THE FIVE CAM SLAM.

Samsung Galaxy NX. Kit Lens.

I had a fun, raucous and loud assignment this past weekend. I was asked to photograph the opening of the new location for the Children's Museum (re-named, The Thinkery) on Saturday. I spent most of my day there and, capriciously, used five different cameras to take nearly 2,000 images. When I left my house at eight in the morning it was the coldest day we've had yet this year in Austin, with the temperature hovering aroun 27 degrees. I packed two Panasonic GH3s, one Panasonic G6 and a Sony a99 into my big Domke bag, along with a fun assortment of lenses. But wait, that's only four cameras... Oh, yeah, I also had a brand, spanking, new Samsung Galaxy NX body and a kit lens lingering on the passenger seat of the car. It had been there overnight for a routine "chill test."

When I got to the new museum location at the old Mueller Airport (now a trendy, cool and growing neighborhood) I grabbed the bag and left the Samsung in the trunk along with my swim bag and an extra tripod. The first stop was into the main museum building to check in and then across the street to the big, multi-level parking garage. The wind was whipping and their was moisture in the air. We would start in the parking garage and there would be a mariachi led parade over to the museum. I grabbed out the Sony a99 with the 24-105mm lens and a flash and started making images of kids and their parents enjoying hot chocolate and coffee. The light levels in the garage were very low and it was a difficult location in which to shoot. If I pointed the camera at the walls the outside lighting overwhelmed the interior light and burned to white, even with the flash. I tried to compose images without showing the outside but it wasn't always possible. 

We started the parade and I made images of the whole short procession. When we got into the museum there were a few speeches, a ribbon cutting and then the kids got to tear through a big paper barrier and enter the guts of the museum. I shot the speeches with a mixture of flash, fill flash and available light and figured I would sort out the right direction in post. The paper barrier shot was very much an on camera flash shot.

After the images that required flash were over with I dripped the Sony and the flash into the bag I left under the client's desk in the second floor warren of offices. I spent the rest of the morning shoot with three other cameras: A GH3 with the 14-42mm, a GH3 with the 45-140mm and the G6 with the 25mm 1.4. The cameras all focused quickly and accurately and the files from the GH3s are good and clean up to 3200 ISO. Occasionally I would switch the 25mm to one of the GH3s just to see how the cameras looked with that lens at higher ISOs. After a couple hours shooting available light with that combination I pulled out a 40mm 1.4 Olympus manual focus half frame lens and put in on the G6 in order to try out the focus peaking feature. It worked great, even at f2. 

Around one in the afternoon I decided to put all the rest of the cameras up and go out to my (refrigerated) car to get the Samsung Galaxy NX and use it for a while, just to mix things up. Rookie mistake here. As soon as I walked into the well heated museum space with the 27 degree camera and lens everything condensed over. Instant fog filter. I put the camera under a hand dryer in one of the restrooms and gave it twenty minutes or so to warm up. As soon as the moisture cleared the camera was up and ready. In the next few hours I shot nearly 800 images with the camera and the kit lens at every setting from ISO 400 to ISO 6400 and I decided that, now that I'm shooting with a full production version of the GNX instead of a series of prototypes and pre-prototypes, that the GNX is a pretty good shooting cameras with really good files. Now I regret sending all the super cool lenses back.... 

As the day wound down I finished up with the 25mm Pana/Leica lens on the G6 body and was very happy with how fast (very) and fluid the operation of that combination was. 

So, when I finish shooting a job like this I try to get into post production mode the very next day. I shoot large, super-fine jpgs in all of the cameras (this is to be interpreted to mean that I shot at the largest size setting and the lowest compression setting for each camera) and I am able to do a fair amount of Jpeg file tweaking in the Apple, Inc. program, Aperture 3. 

First thing in the morning, before coffee, I head to the office to ingest every file into Aperture, renaming them with a different code for each camera. I also append metadata and caption info. Once I have them ingested and I've had some coffee I make a quick pass through the whole folder looking for obvious trash (blinks, wildly bad exposure or pegged color) and I dump those files.  Then I go through files with lots of versions and try to find the best versions from each group while dumping all the lesser versions. Once this is done I get down to the work of post processing. Nearly every file is touched; either in a  batch mode or individually and it can be as time consuming as the post processing that wedding photographers do. 

