When the tools trump the art we all go home.

Sarah. A photo created for one of my book covers. Rejected.

In the last few days I stepped over my own limit and wrote too much about gear, which made my head hurt. But then I was in the swimming pool and as I swam up and down the lane, keeping the black line on the bottom just over to my left, I started thinking about the nature of the tools we use to do various things. 

Since I was in the pool the first thing that came to mind was swimming. How dependent are we on the tools of swimming? Are there any tools for swimming? We have goggles to keep the chlorine out of our eyes and we have our swim suits. The goggles don't really serve any ancillary function and most people find a pair they like in the $15 to $25 range and use them for a long time. I'm on my third goggle strap with this pair. I think I've logged about two years and maybe 120,000 yards with them so far. Not a bad return.

I've been wearing my Speedo brand endurance jammers for the better part of a year and they still have at least another year of life left in them before they become disgraceful... Then I'll have to bite the bullet and spend another $45.

That's about it in the tool category for swimming. And you know what? No one I know ever discusses goggles or swim suits. We might talk about stroke mechanics or how to train better or swim more efficiently but never about the gear. The deal in swimming, if you do it competitively, is that the clock tells you all you need to know about performance. And no matter how great a pair of $1500 goggles might be you'd still have to do all the training and put in all the effort to go fast.

I write a lot of stuff. And for a lot of it I use notebooks. For a while I bought those cute, Hemmingway-esque, Moleskin notebooks and used a Mont Blanc fountain pen. But those tools didn't make me any smarter or make my writing any better. The pen did, from time to time, make my hands all inky and stained but I didn't see that as a critical performance benefit. I've since switched to generic notebooks and anonymous and less precious ballpoint pens. In a pinch I'll even use a pencil.

I spoke at a writer's group once. We talked about the "arc of the narrative" and the "use of voice" but we didn't compare notebooks or fountain pens. Hell, we didn't even compare word processors. We all seemed to know that there's no literary "magic bullet" that will allow us to dodge the daily drudge of sitting alone translating brainwaves into squiggles. 

I like the image at the top of this blog. I should, I spent the time finding the model and setting it all up. It was supposed to be for the cover of my third photography book. The one about lighting equipment. I used an old film camera for the shot and I used two old monolights and some worn softboxes as modifiers. But to me the important part of the shot wasn't the sharpness or the resolution or the lack of noise (all things that photographers do seem to talk about). The important part of the project to me was to get that insouciant look on Sarah's face. That's what it was all about. And none of the tools provides any sort of mechanism to create, augment or facilitate the look.

I guess I write about gear when I'm bored. I write about it when I've forgotten to schedule beautiful people to come by the studio and play with me and sit for fun portraits. I write about gear when I'm afraid. I might be afraid that my competitors have newer gear and will provide something I can't to a client (not likely). I might be afraid that my clients are well versed in the technical aspects of photography and that they are judging my choice of lesser gear (as rare an occurrence as unicorn sightings). I might be afraid that I'm not inspired enough and that clients will sense my lack of depth or substance. I might be afraid that I'll never work again if I don't have the shiniest bling. 

But mostly I buy the gear to use as a child uses a comforting blanket. It's a security blanket for my (yours?) raging insecurity. Why raging insecurity? Because we're in a business and an art where everything is subjective. There is no objective measure. Our compulsion to move the technical game forward is an admission that we constantly seek a metric. A means of gauging value. 

But in the end all the insecurity does is to drain our resolve to see more clearly and to be more transparent. And in being more transparent transcend the gear. 

New goggles never made me faster. New laptops never made me smarter. And I can pretty much guarantee that new cameras never made me a better photographer.

The short circuit to all this soul searching? The idea that the NEXT camera might be the one we've all been looking for. You know... the one with all the magic.

Forty+ year old lenses can be quite sharp.

My favorite camera store moved. Precision Camera had been in the same place for decades and they'd really outgrown the space. They found a great retail space in the geographical center of the Austin population, hired my architect friend, John (genius) Beckham, and threw together the camera store of all camera stores. By the look of things they tripled in size.  Even though it's twice as far from my studio now I know I'll make the trek out there when I need stuff because they've always gone out of their way to make my professional life easier. And also, I said "I'd follow them anywhere" in their upcoming television spots...

