Who cares about camera bags? Well....I do.

This is an old, Domke Little Bit Bigger camera bag.

I see a lot of super crappy camera bags out and about.  What the heck are you people thinking?  Seeing a huge, ballistic nylon, super-size-me bag that looks like a black shipping box rigidly swinging from a strap that has a death grip on your shoulder tells me that you didn't think that bag purchase through all the way. I know, I know, you're an engineer and you read the tests and selected a bag for maximum gear safety.  Your brand X behemoth bag can protect the contents at drops that accelerate to 20 g's.  It's bullet proof and has dedicated compartments for everything from your micro-fiber cleaning cloth to your 18-500mm zoom and your GPS something or other, and your flashlight and your cellphone(s),  and your MP3 player and a few books on lighting and a couple of sandwiches and a six pack of lite beer.   Swinging the "big bags" through an unsuspecting crowd won't win you many friends.    In term of coolness the giant, semi-rigid, b-nylon bags are the comb-overs of camera bags.  Better to just carry everything in a paper bag from the grocery store.

Revisiting a job done with LED lighting. Newer processing.

I suspect that the current generation of photographers has been raised to look at performance instead of content, the shell instead of the embedded code. When I first started working with LED light panels a couple of years ago all I heard from the still photography industry was that the LED was not a useful light because it didn't render colors as exactly as better flashes did.  The crux of the matter all came down to CRI (color rendering index).  Here again was a metric that could be brought to bear to beat down any attempt to stray from the pack.  Here was a handy metric that, like horsepower in cars, could sum up a complex array of attributes and parameters in a simple, and simple-minded, single number.  Most panels at the time had CRIs of around 81.  Noon daylight (presumably in Rochester, NY in mid summer) is the reference point of 100.  Ergo, the use of LED light panels in "good" photography was a non-starter.

I love being told I can't do something in a certain way.  It stimulates me to try anyway, figure out workarounds, leverage advantages and just have......fun. So, as soon as an eminence grise of the imaging world told me that using LED panels was foolish I was all in.  But why?

I conjecture the desire for "pure" lights is based on a flawed assumption of how "all" commercial photographers work.  While the boring ones do the same "product" over and over and over again in the studio for no other reason than to maximize efficiency and make a profit the ones I want to be like are the photographers who go out every day and problem solve.  The people who hit a location and grapple with insane mixed lighting.  The people who used to have a bag full of filters and the brains to bend existing light to their photographic will.  I've never wanted to be a photographer who just followed a lame recipe aimed at helping me ooze into the sleepy center of the boring Bell Curve.

The most exciting photography (as a practice, not necessarily for viewing...) is to go somewhere new and use a combination of existing light and "brought" light to create images that feel real and fun.  It means you have to keep your eyes and your mind open to the possibilities.

Ever since we started to walk erect and took photography out of the womb of the studio and started practicing it professionally on all kinds of locations we've had the choice of "nuking the crap out of the existing light" (meaning that we set up big flashes and totally overpower every last photon of existing light in a space) or we've practiced lighting coexistence and we've let the light on a scene inform our own lighting.  We'd seek to augment what was there already---which, in a way, seems more honest and straightforward.  As long as you don't let too many color inconsistencies bite you on the butt.  LEDs and continuous lightsources make it easier to mix and blend existing light with the light you provide.

When I started to get a handle on small, portable LEDs, I started figuring out where and when to use them best.  I knew I'd never be overpowering sunlight but I knew I could use them to tune and mold interior office lighting and interior home lighting.  I also came to know that they have real value in open shade and in the soft light created by overhangs and other sun blockers.  Their continuous nature is what appealed to me.  Seeing what I would get was much more straightforward, especially with EVF finders that would should me the global effect of my balancing act.

