solid and bulletproof than the former. Both the SL2 and the SL2-S have image stabilization which outmatches that found in the newer SL3 and all three are rated to IP54 standards for dust and moisture resistance.
When I first embarked on purchasing a second generation mirrorless camera from Leica I had a choice between the SL2-S and the SL2. At the time I felt certain that the extra resolution of the SL2 (47.5 mp) would come in handy for the commercial photography assignments I routinely handled. The lower resolution of the SL2-S felt as though it was positioned more like part of a wide ranging pack of similar cameras from other makers.
Over the four years that I've owned the SL2 the one thing I found myself wishing for more than anything else would be a lower resolution raw setting. It would be great to shoot that camera in a full frame, raw mode but at half the resolution. Especially for portraits which tend not to need higher and higher resolutions.
If you have not been paying attention I have to tell you that the middle generation of Leica SL cameras (the SL2 and SL2-S) have become much more affordable in the second half of 2024. We can thank all the buyers of the new SL3 camera for that. Prices for minty, used SL2 cameras have dropped down under $3,000 while the SL2-S has recently been offered in a "certified, pre-owned" condition for around the same price. And, being Leica certified those cameras frequently come with a two year factory warranty.
I added a certified, pre-owned SL2-S a couple of months back for less than $3,000. When new these cameras still sell for around $5100. Seemed like a bargain to me and more so now that I've had the opportunity to put mine through its paces to see what it can do.
Here's what I like about the camera over the original, high res SL2: The camera is slightly heavier which I think is the result of some internal changes between the two models. I can only conjecture but I think the SL2-S has a reconfigured shutter system that's slightly quieter. And which seems to operate with lower frequency noise. Which makes the system aesthetically nicer from an audible point of view. The increase in weight in a body that's exactly the same in all dimensions also seems to speak to changes which give faster processing speeds given that it doesn't have the same restrictions on power use for high def video settings. The SL2 video drops down from 10 bit to 8 bit when the battery power drops below half. And it seems to process files slower as the power from the battery drops below 25%. The SL2 really likes a juicy and fully charged battery or other power source to operate at its highest capability. The SL2-S seems to have improved on all of these measures. Better operability.
Both cameras seem more responsive when paired with fully charged SCL-6 batteries. Those are the newest version of the batteries that can be used in most current Leicas, including the whole SL series and the latest Q2 and Q3 camera models. The extra capacity in the batteries seems to stabilize both cameras a bit more.
In my personal experiences, and this is very subjective (everyone's noise tolerance is different), the major benefit of the BSI sensor in the SL2-S is in the way it handles noise as the ISOs go up. When I compare all three of the SL variants I own I find that the SL and the SL2 are equal and good at settings up to 1600. At 3200 the SL2 is about a half stop to a stop better than the older SL. But the SL2-S is performing at 12,600 ISO about as well as the SL2 does at 3200. That's a two stop improvement and it can make a difference in many available light situations. The color from the SL2-S seems richer than that of the SL2. Of the three camera models I prefer the look of the SL2-S the best, from raws or from out of the camera Jpegs. My second place favorite for color and tonality are the SL cameras and the SL2 brings up last place in the race. All the files can be tweaked but it's a process. I find the SL2 files to be flatter and "thinner." Not deal-killer bad. Just not as spectacular.
When it comes to noise performance Adobe is currently hard at work changing the paradigm and somewhat leveling the playing field among the cameras. Their A.I. DeNoise feature in Lightroom is quite powerful and brings new life to the SL2 and the SL cameras where noise is concerned. The only downside is that the feature currently only works with raw files. So Jpeg shooters still need to pay attention to which camera they select when the light levels start dropping.