I dropped by for the first time yesterday and I have to say, if you think all the bricks and mortar camera stores are heading toward extinction just grab a plane ticket, head to Austin, and see what a successful photography store looks like. At least 10,000 square feet of showroom space, a classroom/workshop area that seats nearly 80 comfortably, a full production lab and a camera repair facility with a great reputation. When I walked in, on the second day of business in the new location, it was packed with customers.

When I left I noticed I had bought another Sony Nex 7. A used one with the kit lens for a whopping $700. Whenever I buy a new camera I generally spend the NEXt free day walking around and shooting with it. This purchase was no different.  As I contemplated the growing NEX system here at the VSL studios I pondered the "problem" of limited lens choice. This always makes me pull out older lenses from other systems, which are easily mounted on mirrorless cameras, which inevitably convinces me that we've got more than enough choices.

Today I found myself playing with two great lenses from the older, film based, Pen F system, the 70mm f2 and the 150mm f4. The cups above were shot at Caffe Medici with the 70mm.  So was the image of glasses and spoons below. The older coatings cut the contrast of the lenses a bit compared to modern single focal length lenses. It's a difference that's easily corrected in post processing...

After a killer cup of cappuccino I switched lenses and went strolling along with the 150mm lens. For a 150mm lens it's pretty small and skinny...

The 150mm seems super long to me on an APS-C camera. The major disadvantage of this non-system lens is the lack of image stabilization but a bright day and opening up to f5.6 makes up for that lost ground.  I think this lens is very sharp. It's also a little low in contrast but that's just a one slider fix in SnapSeed or PS.

Austin's official bird, the Crane. 70mm f2

A current theme in my walks lately has been the "Official Bird of Austin." Sometimes known by its Latin name, Constructionis Cranius. Downtown Austin seems to have become the winter nesting ground for hundreds and hundreds of these towering cranes as dozens of skyscrapers are under construction within a half mile of the state capital, with many more dotting the peripheral areas of the city. At some point the metropolis will grow so large and unwieldy that the natives will be forced to sell their premium properties and relocate....

The new Nex 7 passed all my tests with flying colors and won the drawing to be the camera I'm taking with me on an upcoming vacation/college tour marathon starting on the 11th of March.  

I'm curious to know if any of my readers are current residents of Boston and if they might know where a guy can get a decent cup of coffee in that town? Chime in if you know....

Chair and light at the Convention Center.

The kit lens is sharp. The ISO 1600 isn't noisy. The shutter isn't loud. The detail from the Nex 7 is impressive. Just passing through the Convention Center to use their rest rooms. From my walk this afternoon.

Dog in a guitar case. Sixth St. on Sunday.

I had to go to the downtown police station this afternoon to deliver some prints. On the way back toward west Austin I headed down Sixth St. to take in the sights/sites. I came across a young man leaning against the front wall of a bar not yet opened, playing his guitar. At his side was his guitar case and his young dog. She had curled up and fit exactly into the space made to hold the body of the guitar. At her head is a little metal cup filled to the brim with kibble. Just in front of the case is a collapsible water bowl filled with water.

I asked the guitarist if I could snap a few images of his friend with my little camera. He was delighted. He kept on strumming and humming while the shutter in my camera snicked away. The dog opened her eyes to make sure I wasn't a threat and then promptly went back to her nap. Her owner and I made some small conversation then I dropped a dollar into his guitar case and moved on.

Sony Nex 7. Kit lens. Jpeg. Black and White setting.

A different sort of anniversary. One that led to a camera discovery.

In the Darwinian theory of evolution the survivors are not the strongest but the most adaptable.

In the photo above are three lens adapters. The one on the left with the orange ring is a Sony LAEA-1 adapter. Next to it is a Fotodiox Sony Alpha to Sony Nex adapter and to the right

of that is an Olympus Pen F 60mm 1.5 lens with an inexpensive Olympus PenF to Nex adapter.

It's been well over a year since I walked into Precison Camera and Video here in Austin, Texas with a big cardboard box filled with Canon photographic equipment.  I put the box on the counter and asked the people behind the counter if I could trade it all in, or consign it. In a little less than an hour I walked out with enough Sony Alpha equipment to run the studio and the rest of my photography business. The lure, for me, had nothing to do with most of the features like, multi-frame noise reduction or twelve frames per second. What drove me to make the switch was how much I liked using electronic viewfinders when taking photographs; and especially when making videos.