And I realized that, as photographers, we'd been dealing with light sources that never even approached 81 CRI for decades.  They were called fluorescent lights and they hang in ceilings across the world, flickering merrily and tossing off non-continuous spectrum like bad candy.  And pre-digital we all seemed smart enough to filter and massage that light and make good pictures.  Here are a few other facts:  Sunlight is only "sunlight" when it's directly overhead.  It changes color characteristics depending on the angle relative to our position.  Sunlight is warmer at sunset, warmer in the morning, far bluer at higher altitudes.  Its CRI is affected by cloud cover, air pollution and all the stuff it reflects from.  And interior light is no more pure.  It's generally a mix of sunlight coming through heavily tinted windows, combined with ceiling mounted fluorescent lights, some MR16 track lights, a few incandescent can lights and the blue-ish glow of the ubiquitous computer screen.  And we've been shooting and correcting for these lighting environments for decades.  On film.  With ponderous cameras and far fewer tools.

So, am I to understand that just when we've invented cameras that make color correction almost mindlessly simple we can no longer shoot with any light source that's not nuts on perfect?  That's just bullshit.

But it's all pretty much moot now as the makers of panels with thousands of points of light bring us better and more compliant instruments.  At some point we'll have to come to grips with a new reality when our LED light sources become too clean and accurate for the changing target that is "daylight."

I shot the file above with little, cheap LED panels because I wanted to shoot at wide apertures and let the background slide out of focus.  I also wanted to be able to set up quick and not run cables to power outlets.  And, I was making a point.  The point was to add just the amount of light that would give direction to the light.   The file was fun to play with when I first messed with it and delivered it to an Annual Report client.

Recently I returned to the file and ran it through Lightroom 4.2.  The color correction was painless.  The program didn't care one bit what the CRI of the predominate light source happened to be.  It just rendered the file in a very pleasing way with very little steering on my part.

LEDs not ready to do real work?  Maybe you're just not using your imagination.  Then again it could be you are just stuck in your belief that there's only one "official" paradigm of lighting.  Of course, it could be that you're just not ready to be a photographer who lights outside the box....

All Of Kirk's Books.

The Sony a57 Goes to School.

This is an available light photograph shot for Kipp Austin College Prep, a charter school here in Austin, Texas. I had an assignment there yesterday.  We spent most of the day photographing representative kids in their K-12 program. The images will be used on the web and for various printed collateral.

I was using several cameras during the course of the shoot but today I'd like to give my general impression of the Sony a57 as I just finished post processing about 650 files from that particular camera. (I shot around 2200 frames, divided among three cameras...).

I used a fast, wide angle zoom on another camera but I used only the 85mm 2.8 Sony lens on the a57. Having used the camera for several, previous, low light shoots I was confident using it at 1600 ISO which gave me a good range of exposure options as I moved through the various buildings at the school. I shot Jpeg.  I didn't have any issue with using Jpeg. In the past I usually shot raw but I've gotten into the habit of doing a quick custom white balance when I first enter a room and leaving the camera set there.  It generally means much less post processing after the fact since the color balance doesn't change or shift as it would in AWB as you point the camera at different scenes with different dominant colors and no real white references in the frame.

Unlike the a77, which has a superfine Jpeg setting, the a57 has only fine and normal.  I used fine.

The lens is a bit primitive in its AF construction. It's still using the little "screwdriver blade" drive shaft connected to the camera body.  But in any lighting situation where I can see to focus, it's pretty fast to lock in focus and it doesn't spend much time hunting.  I really like the performance.
In the scene above there was enough light to allow me to shoot at 1/320th of a second, f3.2 (one third stop down from wide open).

I think the bokeh (ha. ha.  I said, "bokeh") is nuanced and lazy, infused with echoes of plum and spices, blended for a nice, long finish, with hints of soft tangerine...  Actually, I think the out of focus areas are rendered softly and without much Sturm und Drang.  Whatever.  I think it looks nice in the parts that are out of focus...

While the finder in the a77 is better at previewing color and contrast than the a57 I found my routine white balancing exercise gave me the confidence to shoot even when the EVF showed colors to be a bit wonky.  If they were too wonky I would go back and re-do my WB.  Takes 15 seconds at the most.

When photographing kindergarteners it's always good to go in without much gear and without any flash.  The flash draws the kids like moths.

