Author Archive
20
02
2012
Posted by: kirk tuck in Photo articles
The camera on the left is a Panasonic G3. It features 16 megapixels of resolution, pretty clean files up to 1600 ISO and it weighs next to nothing. The lens on the front of the camera is very sharp and has beautiful tonality. The camera on the right is a Canon 1DS Mk2. If features 16 megapixels of resolution, pretty clean files up to 1600 ISO and it weighs a ton. The lens on the front is a Zeiss ZE 85 mm 1.4. It's sharp once it's stopped down one and half stops and it has beautiful tonality.
The camera on the left cost me $550. The camera on the right originally retailed for $ 8,000 but I bought it well used, in the middle of last year for $1,800. There are differences between these cameras and similarities. They both turn out really nice files and the files look really nice on my monitors.
If we use our knowledge base from 2005 and earlier then the one on the right is the camera to have. But if we are open minded, cognizant of market changes and willing to make a go at understanding the impact of technological development, the camera on the left can be compellingly argued for.
I just read two different discussion threads on a global photography website. One thread praised the advances in cellphone cameras and noted that a flood of images from citizen cellphone-o-graphers is supplanting traditional photojournalists around the world in supplying content for news oriented websites, magazines and newspapers. The gist of the article was that the 8 megapixel files from the cellphone are acceptable to editors far and wide. The argument is that once a certain technical threshold is crossed the content trumps the device with which it was captured. I'll buy that. So, the new professional in the field of photo-journalism is the guy or girl who is in the right place at the right time with the minimally acceptable or better equipment. Access being the prime feature. In one camp the prevailing thought among amateurs and hobbyists is the vindication of their talents by the eradication of a profession and its replacement by free operators. And it's all made possible through the de-evolution of technical necessities. Pixel content is less rigorous than printed content. And more forgiving which lowers the barriers to entry while sheer quantity allows the editors and art buyers to crowd source their way to competence.
The other, opposite argument I read concerned what constitutes bare minimum necessities in a " professional" camera. The unwashed majority vociferously insisting that no one, NO ONE could be deemed a "pro" unless they were equipped with a camera that outperformed all previous cameras in the history of modern, digital photography. The camera would have to shoot at high frame rates, focus in the dark, see in the dark, withstand nuclear blasts, electro-motive pulses and as much rain and mud as you could possibly throw at it. The pro camera would yield files as smooth as ISO 64 film from an 8x10 view camera but it would do so at 25,000 ISO. In their world all pros shoot with enormously long and complex lenses. They must have, at a minimum, lenses at 300, 400 and 600mm that open up to f2.8 in order to put "cluttered" backgrounds out of focus. All zooms should be f2.8 or faster. No professional work could conceivably be done with anything less than a full frame sensor. And not just any sensor but whatever tomorrow's sensor is, today.
The later camp compiles their information based on what they read in magazines about photographers who seem to all have contracts with Sports Illustrated. The first camp seem to derive their information from the legions of starving pros who are trying to "own" the mobile niche of telephone photography in order to sell gee-gaws, lectures and software packages. "Actions!!!!!" Even the word feels like we're all moving the game forward....
So, what's the reality? I'm thinking it falls in between and also lives with the outliers. Paul shoots his architectural stuff with medium format cameras and incredibly expensive optics from the Black Forest and the mountains of Switzerland. I shot books today for a very large corporation using a nice little micro four thirds camera. We're finally living in a time that gives truth to so many of the mythological sayings that have been dreamed up in the service of explaining photography. "Horses for courses." (which I hate) means you get to choose precisely the best equipment for your task as Paul does. "It ain't the arrow it's the indian...." (equally offensive) is the tactic I pressed into service today. The final destination for my images will be the corporation's website. The camera was less important than the lighting, the angles and the post production. Perhaps we could have even shot this one with an iPhone given total control over the lighting and aperture.....
With the emphasis shifted to post processing and to web use the truisms about what constitutes professional gear are rendered silly and anachronistic. The knowledge, taste and point of view are important. The brand or size of camera are much less so.
Given the use by my client of the final images today the camera I reached for was a micro four thirds camera with the stunning 45mm 1.8 Olympus lens (although the 40mm 1.4 would have been equally good......). The full frame camera I used on the last go around was not as successful. Why? because we were working close but with a longer lens and the depth of field was a critical aspect. When shooting a book it's usually important to keep the entire product in focus even though you are shooting at an angle to show dimension. The smaller format with the shorter focal length delivered a more convincingly sharp file that required less work than its full frame cousin.
Tomorrow I have a portrait shoot that will require very narrow depth of field and the smoothness that comes from lots of detail. I'll use a full frame camera for that. But I could probably make an equally good photo with a fast, long lens on the smaller format if I toss in some time for post processing.
The bottom line is that no one outside the field, or even outside your business, really knows what the hells is going on. If you are basing your business plans as a photographer on what you read on forums you are pretty much doomed to failure. You might make a unique selling proposition out of the flexibility and portability of smaller cameras. You might have a style that depends on a larger format camera and it may be a style that appeals to an affluent niche.
But it's never a good idea to try and fit all of the pegs into a single round hole. It never works out well.
Right now my money is on the smaller cameras. They lower the barrier to entry, deliver proficient and efficient results and they require so little investment that they become disposable. That lowers the momentum to resist change when paradigm shifting technology innovations destroy existing markets. And they are more fun to tote. But, being conservative, I'll hedge my bets by keeping my premium, full frame cameras and prestige lenses handy. Handy but probably undisturbed...
I've been writing about small cameras for nearly three years now. I think the things we've discussed here are starting to come to market fruition. I know the smaller gear is demanding more and more of my mindshare. What about you?
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20
02
2012
Posted by: kirk tuck in Photo articles
Tiny, Light, Fast, Detailed, Sharp, Quiet, Compact and Cute. 90% of the way there. Olympus did a great job with their PR for the upcoming OM-D camera. Everyone I know who has an interest in mirrorless cameras is talking about it, saving up their money to buy one and rushing to get themselves on a list. And whom can blame them? It looks like everything we've pined for over the last few years. Not to mention that the whole mirrorless m4:3 universe now has some powerhouse lenses as booster rockets for our insatiable imaging. In some camps the OM-D is starting to sound a bit like the second coming of the camera industry. But here I go again: The relentless contrarian.
 While I researched the OM-D I came across a camera that sounds eerily like the camera we've all been waiting for....only it's been on the market since June of 2011. It has the following specs: Fastest focus in all of m4:3rds (arguably), The best 16 megapixel sensor in all of m4:3rds as stated by DPReview and DXO. A built-in 1.4 megapixel EVF finder. A swivelling, large rear LCD panel. And a brilliantly implemented touch screen interface. OMG did they launch the OM-D early and not tell anyone till a few weeks ago??? No, it turns out that Panasonic has been building and delivering this camera for the better part of a year. It's called a G3. But for some reason no one seems to care. Except the Panasonic users who are currently hoarding them and shooting them. There are only two features that the G3 doesn't deliver that are on the OM-D checkboxes: Full Navy Seal weatherproofing (for all you rugged types who routinely photograph deep in the jungles with rain and blood spattering your cameras hither and yon). And, built in image stabilization. That's about it. The sensor is already there. A full two stops better noise performance (by some accounts) than the EP3 at higher ISOs. But I picked one up, with the 14-42mm zoom lens for a bit under $600. Turn key. All done. No waiting list. No fuss.
 Without a doubt the OM-D will trample the G3 when it comes to body construction and design. It's in a whole different bling class than the plastic-over-aluminum frame construction of the G3. There's no way to stick a battery grip on the G3 (that I know of) and the jpeg colors of the OM-D will probably take the G3 to school. But....it's a great sensor and a great implementation of controls and it's cheap. I've had one for a couple days but yesterday was the first day I had a few spare hours to go downtown and give the G3 a run through. So let me give you my opinion. And remember, this is all about my impressions. We don't do technical tests here at the VSL secret, underground labs. Our massively parallel supercomputing nest is dedicated to data mining the epicenters of creativity. We can't allocate computing resources for something you can easily discern with your eyes and your hands (haptics rears its beautiful head....).
 But, in fact, I have come to praise the G3, not to bury it. I'll admit that I don't keep up with every camera announcement from every camera manufacturer. I had the prejudice that Panasonic made cameras in only two m4:3 flavors: The button and dial laden, professional GH2 with its EVF and then a slew of smaller, less capable cameras with only LCD screens on the back and the option of adding a vastly inferior EVF. At least that's what I saw the last time I took a look.
But, when I finally focused on the relatively new line of cameras Panasonic had on the market I saw I was mistaken. The G3 is reviewed to have better noise performance by a small amount, than the GH2. The AF system samples at 120 Hz just like the EP3 so the performance is comparable. The EVF has similar specs to the current state of the art in the Olympus segment. And, while the G3 body, with its limited supply of external controls, takes a bit of time to get used to I can see that the menu driven touch screen is viable and, in most cases fast to use.
When we talk about contrast detection auto focus a prime variable in the overall performance equation is the sampling rate which is driven to some extent by the speed/throughput of the processing sensor. The AF motor moves the lens through the range of distance until it find the peak of contrast in the scene you've put in front of its sensor. It must repeatedly sample and shift and then sample and shift until it isolates the setting that gives the highest level of contrast. Within the sampling are latency periods where, once sampled the information must be processed and compared. Reducing the time of the latency periods and increasing the frequency of the sampling are the two ways to increase the speed of the system. The GH2 and the G3 were first to increase the sampling speeds from 60 Hz to 120 Hz (they both use the same "Venus" processor). The EP3 also adapted that strategy and added optimized lenses in order to further increase the speed and allow them to boast of having the ultimate AF speed amongst mirrorless cameras. The new OM-D AF seems to be based around increasing the sampling performance of the AF circuitry to 240 Hz. Whether or not we'll see improvements in lenses that are not optimized for the new processor initiative remains to be seen. But today, right now, the EP3, the GH2 and the G3, in good lighting conditions, are all just as fast as I need them to be and they are more accurate with higher speed (bigger aperture) lenses than their DSLR brethren.
 I have not used the G3 in any configuration other than raw format and I haven't used it yet with any other lens than the 14-42mm kit lens that came packaged with the body. The lens seems to do a good job with most close up scenes but when I look at my building shots at 100% I see a little softness as we get into near infinity focus. That's easy to fix. You just put on a better lens. The 14-42 kit lens doesn't seem to garner many kudos and yet, for around $125 with built in IS I think it's a good value. Especially for routine, close-to-mid distance shots. I'll spend some time with the camera and the Panasonic/Leica 25mm 1.4 Summilux in the next few days and I think that should make a huge difference in overall quality. Even so, in the samples I have here I'm not disappointed. On screen the 16 megapixels are sharp and the noise at everything I shot under ISO 800 is non existent.  There are two things about the G3 that I didn't think I'd like. I was wrong. Serves me right for pre-judging. The first is that the camera doesn't have the dandy automatic switching between the EVF and the LCD (cost savings concern, no doubt). You have to do it manually, with a button. But that's fine with me because I want to use the EVF for everything except final review and menu setting. I don't want the screens to swap every time my hand moves past the little sensor. Especially when mounted on the tripod in the studio. Panasonic engineers are smart though. You can set a menu setting so that when you hit the "play" button to review what you've shot the camera automatically switches to the LCD. There when you need it but not switching when you don't. I prefer it this way. Thank goodness for cost saving measures.
