Some notes on a Tuesday afternoon. Along with some frames that are mostly about color...

Everyone is hell bent on doing their lists of the "top ten cameras" and "amazing accessories to buy now for photographic success!!!" and every mention of every product has a fat link that connects it to Amazon or B&H. I thought I'd resist the temptation to go into hyper-sales mode just a bit longer and give you some alternative reading here instead. Maybe a few articles about "What NOT to Buy!!!!!" 

I'm all stream-of-consciousness today so bear with me. Or is it "bare" with me? I can never remember. 

First off I had a bout of intense camera handling this week. Not cameras I own but cameras newly for sale out at Precision Camera. I'll start with my most negative recommendation first. If you see a sales person coming toward you with the new Hasselblad X1D 50C mirrorless camera turn around and run or at least toss your credit cards into a nearby shredder. I'll be blunt. What a beautifully designed piece of poop. The camera is very simple and it's got that snotty and minimalist, northern European design ethos all over it but.... Turn it on, wait 25 to 35 seconds for it to "boot up" (shades of the old Samsung Galaxy NX camera) and then you'll be ready to shoot. Of course, whatever inspired you to turn the thing on in the first place will be long gone. Really? 2016 and it takes thirty long seconds for your camera wake up? Just silly. 

But once it's awake it's like, really, really good, right??? Oh hell no. It focuses like the original Canon M camera, if the M camera had a soft focus filter over the front of the lens. Slow, slow, slow. And not always very certain. It tentatively tippy-toes around focus for a while in anything but pure, hot sunlight. But it must feel great when the (ultra-well noise dampened) shutter goes off, right??? I'm not sure, I was so surprised by how much vibration the shutter on a mirrorless camera made. It's beyond noticeable. I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be the newly appointed KING OF SHUTTER SHOCK.  But at least they got the EVF right, huh? Naw. It's not as good as the new Leica SL and just about as well done as the Sony A7rii. With about the same magnification. But, to be fair, you do have your choice of two poorly chosen, slow, NON ZEISS lenses to chose from. Hope you like that old, cheap point and shoot look because the two lenses available for what should have been a natural portrait shooter are more like the semi-wide angle fixed lenses of most older point and shoots. Oh boy. $10,000+ for a mostly useless camera. Gift guides be damned. Save yourself while you still can. 

Let's take a break from photography for a second to talk about getting ready for the holidays in the age of global warming. So, it's the first week of December and my biggest concern, when stringing Christmas lights on the exterior of the VSL world headquarters is not the real possibility that I may fall from the roof and injure myself but that the swarms of mosquitos buzzing around me constantly might be transmitting the Zika virus. Seriously. Mosquitos in December? Nasty. 

Back to photography. I'm pissed at progress and annoyed with my good friend, Frank (not really, Frank, just using you as a foil..). I bought a bunch of cool, LED lights last year and have enjoyed using them. Then Frank shows up with a tiny Pelican-like case with three magic new lights in it. They are sold by a company called Came-TV. They are sleek and beautifully designed LED lights that come complete with front fresnels, focusability, A/C power blocks AND big, Sony camcorder batteries. They'll run off one big battery (each) for something like two full hours of run time and...the color is markedly better than the stuff I own. Grrrrrr. Here's a link to show you what Frank had the audacity to trawl in front of me in my own studio today: http://www.came-tv.com/3-pcs-cametv-boltzen-55w-fresnel-focusable-led-daylight-p-889.html  Did I mention that the color is wonderful? That the lights are super well designed? That they fit into a little case? That they all come with batteries? That I salivated like Pavlov's dog?

I am currently making one of those cardboard signs to hold up at traffic intersections. Mine says, "Will work for focusable LED lights! Bless." I am planning to forgive Frank if he brings them back over this weekend so we can do a video project with the new lights....

But I have not been a total sloth about buying new stuff that I probably don't need. I did buy three more cheap, variable neutral density filters from a company called Zomei. I bought an 82mm from them this last Spring and have used it often with no deleterious effects on color or contrast and I decided to buy one to dedicate to each of my most used "video" cameras. 67mm, 72mm, and 77mm. All ready for sunshine and bright skies just as our first (and probably only) blush with winter comes roaring in. Hold on to your hats and scarves. It may dive into the 30's on Thurs.!!!! Cold-ma-geddon. 