I start with color correction because doing exposure first and then color correcting will shift the first exposure correction and require a second pass. After the color correction I move to exposure  and brightness settings, then on to contrast, then to definition and clarity, then to saturation (most cameras need a slight decrease, the GH3s need a tiny increase...) and finally on to sharpening. I try not to sharpen much as the camera Jpeg engines are already tweaked with my preferred sharpen settings.

Once everything is tweaked I go through one more time to see if there is anything I can throw away. That done I burn three sets of DVDs. One for the client and two for my archives. I know DVDs aren't archival but I also know that some jobs have lifespans that are measured in a few years, even months and not everything I shoot is so amazing that I need it to outlive me. I also have the originals backed up on two hard drives. A final fallback is my written disclaimer to clients advising them that once I have delivered a set of final files they are responsible for archiving their copy. We have no legal obligation after 30 days to maintain the files or provide replacements. In practice we keep them for as long as we can but it moves clients to at least think about safeguarding the IP they've paid for and will need to use in the future. 

How do I like the cameras? The Sony has the best files of all but the worst exposure consistency and the worst auto white balance. I'm starting to think of these full frame, DSLR cameras as more studio cameras or cameras to shoot when you can tether them and take your time to assess the shot closely. The Samsung has the second best files in terms of depth, resolution and low noise. The AWB is somewhere between the Sony a99 and the m4:3 cameras. The best compromise (and all cameras are compromises) is the GH3.  The files from those two cameras stand up well to scrutiny even at 3200 ISO at 100%, if you shoot them bright enough. Underexpose and you'll get back high ISO files from just about all cameras. For sheer joy of shooting the G6 is the best of the bunch. It is so small and light that it becomes almost invisible in actual use. I love it with the 25mm Pana/Leica on it. It weighs next to nothing but the EVF is good and the files, though not as noise free as the GH3 are very good and sharpen up nicely in post. It's a least a full stop noisier than the GH3 but with a fast lens you go right back into the whole compromise thing.

Next time I shoot a day long event I'm leaving the Sony stuff at home and shooting exclusively with my trinity of Panasonics. I love pre-chimping with the EVFs and I love carrying around three cameras with different lenses that, in total, weigh less than the one DSLR with a zoom and a flash. 

Your mileage may vary and you may have emotional reasons or nostalgia to deal with in selecting your gear. It's all a compromise so everyone gets to make the compromises that work best for them. That's the way the photo world works. That's my story from the weekend.

I will say one more thing. I was familiar with the menus and the operation of the cameras and had shot all of them pretty extensively before but if you really want to know how a camera handles then use it for a fast paced, all day assignment. I guarantee that by the end of the day you'll find out what bothers the hell out of you and what makes you smile. Saturday reinforced my feeling that the G6 is a wonderful and well thought out camera for the money. Its only flaw is that there is no "constant preview" (or setting effect, in Sony language) in the manual mode and I think there should be. Even if we can never fix this one thing in firmware I'm happy with the camera.  Too plastic?  No, that's just silly.

A life in balance.

It's important to balance work and play. Especially when your work is play. The relentless people in life are painful to be around and the lazy ones are worse. Business and pleasure should be like two sides of a sinusoidal wavelength on a graph. A symmetrical balance of achievement and fun. Too much of one dulls the senses. Too much of the other dulls the thrill.

We shoot for fun. We shoot for business. And then we do other stuff like read books and take naps. Swim and go out for lunches. Too much of anything affects the balance. Too many obligations affect the balance. Not enough fun is just as bad.

So, when I think about photography I wonder how to maintain the balance and resist the temptation to overindulge. How much gear is too much and how much is too little. How long to hang on to tradition and when is it time to create new traditions.  A life in balance is smoother, easier, more efficient and more effective. I think it's a more comfortable way to live.  A life in the arts should alway have room for something mundane and necessary to balance out those feelings of intensity that come bundled with creativity. For every super model shoot done with priceless cameras there should be a balance of rinsing the dinner dishes and doing the taxes. One side is fun while the other side keeps everything in the right perspective.

And don't forget to make mistakes now and then. They can lead you in very interesting directions. 

On a road trip for a magazine. And other stream of consciousness errata.

I was on a private road and I stopped the car and put it in "park" before I even touched my camera!

(clarification suggested by my attorney.....)