The second thing I was prepared to dislike was the touchscreen interface. But I ended up liking it a lot. Mostly because it's user programmable. You get to choose the five different menu items you most use and you put them on the screen. I chose ISO, focus settings, WB, file formats, and exposure compensation. Now, to use any of these settings all I have to do is hit the "Q" menu button and directly access the menu item on the screen. The screen is pressure sensitive rather than capacitance sensitive. It has positive feedback. This is quick and easy and you can program whatever controls you use most often.
 So, if you add it all up it's a pretty convincing little camera. Detractions? The styling is a bit pedestrian. The lack of IS bothers me when I think about using prime lenses with no built in IS, and the body feels a plasticky. But you have to consider the other side of the equation. For about half the price of the announced, but not available, OM-D you get a camera with a sensor that's probably very close to what will be in the OM-D and, for all practical purposes will be very close in raw performance. You get a fast focusing camera. Maybe not as fast as the new Olympus when the Olympus is coupled with the state of the art lenses but almost certainly in the same league with most of the existing lenses. You get a fun and more flexible implementation of the touch screen technology and that makes this camera interesting to me and the people who are looking for straight out performance over additional features.
But it all goes back to one of my basic premises: Most modern cameras are really damn good. If your technique is good and you learn the interfaces you should be able to get almost indistinguishable files from all of them. The lowest common denominator will be generally be your user chops and the level of interest inherent in your subjects. I am currently using the GH2 in manual mode for a lot of my studio work and I'm happy with its on-the-final-screen performance. The G3 makes me re-think my lust for the newer cameras. Could it be that Panasonic had the level of sensor performance last year that we're waiting for from Olympus with bated breath this year? Is the AF performance on the G3 almost comparable? Aren't they all in the same family? Won't all the lenses work interchangeably?
 I don't have any doubt that the new OM-D will have features that makes it more desirable than the older Panasonic G3. I want in-body IS. I like the idea that it will be the best IS in the history of the galaxy. Almost as good as my old tripod!!! And I'm sure that the Jpeg color engine will be the industry leader. Finally, there are a legion of people who are crying out for weather proofing. I have to say that I've yet to lose a camera to rain or dust but I've only been shooting for a few decades. I'm sure other people have experienced camera failures as a result of exposure. I'm a disciple of the Ziploc bag religion of camera protection but I fully acknowledge the right to exist of weatherproofarians no matter how extreme I find their belief systems. The Olympus will be a nice package. In the way that a BMW is an upgrade to a Honda. But, like the car analogy, there will be some who want the sensor and AF performance who don't have the budget for the premier offering. If they don't need built-in Ziploc Bagging, and they can live with the AF that comes resident on some of Panasonic's better lenses, and they can live with the stigma of a "lesser" model, they may find the absolute performance to be pretty much the same.
 What a terrible realization for me to present you with on President's Day. I thought we had the whole m4:3rds thing all figured out. The OM-D was to be the Holy Grail of little cameras and we would all be happy and content once we acquired one. Funny how the market works and funnier still how my vision narrows close to launch dates and expands again while I'm awaiting delivery. Once again the G3 serves to remind me that we've all been here before. We're always hopeful about the silver bullet that will take our art to the next level only to find that all it delivers is photographs with a little bit more detail, a little bit faster focus and a little bit steadier steadiness. In this case perhaps no more resolution than what we can get right now, not much more high ISO noise reduction than we get right now and AF that is marginally faster for a handful of new lenses that we don't yet own. Our consolation? The new camera is very nice to look at and feels very nicely balanced in our hands. We hope.
 The bottom line? I don't know that there is a bottom line. The camera world is a chaotic place with little camps swirling around banners. In one corner we have the full frame 35mm high res contingent for whom everything hinges on ultimate resolution and sharpness. We have, of course, our micro four thirds camp where we look to blend high performance with high usability and high portability (after all, what good is all the gear if it's too cumbersome to carry?). We have the pilgrims of nose bleed performance who have knotted the ropes of high intention around their photo vest frocks and set out into the desert in pursuit of the mysteries of medium format, and we have the legions of people traipsing around willy-nilly with their iPhones snapping a glorious quantity of interesting frames and then shoving them through the kaleidoscopic blender to make them more.....appealing.
I've been beaten over the head with the idea that there is no "right or wrong." That all approaches are worthy and equal. That there's an equivalence of sorts whether you use an 8x10 inch film camera or your happy-snappy phone to create your images. While I tend to veer toward a more defined philosophy where effort has value and is integral to the process I won't confuse things by arguing that today.
Where I will comment is on the performance of Olympus' promotional machinery. Well done, marketers. In a short amount of time you created a tremendous amount of buzz, filed us with desire we barely knew we had, deflected our attention away from similar products and got us all excited. If the product they deliver does everything they say it will be a monumental success, and, no doubt, it will be a hell of a lot of fun to shoot with.
The G3 is no OM-D but it's a hell of a lot closer than a lot of people might like to believe. I think I'll go out and shoot with mine again today. After all, it's already in my hands.
 
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19
02
2012
Posted by: kirk tuck in Photo articles
Ever patient Jana sits for a portrait under the saucy glow of an LED fixture.
The image at the top came from some permutation of this main lighting set up.
That's me in the small studio, directing Jana, thinking about the writing and thinking far ahead about marketing the book.
I bet just writing books about photography is fun. Writing the books sound like an easy thing to do. But now, in the 21st century, the authors of books on various aspects of photography have to do much more than "just" write. The Syl Arenas and Kirk Tucks and Neil Van Niekirks, and a legion of other photography book impressarios, have to wear many hats. We research and write, just as authors have done since the dawn of non-fictional literary time, but now we are on the receiving end of a whole new roster of responsibilities. For me, illustrating the books with hundreds of photographs is the most time and resource consuming part of the project.
In total opposition to the way my brain is wired (I like chance more than planning) I must now think about what I've written and translate the verbal "score" into a "before" and an "after" images. I must jettison the fluidity I've acquired through decades of nearly autonomic practice and now think in terms of discreet and obvious steps so I can lead the non verbally disposed book owners through each painful step of concept. It's like doing a picture book for the resistant to reading and a real book for the totally verbally oriented at the same time. And it takes the two sides of the brain that are the furthest from each other to do reasonably well.
I must recruit models who are patient enough to work with me in this whole step by step miasma and quel their expectations. We'll be turning out examples, not art. I must make sure that the models fit a modern idiom of culturally acceptable physical beauty and yet remain accessible. I try to keep it fun for the small crew involved. Our advance money only covers payments to the models and to my assistant. There's nothing left over for travel or gear or even a make-up person.
Once the images are in the bag I need to go in and do minor retouching of things like fly-away hairs and stray threads to pre-empt the vacuous critiques of people who are obsessed with finding flaws. If a model's face shows too much texture I am accused of not knowing how to light said model correctly. If the model has flawless skin I am accused of massive retouching to cover some perceived lack of technical capability or, better yet, to call into question the efficacy of the basic premise I am trying to prove in the book.
Once the words are written, the images taken and corrected and every image spread-sheeted to match some arbitrary position in the text I can begin the unfortunate process of sketching out "lighting diagrams" so that people who can't understand the copy and can't extrapolate the lighting design from the supplied "behind the scenes" shots supplied can make enlarged copies of the "lighting diagrams" and paste them on the floor to follow without regard for the vagaries of their alternate spaces and gear. As though the exact placement somehow trumps the basic idea of the lighting.
The final run through the Aegean stables is the writing of captions. Captions seem to be for the people who either despise reading the body copy and are hoping for a micro "Cliff Notes" approach to book reading or for the people who are confused by the images and need yet another layer of guidance. But then captions are also like candy and most of us crave them in spite of ourselves.
If you are a slow writer or a slow photographer or both, this process can grind on for the better part of half a year. If you had nothing else to do and didn't need to support yourself or your family you could probably finish your book project in the better part of a month. Then it leaves your hands and goes off to your publisher and you relinquish a certain part of control that gives you the illusion of perfectionism that's never really there. My most recent book went through several steps of proofreading and yet there are still words that didn't get bonkled or trogmolated into the right spelling. Spell check is to proof reading as Facebook is to real relationships....
And then there's the process of color correction. When images make the leap from monitor to CMYK offset process printing there are things that can change. Colors can slide from intention to obfuscation. From proof to prank. From veracity to vexing.
I never saw color proofs for the LED book and while the large majority of images are right on the money there are a handful that are too dark and an even smaller handful (several fingers full....) that have unfortunate color casts. I say unfortunate because I was trying, in this particular book (the one on LEDs) to prove that the lights in question had come of age. That, with good practice, a photographer could make color rich and color accurate images with the current offerings of midrange and better LED fixtures.
Most readers will look at the majority of images contained in the book and get the message. But I've already had one reviewer jump to the conclusion, based on a small minority of mis-printed images, that the LEDs are at fault, ergo my premise is faulty and, QED, the book is without merit. Oh the slings and arrows of outrageous (mis)fortune... My very integrity sacrificed by a printer's interpretation of color and density.
So, at this point the writer/photographer/production drone is done with his part of the project and the book is launched and the big dollars start pouring in. Right? Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha......
Here's where the modern photographer/writer hits the wall of 20th century mythos and, submerged in bathos, comes to the queasy conclusion that his book will die on the vine without Promethean efforts of marketing. Every week dozens of printed and e-published books on photography are unleashed onto the market. And there is both a limited demographic market, and within that demographic, a limited budget for books. For a book to do well it must be marketed. If I could afford to take out a full page in the New York Times Sunday Magazine to show off the book, and couple that with a few appearances on Oprah, and some live interviews on the splash page of DPReview.com I could sell a prodigious number of books in a flash. But reality is based on projected returns and a host of other unknowns on a mysterious matrix. And the reality that niches get smaller as topics get progressively more arcane.
Publishers run press releases in all the usual places and take the book (along with dozens and dozens of others) to the trade shows. But the real market place is Amazon. And to move the numbers in your favor on Amazon the writer/photographer is encouraged by the publishers and, if he wants the books to return any cash at all, is self-motivated to cast off the hat of creator and don on the plaid sportcoat and winning smile of the marketer/salesman. A role for which most creative people are profoundly unsuited.
We are encouraged, externally and "internally" to blog about our new book, to do as many books signings as we can, and to reach out to every point on our friendship/acquaintance compass and flog the book. I'm putting together a book signing at Precision Camera for next Monday. I hope I am perceived as smart and warm and effusive and deeply interested in the continuing education of my peers and the hosts of hobbyists that make up my implied constituency. I hope no one wants to argue (using technical info from 1990) that LEDs are incapable of even lighting up a computer screen. Much less a portrait shoot. (Everyone does realize that LEDs are used in your new flat screen TVs and in the latest computer screens and they seem pretty accurate....right?)
And I'll do the same stand-up routine for any club, group of class that will have me. But why? Why do photographers feel compelled to write books in the first place? I'll have to be honest. Several publishers have told me the same thing and, even though it pains me a great deal to admit it, it's the same basic logic that has been espoused by Seth Godin for as long as he's been espousing. To wit: You won't make any real money writing a physical book. The book is a souvenir for an event (according to Seth). People come to see you talk about something and the book is the take away. Like buying something fun in the gift shop of a museum after you see the King Tut exhibit. The publisher's sell it like this: "You'll gain credibility with your market so that you can better sell your workshops and seminars."