The Sony's also share the attribute of having fairly quiet and pleasant sounding shutters when the electronic first curtain is engaged.

As a lower tier camera, aimed squarely at entry level photographers and hobbyists, I find several things that I quickly figured out work arounds for.  The saturation levels for the standard Jpegs are much too high so I lowered them.  The metering (multi area) is not as accurate as the metering in the a77 so I either rode the exposure compensation adjustment or switched to manual, depending how long I'd be in one area. I didn't have much issue with highlights burning out and I routinely added back some black (+7) in Lightroom 4.2.

The benefits of the a57 are these:  It handles 1600 ISO to my complete satisfaction.  With menu modifications it is a charming Jpeg camera.  The standard files (with reduced saturation ) are very sharp at 1600 ISO and require no additional sharpening.  When correctly exposed the files have very nice, neutral color.  The battery life is good.  Not good like a Nikon D3s but much better than my Olympus EP3 or Panasonic GH2 and, just a bit better than my Sony a77's.

The camera is very light weight.  I'm familiar enough with my most used buttons that I am able to use the camera and set controls without having to take it away from my eye.

The camera is good enough, from a speed and quality of file point of view, to make a good, workable professional camera for someone who is thinking of starting a small wedding photography business or portrait business.  I am comfortable using it for professional assignments but confess that I'm working hard at using its bigger brother, the a77 for most things because I really like the "look" I'm getting by shooting very sharp and noiseless images at very low ISOs.
That camera is returning me to the kind of lighting I used to do with my old, medium format cameras, and that's not such a bad thing...

As far as I know the a57 is not waterproof or bullet proof.  It's just a fast handling, straightforward choice for people who prefer to "pre-chimp", shoot in low light and who want to use an EVF for most of their art or work.  It's a great back-up camera for the a77 but because of the higher quality of the a77 EVF the a57 is not a replacement for it.

My Amazon Author's Page

Getting over being too busy. A photographer's (and everyone else's) dilemma.

There's always something else that needs to get done. Always. But we'll never do it all before we die and no sooner do we finish dusting than, when we turn our backs, the next delicate layer of dust starts to descend. Invisibly and inevitably.  It's hard to open the door and just go.  Go anywhere but back to work. What good is it to work all the time?  When you're working you're only thinking about work.  You're not thinking about happiness or the taste of the wind or the way your heart feels.  You're only thinking about getting this project done so you can start on that project.

I was working on post processing image files today.  At first it was fun.  The dog was lying down by my feet, keeping me company.  I had a big cup of warm coffee with just enough creme to turn the world in my cup a deep and lusty beige. Each image seemed fresh.  But after a few hours I started to resent having to sit in my chair and do work.  It started to feel like the same thing, over and over again.

I thought about picking up a camera and heading downtown to see what new images I could find but really, that seemed like work too.  So I put my dog in the house with Belinda, grabbed a bright blue set of swim shorts (so not like the practice suits we wear at morning training) and headed over to our club to jump in the pool.

Usually, when I head to the pool it's to practice hard.  Swim laps.  Get competitive.  But my brain was having none of that today, hence the big, baggy, bright blue swim suit.  I got to the pool and it was nearly empty.  The kids weren't out of school yet and it was that nappy, snoozy time in the afternoon for people with small children.  

There was one woman swimming laps in a lane and two older woman standing waist deep in the water on the other side of the pool just chatting.  The sky was clear blue, which was nice after a week of clouds and rain, and the water was as blue as the sky.  I jumped in with a big splash and dog paddled around for a while.  I was wearing an old pair of goggles with very dark lenses and it was fun to go to the bottom of the deep end and look up at the sky.  The sun was a squiggly hot dot.

I resisted actual swimming.  I resisted doing anything that remotely resembled work in the water, and when I was refreshed and happy and calm, and floating on my back squirting water out of my mouth I knew I'd broken the sneaky spell of too much work.  Which made it so much easier to go back and finish my work.

Physically and metaphorically it's important to stand up from the desk from time to time and just walk away.  To short circuit the vicious little loop that keeps you trapped inside, away from all the fun.  You can always go back and work more but we need play time just as much.