I also bought a "cage" for the a6300 which I really love. But I'll talk more about that in the next post. Back to other stuff that I wouldn't buy even if I were spending your money... I see advertisements all the time for light fixtures that hold one, three, five or seven spiral fluorescent tubes and come with a flimsy softbox. There are so many better products out on the market now that I would not touch one of these unless you never, ever intend to move it out of your studio or transport it anywhere. The lighting world has moved on. There are better options. Honest. 

Since we're on a lighting roll let's talk about another type of product that I currently have no interest in. That would be LED panels. They were pretty much the only accessible LED lights available when I was writing my book on LEDs back in 2010 but they have been effectively superseded by the one inch SMD type of "open face" LED light fixtures that are the modern variation of the tungsten flood light. They are more efficient, easier to travel with, easier to use with modifiers and easier to sculpt light with. 

At this point in the game I don't think I would go back to using the panels with 500, 600 or 1000 little LED bulbs on the front. There are just too many better options. Exceptions might be permanent installations in TV newsrooms or for photographers and videographers who will use them day-in-and-day-out with just a piece of diffusion material on the front. I love the light shaping tools you can use with the SMDs; like barn doors, shoots, grid spots and more. I also like being able to put the newer units into soft boxes or bounce them into umbrellas. Look at what's available from Fiilex, RPS, CameTV, Arri, Fotodiox, Smith Victor and many others. 

Finally, in this day and age, I am not sure I would ever buy an electronic flash in the form of an A/C power-only monolight. That train has sailed. I want to replace my hodgepodge of Profoto, Elinchrom and Photogenic monolights with a set of Godox 600 w/s monolights that work in TTL and have lithium ion batteries as a power source, along with the option to use A/C. We're no longer quite so attached to our studios and more likely to be in situations where the nearest wall plug is far, far away. The old stuff was just right in the film days because lithium ion batteries were not yet invented for powerful flashes. Now? Yes. Please. 

I'm pretty sure that electronic flashes that are solely "plug-in-the-wall" will fade the same way strobe "box and head" units have faded from the market. They represent a logic matrix from another age. 

I am waiting for a smaller, camera shoe flash from Godox to be delivered (tomorrow?). It's a dedicated TTL flash for Sony E cameras and it features a lithium ion battery instead of the typical four double A batteries. The battery lasts longer and gives more flashes with quicker recycling. I hope it works the way I imagine. It will be nice to have HSS flash again. 

In other news, while the weather was blustery and cool the water in the pool was constant. Right at 80 degrees. While the sky was glowering and the branches of the live oaks were thrashing around during our time in the pool, the lunch time masters workout was wonderful. Certainly a good temporary antidote for the holiday infused camera buying drama. 

If you are happy with what you have and it works just use it and keep the money in the bank. God knows we might need it if we ever want to change gears...

And now? Some colors....

The 2016 "Most Productive Camera for the Dollars Spent" in my office... No surprises here.

I'm as guilty as any other compulsive camera buyer. I wax on about how one camera feels "just right" in my hands or how another camera gives me "amazing" low noise, high resolution files. I spent enormous amounts of money buying lenses that more or less duplicate most aspects of those I already own but (supposedly) add some sort of quasi-emotional nuance to the final images that I sometimes delude myself into believing I can see on my monitor. When I bought my "serious" Sony work system I made what I thought were very smart purchases. I bought the A7rii, the A7ii (as back-up) the 24-70mm f4.0, the 70-200mm f4.0G and a few specialty lenses. Then I spent most of the year gilding those lilies by adding more and more silly lens purchases; all of which I can easily justify, if pressed by more strategic thinkers. Of course I needed the Rokinon 100mm macro for product work and the 135mm f2.0 for those times when I just had to see what long lenses with enormous apertures would do for my art....

And then there was the flurry of Contax/Zeiss/Yashica lenses that I couldn't live without because

A Decent LED Light, with lots of power, for less than $40? Yes.

Most photographers probably have a fixture like this sitting around the studio. 

It's probably in a corner and the last time you used it was with a photo flood bulb

that turned smokey black on the inside after a couple hours of use. The 

fixture probably burned your hand and you haven't used it since. 