Well, that's all well and good but what if you don't really want to do workshops and seminars? I should have thought that through sooner. The math is simple. You write a book for a publisher and you get a percentage of the cover price in return for that six months of your life you spent hunched over a keyboard or cajoling models. If you were a best selling fiction writer with a large fan base you might see hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of royalties in a short amount of time. If you are like most fiction writers your book will sell fewer volumes than it takes to pay off your advance. Your book will be remaindered in a season or two and you'll have the opportunity to buy the surplus stock from your publisher at some sort of price that covers his cost of printing. Salvage value. You will have worked for years on your novel for a few thousand dollars.
A photo book writer who does a great job marketing his book might sell 5,000 copies in a good year. A book that really hits, by a star writer in our field (sounds like "Shelby"....) will make many multiples more. But most of the books will depend on the "long tail" of photo books to return profitability to the publisher and, to a lesser extent, to the creator. A book with a great "long tail" is LIght, Science and Magic because it's well written and the knowledge it teaches doesn't change or go in and out of style.
If I work on marketing the LED book as though it was my full time job for the rest of the year we might be lucky enough to sell 5,000 copies. Maybe. Figure that the royalties will equal about one full week (maybe two weeks in the current economy) of work in my "real" job as an advertising and corporate photographer. In order to have the book make economic sense I'll have to leverage its "first to market" implied expertise to launch an aggressively marketed series of cutting edge workshops about LED lighting, complete with hot models and stops in too many second tier markets to mention. Coupled with some sold out houses in some big metro markets. Hello Carnegie Hall !!!!
But the fly in the ointment is this: I'm no great orator like David Hobby. I can't hold an audience in my hands, with them waiting for the next utterance about luminance, like he does. I'm no Scott Kelby with his joie de vivre and his witty patter, standing in front of legions of people who are desperate to understand the vagaries of Photoshop or the menus of their cameras. I'm just a guy who likes to write and take pictures and who never thought he'd be held captive to the back end of the publishing process. A self imposed voluntary, involuntary servitude of creating an informercial-esque circus around a straightforward book.
I'd rather keep writing and photographing. It's sunny and warm here now. I'm abandoning all marketing efforts for today and heading out with my camera and a smile on my face. The book market can wait.
And, by the way, we are having a book signing and "meet and greet" on February 27th, from 5 to 7 pm at Precision Camera here in Austin. I'm sure you'll want fly in for it....
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17
02
2012
Posted by: kirk tuck in Photo articles
I was at Precision Camera several times this week doing the kind of things that drive more level headed photographers and IT professionals slightly crazy. I was buying more micro four thirds stuff, getting rid of the little Nikon V1 System and trimming down some of the Canon inventory. What shall we tackle first? How about the m4/3rds? It's no secret that I really like EVFs and I really like small and light cameras. I'm waiting impatiently for the OM-D but in the interim I stumbled into the Panasonic G3, liked what I saw and read (I blame Michael Reichman's review from last Summer the most) and decided to pick one up. A fun camera for less than $600 bucks and maybe the current champion for lower noise ISO among the m4:3rds camp. I've enjoyed the way the Panasonic GH2 works and I've used it now on six paying jobs this year, to my delight and to the satisfaction of my clients.
The G3 plays well with the Panasonic/Leica 25 Summilux and the 45mm 1.8 Olympus lens but, albeit, without IS. The files are crisp and detailed and the noise, up to 1600 ISO is very normal. And very workable.
The Nikon is a glorious little system and I'm sure I'll regret consigning it the minute it sells. Which will probably be the day before Nikon comes out with a gold-banded, 18mm f1.4 (50mm equiv.) prime lens. But I got tired of waiting for faster glass and more and more captivated by the fast lenses that Olympus and Panasonic already had on tap. Waiting for me. Taunting me.
Something had to go. And the Nikon got the nod. It failed the "eternal" test. That's the test that gauges how much you carry around your system, over time. More and more I left it at home and took faster glass. I'm a creature of some habits even if I'm not brand loyal. In the grand number scheme of the "eternal" test the current winner is the EP-3 which I've carried most days since purchase. More than the Canons and more than the V1. Even more than the GH2 (which is currently in second place for fun shooting and in first place for commercial shooting, just slightly ahead of the Canon 1DS mk2.
Before people melt down let me quickly say that I really like the Nikon system and it has its unique attributes but I finally just ran out of bandwidth.
I had too many Canon 1D bodies so one of them got donated to an up and coming young artist who will remain anonymous. We've winnowed it down now, in the Canon camp, from six cameras at the start of the year to three. And we may get even tighter on the "dinosaur" camera inventory as the m4:3 becomes more compelling. But I need to at least keep the two remaining, full frame bodies around for those moments when only the slightest sliver of Zeiss focus will sate my imperious "bokeh lust."
But, I started this whole article off intending to talk about an Olympus camera that I consider to be their Sputnik of digital cameras. Their moon launch. The incredibly nice piece of alloy and glass that put them on the digital map in 1999. Yes. I'm talking about the supernaturally incredible e-10.
It solved so many problems. Let me set the stage: Digital was in it's infancy. The only affordable, professional digital camera on the market was the Nikon D1 and just between you and me it was an unqualified piece of shit. The files were all over the map and it made a joke out of the idea of controlled flash. Not to mention that it had a buy-in price of over $5,000 and a noisy file that came flying off a strange 2.7 megapixel sensor. Banding, noise and wild flash exposure inaccuracies were included at no charge.
Later in the year Olympus announced, and shortly thereafter delivered, the e10. A four megapixel camera that featured a permanently attached 28-140 zoom lens filled with ED and Aspherical glass. The files were beautiful and, at ISO 80, 100 and 200, stomped all over the big Nikon. You could get a battery grip with a mondo battery that would last for hundreds and hundreds of frames. True all day shooting. The Nikon? Better have been prepared with one battery for every 100 frames.
At any rate I have the fondest memories of the e10 and carted it to Europe and Miami and Hawaii on corporate shoots, most times in tandem with a Hasselblad film system. That was the nature of the non-linear digital adaptation. I had forgotten about the camera until I came upon an old CD with these images of Christa. We shot them for a tony furniture store back in 2000. Shoot with monolight flashes and careful metering. The images were used in magazine and newspaper ads and on the web.
While I"m happy with the color and sharpness the 4 megapixel files do show their limitations when I splash em big across the monitor and ramp it all up to 100 %. It's not that the quality is bad by any stretch of the imagination, the files just run out of information. But the Olympus people figured out color and good optics way back then.
Now my little Panasonic cameras will do 16 megapixels and the new Olympus should match them. We can shoot at higher ISOs but I would hardly need to in a shoot like this. Remember, we're creating the light not just ramping up random photons. The e10 had its problems. Biggest of which was a tiny buffer. But this job and scores like it made this camera the most profitable digital camera I've probably owned. In fact, we did all the executive headshots for one of the world's largest computer makers for two years solid with this camera and it never let us down. I sold it to buy a Fuji S2. But that's a whole other story...
So, where am I going with all these m4:3 cameras and lenses? I'm on a journey. I'm heading back to the fun zone of photography. It's in a different part of the geography of photography from the earnest pixel measuring maniacs. Far, far from the perfection seeking "professional," DXO approved tools of the serious and ponderous. I'm hedging a bit with the Canons but the momentum.......is somewhere else.
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15
02
2012
Posted by: kirk tuck in Photo articles
Ben. Photographed with a Leaf 40 megapixel camera and a wickedly cool Schneider lens.
Can you feel it as it crashes against the shore? A wave of camera rationalization that's just amazing. Driven by the desire to differentiate the work of photographers who want to make money from those who just want to be photographers. A new approach that provides a new set of reasons for clients to hire photographers who'd like to make a real living doing this stuff: Photography. The lure of medium format digital cameras. And the new crop of maxi-pixel Nikons and Canons (believe me, they're coming).
Will it work? For some. Will it fail? For some. I've played with the "big boy" cameras. They didn't make my work better or worse. Had I kept them they would have made more cost of doing business rise appreciably. Here's the deal: If you are already working for the big time clients you'd like to be working for you probably didn't need the big medium format camera you just bought, anyway. The clients came to you because they already liked the way you do stuff. The camera gives you a new anchor to try to hold them to you but deep down you know you're held captive by the capriciousness of styles in the advertising coliseums. And if the clients you wish you worked for aren't already returning your calls then just showing up with new hand metal isn't going to convince them that you just became an artist.
When I look at the portrait above the first thing I notice is not the pixel count because we've downsized it for the web. The first thing I see is the expression. The direct connection with his eyes. His self-assurance. If the first thing you noticed was some expression of dynamic range (remember, we're looking at 6 or 8 bit monitors and we're looking at 8 bit compressed jpegs here....) then I haven't done the job of bringing direction or feeling to the image.
When I hear people talk about the NEED for more pixels and more dynamic range and more bits I think of this image below:
Brio. For Time Warner.
If you listen to the howling masses today you'd think nothing could be accomplished, photographically, with fewer than 16 or 18 megapixels. But we did the image above with a Nikon D100. A whopping six megapixels. A four frame raw buffer. Molasses slow CF cards. But the light is good and the expression is good and the ads worked and the check cleared. And I'm not really sure if the image would have looked better in newsprint at a higher pixel count.....
I think we tend to lose track of what we really need in the emotional flurry of the new camera announcements. I felt excited when I first talked to the Olympus reps about the new OM-D. I really had a desire to snap one right up. But I shot with my little Pen EP-3 today when I looked at the files I saw a camera that was outperforming my Nikon D2sx from four years ago. I saw detailed files with perfect color. And I chuckled to myself when I was reminded by the client that our destination ( along with 60% of marketing work these days ) for the portrait I was shooting would be on the company's website. Last time I checked the portraits were running about 320 by 320 pixels. Would we be able to pull it off??? Or would we NEED the power and the glory of a Phase One?
I've used a lot of cameras. My readers will attest to that. And I like almost every one I've held in my hands. But they're interchangeable. From six megapixels to forty megapixels, none of the specs really matter if I can't make someone genuinely smile and if I can't have them engage the camera in a collaborative and self assured way. And if I do that part of my job right then just about any camera I can clutch in my hands will probably deliver a serviceable file.
It's more fun to shoot with the latest stuff. But it's hardly necessary.
The portrait I shot today was fun not just because the subject was fun and knowledgeable and personable. And it wasn't fun just because it went well and the images looked good. It was fun because I did it on a camera that many people think isn't suited for professional work, with lights (LEDs) that people still don't get. At the most we were using less than $2,000 worth of gear. And it was fun because the success or failure of our undertaking didn't depend on the gear. It depended on me doing things correctly and the sitter joining in with the spirit of the engagement. And that's why this business is fun. Not because we can bring "the big guns to bear."
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14
02
2012
Posted by: kirk tuck in Photo articles
Brock's Books in San Antonio. Long gone. Some battered, old camera with a 28mm 3.5 lens and a roll of ISO 100 color slide film.
Falling in love. Being in love. Loving what you do. Love. I think that's why we really photograph. Until we get sidetracked by the gear and the process. I love beautiful faces. I got into taking photographs because I was dating someone who I thought was so beautiful that her face should be immortalized. Made into art. Frozen in time so I could admire it for a lifetime. My lifetime. That romance didn't last but new ones came along. And all along I recorded the things that I thought were most beautiful about my partners with my little camera.
