Gearing up for a busy week ahead, starting with a deep dive into the play/musical, "Matilda" at Zach Theatre.

I'll be at a late rehearsal on Friday to watch the blocking and the flow of a new production at Zach Theatre. I don't charge for my early reconnaissance because I know it will make me a better photographer on the two shoot days that follow. On Sunday, and then again on Tuesday, I'll be photographing the Tech Rehearsal and then the final Dress Rehearsal to generate marketing and public relations photographs. There are a lot of children in the play and since they can't work the same kind of schedule the adult actors do there will be a "red team" and a "blue team" which will alternate. Shooting at Tech and Dress rehearsals ensures that I'll get photographs with all the members of both teams. 

While I may modify my selections after my scouting adventure I thought you might be interested in what kind of gear I'm planning to bring along and why. 

I'll be depending, mostly, on two lenses for the bulk of my coverage; the 16-55mm f2.0 and the 50-140mm f2.8. I certainly don't need anything wider as the 16mm end of the shorter zoom can cover the entire stage from midway up the orchestra seating. The 16/55mm is perfect for wide coverage when we have large ensembles on stage while the 50/140mm is perfect for closer shots with the 140mm focal length allowing me to fill the frame with a standing actor or compose a nice, tight two person shot with good isolation. 

Both lenses are usable wide open and I intend to shoot them either wide open or, at the most, one stop down from wide open. I'll use both of the lens on dedicated XH1 bodies. While I don't necessarily need the image stabilization I do want to use the soft shutter in those cameras, in mechanical mode, if I start to see any banding in the electronic shutter mode. The mechanical shutter is quiet enough to use even with an audience, if necessary. I use battery grips on both cameras with three batteries per camera so I don't have to worry about the need for battery changes during the show.

I'm also bringing along the new, 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 for its theatre debut. I'll dedicate a third XH-1 body for that lens as well, also with a battery grip. I want to see how usable the longer zoom is for isolating the person in the starring role for some of the special effects shots on stage. One of the benefits of owning three identical bodies set up in exactly the same way is the ability to put a camera down on the seat next to me, grab a body with a different lens to shoot and not having to worry about doing anything more than fine-tuning exposure. I'll know pretty quickly whether or not the long lens is going to be useful in this situation and, if it isn't I'll turn off that camera and ignore it for the rest of the evening. 

I'm comfortable shooting the XH-1 cameras at a full stop above what I am comfortable with when shooting with the Panasonic G9s so I am looking forward to working between ISO 3200 and 6400 instead of my previous range of 1600 to 3200. 

The main things I am looking for in my scouting will be how often and in what configuration dance numbers happen and how often groups come together for dramatic compositions. I'll actually take notes with quick sketches in order to get the run of the show clear in my mind. Secondarily, I'll be looking for the lighting cues and color filtration of various scenes and try to figure out how best to configure the cameras for the best compromise between total control and useable file size. 

That's what I'm up to on Friday, Sunday and Tuesday. 

On Thursday I'm back in San Antonio for a day to shoot a corporate event for Austin based client, WP Engine. The rest of the week is set aside for pre-production for video. We'll be going into a sound studio location to make a promotional video for a different production coming to Zach Theatre after "Matilda." I'll be working with their in-house technical director on a three camera shoot and we're both looking forward to the project. This is one I get to do the way I like best: we plan together, we shoot together and then I get to hand off the footage to the technical director and sit back while he does the heavy lifting of editing. Ahhhhh.

A shoot like this is a great opportunity to give some of the single focal length lenses a real workout. The technical director and I both agree that the majority of our project will work very well with a limited depth of field look. I hear the 90mm f2.0 calling......

Austin is starting to come back to (business) life after SXSW and Spring Break. It's nice to get back into a working groove. I've had enough time off. 

OT: My iPhone and my dad's 91st birthday.

Dad's favorite table in the dining room at memory care.

I arranged for a pet sitter to hang out with Studio Dog today. The rest of my small family had to go to work. I hopped in my car and headed to San Antonio. Today is my father's 91st Birthday and I wanted to be there to celebrate with him. I got a chocolate cake (his favorite) and my sister shopped for great presents to give him. We had birthday cards to share from friends and relatives. I don't normally take a big camera into his residence because of concern for HIPAA laws but I did take in my iPhone and did a few interviews with my dad as well as documenting him blowing out the candles on his cake. 

I left around three this afternoon. All the big action was over and Dad decided it was time for a nap. I wanted to get home and make a photo gallery to send to my sister and brother. 

It's an ancient iPhone by current standards; a 5S. But it works well enough for most uses...

My dad was happy and well. I can't ask for more. I drove home pretty happy. Indulge me for a few personal images.....

It's rare to see Dad without a hat of some sort. 

And balloons. 

lungs still good enough to blow out candles. 

Portrait of a Middle Aged Photographer. Taking an objective view of one's own face.