I photographed at a law firm yesterday and I had a blast. I did fun portraits with everything from available light to massive strobes. We did non conventional group shots. I fought with my mild acrophobia and leaned over the railing on the 28th floor patio in order to take some skyline shots. It was an enthusiastic day. And then I came home, downloaded files, charged batteries and got ready to do it all over again. But in a totally different venue. 

Where yesterday was about a group of fun, kinetic and interesting attorneys, right in the middle of the pulsing coolness of downtown Austin, the stuff I shot today was rural and calm. 

Yesterday I shot with Sony a99's and Rokinon Cine lenses and I lit up everything with the big Elinchrom Ranger RX AS power packs (strobes). Today I shot with a Panasonic GH3 and the new lens, the 12-50mm. Yes, you are allowed to go back and forth between systems...

I packed two GH3s, one G6 and eight lenses. I used the new 12-50mm lens exclusively. Loved it. Everything was on a tripod. Every shot was RAW+Large Jpeg (just in case of worse case...) but I didn't worry because you may have noticed that I tested the lens for a couple days after I bought it but before I used it on a paying job with a client.

I hauled along four Elinchrom moonlights and a case full of umbrellas and stands. I had a nice, calm day of shooting interior and exterior photographs for a shelter magazine that covers early American life.

I loaded up the car last night. Yes, I live in a safe neighborhood, unless you consider the coyotes. I got up this morning---early, zapped some French toast that Belinda made me last night, filled a travel mug with coffee from the Keurig and got dressed. I munched and swigged coffee while I got Ben up for early cross country practice. He didn't want to get up but I was already envying him the workout because I had to skip my swim.

We cruised to the school at first light and I dumped him out of the car and then headed west on Hwy 290, through Johnson City and onward to Fredericksburg, Texas and points west. I followed my instructions perfectly and punched into the gate about ten minutes before nine. I was at a ranch about 8.5 miles from the edge of Fredericksburg. As I drove in the half mile to the main house I went past herds of cattle and herds of goats and sheep. Reminded me that I live in Texas. 

I was greeted by the owner of the house and her faithful dog. I unloaded three cases of gear and got to work with the GH3 and the 12-50mm trash lens. The point of the assignment was to capture a the interior of a fully restored 17th century log cabin, lovingly transported piece by piece to this Texas ranch and decorated with historic and authentic Christmas decorations. I started in the kitchen with two umbrella lights. Why was I using studio flash? Because the house is covered with windows and I wanted to maintain detail outside ( f8 @ 1/160th of a second) and still have the interior show normally. Can't really do that yet with continuous lighting. Well, at least not continuous lighting that's either budget-able or cool to operate. 

I spent all day working the house. I used Raw+Jpegs as a life jacket because, as you know, I am a newbie in this system. I tried the HDR settings and I also experimented with the automatic dynamic range settings. I did custom white balances and sometimes I just dialed in the color temperatures I knew were right.

The home owner/rancher was wonderful and even made me lunch. By wonderful I mean that she was warm and welcoming and, after introducing me to the house, she went off to read a novel and let me work through by myself. 

By three in the afternoon I'd covered everything I could think of, inside and out. I packed up the lights and the stands and umbrellas and dumped them into the car. I played with the dog for while and I played six degrees of separation with the home owner. Yes, I went to high school with her physician. 

We chatted for a bit while I rubbed behind her dog's ears. Then I put the cameras in the old, beige Domke bag and headed out toward the highway. On the homeowner's suggestion I stopped for coffee at the Java Ranch on Main St. in Fredericksburg for a coffee and it was good. Then I headed back to Austin. 

When I finally made it through rush hour traffic, greeted the kid and kissed the wife I found a cardboard box on the dining room table. The folks at Samsung sent me a final production copy of the Galaxy NX camera. Another source sent along a package with a lens hood for the Olympus 12-50mm lens (just after the nick of time....). I've got the Samsung battery charging and I did promise to give the production model a try out. I'll only write about it if they improved the stuff I bitched about and made it a fun shooting camera. 

Belinda ran off to a school meeting about college finance and the kid and I had a quiet dinner and talked about our "work" days. He went to school---I shot pictures.  We both did pretty well. 

I just downloaded all 227 files from today and looked at random shots. The lens, on a tripod, is pretty darn good. The camera is great. Aperture is a wonderful software programs for tweaking and the files looked pretty darn good with a little bit of sharpening and a bit more mid-range contrast. Yeah, you can do decent work with pretty much everything on the market these days...