I love the image of the picnic shelter, just above.  It was taken at a little municipal park a few miles outside the tiny town of Marathon, Texas.  I took it when I went to west Texas a year or two ago.  It was a trip that wasn't really about going anywhere as much as it was about breaking the cycle of habits.  Working and not stopping to look at stuff.  This image reminds me that we need to be alone with our thoughts from time to time to properly sort them out and integrate them into our dynamic sense of reality and self.  It's not something I can do in the middle of a crowded mall, at a PTA meeting or in the car between work appointments.  Sometimes you just have to shut everything down, kiss the spouse on the cheek and spend a week on the road having your own adventure.

It's okay for photography to be the premise.  As long as you don't make that into a job as well.

Big talk for someone who makes a living taking pictures....

Being alone is scary for a while.  Then it gets good.  And then you're ready to come back home and get back to life.  But the interruption changes the story.  Which changes your life.  Which opens everything up.  Bring the camera but don't be afraid NOT to use it.  Sometimes looking deeply is much more important.

Imagine, a non-picture taking photography vacation.  Novel.

"Our focus becomes our reality." Star Wars.

Lonely, lovely west Texas Highway between Ft. Davis and Marfa.

There are many interesting pecadillos about humans. We tend to pick at details to the exclusion of the big picture.  

Instead of asking, "Is it interesting enough?"  We too often ask, "Is it sharp enough?"

If our focus is on making art then we will make art.  If the press of press turns our attention to the technical nuances of cameras and we let our focus wander down the "rabbit hole" of trying to divine where the ultimate compromise lies between the fascinating power of the 80 megapixel backs and the affordability and portability of the everyday cameras then that focus will lead us to occupy our time in a pointless flurry of research that ultimately yields nothing of real value.  Technology is a moving target, we'll never get in front of it.  But the chance to take time and shoot for yourself is also a moving (and receding) target and when you shift your focus from what you want to say to what you think you need in order to say it you inexorably push one train off the tracks and replace it with something else altogether.

Instead of looking for amusing images we start to look for images that will show off the edge acutance of our new lenses.

I read camera reviews sometimes.  I like the ones that Michael Reichmann writes on Luminous Landscape. He doesn't seem to care what anyone else thinks about his choices and he's not bound by the middle class thought trap that he must make the right decision.  He only needs to make a good decision.

Entertaining the idea that there is one right decision (when buying a camera) trains your mind to endlessly compare and analyze datapoints that may have very little to do with how well a camera works, feels in your hands or compliments your point of view. It focuses you on the process of evaluation. And ALL camera choices are a compromise of one kind or another.  You might choose a very expensive camera because you feel like you need the robustness of a "professional" body and a high pixel count to go with it but in doing so you might have to make the choice of allocating resources to buy the gear and not have enough financial resources left to follow through with the project of which you dream.  You might choose a camera because it fits in the pockets of your disco jeans only to find that it doesn't make the quality of images you imagined it would.

You might scrimp and save for a Leica M9 and one of the new, miracle Apo-Summicrons (because they are the best?)  only to find that the price was so dear you fear taking it with you if it looks like it might rain, or if the neighborhood you'll be visiting is too insecure, or the activity you want to pursue today might exposure your camera to some sort of damaging trauma.

You might buy a Canon 5Dmk3 and a big L zoom because of the presumed value proposition only to find that the weight of the combination hurts your wrist when you have to use it, handheld, for hours at a wedding or a riot.  You may end up wishing your research had turned up a less professional but more comfortable camera.

But the peril of researching all these choices is that your brain shifts what it thinks is its most important focus from making pictures to the endless task of evaluation.  And then you get into closed loop territory.  Your research tells you, "Yes, the TurboFlex Three is the ultimate camera for me!!!!" but as soon as you make that decision you start to hedge because you imagine that it will only be a matter or weeks or months before the much better TurboFlex Three N comes out.  And you get sucked into the next round of evaluation while the world spins and life goes on.