In the early times I didn't really care about technique or cameras at all. I just wanted the images to be sharp where I wanted them to be sharp and well exposed in a way that worked for me and matched what I was trying to say. I learned just enough to make a competent photograph.
"Mastering Technique" is where the downfall begins. I'm sure it's a satanic plot to undermine the art that makes us happy. We read a magazine or talk to other photographers and we hear stuff about how our pictures can be even sharper or less grainy or more bokeh-y and we start down a path that leads us away from our objects of beauty and into a nested doll of endless intertwined details. And we never ask why our art has to conform to someone else's idea of better.
And the more we embrace the mechanical techniques the further we travel away from our original muse. The thing of beauty which we loved and wanted to share. But we convince ourselves that, in the end, we'll create much "better" work because it will be sharper and less grainy and better exposed.
But in the end it's as though we took our object of inspiration and put it under layer after layer of gauze. Each layer of technique we apply pushes the object further way from any sort of direct and emotive response on our part until it becomes merely a foil for our new infatuation with the craft.
When the devils succeed in corrupting our inner artist completely we look for subjects not because they strike a chord in our hearts but because our science brain tells us they'll make a good package on which to show off our skills at wrapping. At covering up the real gift with a new layer. "I don't care what might be in the box...." We're saying, "But look at what a good job I did with the gift-wrapping!!!"
And before we know it we're far afield from our original captivation. We're separated from what we loved by the knowledge that we can do more. Even if we never needed to do more in the first place. Our original passion is side-tracked by the promise of "just a little more control."
At some point the sheer weight of our tools and the exhausting burden of continuing to learn new ways to show off dulls us to the joy and effervescence of our original undertaking: To celebrate the object of joy we've encountered. To translate our love of beauty into something we can share.
And that kills photography for all of us. I am envious of the people I know who resisted learning more about the "how to." I am envious of the people who've found the one object of beauty in their lives that makes photography such a wonderful art. I am envious of Harry Callahan's long photographic study of his wife, Eleanor. I am envious of Henri Cartier Bresson's single minded love of capturing the world around him, unencumbered by "what's new in the bag." "What's state-of-the-art." and what might make a good foil with which to show off this new technique.
I am slow and witless and as easily led as the next photographer. And yet, today, I can look through stacks and stacks of images I've done of buildings and food and executives and models and I don't feel the slightest spark. But when I crack open a box of old black and white prints and look into the faces of the people whose beauty struck me to the point that I wanted to capture it, and the faces of the people who I love and cherish I feel flush with excitement. A thrill resonates through my heart. And I realize that this is what I should have been doing all along.
Forget stitching shit together in Photoshop. Forget crunching meaningless frames of shiny colored reflections of puddles into another HDR placemat. Forget so sharply rendered that it cuts into my iris. Remember what it was like to love and honor the subject in front of your camera because that's all that really matters. That's where the real art lives. It's about discovering the beauty you cherish, not imitating a weak, cultural construction of beauty manufactured from clever tricks. And it's certainly not about the camera, the lights or the postprocessing.
The image you have in your mind, when you look at what it is you consider most beautiful, is... everything. Your longing to photograph was originally an attempt to preserve that precious moment of beauty and insight for yourself. Or to be able to share it for a lifetime.
Everything that came after that, the camera bags, the lenses, the super straps and the endless stream of lights and cameras, is a wedge that pushes us further away from the original truth.
Go out today and find the thing you love. The person. The son or daughter who makes you smile and brings tears of happiness to your eyes. The wife or husband who brings a feeling of warmth and belonging into your life. The friend who stood by you when you were in the hospital or deep in debt. Find your beauty and then share it with yourself. That's the miracle of photography.
That should be our assignment right now. That should be our picture of the day. Everything else is just a job.
In its purest form our photography is a celebration of love. And everyone's love is different.
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13
02
2012
Posted by: kirk tuck in Photo articles
One of my friends mentioned this over a glass of wine recently. Today seemed like a good day to repost it. I wrote it in 2010. Near the end of the year...
"THE PASSION IS IN THE RISK"
Yesterday was Thanksgiving. We had a houseful of people. My parents were here and Belinda's parents, too. Nieces and nephews and new additions to the family. Belinda and I teamed up in the kitchen and put out some nice food. My mom brought some fun wine, even three bottles of my favorite white wine, Conundrum, from Caymus Vineyards. Everyone was happy and the day went smoothly. I was so proud of my kid, Ben (you've seen his photo many times....). We have a three step drop from the kitchen to the dining room and we were serving buffet style. My dad is in his 80's and walks with a cane. Ben waited until my dad filled his plate and then walked over and quietly offered to carry his plate to the table.
Most of our family lives in San Antonio and everyone headed back home in the late afternoon and early evening. Ben got invited to go surfing, down in Port Aransas, with family friends and he was gone by 6:30 pm. Once Belinda and I finished washing pots and pans and dishes we decided to watch a movie from Netflix and we settled on a mindless romantic comedy called, "When in Rome."
Near the end of the movie the female protagonist is trying to decide if she should take the risk and marry her new boyfriend. Her father threw out a line and I grabbed for a Post-It (tm) pad and a pen. It's a line that resonated with me like a bell. He said, "The Passion is in the risk."
THE PASSION IS IN THE RISK.
That's pretty much the culmination or distillation of what I've been trying to say here for the past two years. The magic dust that makes art work is the passion you bring to it. And the passion is proportional to the risk required. I've included two photographs to illustrate my point. In the top photo I'm photographing life in the Termini train station in Rome. I'm determined to get a shot of the baggage handlers. I go in head first because I know they may (and did) object and I'd only get one chance. Before I started I thought that there might be a heightened chance of confrontation. There's a certain risk in a direct, "looking into the eyes" presentation. I had to be quick with my technique. I could be embarrassed if they got pissed off and made a scene. All that stuff that goes thru your mind when you're out of your own neighborhood, out of your demographic and out of your own culture. But you move forward because you embrace that level of risk and deem it acceptable for the potential reward. That being said, this isn't my favorite photo. But each time you risk you get more comfortable with the risk and you understand that something moves you to do this thing that's beyond a staid calculus of accrual.
In the arts the passion is never truly about money. It may be about fame and with fame may come money but in reality the arts are about the passion. When I step out the door I'm looking for a photograph that makes me feel something out of the ordinary. Art is never a reaffirmation of the value of the ordinary.
The second photograph is passionless. We make these all the time. It's a quick, furtive shot that shows nothing but the back of one person and the profile of another. There's no engagement. There's little passion. And when you look at this image you tend to pass it by because it's something you've seen a hundred or a thousand times before from every photographer who shoots in the street. There's little reward because there's little risk. And without the risk there's no passion. And the passion is what gets transmitted to the viewer.
But the idea that The Passion is in the risk goes way beyond street shooting or even just the practice of the arts. In fact, I think the slow building of passion comes with taking multiple levels of risk that correspond with access to the passion. An example. If you want to create great work in any art it takes constant practice. I've used the analogy of competitive swimming as an example. If you want to be a great surgeon you have to use those brain and hand skills all the time or you get rusty. I have many friends who are doctors and when they need to have a surgical procedure done they never settle for the guy who's done a couple hundred successful procedures they search out the guy who's done thousands of successful procedures because they know that with practice comes expertise. The guy who's done 2,000 procedures has dealt with every permutation. In art parlance, he's become a "master". By the same token I don't think photographers can be at the top of their art unless they live it with the same "hands on" intensity. If they pick up the camera every once in a while they just aren't fluid enough to make great art. And it's not just knowing where the buttons are and when to push them....for a people photographer it's also about knowing how to work with people in a fluid way.
So, that means that it's almost impossible to do photography at a passionate level and still have the time and energy for a real job. And there's the risk. Freelance photography gives you the time but it also delivers risk. And if you can accept that risk and move forward even with the knowledge that you may end up hungry and poor, but you still feel compelled to move that way then you may be driven by your passion and that passion may reward you with art you can love.
Beyond that, risk also means removing yourself from a comfortable situation to an uncomfortable situation that elicits responses in a photo which in turn make it interesting to you and your wider audience.
The ultimate risk is working when you are the only audience. When you stop caring what other people think about your work and you make work that is uninflected by the subtle pressure of others. In this arena the risk of total isolation is so strong that only the most courageous passion will drive sane people forward. It's a level I've not achieved and I'm not sure I can. I have too many responsibilities. I have too much to lose to risk everything. And yet it's something I am jealous of in other photographers.
The person who finds a $100 bill on the street is just a bit richer. The person who pulls a diamond from the jaws of a pissed off, deadly dragon has a story to tell for the rest of his life. And he creates a legend.
That's what the few real artists in our lives do. They battle metaphorical dragons that come complete with real risks. They've already signed a blanket waiver with life and they're ready to strap in and take the ride. They're the test pilots and we're waiting for someone to come along and pressurize the cabin.
So. Why have I decided to work with LED lights in the last few months? Do I think the results will be technically better than what I can get with state of the art flash equipment? No. But I know the results will be different. I know that some stuff will be riskier (like subject motion and color correction) but I know that intangible and tangible differences in the way portrait subjects respond and react makes the photographs different and it's a risk with a return.
If I know how to do a technique forward and backward why do I constantly abandoned the safe techniques and try new stuff? Because the risk of maybe failing makes the process more exciting. If the risk pays off I have something that's new and maybe closer to my vision of what an image should be. If I fail I learn and I come back and try again.
If I never try then I master one technique and use it, safely, over and over again until it's so stale and old that no one ever wants to see it again and I've squandered years and years when I could have been investigating and playing and failing and succeeding and doing new stuff.
The turn over of gear is open to many interpretations but unlike most amateur practitioners I seem to go from the highest iteration of equipment to the lowest instead of the other way around. I'll start with a Canon 5Dmk2 and slide down the product scale where the risk is greater because it's more fun to work without a safety net. Buying better and better gear is a way of trying to manage risk. And managing risks is the perfect way to suck the absolute passion out of your art. Perfect risk management means sitting in a bunker with the air filters on high. But nothing moves forward that way.
Here's an odd thought. One posited by a character in Stephen Pressfield's magnificent book, The Gates of Fire, "What is the opposite of fear?" The eventual answer? "Love."
We work through the fear that everyone feels. Fear is a very uncomfortable emotion. Most people feel fear and move away from the thing that made them feel fearful. Or they work to contain the process or action that caused the fear. Some work through the fear to feel the love. The work is the love. The process is the fear, The fear is the risk. And the risk is the thing that artists embrace. And that's what makes the best work work. Knowing that you might fail.
Someone asked me the other day if being 55 and in a field that seems to be falling apart and crashing and burning scared me. Yes. I'm as scared as I can be. But not because I won't make money. I'm scared that I won't have the time and the courage to keep going out every day and doing something that rational people don't do. Every time I go out and shoot it scares me. And every time I go out and ignore the fear I get into zone and the photos get better and better. When I stop getting scared the work falls apart.
The scariest moments for me are the days when I wake up and I've lost the determination to go out and try it all over again.....as if for the first time. When I'm working from a "playbook" of greatest hits I know that it's over. The passion is gone. It's time to stop. But the scariest thing of all is that all the inspiration and vision and passion comes from a well within. There's no way to inspiration other than to wake up and want. And to be willing to accept the risk that creates the passion. And that's why it's worth it not to copy anyone else but to create your own art and take your own risks. Because:
THE PASSION IS IN THE RISK.