Once you've really gotten your head around how well the EVFs work in helping you see what it is  you want to shoot you'll have a hard time every turning back. Just ask the legions of good photographers who picked up Olympus OMD's and never let go. The EVF drove everything in my switch from Canon to Sony. The image quality of the Canon 5D mk2 was great. The video was great. But after using the VF-2 EVFinder on the Olympus EP-3 cameras I found the whole, antiquated way of working with an optical viewfinder....primitive.  (let me here make one exception statement: If you shoot fast moving sports you'll be happier, right now, with an OVF camera. Fast frame rates and quickly moving objects are the current Achille's heel of most EVF systems. That will change....is changing...as I write).

I work pretty methodically. I set stuff up. I use tripods. I use auxiliary lighting. I shoot in single frame. I've never shot a bird in flight. You might live in a different reality. One of fast moving soccer stars and fidgeting finches. You'll have to judge your own situation.

I ended up with the classic professional's camera set up. Two bodies (a77s), a smaller and lighter back up body for those times when.....(a57) and a mess of lenses. The 16-50mm 2.8 and the 70-200mm 2.8 Sony's were the serious purchase but were quickly supplemented with all manner of specialty zooms and every day single focal length optics that are easier to carry and maybe more fun to use.

The big cameras are for work. These cameras are for fun and art and fun.

In all ways except the non-moving mirror and the viewfinder the Sony DSLT system emulates the Canon DSLR system. Big, bulky, competent and heavy. I learned the weak points and strong points of the new system and we were off to the races. Shooting the same kinds of corporate assignments in pretty much the same way. But once I saw what you could resolve with a really good sensor and once you took a look "through" (at?) a really good EVF and saw how sharp and detailed it can be, I started looking around for a similar replacement for my collection of 12 megapixel Olympus Pen cameras.  A collection that was beginning to show its age....( this was before the introduction of the OMD. Things might have been different if that camera had been on the market when I went shopping...).

I played with a Sony Nex 7 and on the first three trials I was baffled and stumped by the menu on that camera. But I went back and read everything I could about the camera. Afterall, it used the same EVF I liked so much in the a77 and the same incredibly detailed, wide, wide, wide dynamic range sensor as well. And one of the most attractive aspects of the Nex7 is the ability to use scores of third party lenses from across the decades. Once I understood the menu (does anyone really understand Nex menus????) I bit on the little system.

I don't have too many Nex system lenses for the cameras. I'm happier than most people with the performance of the 18-55mm kit lens because it really is sharp in the center all the time. It's only the edges that get goofy and I don't really care about the edges when I'm trying to make art. I now have two of the kit zooms. Not because I think it's that good but because I just found a (barely)  used Nex 7 kit w/lens for a whopping $700.  I always wanted a second body, the lens just came along for the ride.

The most fun and virtuous lens I have for the little system is the 50mm 1.8 Sony. It's bright and sharp and its IS is very, very good. I like that I can see the effects of the IS in the viewfinder...

I bought both of the little Sigma lenses as well. I used both the 19mm and the 30mm on my recent assignment at the cardiology practice and, with the profiles included in Lightroom 4.4, I found there performance very, very good. Sharp, crisp and without any personality flaws.

Ahhh. The Pen F 60mm 1.5 lens with adapter. Like Swiss Chocolate.

But one of the real lures of the mirrorless systems isn't necessarily the branded lenses but the fact that the cameras have a shorter mount to sensor distance which allows the adaptation of just about any lens with a longer focus throw. The Nex cameras (and the Olympus and Panasonics) can be used with Nikon, Canon, Leica M and Leica R, Olympus Pen F and many other "legacy" lenses. Couple the outstanding performance and low price of some of these orphaned lenses with what DP Review called the best APS-C sensor in the business (Nex 7) and you've got a hell of an imaging system.

I'm partial to the Pen F lenses for two reasons: First, they were designed to be used with smaller (half frame) areas of film so they were optimized to be much sharper and of higher resolution that lenses made to cover full frame. This means that, even now, forty years later, the lenses are very good performers. While the coatings are not state of the art the only real effect is on contrast and that's easy to compensate for in post processing. The second reason I'm partial is that I have a drawer full of them. I've been collecting them for no real reason since the beginning of the 1980's when most were available for double digit dollars. Not the prices they command now.