I found a new use for mine. It's called, "LED bulb." 

Yesterday afternoon I was at Precision Camera, looking for a short, coiled XLR, male to female cable. I wanted a one foot, coiled cable that I could use to connect a microphone on top camera to the little mixer box bolted below the camera. Yes. They have one in stock. So I made that purchase and then, since the weather was bad and I'd driven such a long way, I decided to do a quick loop around the store to see what might be new. I played for a while with one of the new, Hasselblad, mirrorless medium format cameras, and I spent some quality time with a dedicated video camera I'm considering buying for an upcoming project. I played (for the fifth time...) with a Fuji X-Pro-2 but just couldn't summon up the right buying impulse. Too much cash to be spending on myself just before the holidays.

But I did come across something very interesting on one of the less visited shelves, hidden in the valley of shelves which is the in-store district of camera bags, soft boxes, pop-up reflectors, Pelican cases and all the other stuff that isn't cameras and lenses. What I found was a bunch of boxes from Pro/master that were labeled "LED Lamp." There were several sizes and, of course, I was interested in the max output. I asked my favorite sales associate his thoughts about the product. 

"It's a high output LED bulb that fits into a standard household socket. It's really bright! But I'm not sure how color correct it is..." He said. He had me at "really bright." I bought one for the princely sum of $39.95. 

A few things to know about this product. If you want a bright LED source to shoot stills with and you're buying your coffee at McDonalds because the $1 price special is very, very meaningful to you, then this might be the best product out there to give you a lot of relatively clean light for a cheap price. You'll have to add the fixture but you can always buy a clamp light fixture at a hardware store for less than $10. The LED bulb is a 50 watt unit and it puts out at least as much power at the RPS CooLED 50 watt SMD unit I've been using for the last year. The big, white part behind the bulb itself is the self contained ballast and it IS fan cooled. The fan is louder than the fans in my RPS lights so I wouldn't recommend using it to record video with sound in a small, quiet room. But if your usage is for regular photography then you're set. The bulb sits very forward in most fixtures because of the length of the ballast and fan assembly but the dome on the front does a good job of diffusing the light and spreading it around. For critical containment of light spill I'll just grab some Black Wrap(tm) and fashion my own flexible barn doors for it.

The unit gets warm to the touch on the front of the bulb and hot to touch on the ballast as it operates. Wait a few minutes for it to cool down before removing. 

The business end of the bulb. See the vents for the forced cooling?

Amazon product link....

Here's one angle of the project.

Here's another....

I did a quick color test using the VSL "Camera of the year!!!!!" the Sony RX10iii. I set the camera to the daylight setting on the color presets and shot a raw file of the product box on a white piece of bristol board. You can see that it's about 7 points green, overall. Not a huge green spike but big enough to require correction, if you are interested in neutral color...

Preset WB to Sunny symbol.

Eye dropper light balance in levels in Photoshop CC. 

These LED lamps are pretty interesting. Five years ago we'd have paid a lot more to get a lot less. What am I saying? We did that...  Now were able to get the equivalent of a 250-300 watt tungsten bulb in a form that's much cooler and more energy efficient, comes it at 5400K and is highly color correctable. For the price of a cheap fixture and the lamp. I put mine in the Smith Victor fixture that's lived in my equipment closet for 20 years and now I have another LED light to use around the studio. Right now I'm using it through a 3 x 6 foot, Lastolite aluminum frame with a 1.25 stop diffusion scrim. It looks beautiful. I like it.  I bought mine at Precision-Camera.com but you can also get them from Amazon.com. Budget lighting at its best!

Portrait sessions follow their own pathways. If you are doing it right everyone is happy.

©2016 Kirk Tuck. "Alaina."

Some photographers I know get really, really anxious when they are called upon to do portraits. They fret about the camera gear they might use. They obsess about what lights to use, how to modify them, where to put them and how to make them all work. When actually in session they become weighed down by the hoary traditions of "posing" and the conventions of "head tilt" and hand placement. With all these subroutines rolling around in their brains one wonders where the joy is in doing a session.