Kirk Tuck by Frank Grygier, ©2018 Frank Grygier.

There is nothing like spending one's life taking portraits of other people and then being confronted by someone else's portrait of oneself. This is a portrait of me as photographed by friend and fellow photographer, Frank Grygier. It's scary to see what I really look like but I think Frank has been neither too kind nor too unkind in his attempt to capture something of what it is like to be 63, to be in a very bizarre business, and to carry around within me the hard core belief that I'm really still 23 years old. 

I love his use of classic 3/4 side lighting, it's both dramatic and clinically revealing. His use of a 100mm  lens renders my face with more accuracy than a shorter or longer lens would have and I love the fact that the glasses frame on my right eye (left of frame) is darker and the frame on the right is light against darker skin. On a personal level I twinge to see that errant and unruly eyebrow hair float up like a flag against the left temple but at the same time I admire the inclusion of that detail as a light-against-dark contrast that makes my expression more interesting (at least to me). 

Seeing this photo and then boring into the details makes me wish I could go back in time and apply sunscreen every single time I left the house, and especially on the days of those blissful midday swims. We luxuriated in the strong sun back then but I pay for it with vague and worrisome tattooing of the skin on my face now. The portrait's details give me an uneasy assurance that I'll be getting to know my dermatologist quite well, some time in the future. 

Frank's strategic placement of my hand serves to hide a bit of "turkey neck" that comes with age and heredity. But even the way his light plays across both sides of my wedding ring adds to the allure of the  split nature of the lighting in the frame. 

My eyes look, by turns, fearful (who would not have trepidation to have their flaws so blatantly exposed?) but also inquisitive and present. I'm always keenly interested in how other people make portraits and watching Frank added ever more data points to my bank of possible lighting solutions.

I think it would be an interesting micro-workshop for each of us to seek out a photographer friend within our age demographic; someone whose work we admire, and ask them to make our portrait. After sitting through a session we would then turn the tables and make a portrait of the other. The reason is that we each could use portraits of ourselves as a more objective measure of how the world sees us. A different perspective than the one in the mirror. Because it is well known that the gaze in the mirror is modified second by second by the desire of the mind for assurance that things have not gone along quite so far....

A little telephoto compression is good for the soul. Well, maybe what I meant is that it's nice look...

A production still from: Sophisticated Ladies. At Zach Theatre.

Austin, Texas. 

My Favorite V-Logger, James Popsys, Makes an Incredibly Sensible Program About Becoming a Better Photographer.

I took a day off from Photography so I could go out and photograph.

Here's is what Mr. Popsys has to say....

https://youtu.be/0URSDpIfDJk

I think he is smart, funny and fresh. 

I love his accent; I wonder if it is really or

if he is secretly from Dallas or somewhere like that.

He may not be your cup of tea but....

He's certainly "safe for the workplace."

A photograph for March 26th.

before Lane's fashion show at Garrido's Restaurant on 3rd St. 

Some thoughts about testing longer lenses...

The long end of the Panasonic FZ2500... Stage lighting.

I always feel a bit disingenuous when I describe myself as a neophyte with long and very long lenses because over the years I've dabbled in long lenses across many systems. I've never owned any of the ultra-nose-bleed-expensive super telephotos. No 600mm f4.0s or 300mm f2.8s. But I will say that the introduction of semi-super long lenses in several one inch sensor cameras did much to whet my appetite to try longer and longer zooms in the m4:3 and APS-C systems. I shy away from using fast, long lenses on full frame or medium format cameras as I value my lower back and really don't want to flirt with herniation anywhere on my body. It might hamper my swimming....

But if you are hankering for a taste of the long stuff I would say (emphatically) that a good way to get your feet wet is with a Sony RX10; model three or four, or a Panasonic FZ2500. The FZ2500 has the equivalent angle of view of a 400mm full frame lens. The RX10.4 goes all the way out to an equivalent of 600mm. If that's not enough reach then you are heading for specialist territory and a quick wallet draining.

Whichever system you choose and whichever long lens (let's consider long to be anything with a field of view smaller than that of a 200mm equivalent = the long end of everyone's 70-200mm vanilla zooms) I think you need to really test it; not just to see how much potential and sharpness it delivers, but to see how much you might need to work on your chops in order to squeeze out the goodness designed into the modern, long lenses. 

Why am I suggesting this? Because a cursory review of long lens reviews on YouTube and many blogs shows that nearly every reviewer is telling you how sharp ( or more frequently; unsharp) the lens you've been thinking about actually is. There are a few reviewers like Thom Hogan who understand that they're not going to see the whole potential of a lens unless they have it secured to a good tripod and, further, that they must practice good shooting techniques. 

The realization that a tripod is essential for lens testing comes to me after reading in 90% of the reviews that, a. they are only shooting handheld, but with image stabilization and at fast shutter speeds (you know---the shutter speeds that don't seem to work well with I.S.) and, b. the lenses they test always tend to get worse and worse, performance-wise, as the reviewer progresses to longer and longer focal lengths. 