The passion and the risk are different for everyone. And so are the rewards. And that's why people talk about gear instead. Because it's so hard to say why you do what you do. And it will be different for you.
added at 5:22 pm. I never did get around to explaining why I took the image of the guys in the train station. Let me go thru that process and see if I can put it into words. We really don't have a train station here in Austin. The closest we have is an airport and it was built in the last ten years and doesn't look much different than a nice strip mall with a bunch more chairs. I have a romantic nostalgia for train travel. But even more to the point, I have a bittersweet memory of a time when travel was civilized and special and much, much less stressful. The guys in the top photo are remnants of that earlier time. It was a time in which you and and your family could travel for weeks with multiple suit cases. You would have suits and ties and nice shoes to wear to fancy restaurants. Hiking boots and heavy jackets for romps through the Alpine plains outside of Chamonix and you would have also packed some casual clothes for evenings wandering through the old neighborhoods of Rome. You'd find a nice cafe and have hot chocolate while your parents enjoyed a few glasses of wine and some savory treats.
And it was all made possible by men like these in the train stations and airports who would take care of the logistics of moving your heavy cases from the train to the to taxi's and back again. And you were pretty sure they worked for tips and they worked hard every time a train came in. They were freelancers like you are now. Somedays no one would want to pay for their help. Other days the work would be non-stop. There were no guarantees. No safety net. But it was what they knew how to do.
And slowly all these men have have faded into oblivion as wheeled totes and "carry on" only became the vogue. And now we travel with only what we can carry and we're more like overnight visitors than real travelers. But at the same time these guys were brusk and sometimes unlikeable, with a street smart cynicism that put you on your guard. And there are now no more young porters. It's a dying art. Like dye transfer or black and white darkroom printing. And it's sad when an era passes.
And they know it's only a matter of time before their knees give out and their lungs protest the decades of smoking and they won't be able to lift the heavy boxes that often replace the luxe leather suitcases and trunks. And they're pissed. And resigned. And how can I get all those emotions and all those thoughts into something as insubstantial as a photograph?
I look over and see the scene come together. They are resting on the cart, looking for customers. They are smoking. I walk closer. I've already set my Mamiya 6 camera to the exposure I think the scene offers. I bring the camera to my eye to fine tune the focus with my rangefinder. The man raises his hand and as he starts to wag his finger I click. Then I drop the camera down and gesture that I get it. I understand. I won't shoot another frame. I'll hope I have what I want and spare them the indignity of overt and obvious study. Young life swirls around them. One man smiles in a resigned way. Two others continue their conversation, oblivious of my transgression. And the man with the wagging finger follows me with his eyes, just to make sure I got the message. Yes. I did. I got the whole message.
When I develop the negative I wish I'd gotten closer. Much closer. But cropping is not the same. I wish I'd gotten closer and wider. The 55 instead of the 75. But I got what I got and I learned that my reticence to walk in closer with the wider lens is like a slap to the face and I know next time I'll take the risk or not take the photograph at all.
the holidays are upon us. I humbly submit that a good book about photography will be most welcome by the photographers on your list. Here are a few suggestions:
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12
02
2012
Posted by: kirk tuck in Photo articles
When I first learned how to do portraits I learned from a Brooks Graduate. We used at least three lights. We carefully focused a medium format camera and we worked slowly and methodically. The only job I've held as a photographic assistant was a short stay at a two generations old studio right next to the Texas state capitol building. The owners, all highly trained photographers, made their living serving two constituencies. They made official portraits of each state representative and senator for display in the capitol and for use by the state officials. These were all done in black and white. They were also the official provider of formal portraits for all the sorority girls at the University of Texas at Austin. All the portraits done by the studio were shot on 5x7 inch black and white Ektapan film and developed by hand. The images of the sorority girls were done in a style that called for the girls to be draped in a white fabric that left their shoulders bare but covered any hint of breasts.
The girls were photographed with an ancient portrait lens which obscured any skin detail and many faults. The lighting came from ancient Photogenic studio electronic flashes that we wheeled into adjustment on large, caster equipped light stands. The lights were a mix of giant beauty dishes and soft banks.
Once the girls were photographed it was my job to pull the film from the holders, transport it down to the large lab in the basement and tank develop all of it. We had a drying room just for film, with lots of taut lines and clothespins or metal clips to hang the film from. Once the film was dry I would contact print it on "printing out" paper. This was a paper that would slowly fade away with prolonged exposure to daylight. It kept the customers from keeping the proofs and not coming back for their prints.
Once an image selection was made I would print the images onto soft surfaced, Kodak Ektalure G surface paper. We used this paper because it was nice and thick and, with the G surface we could use actual lead pencils for spotting and retouching. At the end of a busy day the whole staff would sit around two tables in a sun splashed room spotting with pencils. It was a skill that made spotone-ing with brushes look simple.
My problem was that with all the soft focus and all the retouching (both on the 5x7 inch negatives and on the prints) I couldn't tell the customers apart. And I suspect that only close friends and families could really discern who was in the frame. But I learned a lot. I learned that in the old days one followed the proforma of the day and that lighting had rules....
I didn't last long because I was young and impatient and I hated the style of photography we did. And said so once too often... Ah. Reckless youth.
When I started to shoot portraits for myself I had as resources my experience with the formal studio and my training at the hands of the Brooks master photographer. A died-in-the-wool PPofA (Professional Photographers of America) stalwart. Lots of rules. Lots of "this is the way it's done." Good technical grounding but a whole different time period of aesthetics.
I experimented. I liked softer light and sharper film. I liked deeper shadows and less retouching. And I like what you could do with just two lights. One for the background and one for the person sitting in front of the camera.
For the last twenty years I've lit portraits in pretty much the same way. Usually with flash and usually with big, soft light sources.
Now, I'd like to re-invent my portraits. I want them to be more intimate and direct but I still want the light to be soft and contrasting.
Today I asked Belinda to come to the studio so I could test out the little Olympus 45mm 1.8 lens on the EP-3 camera. I set up two of the 1,000 bulb LED panels behind a four foot by four foot 3/4 stop scrim and put them over to my right. I set the camera at ISO 250 and shot at 1/125th at f2.8. And I liked everything I shot today. The Olympus shoots square if I ask it too and Lightroom 4.0 shows the file square if the camera is set that way. Belinda wanted a black and white image for a marketing piece so I made the conversion in PhotoShop's black and white adjustment panel.
I think I'll spend the rest of the year re-inventing the whole idea of portraits. Now that I can do what I want, handheld, with LED lights, with a micro four thirds camera and a really nice lens. Why not?
Another version with a little post processing for fun.
Just a few notes on some technology that I'd ignored:
I used the Olympus Pen EP3 to shoot this image. It has a very, very fast and accurate face recognition control for autofocus. You can even tell it which eye to focus on. Closest, Furthest, Left or Right. It works. It's amazing. It's accurate and it beats the hell out of racking the lens in and out trying to get an exact focus and then having your subject move slightly and throw it all out of wack.
This was the most revolutionary part of my little portrait session. I could, for all intents and purposes, ignore the chore of focusing and be certain that the camera would select exactly what I would have. What a burden lifted.
Thank you, Frank.
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12
02
2012
Posted by: kirk tuck in Photo articles
Change is interesting and, I think, non-linear. More like two steps forward and one step back instead of a graceful and ever escalating, upward spiral. I've shot with all kinds of formats but since Olympus introduced the EP2 back in 2009 I've been drawn in the direction of smaller, lighter and more fun cameras like paparazzi are drawn to Snooki. Sometimes I over step and sometimes I under step. For a while I was three systems deep in smaller cameras. Just two systems deep if you count the Panasonic and Olympus micro four thirds cameras as one contiguous family of mini-cams. But I've been rationalizing the whole mess. I've sold off a few Canon bodies. I'm concentrating on the full frame bodies only. I've bid farewell to two fine cameras, the 60D and the 7D, so I can concentrate on thinking about the full frame lenses in a singular way. I've sold off all the EFS lenses and beefed up the fast Zeiss Primes.
Now I have the full frame Canon field covered with multiple cameras and I can consider those my "old school" professional tools. To be used for clients who like "big" and "megapixels" and big brand names. But I don't shoot with them nearly as much as I do the little cameras. In fact, if I didn't shoot as a professional I'd sell them all and just concentrate on the little cameras. More particularly, the Olympus Pens and the GH2. (Because of its combination of resolution, hot shoe, EVF and good performance, I've come to regard the GH2 as the lifeguard in the pool of m4:3.....for now).
While I'm excited, like everyone else who shoots with m4:3 Olympus cameras, about the arrival of the OM-D, I think I'm even more excited about all the cool lenses that have been introduced and are being announced. So I cleared out even more inventory of non-related systems in order to make room and generate cash to add to my stash of lenses. On friday I added the Panasonic/Leica 25mm 1.4 Summilux and the Olympus 45mm 1.8 to the mix. I was going to stretch and go for the 12mm Olympus lens but I'd like to see how the 12-50mm performs first. I'm not as interested in wide angles as I am middle and slightly long focal lengths....
I haven't taken the 45mm out of the box yet because I'm captivated by the Summilux right now. (I've shot with borrowed 45's a number of times...). I walked around and shot with the Summilux yesterday and had a blast. It spent the day attached to an EP3 and I loved it. The lens makes mechanical noise when it's just sitting there with the camera on. That's been reported by most users. I don't know what it is that makes the noise but I've decided not to care.
The focus, under every condition that I shot, is fast and accurate. The center two thirds of the image is radically sharp from wide open on down and the stuff I shot at f4 was pretty amazing. My friend, Frank, educated me about a unique feature on the EP3 that (in a moment of blind snobbery) I had overlooked. If you set the camera to enable face recognition AF you can also select which eye you'd like the camera to focus upon. The choices are: Left, Right, Closest, Furtherest. I chose "closest" because that's how I shoot portraits. I tried it over and over again yesterday and it's a great, fast way to work. I'm glad I have friends who are more open to experimenting than me. It makes the camera a much more potent portrait camera.
I walked my usual weekend route and passed by the Littlefield building as the clouds and the light shifted. The metering was on the money and the lens rendered a very crispy file. As you probably know, I shot with Leica M and Leica R cameras for nearly the entire decade of the 1990's and I love the look of the Leica lenses. While the Panasonic lens is a design by Leica with all the construction done in Japan it still seems to have some of the Leica DNA. The files have more "weight" to them and there seems to be more contrast between tones. I've only shot several hundred frames with the lens and only on a 12 megapixel camera but what I see is very, very good. I'm sorry I waited so long to get this lens.
I know the nuance is largely lost to the vagaries and insults of web presentation but this simple shot of flowers is a telling example of what the fast prime lenses are all about. The focus on the flowers is as sharp as I could ask for. At 100% on the screen the range of tones within the purple of the flower is richly variated. And the background goes out of focus in a smooth and visually pleasing way.
But here I must be truthful and say that while the Pan/Leica lens is great it's not leaps and bounds better than some of my older Pen lenses (except at it's widest aperture). So why did I shell out for this modern version? After spending a few years zooming in and out to check manual focus I was ready to capitulate and go with some auto focusing options. In fact, in a circular way, it was the EP3 that drove me there. The autofocus is so good it was a shame not to use it.