I'm sure that no small part of their concern is their perceived need to appear as an expert to the subject. Another large fraction of their worry might be their fear that they won't be able to remember, or juggle correctly, all the technical issues that are part of the process of taking any lit photograph. Exposure, focus, color, framing, etc. But I would say that the biggest impediment to making good portraits is

A portrait from the studio this afternoon. (Revisedx2).

©2016 Kirk Tuck. All Rights Reserved.

My intention all along, as a photographer, was to take more portraits in styles that I like. I've been working on it lately by asking the people I work with, and see in day-to-day life, if they will drop by my studio and collaborate with me on making portraits. Today I had a young, talented actor named Alaina come by. I'd set up the studio to do classic "actor headshot" lighting and we did a number of portraits in the prevailing "headshot" style. Then I set up a 4x6 foot, 1.25 stop diffusion panel to Alaina's left (camera right) and put one LED light on the other side of the diffusion to create a much more (to me) interesting light.

The panel is very close to my subject and runs perpendicular to the camera plane, extending back into the studio but starting about three feet in front of Alaina. I used a very weak, passive fill on the opposite side. 

The image was taken with one of my favorite camera and lens combinations: The Sony A7ii and the 70-200mm f4.0 G lens. The lens was used at f4.0 (wide open) and the shutter of the camera was set to 1/50th of a second. ISO: 800. Of course the camera was held in place with a nice tripod and the focus sensor was set to her right eye. 

We took about 400 images this afternoon but this is the very first one to catch my eye. I could make some fixes but I'm trying not to overproduce or over enhance the stuff I shoot for myself. 

This "one light" set up is one of my very favorites. I'd teach it in my workshops if I had workshops. It's always a nice look. 

In everyone's rush to own their camera company's 70-200mm f2.8 many people might be overlooking a better (and cheaper) alternative.

"Greater Tuna" star, Jaston Williams, as Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol."

Ask most photographers which zoom lenses are best and most of them will reflexively answer, "The Holy Trinity of f2.8 zoom lenses!" and, for my money, they could not be more wrong. If we're looking at 70-200mm lenses from the major camera makers you'll find that the 2.8 lenses are brutally heavy and ruinously expensive. You might also find, if you actually take the time to shoot them in a direct comparison, that the same company's 70-200mm f4.0 is much sharper over a wider range of focal lengths. 

I've owned both variants in the Canon and Nikon lines as well as the Sony Alpha 70-200mm f2.8 and now the Sony 70-200mm f4.0 and I'm here to tell you that the f4.0 versions are much more fun to use, better optically corrected than their faster counterparts and a heck of a lot easier to use during a long day of shooting. 

I know a lot of you don't put much stock in DXO's lens rankings but in the Sony family the f4.0 G version of the venerable zoom is their top choice for sharpness, resolution and all around goodness in the Sony FE zoom lens catalog. I've been shooting one since the first quarter of 2016 and I find it boring because it's so reliable and flawless. No flare, no unsharp edges, no complaints.

I've pointed out before that every increase of one stop in lens manufacturing requires something like 5X the precision and machining in order to output the same quality results. And what are you really gaining?

I you are shooting a modern camera with a Sony sensors you'll find that choosing the slower lens and then increasing the ISO to cover the one stop difference will probably get you better image quality than trying to shoot a faster lens wide open. Not to mention that the sheer weight might have a stabilizing effect (inertia, mass, etc.) for the first five minutes of handholding the faster lens, the next hour or more will show up the hubris of trying to handhold a four pound dead weight. 

When I shoot stage shows at Zach Theatre with the Sony A7Rii my lens of choice is always the 70/200mm f4.0 G lens and I'm always shooting it handheld. The combination of good image stabilization and great optical performance means I can shoot all evening long at f4.0 and not compromise image quality. An added benefit is that my left arm (the one supporting the weight of camera and lens) isn't sore the next day. 

I suspect that the much denigrated Sony 24-70mm f4.0 Zeiss lens is actually better than the newer, and much lauded f2.8 G master lens of the same focal lengths. I haven't tried them but I've got this sneaky feeling that f2.8 is just a Pavlovian dodge, dangled at photographers who are old enough to remember needing faster apertures to help with manual focusing. And it's faulty knowledge that's been transmitted to following generations. 

If you are following the "teachings" of a more experienced generation you probably need to be careful,;sometimes the old rules don't apply to new technology.