All three of these cameras are big, heavy and solid. The quality you get from any modern camera is so much influenced by what kinds of lenses you hang on the front of it and so you can, for the most part, interchange cameras from similar groups and get similar, great results. Put a killer lens on a Leica, Sony or Nikon top of line camera and you'll get really great files. So it's not as compelling to buy one brand over the other unless there are lenses proprietary to one mount that spank the competition. Sigma seems to be the spoiler here in that they are making lenses across brands that are world class. I use a lot of them-- happily. And the ones I use are available for both the Sony and Nikon cameras as well. So, from an optical point of view, the performance of the files, the differences boil down to the color science that each company is using. And those are personal, subjective choices for end users.
In choosing the Leicas and specifically the SL2-S for my own use I first looked at the human/machine interface is represented by the physical camera controls and the menus. For the way my brain is wired the Leicas were my first choice. Then I looked at the way I shoot images and realized that much of the "improvements" in other brands (fast focus, fast frame rates, infinite customizability) were less important to me than a rugged and resilient build quality and access to Leica SL lenses, and also the ability to use M lenses in a camera with a thinner AA filter which increases the performance of M series wide angle lenses. And M lens profiles applicable in camera.
There is no magic bullet that makes one camera brand objectively superior to any other. It's the confluence of features and the mindset of the user that pushes us to prefer one solution over another. Over the course of my 40+ year career in photography I have used every sort of camera imaginable and many different brands. I can make competent images with just about anything. So, at a certain point it all boils down to personal preferences. To date the SL2-S, with it's "just right" sensor and rock solid build is a camera which, especially at the current prices, really aligns with the parameters I like and want in a camera. The original SL2 had me at the EVF and the precision eyepiece with which to view it. The SL2-S matched that and then added better noise reduction and more manageable file size to the mix. It was an easy sell.
It's an odd year for me to not have purchased more cameras. It's probably largely due to my decision to create a gradual "glide path" to retirement. I think most freelance photographers, and even most small business owners don't need to be binary about retiring. We can choose to throttle back and weed out the shitty jobs from the pleasant jobs. And that's more fun. And manageable.
Part of refusing to take all jobs and instead fine-tuning the selection process also means that one doesn't need to be loaded up with a wide range of gear that gives one the feeling of assurance that you'll be ready to handle anything that comes down the road. If a job now requires different or more lights than I currently own, or different camera capabilities I now turn the job down instead of tweaking the inventory. Now I might not be able to light a 10,000 square foot lab with the lights I own but I no longer need to accept jobs which involve lighting a 10,000 square foot lab.
I have done a couple projects this year and last where I didn't want to deal with providing and setting up tons of lighting gear. But that's what was needed. I partnered with a cinema lighting company. They have trucks filled with all manner of movie lighting gear (mostly now LEDs...), big stands, scrims, nets, diffusion panels up to 12x12 fee, sandbags, cables and more. For a set fee you can "rent" a truck, an operator and an assistant by the day. They'll come into your location and set up whatever lighting design you specify. Work with the best people on a big enough job and "your crew" can come in the day before, pre-light, and be ready for you to make final fine-tuning changes on the shooting day. You walk in with a small camera bag and maybe a tripod and shoot the job. When the job is over you head out for drinks with the happy client while the crew takes down all the lighting gear, loads it into their truck and we're all done. All that's left is writing the check for their services. Had I known how much more fun it is to work this way I would have been doing it for years. Better late than never....
Finding the camera you enjoy working with is a process that depends on more than just reading spec sheets. If you are going to spend days, months or even years with a camera in your hand you have to like the way it feels and the way it operates. You need to work well with the way it provides information and access to features. These are all subjective things. Like picking a spouse. Kind of. Even just not liking the way the menus work might mean a messy divorce down the road --- and generally after much unhappy friction. Find a camera that speaks to you and you might find your overall enjoyment of our craft rises.
Just some stuff to think about. I've actually gotten rid of perfectly good cameras because I just couldn't stand the way the shutter sounded. It all makes a difference. It all depends on where your sensitivities lie. Life is too short to use tools that don't fit you.
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