One day you wake up and discover that you know everything there is to know about the most obscure and least obscure cameras and lenses but you have no box of interesting prints, no grand work and no legacy of images to share and cherish.  Nothing to share.  You only have last year's greatest camera body and the need to get back to work researching this year's.

Do you find yourself shooting test shots all the time to reassure yourself that you bought the right thing?  Frustrating.  But our realitybecomes what we focus on.  Shift the focus and you shift reality.  Pick up the camera you have and head out the door.  It's that easy.

Ah.  But what if you need to measure how fast you can shift your focus?  Then what?

Haven't digital cameras just gotten good in the last five years?

I buy into the hype as often as everyone else.  I get convinced that a camera like the D800 or the newest Canon is an amazing leap forward and that I'll need to rush right out and get one or my competitors will trample me into a puddle of non-commercially dysfunctional goo and my career will grind to a bitter halt.  I'll be the Willy Lohman of photography.

I guess this insecurity with our cameras comes from many of us regarding them as little computers, bound intractably by Moore's Law.  That every 18 months the value, speed, coolness and everything else about new cameras will be double what it was before.  And that may be true of some of the processors inside, but.....

So there I was this morning, walking into the Austin Kipp School campus with my latest and greatest cameras getting ready to set the world on fire with 24 megapixels of hyperventilating coolness when I was stopped in my tracks.  Just kinda paralyzed in place by a visual smack on the head.

You see, I'd done a job for them about seven years ago and they'd printed it large.  How large?  The smallest image was about four feet by five feet.  The images were printed on a Lightjet printer by one of the best labs in the country and mounted on one inch thick GatorFoam.  And the school hung the images all through the entryway and lobby of the school.  They were stunning.  Incredibly sharp.  No obvious noise (especially at the viewing distance required by such big prints..) and tonality to die for.

My ability to process files that well is non-existent, I'd sent the lab raw files back then, knowing that their lab software, costing thousands of dollars, would do a much better job on the images then me running them through PhotoShop or a similar, consumer raw processor.  (which makes me think the raw conversion software has improved a lot more than the cameras....).

It took me a moment to remember which camera I used to shoot the images up on the walls.  Judging from the prints I imagined it might have been a medium format camera with a Leaf back I used to use from time to time, in the past.  Then I remembered.  They'd all been shot with a Kodak DCS 760C camera.  A whopping six megapixels on an APS-H sensor.   I'd given the camera as much of a head start as I could.  I used the lowest ISO which was 80.  I used a tripod for every shot.  I used a Nikon 105mm f2 DC lens at it's optimum aperture range (f4-5.6) and I used Profoto Electronic flash equipment in a big softbox.  No issues with subject or camera movement, etc.

I also did my set up tests tethered to a computer in order to make sure the exposure was right on the money.  The camera's rear LCD screens at the time were almost useless for fine tuning exposure...

When I walked into the school today I walked right up to one of the big prints.  It's of an African American teenager holding a microscope and staring into the camera with calm self-confidence.  I can't think of a better way to make that image today, even with "better" gear.  It's as perfect as I think I could make it.

In light of this I have to laugh at myself, my friends and all the people on the web who create so much self-inflicted anxiety in their quest for the latest and greatest cameras.  Yes, the new Canon 5D3 will shoot better in lower light but we needed the lighting not for the photons but for the direction and style and look.  The light from the ceiling mounted fluorescent bulbs wouldn't have the same feel.  Yes, the Nikon D4 would smoke the AF of the DCS 760 but then my subjects were all standing still in the glow of my modeling lights and focus just wasn't an issue.  The fact of the matter is that manufacturers have made shooting easier but not necessarily better.  Let me explain that for engineers and their surrounding Umpa Lumpas of high tech.  The camera makers made all the stuff you could measure "better" but they aren't in charge of manufacturing the art.  We add that.  And in the end, once you've crossed a certain line of quality or have the discipline to work in the sweet spot of the tools, all the mechanical and electronic stuff melts away and it comes down to how well you can direct, light and motivate your subject. The camera, in many ways, becomes nothing but an afterthought.