You can preach to me till you're blue in the face about the need to have super deluxe, noise free, high ISO's but I'll preach right back to you that it's more important to have high ISO if you hobble yourself with 2.8 and slower zoom lenses. The image above was shot at ISO 640 in very, very low light. The fast aperture obviates the need to crank up the amplifiers and bang away at the files. I'm not necessarily a Luddite. I do use a Canon 5Dmk2 from time to time but the whole noise thing seems over blown to me. Give me a fast lens, a fun camera and some in-body stabilization and I'll be a happy camper in most situations that are bright enough for old eyes to see in. Your mileage will vary, profoundly. Test your own technique before accepting mine.
I photographed this little tableau at the W Hotel. I used an ISO of 1250, at f4 and hand-held the camera at a quarter of a second. I love the fact that anything I stick in front of an EP3 automatically gets image stabilization. I can hardly wait to test the stabilization in the OM-D.
So, if I'm so amazed by the 25 Pan/Leica why did I also buy the 45mm 1.8 Olympus lens? Why not? It's a great focal length for the kind of portraits I like to do. I've shot with it and found it good. Judging from work I've seen my friends produce with it the lens is probably as sharp wide open as the 25mm and it helps me fantasize about a time in the near future when I am able to shoot everything I want with just a bag full of m4:3 cameras and lenses.
I'm photographing some portraits with the 45mm this afternoon and throughout the week. I'm sure I'll have something to say about it in short order.
It's kind of funny. I've been reading across the web this week about famous photographers who are making a transition in the opposite direction. They are rushing to embrace the promise of medium format digital cameras. Zack Arias has written a long blog entry about how amazed and impressed he is with the file quality of his new medium format camera. David Hobby recently revealed his adoption of medium format as well. Even my friend, Paul, has joined the exclusive club with the latest Hasselblad MF.
Several of my newer readers wrote to me directly asking me when I was going to "dip my toe" into the MF waters and see what it was all about. They assumed that medium format was a very new category and a fast growing one for professionals. Well, I guess my answer is: Been there, done that. Box checked.
Back in 2008 and 2009 I was asked to extensively test and review three different medium format cameras over the course of the year. I spent "quality time" squeezing the best performance out of each camera, exploring their proprietary raw files and dealing with their quirks. Here's what I wrote at the time:
If you read through the reviews please keep in mind that, at the time of the reviews we were just starting to see announcements for 21 megapixel cameras from Canon and that Nikon had not year dropped anything bigger than 12 megapixels on the markets. At the time 12 megapixels was considered a good standard for professional cameras. It was a different time.
I'm happy to see the prices on the current MF cameras start to drop. I think the benefit is not in endless resolution but in the size of the sensor and its relationship to focal length. The benefit for portrait shooters has always been the use of a longer focal length for the same angle of view, with its attendant faster drop off of depth of field. It's a look that's hard to duplicate. If you are rushing to the big cameras just for the resolution then you've missed the train already. But these camera sensors are still smaller than the 6c6 cm of the old, film Hasselblads.
I'll be happy to sit on the sidelines and watch everyone embrace the new cameras in an attempt to differentiate themselves from the middle of the photographic Bell Curve. If it works and puts more clients in their corral then more power to them. But as Buckaroo Bonzai said, "Wherever you go, there you are."
The week ahead should be fun. I can hardly wait to see which company announces what this week. It's just part of the continuing process of re-inventing photography....
This is an image from a 40 Megapixel Phase One back. Is there a difference? What is it? How would you describe it?
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10
02
2012
Posted by: kirk tuck in Photo articles
  LED Lighting. Kirk's Fifth Book.
Of all the changes that technology's brought to photography one of the most interesting to me is how it's changed the way we light things. The tools are transforming the vision of a generation. Cameras with faster ISOs require less light but the light you do bring to the table is so much more controllable and easy to use than ever before. While most still photographers use flash in some form I'm pretty certain that the future will call for more use of continuous light and more flexibility in choosing our tools.
I started using LEDs when Canon and Nikon and Olympus and Sony started putting really cool video capabilities in their cameras. I wanted to see if I could open up some profitable markets for myself by adding video to the product mix I offer my clients. While I'm not setting the world on fire with video, the simple interviews and web videos I've done put an extra $10,000+ in my accounts last year. Not big money but if we work hard on improving every step I'm sure we can make those numbers grow, year by year.
So I got my first set of LED lights to augment available light with video but on the way to becoming the next Steven Spielberg I noticed that I was attracted to using the LEDs, more and more, for still life work where the WYSIWYG nature of continuous lighting made my shoot more efficient and productive. Now I had a reason to jump in and learn with both feet. So I bought more and bigger panels. In effect, I slid into LED lighting the way you slide into a hot bath....just a toe at a time and then finally, the commitment, and the plunge.
Now, a year and a half later, I've used the LEDs to light executive portraits, twilight portraits, complex (for me) food shoots, studio shoots with actors for Zachary Scott Theater, and some really fun and fast moving corporate reportage. A few days ago I was asked to photograph some books in a three dimensional sort of way. A few years back I would have been reaching for the electronic flash monolights and I'd start the "chimping" process. I'd be setting up soft boxes and umbrellas and blah, blah, blah.
With my bigger LED panels I just flipped the switch to "on," lined up the shot on the live view screen of my camera, set the aperture I knew I'd need to cover the book with sharp focus, adjusted the shutter speed until the live histogram looked correct and then tripped the shutter. A quick, magnified look at the file and I was on to the next set up. Color? Perfect. Just using AWB. Perfect? I finished in two hours what had taken me, in past "flash centric" shoots, perhaps four or five hours.
In the book I've written about choosing the right LEDs. About the accessories that seem to work best for me working with the lights. About using them for my favorite subject: Portraits. There are over 250 images that illustrate every point. The book is 160 pages long as is the culmination of a year and a half of research and "real world" use. And then six long months of writing a re-writing.
I hope you'll take a chance and add this book to your library of photographic books. I'll continue to update my knowledge base about LEDs and what's changing in the market place and share that information here. What every writer in this day and age needs is the support of his audience. In a way the books pay for and are the prime impetus for writing this blog. Every book sold gives me time to explore, write and shoot more.
thank you.
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09
02
2012
Posted by: kirk tuck in Photo articles
When will all this retro nonsense stop?
I watched the Nikon rollout of the D800 a few days ago and it reminded me that Canon is on the ropes. For good. Oh sure. They're the biggest camera company in the galaxy (right now), design and produce their own incredible sensors, and just a few years ago the Nikon users were jumping in droves to get the white lenses, the super video, the full frame, the high ISO. But now everything has changed and there's no such thing as continual "leapfrogging." Canon is doomed. DOOMED !!! We all know it. And I think I found the genesis of their hideous decline. Someone asked me to review this camera (above) and I was shocked with the primitive feature set. I know it must be a current camera because it's so........retro.
It's called a Canonet QL17. How cutesy. It sports a prime 40mm lens with a fast, 1.7 f-stop but that's just about where the feature set ends....
Well, here's my review: The damn thing is unusable. Let's go down the list of unredeemable flaws. To start with, all that satiny metal finish is way too retro-ly conspicuous. I've applied ample stealth tape in an attempt to tone down this grasping, faux modern design aesthetic as best I can.
The lens is FIXED. Not that it was broken but, I've learned now that any camera with a fixed lens is inferior to an interchangeable lens camera. And zooms are best of all. Who can do any kind of work without a fisheye and an extreme telephoto? Read no further. I'll warn you off right now. This is not a birding camera. Unless you relish the idea of tiny birds hidden in the recesses of your frames. Dots, really. There's no reach at all. The lens is just a 40mm and that's on full frame !!!!
But I just found out that the "full frame" imager is the same as the one used in the Nikon F full frame that we reviewed earlier. It's not re-usable. It's WORO. Which means "write once, read once." They used a sensor called "film." It's very noisy over ISO 400, and the camera doesn't have a lot of post processing tools built in. In fact, it has none. It's a very expensive way to run a camera. But it's offset by having a MSRP of $149.95, new.
Continuing with the flaws you would have to add the lack of autofocus. See the little knob just to the right of the lens in the photo above? You pull that up or down to effect focus. And the confirmation that you're doing a damn bit of good in the pursuit of focus is in a little window you look through. Apparently this is a "rangefinder" camera. Like that other retro copy, the Leica M9. Come on, if you need the retro styling just get a Fuji X-100. That's the real retro deal.
This camera may be one of the very few in the world without a menu. In fact, there's no electronic interface I could find. You wiggle the stick for focus. You watch fuzzy yellow blocks come together for focus and while I think there used to be a meter in the camera but the designers chose a battery that didn't "jump the shark" into the 21st century. So your meter is all mental. Kind of an "Abundance Metering" philosophy. If you "think" good exposure then surely you will manifest good exposure.
The camera has a limited range of shutter speeds and those are only available in full stops. Wanna shoot outside? I don't think so. The top shutter speed is 1/500th and God knows you can't do anything with that. And get this.....the slowest shutter speed is 1/4th of a second. Jeez. No star trails here.
There is a bulb setting and a self-timer but my test camera's self timer was obviously defective. It buzzed like a savage honey bee every time I tried to use it. Notice the steel and alloy construction. Sadly it adds a lot of weight to what should have been a lightweight camera. Don't those designers know about the joy of plastic?
Speaking of hopelessly retro, get a load of this. It's a PC terminal for a sync cord. And it's a "dumb terminal" not an interactive connection. All it's good for is triggering flashes. And, you guessed it, Canon "cheaped out" and didn't include any provision for "smart flash." (Although they do have a provision for a primitive "guide number" flash.) Could they be more painfully retro?
And I'm sure you saw this coming...No LCD screen. No way to preview or review your images. It's almost like this camera is "capture averse."
This unit may represent an older part of Canon's line but it's an example of the company's obvious misdirection. If they had launched products like this in the 1970's do you think they'd even still be in business today?
I'm waiting for an improved, eighty five megapixel verison with auto Hipstergram, auto HDR, auto Compose and auto Banter. And, if Canon ever dumps the tired ass retro thing and comes into this century of camera design, let them know that I'm waiting for a red one. Fire Engine Red.
In All Seriousness...The Canonet QL17 was my first real camera and was a constant companion for years. I finally retired it to a place of honor in the equipment drawer when I bought my first Leica M3 with a 50mm Summicron. The Canonet went with me to Paris back in 1978 and many of my favorite images came from that little, wonderful box. It loaded quickly (hence the QL) and it gave me easy to print Tri-X negatives, roll after roll. It was small, unobtrusive and quick to use. The meter was acceptable but we took advantage of a useful tool, provided by Kodak, when we wanted fast and accurate exposure setting advice. Every roll of Kodak film came packaged with a sheet of paper, and on that sheet was a little set of illustrations showing different light sources and recommended settings. We'd tape the little paper strip onto the bottom of the camera, under Scotch tape, for quick reference. And it worked better than matrix metering nearly every time.
The fast (and sharp) lens and vibration free leaf shutter (flash sync to 1/500th), in concert with ISO 400 film, let me shoot with impunity in low light. The rangefinder never front or back focused and was equally good in bright or dim light. Your battery could go completely dead and all you would lose is the metering. In all it was an incredibly condensed and compressed tool for shooting real life. If you find one in good shape for a good price you might consider snapping it up. It's a good intro camera for people who've never had the pleasure of using real film.
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08
02
2012
Posted by: kirk tuck in Photo articles
I finished shooting a box full of books for one of my clients who publishes books about real estate and I was looking for something to cleanse my "visual palette." I found this old Kodak folding camera that my mom sent me. Apparently, it's been living in my parent's closet for a few decades. It came from a relative's collection many years ago.