I have an inventory of PenF lenses that covers 20mm to 150mm, but most significantly the ones in the middle focal length ranges are fast. Even by today's standards. My favorites are the 38mm 1:1.8, the 40mm 1:1.4, the 42mm 1:1.2, the 60mm 1:1.5 and the 70mm f1:2.  All are good performers wide open and great performers when stopped down two stops.

I'm not focused on having every focal length covered on the Nex cameras as I would be on my "professional work system." I find myself most comfortable with the classic focal lengths. I'm happy from 18-80 or so. But the nice thing about an ultimately flexible system is that when I want to press the Nex into wide angle service I need only grab one of the Alpha to Nex adapters and my 10mm to 20mm zoom and I'm there. If I need fast and long I can slide the Rokinon 85mm 1.5 Cine lens on the front and go to town. With the LAEA1 adapter all of the Sony lenses will work in all of the exposure and metering modes. 

But the thing that makes this lens flexibility ultimately usable is the inclusion, in the cameras, of focus peaking. It's a technology that comes from professional video. With manual focus lenses the camera can be set to show colored outlines at the points of accurate focus. It's far, far faster and more accurate than trying to focus with the discrimination of your eye. An added advantage that EVF cameras have over even the most expensive DSLRs is the ability to look through the finder and push a magnification button twice to focus at 10X. Without having to stop, put the camera into live view mode and use a rear screen....which could be vexing in full sun or other non-optimal conditions. 

Focus peaking makes all manual lenses easy. And it works. It works best wide open but it does work even when stopped down. And as you turn the focusing ring of your manual focus lens you see the focus peaking indications "roll" through your scene. It's wonderfully symbolic and a great way to learn about focus zones.

Here's the camera that started me down the Nex path.

No camera can "do it all." But the Nex 7 comes close. If I were more of a risk taker I'd probably have jettisoned the Alpha gear a few months ago and relied exclusively on the Nex 7 and a good assortment of lenses to do my work. But there are still a few attributes of the DSLT cameras that make work easier, and then there's that whole client expectation factor to think about. Just as they like to see doctors with stethoscopes around their necks they want to see big black, jelly bean cameras with large lenses on their "pro" photographers. Who can blame them? We inadvertently trained them to precondition their selections that way.

With adapters the Nex 7 does almost everything well. The few weak points keep me in a larger system. One is the contrast detection AF. Yes, the bigger cameras with full time phase detection are much faster to lock in. I'll confess that I do like the look of the full frame cameras (a99) for times when I want to effortlessly drop out backgrounds. I like that my big camera has a headphone jack and manual audio controls for monitoring and adjusting video sound. It also goes longer on a battery.

But for my aspirational photo job, walking around Paris and Tokyo and Buenos Aires and Rome, casually making art, ala Henri Cartier Bresson and Elliot Erwitt....could there be a better system?

I find the Nex cameras to be ultra competent photographic tools in tiny, wonderfully ergonomic packages. Much more powerful picture takers than any of us had even a few years ago at any price. The size, weight and price of the cameras and my most used lenses means I can carry two bodies at a time with my two favorite focal lengths (the 30mm since it's close to my beloved "normal" and the 50mm 1.8 because it's just about the right lens and speed for portraits) and move back and forth between the focal lengths without having to change lenses or to even carry a bag.

If I practice good technique I can blow up the files to enormous sizes and see maximum detail.

How about three really capable bodies and three really good lenses for about the price most people are paying for one full frame DSLR and a much slower zoom? Seems like a deal to me.

One more generation of improvements in battery life and lens selection and Sony will have effectively eradicated the need for a traditional mirrored camera system, and all the attendant bulk and weight. One more generation of improvements in on chip phase detection AF technology and our little cameras will focus as quickly as anything out there.

No one ever said that good images could only be done on full frame cameras, or with expensive tools. When I'm really interested in exploring the world and people around me I want to go in with unobtrusive cameras and blend in. The age of the voyeur photographer who stands outside the group, looking in with a long, sinister lens, is over. The power is transitioning to tools that become both second nature and also wonderfully flexible.

I credit the Sony Alpha cameras for bringing the Sonys, in general, to my attention. But I thank the Sony Nex's for making my photography easier, more fun and less stressful. 

Yet another celebration...