If you see the camera work before the art then the photograph has already failed and all the extra pixels in the world won't make a difference.  When Joe McNally shot a spread for Nat. Geo. with a Nikon D1x (5 megs.) he broke the acceptance of digital barrier for everyone else working in print. Since then countless great images have been done with 6 megapixel cameras and, at the 2000 Olympics, most of the shooters were using 4 megapixel Canons and 2.7 megapixel Nikons.  The pictures were stunning.  The world gasped.  No one asked for more.  The artists had done their work...

This post is partially to answer a reader who asked if the Nikon D2X was really such a good camera or, only good for the time.  Yes.

I have to laugh, sometimes, when people talk about cameras.

They think everything should be sharp, like the images of earth from outer space.  But remarkably, the images most people seem to like don't really have much to do with sharpness or lack of sharpness.  The real parameters seem different.  People are engaged by subject and, with life documented sharply and accurately twenty four hours a day they may be more interested in photography that's an interpretation of a thing instead of it's literal molecular construction.

Both of these images are of a green chair.  The second image totally describes the chair. The first image alludes to something that might be a chair.  I like them both but the more abstracted reality of the chair wears well, day in and day out.

I looked back at these photographs as a counterpoint to the chatter all over the web about the new Olympus OMD EM5 camera.  Half the people discussing are convinced (as I am) that it represents the next real generation of tools for a large subset of photographic artists.  The others either don't care (which is shrewd) or they cling to what they know best and assume a defensive stance.

The arguments rage as to whether the camera is sharp enough (for almost everything I can think of  it is...) and whether it is a worthy tool (most cameras are).

But it got me thinking.  Were all the cameras that came before just a charade?  Were they some sort of place holder between film and digital perfection that we had somehow been duped into accepting because we had no other reasonable choice?

I didn't think so either and so, by way of a reality check, I went back to these files from a trip I took to west Texas where I took only two cameras:  an Olympus EP2 and an Olympus EPL-1.
After the hysteria of the web I expected that, when I opened the files, I would find only mush.  Baseball sized electronic noise and hideous color shifts that would render the files unusable.

But, in fact, I am quite pleased with all the files I scrolled through.  They seem to have more than enough bite to please even the most stringent and critical viewer.  I was pleased to see the squares again.  And pleased to see that the colors were as I remembered them.  Not hampered in the least but a nice rendition of what I'd seen and remembered.

When I finished pulling out some favorite files I was pleased by the thought that the work I'd done before the arrival of the new breed of revolutionary cameras wasn't in vain.  In fact, I think a lot of what I shot with the ancient EP2 is downright lovely.  In fact, I think I'll keep it.

Portraits. Light. Engagement.

Portrait of Sarah after a swim.

Years ago, before people got so serious and so busy, I would often ask my friends to come over to the studio and stand for a quick portrait.  One day I asked my friend, Sarah, who is a painter.  She makes art for a living.  And she swims for the joy of it.

I used two lights.  One was a big softbox, mounted up high.  The other was a small softbox just behind Sarah, illuminating the background.  The camera was a Hasselblad with a 150 or 180mm lens.  ISO 100 black and white film.

I never ask people to smile.  I ask them to stand in a certain spot and to turn in a certain way.  We shot a roll of film.  Twelve frames. Sarah went off to paint and I headed into my darkroom to develop the film.  

I like to look back at prints I've done of my friends.  It reminds me that I started doing photography for the fun of it.  That I work on projects for clients but I take images of people because it satisfies a human need to connect.  I could print this large or look at it on the screen, it has the technical finish to go either way.

People seem to think photography is all about sharpness or lack of grain and noise but it isn't.  It may be the imperfections in the processes (and the seeing) that makes images seem more valuable.  Very few people are really interested in perfection.

Go see Ken Tanaka's article about the Olympus "paradigm shifter" at TOP

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2012/05/olympus-e-m5-first-notes.html

He writes well and, more importantly, I like what he writes.

Gamechanger.  Coming (some day) to a store near you.