I cleaned it off and put it on one of my tripods and then thought about lighting. I set up a different lighting design than I had ever tried before. I placed a big, 1,000 LED light panel (the cheap, Chinese variants) on either side of the camera and used the barn doors to keep spill light off the gray wall that was, maybe, five feet behind the camera. The LED panels were pretty close. You can see the placement in the image below. I expected the chrome parts to burn out and the dark areas to be noisy but it didn't turn out that way. Even though the camera sits directly between the two lights I thought the overall effect was dramatic and pleasing. I shot the set-up with a Panasonic GH2 and the 14-140mm lens. When I opened the raw file in Lightroom I was delighted. There wasn't much post processing to be done.
My favorite aspect of the shot on top, and even more so in the middle frame (above) is the way the light falls off as it goes down the tripod legs. I'm equally happy with the way the light falls off so quickly to the background that the wall goes black. And, at ISO 160, I'm not seeing any noise in the shadows. It's really nice performance for an inexpensive little system. Once I finished shooting this I wrapped up everything and went into the house to have dinner with the family. I can't decide which of the two above images I like the best. The camera alone is nice and clean but the second image resonates with my inner photo nerd. I wish I'd done the shot earlier because it would have made a nice addition to my book. I'm anxious to try the same kind of lighting in a portrait set up so I can get that same rapid fall off.
Today was totally insane. We had nearly 20,000 pageviews of my Olympus OM-D introduction. This followed yesterday's big, web wide announcement of the Nikon D800. The lure of the new cameras was palpable. There was clearly credit card adrenaline in the air. But when I looked at the new stuff I had a sense of having been there so many times before. I'm starting to feel like Pavlov's sad little dog because I find myself drooling at the internet signal that tells me that new camera dog food is heading to my bowl.
In both instances the camera makers are moving their respective balls forward. The Nikon may be the camera that pushes the medium format either off a cliff or into making a price competitive product for people who want or need a really large sensor. It will certainly be strong bait for people who want the best you can get (conditionally--meaning: the best for under $5,000). The promise of a 30+ megapixel camera is tons of detail and smooth tonality. It may be overkill but that remains to be seen.... Wait a month and Canon will, no doubt, debut their answering salvo and the race will be on to lock down customers. It's pretty much an easy sell. Lots of dots and lots of good numbers for a pretty affordable price. If you're an aspiring pro this is the kind of camera that popular wisdom will lead you to.
The Olympus OM-D is the magic camera enthusiasts have been waiting for. It's small and sexy and by all accounts it's going to be a very, very good picture taker. But what is the real appeal of this whole micro four thirds niche? Do you get it? Can I explain it? I'll try...
First of all, it's no longer "cool" to carry around huge cameras and lenses over your shoulders anymore as you go about day to day life. It's kind of the equivalent of dragging around a huge laptop just to be able to cruise the web and read your e-mail at your favorite local coffee shop. Get a tablet. Save some table real estate.
At the heart of it the appeal of the small, mirrorless cameras in general is that for all intents and purposes the image quality of these cameras is more than adequate for 95% of the kind of shooting and sharing that 95% of the people who are ardent photographers, want to do. Really. We might be shackled by nostalgia into thinking that only a "full sized" camera will work for us because "our" needs are specialized. But really, if you aren't shooting a job or assignment you're probably sharing most of your photo output on someone's computer screen.
I did another job today for the "book" client. The first time we shot together I shot all the books with a full frame, "professional" camera and a dedicated macro lens. But the client's only use for the images was as illustrations on their website and as product illustration on Amazon.com. I'd be shocked if they were used any larger than 800 pixels on a side. Today we shot the same kind of stuff on the Panasonic GH2 and, after I finished dropping out the backgrounds and doing my post processing, the images were equivalent to the earlier full frame shots. The one difference I noticed in the actual shooting was that the increased DOF for the same angle of view meant that I didn't struggle to keep the product in focus at the cost of the effects of diffraction. Oh, and the live view was much easier to use. Oh, and the touchscreen was pretty cool for moving the AF sensor cursor around. I guess my point is that while huge print sizes and ultimate quality are still the provence of the biggest camera sensor you can get it's not a binary equation for all photography.
The users of the m4:3 cameras that I know have all graduated from bigger cameras. They are looking for great image performance in a package that's a good companion. Small, easy to pack, light enough to carry for a full day and not in your face. Having graduated from the mainstream they seem to have left behind the idea that the camera itself conveys some level of competence to the photographer. Now they just practice their craft for the joy of practicing their craft.
The other thing that seems attractive about m4:3rds is a side effect of the lack of the mirror. The lens mount flange to sensor distance is much smaller and that means that every lens designed for longer sensor-to-flange or flange-to-film plane distances can, with an adapter, be mounted for use on these cameras. That appeals to the experimenter, the do-it-yourselfer, and the glass epicureans who understand that all lenses have their own personalities and styles. People routinely mount everything from long, fast Nikon telephotos to jewel-like Leica M lenses.
But now the m4:3's have come of age. Both Olympus and Panasonic have started revving up the optical workshops and they've been introducing cutting edge prime lenses than can be designed to be optically better than lenses hobbled by having to clear a mirror. A big gap between the lens and the sensor means that lens designers have to use retrofocus designs that are a compromise. The new lenses made for the smaller format can be optimized for better wide open performance, better sharpness and higher contrast.
I think the graduates get that. Maybe not the exact engineering but surely the idea that the lenses, even though small, are heavy hitters. And they return really superb images.
Smaller, lighter, cheaper, designed for the hand, fully implemented EVFs and lots of other intangibles. What's not to like?
Do I want one of the new OM-D's? You bet. Do I need it? Not for a second. I'm still happy with the Olympus EP2, spoiled by the EP3 and well satisfied with the workmanlike GH2. Can we shoot jobs with these? Of course. Look to the destination. Heading to the web? Perfect. Prints up to 20 inches? No problem. Super impressive to clients? Nope. But that's a whole other story.
I'm not preaching for a total takeover of the market by mini-cameras. I think there's a place for everything. And I'm sure lots of other pros will be able to make the case for big Canons and Nikons and that may be true for them. But the market isn't homogenous. I think it's smarter to choose a camera that's fun and facile rather than following any of the herds and buying a camera that's just right for someone else.
Hope you're having fun. There's never been a better time to enjoy photography. Just don't let the obsession with gear ruin your fun...
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07
02
2012
Posted by: kirk tuck in Photo articles
It'll be here in April and it's just what everyone said they wanted in an Olympus mirrorless camera. Really.
The Olympus faithful (myself included) have waiting a long time for this one to hit the market and it looks like we'll get the m4:3rds machine we wanted from Olympus afterall. I loved the EP2 and the EP3 but in each introduction I shook my head at the lack of insight into professional and advanced amateur usage patterns on the part of Olympus. I've been very, very clear that no pro in his/her right mind would buy a camera that didn't have an EVF. And the VF-2 EVF attachment is a good tool. But dammit, if you wanted to use the EVF on the EP2 and the EP3 you used up the hot shoe and the only two way terminal on the camera. Wanna use the VF-2? Then you can't use a hot shoe mounted flash. Wanna use a outboard microphone to do good sound with your video? Not is you need to use the VF-2. It drove me nuts.
We were also starting to chafe under the constraints of the 12 megapixel sensor. And if I had a quarter for every time I heard the Olympus fans decry the lack of weather sealing on the Pens I'd be driving a Bentley.
The ultimate wish list looked something like this: 1. Built in, high quality, fast refresh EVF 2. 16 Megapixel Sensor (preferably one that could be used in various aspect ratios without cutting into the pixel count. Like the one in the Panasonic GH2 (which is very, very good....).
(2/9 edit: I asked, point blank if the sensor was usable in different aspect ratios without cropping. The official Olympus source said, "yes." However, no one is infallible and many, many on the web are of the opinion that my question was misunderstood or incorrectly answered. If you're only criteria for buying or pre-ordering the camera is the sensor particulars you owe it to yourself to check this before buying. I'll try to get further information from Olympus about this. You've been cautioned!)
3. Weatherproof and dust proof. 4. Super fast AF. Like, fastest in the world, fast. 5. Fun to handle for small and large hands. 6. Bigger battery capacity than the Pens.
So, the wraps are off as of 9:01 EST February 7, 2012 and now it's time to unwrap the little metaphorical jewelry box and see what we actually got. Will there be crying and weeping and ritual tearing of clothes or will there be joy among the steadfast? Weather proof. Whether proof.
I'd say raucous celebration is in order because, by the look of the specifications, we got everything we asked for. (Note: I haven't handled the camera yet. I did get a complete walk through from the tech folks at Olympus USA. I will test a full production version in the near future.)
If you want the executive brief it goes something like this. Back in the 1970's Olympus introduced a line of very compact and very elegantly designed 35mm cameras. People were ready for a new size of camera that didn't weigh a ton and handle like a brick. The OM-1 and OM-2 cameras were wildly successful. And many of the lenses supplied for those cameras became legends because of their optical performance. Now Olympus is doing the same with digital. This is a direct backlash at all the bloated "professional" bodies and systems on the market. A small but powerful game changer.
When packaged with a new generation of high performance prime lenses it is a system that offers a good and creative alternative to a market crowded with "me too" APS-C DSLR camera variants. The mirrorless systems are useful, easy to handle and fully capable of giving professional results. The market is shifting.
According to Olympus the EVF is the same spec as the VF2 and that's good news for me because I think the VF-2 is one of the best EVF's I've used. And this one is built in. Right there in the pentaprism hump, just like the photogods always intended. And that leaves the hotshoe free for all the wonderful gadgets we've got stuffed into our bags. That includes remote triggers for flashes, bigger flashes for PR events, the stereo microphone adapter (which allows me to use a Rode StereoMic right there in the hot shoe for video work. Yippee!). Finally, happily. I'll be able to use this camera with my studio flash equipment and still have unfettered access to the eye level finder.
Camera with slave flash attached.
The folks at Olympus don't make it a habit to divulge the provenance of the sensors they use. I guess it's supposed to be a trade secret. So I asked a few probing questions. As you can see from the specs the sensor is 16 megapixels. I wanted to know if, similar to the Panasonic sensor in the GH2, you could use other aspect ratios such as 16:9 and 3:2 without losing resolution. The answer I got was "yes." All but the 1:1 aspect ratio. If this is true (and I have no reason not to believe it) this will make me happy. (See my "caveat emptor" above.)
I'd take a chrome version if they gave me one. If I pay for it then it has to be black. YMMV.
The AF is supposed to be the fastest in the world. For now. While I wasn't blown away by the speed of the EP2 AF I found it to be workable and very accurate. Indeed, the accuracy of the AF is a great selling point for all of the mirrorless cameras using CD-AF (contrast detection autofocus). The EP3 was a huge step forward and works well for me in all but the darkest and lowest contrast situations. In normal light it's right there with its Canon and Nikon peers. If the OM-D is even faster then they've done some wild engineering. Along with fast AF there's something we haven't tasted yet in m4:3rds and that's fast frame rates. The OM-D will do 9 fps at full res. The only catch is that you lock focus with frame one. There's no continuous AF with your blistering frame rate. If you want C-AF you'll need to drop down to 4.1 fps and turn off IS. With all the stuff implemented you'll still get a respectable 3 fps. All of this is based on using their MSC lenses.
 With the 12-50 you've got a 24-100 equivalent and the who set up is spit proof.