Tomorrow? A swim just in front of the arctic blast coming through. Then lunch with a friend/client at the Indian Restaurant and the rest of the day spent in the studio post processing the last two jobs. When the boy gets home we'll order a big pizza and share the day. In the later evening I'll finish editing a TV spot for the Theatre.

I'm spending Friday swimming in the cold and then charging batteries and stuff and testing a few new flashes for the Pana/Oly gear. On Saturday I've got a full day of photographing the parade, ground breaking and grand opening of the new Austin Children's Museum. It's called: The Thinkery. I haven't decided on cameras yet but I'm having the urge to take them all. And since the weather is threatening temps in the lower 30's, a 20 mile per hour wind and sleet or freezing rain I'll also take a couple pairs of gloves and my "Indiana Jones" hat with the wide brim. Life is continually exciting.

So......this is what this photographer's life is all about this week. Good jobs, good clients and checks clogging up my mailbox. Nice. Lots for which to be thankful. Hope your year is ending well too...

Our fascination with indestructible tools should be over by now.....

The camera above is an Alpa 9D. It's an indestructible, handmade, Swiss camera from the late 1960's or early 1970's. If there is plastic on the camera I've never been able to find it. Everything is steel or some sort of magic Swiss alloy. It was built on the premise that we'd always be using film and that while film might change and lenses might get better the basic box would never change and precision shutter speeds would always be precision shutter speeds. And that's why these cameras were very, very expensive. They were expensive because we expected that they may last for thirty, forty or fifty years. That's what your money bought.

But why do we give a sh*t about indestructibility now? Why do people pass over the very, very good visual performance of Nikon D800s and Canon 5D mk111 cameras to (over)pay for D4s and 1DX cameras?  You may be able to strafe them with machine guns or drop them from your Apache attack helicopter and have some sort of reasonable (but irrational) belief that they will survive intact but the reality is that almost every camera out in the market will be tossed into the trash can because its sensor has become obsolete long before any of them blow a gasket or disintegrate. Since a tiny, tiny slice of professional photographers make any sort of money shooting sports it certainly can't be pragmatism that motivates buyers. I think it's more a matter of ego or talisman worship.

I haven't bought a "Professional" camera body in quite a while. The last one I bought, brand new, was a Nikon D2Xs which I had for..........all of eighteen months. And I re-sold it because Nikon came out with a raft of much cheaper cameras that materially out performed the D2Xs in image quality. And hey, as a commercial photographer I rarely needed to take my cameras out in the rain or drop kick them into some rigorous service. And I rarely struck the camera vigorously with ball peen hammers....

Now I'm getting into the habit of buying cutting edge consumer cameras that deliver great images in more or less temporal packages. Stuff that will fall apart if you beat the hell out of it. But you know what? Everyone I know who buys D4s, 1DXs, and all the other "indestructible" cameras out there sticks them into padded cases and then inside additionally padded, wheeled cases. The cameras are coddled like babies. And why wouldn't they be? The owners paid a premium to own them....

I talked to a camera repair professional who works on all brands and all models. Guess what? In the current digital age the cameras with the lowest shutter counts, which he evaluates as trade-ins for a retail chain,  are the "pro" cameras. The cameras most used? The mid-tier cameras. Cameras that deliver between 85 and 105% of the visual performance of the pro cameras at fractional prices. 

The new paradigm? Buy the cameras that work well for you and just anticipate that they'll be gone in two years. Need rugged? Buy three cheap ones at $600 each ($1800) and pocket the rest of the money you would have spent on a D4. Or you can use that other $3200 dollars to buy some really nice lenses. 

The Alpa 9D is like a rugged, aging biker who would look at the current crop of "pro" cameras as a bunch of "flash in the pan" poseurs. The whole rationalization of ruggedized cameras is so bogus in the digital age. I'd rather think of my cameras like laptop computers....if they lasted two years I'd be happy. If they lasted four years I'd be ecstatic. The lenses are a whole other story. 

Go figure. Need a weather proof camera? Have you tried spraying your cheap Canon Rebel with some ScotchGuard? Have you heard about ZipLoc (tm) plastic bags? Indestructible? A super premium for weatherproof? Get over it....