Pecan Street Festival. May 2012

Sitting on the edge of Sixth St.  Sony a77 camera.  35mm 1.8 DT lens.  ISO 50.  1/80th f3.2

Funny. I am reading a book about Steve Jobs. His mantra was to simplify and always move forward. Not back.

The simplest lighting I can imagine.

Simple styling.

Looking at the image in a straightforward way.

Trying an alternate point of view.

Trying a different dish.

Sony a77 with the 30mm Macro DT lens.  

After playing around with my smaller cameras I thought I'd revisit some bigger files.

This is a file from the Phase One 40+ forty megapixel camera I shot with back in 2010.  It does some stuff really well.  The resolution is amazing and, with a $10,000 Schneider zoom lens, the sharpness and contrast are very good. Even at medium focal lengths the rapid change in depth of field is obvious and somewhat dramatic.  The trade off is that the camera is much slower to operate than my other cameras, doesn't focus nearly as quickly and, with a couple lenses, the package cost about $52,000 at the time.  The raw files were very big.  The high ISO was just okay (and we're talking ISO 800, max.)  For the most part the size and complexity of the camera caused it to be relegated (for me) mostly to studio work where I could use it on a tripod and with ample time to focus.  

Here's how the Phase One handled an assignment to document some architectural production.  You are looking at a file that has been reduced from a huge file (pixel count) to a file that is only 2100 pixels on the long side.  In the original file you can blow things up really large and still see lots of detail.  It's pretty wonderful but nothing that my ancient Hasselblad film camera with similar lenses and low ISO slide film can't come very close to.  The real secret to getting sharp and contrasty shots with good depth of field in medium format (or any format) is to put your $52,000 camera on a good tripod.

I also shot a number of studio portraits with the Phase One system.  It was very good and the files were nice to work with.  Again, I kept the heavy camera on a stout tripod and shot at lower ISOs.  Something like ISO 80 or 100.  So, since the files are amazing and big (raising the bar?)  do all pros shoot with these kinds of cameras?  Not at all.  The smart ones consider the final destination for their files and use the tools that will do the job.  Even an iPhone can work in a pinch.  The different tools exist for different applications.  And sometimes they exist because we want choices.  We want  to break from the formulaic.  That's what moves the vision thing forward.  

An interesting job with mixed light sources. On the stage.

I had several assignments during the course of the day this past Friday but this set of images for Zachary Scott Theatre was the most interesting to photograph. There's a scene at the end of the play, The Laramie Project, where one of the actors (Jaston Williams, of Greater Tuna and Tuna Texas fame) stands on a square riser covered in grass and is pelted by rain as he stretches his hands out from his side.  In the context of the play it's a very powerful moment.

I saw the scene the first time ten years ago during a dress rehearsal shoot and we captured it on film.  The shot was okay but not quite what we wanted.  Then, ten years later, I shot the scene again, during a recent dress rehearsal.  Technical issues kept me from getting the shot the marketing director and I both wanted.  The spot light on the actor was too contrasty (for the camera...just right for the audience) and the letters across the back were not bright enough.  The slow shutter speed we needed in order to dig into the darkness meant that we didn't get any sort of frozen motion on the rain drops.  We knew we'd have to light the shot to get the image that we both could visualize in our heads.  

I wanted to light up the rain drops and I knew I would have to do it with electronic flash to freeze the  motion of the rain.  I also knew from experience that the light from the flash would have to come from behind so that it didn't wash out the word, "hope" that was rear projected onto a screen behind Jaston.  It also occured to me that I'd have to filter the flash in order to get the color temperature of those light sources into the ball park with the stage lighting and, especially, the spot lights that were the main source of illumination for Jaston.

Finally, we needed to do all of our set up and all of our testing without Jaston in place because we didn't want him to have to spend much time at all in the water.  Even though the water is heated our supply of warm water would only last 11 minutes before the temperature dropped by 30 degrees or so...

To facilitate our set up I had the crew bring in a mannequin and place it on Jaston's mark.  We put the same kind of shirt on the mannequin that Jaston would be wearing so we could look at the reflectance and  see how to best light the set up so that we didn't burn out the tops of his shoulders or plunge the bottom part of the stage into blackness.