My cameras have always had weatherproof capabilities, including all my Pens. It costs a dollar. It's called Ziploc(tm) Plastic Bags. When it's wet outside you put the bag over your camera. It's impervious to moisture.... But for everyone who needs the real thing this camera is the real deal. They sent along an image showing all of the gasket points in red but I'd rather look at the exterior body stuff. So, the OM-D is dustproof and splashproof and generally weatherproof. But as with the pro cameras from every manufacturer, all the camera body weatherproofing in the world isn't going to help completely unless the lens and lens mounts are also weatherproof. The newly announced 12-50m zoom fits the bill and there are several other lenses that are coming soon that will boast full weatherproofing. The one many people with no doubt lust after will be the 60mm 2.8 macro. A quick note: According to my Olympus source that lens will also have a control on the barrel that will control the rendering of out of focus areas as well as full macro capability. Sounds like an all purpose portrait lens to me.
I know most of you aren't really interested in video but I am so I'm just going to take a moment and talk a few specs for the other video ready people out there. From all indications this will be a great little movie camera. The sensor is just the right size and the throughput is there. The specs indicate full HD (1920 by 1080) at 60 fps. You also have the choice of .MOV and .AVI. Whatever your editing set up one of those choices should work for you. The camera will go for 29 minutes if you have enough memory stuffed in. Why else do I think the camera is ready for good video? Well, you've got the EVF for full sun. You've got a movable, ample LCD panel on the back with lots of real estate and you've got the ability to connect external microphones. With the m4:3 lens mount and zillions of great manual focus and specialty lenses to choose from you should be able to get pretty much exactly what you need.
Add a battery grip and you'll also have long run times.
Ah......yes....there's a battery grip. You'll be able to cram two batteries into the mix for twice as much service time between recharges and yes, the batteries for the OM-D are different from the Pen batteries. They are bigger than the BLS-x batteries but not as big as the BLM-x batteries used in the bigger E series 4:3 cameras. The grip also gives people with bigger hands a lot more real estate to hold on to. And it duplicates some function controls from the body. But it does make the camera bigger. Not sure where I stand on accessory grips but we'll just have to play with one and see.
The movable screen on the back makes the camera thicker than an EP3. Take off the screen (don't!!!!) and it's just about the same size.
It's hard to tell from the images here because there's no scale for comparison but I've seen images of the camera next to the E-5 and the E-620 and it's much, much smaller than either of those cameras. It looks to be about 1/3 the cubic volume of an E-5.
Thank you for the built in EVF. This makes it a "real" camera. The offset to the right leaves room for an auto eye sensor. Bring the camera up to your eye and it automatically switches to from LCD to EVF.
No Flash in the guts.
Olympus giveth and Olympus taketh away. There is NO built in flash. That will make some people happy and some people sad. But it's pretty hard to get everything else you wantrd in a small and lightweight camera without compromising a feature or two. I'm guessing the camera will ship with the little pixie flash you see in the hot shoe above. I have one like this that arrived in the studio bundled with the little Pen EPM and it works as well as any built in ever did and gives you the option to bounce it off the ceiling.
While you're crying in your beer over the lack of yet another weak built-in flash let's switch gears and look at two other things that sparked me right up. One is a brand new implementation of image stabilization. In the first systems to hit the market the gyros and computer chips would detect motion in two directions: Up and down, and side to side. The latest implementation from Olympus detects and remediates motion and shake from five axis. That even includes rotational tremor. Coupling this with much faster processing basically means that it should be the market leader for IS for the moment at least. And BIG PLUS !!!!! Now you can see the effect of the image stabilization in the finder or on the LCD while you are shooting. That was the one remaining advantage of in-lens image stabilization. It was nice to be able to see the effect you were getting. Now you get that and you maintain the ability to bring IS to every lens you put on the front of the camera. AF or not. Got a Nikon lens from 1962? If you can get it on the right adapter you've just turned it into an image stabilized "optic."
The screen. OLED, of course.
So, where are we? We've got a small, stylish camera. Built like an alloy brick. With a full 16 megapixel sensor (just like we demanded). Maybe the sensor will even do the "no-cost-cropping-to-your-favorite- aspect-ratio" trick. If you really love the camera and you've mounted a weatherproof lens to it you can take it into the shower with you. Or out in the rain. It's built on a metal alloy body shell. The hi-res EVF is built in. The ports are available for all of our toys. What else could there be?
Well. There's a new 3D file format and a couple of new art filters. And there are some actually cool filters for video production. But really, isn't this every single thing we asked for in a new camera? I'd say it is. But the proof will be in the shooting. The camera is very scarce right now but it's slated to ship in April. I pushed hard to get a test copy before the intro but I got the polite, parental, "we'll see what we can do." If the camera just does what the spec sheet says I think most of us will be pretty happy.
Got remote control if you want it...
A note or two about the new flash. It works with a small Olympus remote if you want to use it off the camera. It will also be controllable by the built in flash in the EP3. If you are into run and gun movie making the flash also has a built in, LED video light. Only powerful enough to focus with and brighten a nearby subject's eyes. The OM-D syncs at a respectable 1/250th of a second and with a small controller flash or unit will control all the previous "R" series Olympus flashes. I personally will continue my practice of sticking a Flash Waves radio trigger in the shoe and using whatever flash I want, in manual mode. Or a convenient LED panel.
For the vampires among us let's sink out teeth into a few specs. The technical guys at Olympus were very excited about the low light capabilities of the camera sensor and file output. We didn't go into detail in our fact finding interview but the camera is capable of being set to ISO's of up to 25,000. I'm an ISO cynic and I'm going to say that I'll be happy if 3200 is pretty clean. Time will tell. But I think more and more of us are becoming aware of the role of computer processing in the production of "clean" files and the OM-D is using a new iteration of processors. They'd have to be to get the frames per second rates they've achieved in still mode and the frame rates in HD video that they're touting. I have high hopes that the high ISO performance is great. Not because I'll really make much use of it but I know any perceived shortcomings in ISO will be a source of endless and emotional discussion across the web.
I like Olympus bodies but lenses are what they are really all about.
Olympus did some really right stuff in 2011. And I think they're getting ready to build on their success. The launch of the 12mm and the 45mm lenses was invigorating; both for the company and for their "installed customer base." (Us.) Now, in concert with lenses from Panasonic, we're on the cusp of having a full system of pro caliber optics. The rumors you've heard about the 75 mm 1.8 and the 60 Macro are true. They'll be along, if all goes according to plan, some time in the fourth quarter of this year. And by all measures these lenses should be stunning. I own a Pen 70mm f2 lens from the late 1960's or early 1970's and I can tell you that it's really good. Just imagine what fifty years of research and development can buy us. Add a few more well thought out primes and some longer lenses and you're in the sweet spot of a system that can do just about anything. And that includes shooting professionally. With this camera the system has come of age. I've got my fingers crossed that it's as good in the hand as it is on paper. Amazing how far m4:3 has come in such a short amount of time.
Now. On another subject that's somewhat related: What's going on with the original "e" series of 4:3 cameras and lenses? I asked that question directly. The answer I got is that they are not throwing in the towel. They have, "product under development." There you go, Frank.
The new lens mount adapter will bring weatherproof performance to the 4:3 lenses. And, with new firmward updates I would expect the AF performance to get better and better.
The grip is a mixed blessing. You'll get more to hold on to. More to grip when shooting verticals. More battery power. But the camera gets bigger and starts to look.....bigger.
At this point I think Olympus can take a deep breath, accept a few pats on the back, and then get to work rolling out these improvements all down the line. I can hardly wait for an EPL-5 with the same sensor and the same IS. Hello Canon and Nikon ! Are you guys paying attention?
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07
02
2012
Posted by: kirk tuck in Photo articles
Canon 5D mk2. 20mm f2.8
I love sitting here writing blogs. I get to talk about anything I want and I get to "discuss" with those who disagree. I love walking around the city on a brisk day, the wind pushing against my ski jacket and making me squint a bit. The feel of a familiar camera in my hands. I love having a leisurely lunch with Belinda, or one of my friends. I love the reticent thrill of jumping into the water in the outdoor pool at 7 in the morning while a bold north wind tickles my bare skin. I love those dark mornings when temperatures in the 30's bring a frothy cloud of steam just above the surface of the pool. And I love the warm glow of the water with the pool lights lit and the sky still purple and deep blue. I love the bite of a good cup of coffee and the richness of an afternoon cappuccino. I love checks that come in the mail. On time. And I love curling up on the couch with my dog and a good book.
But there's one aspect of being a photographer that I hate more than anything. It's the marketing. Plain and simple. In a one person business there's nothing worse than having to continually sell yourself. In fact, all the things I listed above are just ways I procrastinate about dealing with the big elephant in the room. The fear of actually trying to engage new clients. Think about how lucky the marketing people are at companies with products. They have something real and substantial to sell. It may not be the best product in the world but a good salesperson will find a convincing combination of selling propositions that makes even a mediocre product sellable, at a price point.
On the other hand, a freelance photographer is selling himself. He can point to previous work and a track record but the product he'll produce for the future client hasn't been created yet. And the future client will have to take a leap of faith that his choice of photographer will be able to pull off making just the right image in just the right time frame. At some level we're in the business of making (and hopefully keeping) promises. And that's a tough sell.
We can point to a track record but imaging is a moving target and just because you could do sharp and perfect yesterday doesn't mean it's relevant to the distressed and retro aesthetic today. I could talk about decades of experience but that's a two edged sword as it instantly puts me into an age group that's anathema in today's markets. I could trot out my books and talk about my industry expertise but that muddies the waters. Then, instead of being someone's "go to" photographer, I send the mixed message that my business is about writing and publishing and marketing that product. The bottom line is that I have to show the work I've done and I have to present myself in a way that makes people want to work with me.
And that's scary. Have you ever tried picking up the phone and telling a stranger just how great you are while at the same time trying to convey that you're just one of the guys and you'd love to work with his team and have a jolly time talking about an assignment over a cold beer? It's tricky. Really.
So I've done my New Year's procrastination. I've worked on the mailing list. I've had my designer design some 5.5 by 8.5 inch four color over four color postcards, with an image that's proven to be popular. I've sent out some e-mail blasts with links to some custom galleries. But now it's time to do the real work. The heavy lifting of my business. It's time to strap on my most congenial personality and start making the cold calls.
Reality? No one makes it in this business without venturing into the real physical world and shaking hands with the people who control the assignments and write the checks. You have to meet them. You have to show them your stuff. You have to show them that you'll be good to work with. None of the other stuff really has the horsepower to close the deals and push people to commit.
So, I've loaded up the iPad with various portfolios that I can conjure up at the drop of a hat. I've had my designer create a nice "leave behind" piece. Now it's time to stop writing this blog. Drop into my comfortable chair. Strap on the earphones and microphone attachment to my phone and start dialing.
Notes in front of me on my screen. Deep breath. One more sip of coffee and then.....it's game on.
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06
02
2012
Posted by: kirk tuck in Photo articles
Canon 5Dmk2, 20mm Canon EF lens. Available light.
I think I've posted this image before but I came across it today and it reminded me how much photography could be done with simple tools. Earlier in my career this would have been shot on 4x5 inch sheet film but with careful metering and a few clicks of the transform tool in PhotoShop I am very happy with this rendition. The only hold over from the earlier days is the need for a stout tripod.
Some people decorate with flair. I really enjoyed being in this space.
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