Just sending the hard working staff and the visionary executive leadership team (ELT), as well as the august and mighty board of directors of the VISUAL SCIENCE LAB, an assortment of flowers to celebrate the 12,000,000th pageview of the Visual Science Lab Blog.

Thank you for joining us!

Sony A99 Production Camera. A working tool.

Photo of Sony a77 and Rode microphone, not particularly relevant to the article below. Just kinda there to let you know I'm also thinking of my camera as a video production tool. 

Don't be literal.

I just wanted to praise my camera today. Sometimes we forget that, in addition to being fun neck bling and a rich source of web discussion, they are also working tools for professional photographers. In that regard the usability and ultimate flexibility of the camera is most of the times much more important than the ability to squeeze out the last little percentage of objective image quality.

I'm in the middle of a two day project. The project has three components and they are not artfully schedule for my convenience but rather for the convenience and efficiency of my client, a cardiology practice here in Austin.

The three parts of the project go like this:  Set up a small room as a makeshift studio. Have each doctor come to the room to photographed in a suit and tie for credentialing and public relations photos. Then the doctor changes into scrubs and we do a second series of more casual portraits.

After the scrub portraits we take a moment to reconfigure the camera to become a video camera. I add an Audio Technica lavalier microphone, change the shutter speed setting and fine tune both ISO and f-stop to match the 1/50th speed. Then I "mic" the doctor and we do a quick audio level check. I wear headphones to check for hum, hiss, clicks and background noise. When everything is set the ad agency producer asks a series of interview questions while I monitor audio and the visual frame. Once we've got what we need we move on...

Because of their schedules the doctors can't be scheduled sequentially. In the gaps between the interface with the doctors we take the camera off the tripod and use it for a reportage style of available light photography to get images of the hustle and bustle of the clinic and the support teams. We also stage exams and treatment images with models, staff and doctors.

The a99 goes from studio portrait camera to video production machine to handheld reportage camera with ease. I have mine set up to record still images to one SD card and video to the second SD card.  I'm using fast, sharp lenses so I can go from medium apertures when on the tripod and under controlled lighting to fast f-stops when I am going handheld. The Steady Shot IS works well and combined with the a99's clean high ISO gives me a lot of latitude when working in a mostly florescent lit environment. The raw files allow me to largely ignore WB in most casual shooting although I do try to include a white target when I shoot the first few frames in each location. That gives me a starting point to work form as I move through the process.

In our makeshift studio I am lighting with my big 1,000 bulb LED lights through diffusion panels. It works for both the stills and the video. Since the light in that room doesn't change I've been working with the same custom WB since yesterday morning.

The camera is a chameleon that feels right for each situation. I'll update when I finish the project.
Have a great Friday!

Finally, a book about portrait lighting that I can recommend.

Neil's newest book. 

It's rare that I see a "how to" book that's done by someone whose work I really like. And continue to like over time. I first became aware of Neil Van Niekerk's work nearly three years ago. I was researching for my LED book and looking for good, innovative photographers who had already discovered the flexibility and creative power of LED lights on their own.

A link led me to his website and I was very impressed by his portraiture and even his wedding images. (A confession: I don't generally like wedding photography). His lighting is very, very modern and most of the time you can barely tell from the images he presents that he's lit them at all. It's almost as if his models just happen to stumble into spontaneously beautiful light just as he's ready to click the shutter on his camera. I was so impressed that I got in touch with him and asked him to contribute photographs and a bit of writing about his use of LED lights for my book, which he graciously did.

His first book for our mutual publisher was On Camera Flash Techniques. It quickly became a bestseller because he writes well and shoots even better. He followed it up a year later with a book called, Off Camera Flash Techniques which was as good as his first. I recommend both of those books if you are looking for lots of tips and techniques for using small flashes to create portraits and to cover events and wedding. Especially if you are interested in doing those things in a thoroughly modern idiom.

I am interested in this book, Direction and Quality of Light,  because I feel that Neil is working to re-invent our concepts of good portraiture and he's pushing away from the time weathered "rules and conventions" that main street studios and legions of mid-brow photographers have been repeating and recycling for decades.

He uses bright, fresh and very lovely models. He also uses a variety of lighting. His camera gear is state of the art but the real state of the art is his approach to lighting portraits. This is a book I wish I had done. It's that good. It is currently the #1 ranked book on lighting at Amazon.com...enjoy.

Please use this link to order a copy from Amazon.com and help support my writing habit...