I placed two Elinchrom monolights behind the subject position to create effective backlighting for the rain (and for Jaston).  I used small, carefully focused, umbrellas with black backings as modifiers.  Through trial and error I found a sweet spot that did what I wanted with the rain (make it stand out against the background) and didn't over light Jaston in the process.

Since the main, filtered spot lights were around 3600K (as measured by a Minolta color temperature meter) I knew I needed to add a 1/2 CTO filter to each of the flashes for a better balance.  The flashes are as far back as I can get them; nearly touching the back screen.  Each one is just out of the frame on either side.

I was using a Sony a77 camera with a 16-50mm zoom as my main camera.  I settled on ISO 320 as being a good compromise between sharpness, the mix of the flash and low noise.  I shot each frame in raw.

The main frontal illumination for Jaston came from two spot lights mounted on a catwalk overhead.  He was also lit by a bank of blue gelled spots from the rear left and right. (You can see them in one of the photos below).

Once we had the test shots sorted out and approved by both the marketing director and the artistic director for the theater we removed the mannequin, quickly mopped the stage and then had Jaston step in and get settled on his mark.  I shot a couple frames of Jaston with no rain in order to assess how the light on his face looked and then I called "places" and asked the scene manager to "cue the rain."

I shot many variations of hand and arm position but all other settings were left alone.  We knew we had the lighting and color nailed.  After we got what was called for in the initial brief I wondered what the scene would look like from about five feet higher up so we gave Jaston a little break, reset the camera position up two rows in the audience seating and went through the process again.  I liked it better because the position change helped to "move" the word in the background up which gives us a few more options in final production.

I like the way the water dances off Jaston's shoulders and trickles off his ears. We started our set up around 3:15 pm and had all the technical stuff locked down and ready by 4:00 pm.  Jaston was on the set and ready. We shot for about 15 minutes, looked at samples and declared the shoot "wrapped."  The house electrician helped wrap cables and lights while I packed cameras and lenses.

Just a few photo tech notes:  The lights were far enough away from the water so that there was little danger in them getting wet.  Even so, we made sure that both cords were plugged into a GFI socket that would trip if there was a grounding issue.  I brought a total of four lights and four stands to cover the project even though I was pretty sure I would only need two.  I triggered the flashes with a Light Waves 2 radio trigger.  I brought two sets with two extra sets of batteries.

I brought two identical camera bodies just in case one failed.  I brought a total of four camera batteries.  I brought the 16-50mm zoom and a number of single focal length lenses that would cover the ranges of focal lengths I knew I wanted, just in case the lens failed.  I also brought an 85 and the 70-200mm 2.8 G Sony zoom just in case I wanted to go tight in on Jaston.  It never came up.

I cut filters for the lights in 1/4 and 1/2 CTO strengths, enough to cover all four lights, so I'd be prepared for more or less filtered main stage lights.  

I love working with a professional crew.  Having scenery manager who understood every hose, nut and bolt of the water prop was very efficient.  Having the house electrician at the lighting board for the theatrical lights was great.  We were able to adjust the levels to match the projected word light levels.  I love working with experienced marketing directors because they don't waste anybody's time with the newbie mantra, "Let's keep going, I'll know it when I see it."  We were on the same page from the first discussion.  And finally, working with a professional actor is so luxurious.  No nervousness.  No pretense.  Just, "Where do you want me? What is my action?  What is my affect?" Done.

And that's a wrap.  I didn't even need to ask someone to hand the actor a towel.  It was in his hand five seconds after the rain shut off...

This is the final camera POV.  You can see the two umbrella augmented monolights on either side of the curtain screen.  If you look directly up from the actor you'll see the two spots that are lighting the square grass prop and the actor.  Just to the outside edge of each umbrella you'll see banks of three blue gelled lights that edge light our subject.

Thanks to all the people at Zach Scott Theatre who made this moment and thousands of other magic moments happen.

(this post was edited at 7:47 pm to reflect my changing mood.)

Here's a great post from TOP:  http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2011/12/the-problem-with-perfection.html