Are we actually to believe that all our caffeine besotted web-reviewers are like demi-gods in that they are able to securely, and without shake, handhold a 600mm lens so well that there is no degradation of imaging performance due to camera movement? I'd be amazed to find one who can pull it off. 

Here's another aspect that might not occur to testers in mild climes, when the atmosphere heats up you get heat waves that reduce resolution and contrast in longer lenses. Oh, and while we're talking about atmospheric effects, let's also consider that smog, smoke, fog and other airborne diffusion filters (atmospheric haze, yikes) profoundly limit the sharpness of an image that was focused on a distant subject. Is it any wonder that a reviewer who is handling a loaner lens for a week consistently finds all the distant subjects, taken at long focal lengths, handheld, to be less sharp and snappy than the review photos taken of said reviewer's cat from five feet away, in daylight, with a 50mm prime lens at f5.6?

I thought about all this as I read through plus and minus reviews of the Fujifilm 100-400mm XF lens I bought for my Fuji cameras last week. I want to see for myself what I might expect from the new lens and so I'll be testing it as time allows throughout the rest of the week, culminating in its use at a dress rehearsal for a new play at Zach Theatre on Sunday. 

Here are some of my essential practices for testing long lenses: 

1. If you live somewhere hot get up early on a sunny day before heat waves act like a soft focus filter for your lens. 

2. Put the damn camera and lens on a tripod. I know, I know, tripods are not sexy + God forced people to make image stabilization because he/she hates tripods. Whatever. Your test is meaningless if you don't at least establish a baseline with the camera and lens mounted on a tripod. After the tests are done you can throw away the tripod, if you like, but at least you'll come to know that the lens might be sharper than you think while you may be less sharp than you imagine. 

3. Don't confuse a camera's inability to perform good continuous AF tracking with lens softness or "a lower performance at the longest focal lengths. Yes, you should eventually test the total system performance but putting a new 100-400mm on a older XT1 body which has not had any firmware updates and then blaming the lens when the focus is less than stellar is unfair. Which brings me to point #4....

4. Update both the lens and the body firmware before you do your tests. Even systems that don't always tout their latest upgrades will almost certainly have improved what they can with each new rev. Even if they don't announce the improvements, incremental or otherwise. I've purchased several new lenses which had firmware that dated back years. I update them before I test them. 

5. I've had enough Nikon 800 series cameras to know that many times a "soft" lens is really just a symptom of a camera body that needs a bunch of focus adjusting to work right. If every other person who owns the lens you are testing is getting good results, and you don't, you might need to change bodies just to be sure a lame body is not the culprit. Especially if a normally well regarded lens isn't sharp anywhere in its focal range.

6. Speaking of focus, while you have the big lens on a tripod you might want to find a non-moving target and compare your manual focusing skills against the camera's autofocusing skills. Many times the little AF boxes that litter camera finders aren't as accurately lined up with the actual focusing sensors as we might want to believe. Putting your system on an immovable tripod and then using focusing magnification to go in as tight as you can and manually focus will let you fine tune the exact point of focus better. Then you can test in AF and see what gets you closest. Remember, you want to know what the lens is capable of without covert interference from a camera. 

7. Evaluation of your testing is the last step. I know a lot of people who shoot their "test" shots and then chimp on the rear camera screen in order to evaluate how "sharp" their shots are or how sharp their lens might be. Of course that's an information deficient environment for good evaluation. Maybe wait until you get home, brew a nice cup of coffee, and settle into you favorite office chair first and then pop that memory card into your computer with the calibrated Retina screen, convert your raw files and then have a peek. You'll quickly see where your new lens shines and where it might fall down on the job. 

If your litmus test is the screen on your phone then, don't worry, all your lenses are already good enough.

Once you've figured out that your lens really is sharp when it's on a tripod and nicely focused you can start peering into the weak points of your technique, your support gear, your focusing precision and much more. I normally test lenses the way I use them. I put them on a known good body and head out the door to shoot mostly stuff that doesn't move, which allows me to hand hold shorter lenses and to take time to ensure focusing precision, but, as I've said, the longer focal lengths constitute a smaller percentage of my overall experience and I am more methodical when I test them. If you see me around Austin this week you'll probably see me toting my Gitzo tripod. It's not the biggest tripod I own but it's rock steady while still being small enough to still carry around for a few hours at a time. 

Below are a whole mess of photographs I've done in recent years using the long zooms on the aforementioned Sony and Panasonic one inch cameras as well as a random collection from other lenses and camera systems. With good technique a so-so lens can return better images than a $12,000 lens in the hands of a lazy, incurious person.

OMG. Shot with the FZ2500 from a long way away....

Sony RX10 IV does corporate event. Near the 600mm limit....

Shot from the very top of the graffiti wall about 200 feet away.

shot across four lanes of traffic on Congress Ave.