End of the year light purchases. A little upgrade in the LED division of VSL. Light Storm.

If there's one sector of photography that's changing as fast as camera technology (or faster) it's in the area of LED light engineering. The lights keep getting brighter and brighter while the color accuracy gets closer and closer to 100 CRI. There's a more modern standard for color accuracy that's being used in broadcast and that's TCLI. Here's a quick overview: TCLI

When I first started buying LED panels in 2009 they ranged in the 80-85 CRI range and I can imagine that they would have fared even worse in the new TCLI tests, which measure spikes and chasms of color response in these kinds of lighting instruments. The lights, at the time I wrote the book about LED lights for photographers, also put out much less light. We worked higher up the ISO scale and made other accommodations. 

Last year, and part of this year, I started buying what I call, new technology LEDs, in that they use SMD (surface mount device) technology which has yielded a much higher output. The first of these lights for me was the cute and cuddly Fiilex 360. But I soon augmented that lower powered light with a brace of RPS CooLED, 100 watt fixtures. They used a new SMD designed, dense, 1/1 inch LED that acted more like a traditional open-face lighting fixture and less like a panel. I liked that because I could use my soft boxes on those lights. While the color was better than previous generations it still required that I pay attention and make custom white balances and use caution mixing the "daylight" LEDs with actual daylight...

I'd heard rumors that the newest generation of lights were getting closer and closer to 100 CRI but it was only when my friend, James, a very color-picky cinematographer, bought the latest DraCast LED panel lights and started gushing about them that I sat up and took notice. I've spent the last week or so researching and what I finally landed on as the best compromise of price, color, output power and rugged build was the new line of lights from Aputure marketed under the name, Light Storm. And the products I liked best brought me back around, full circle, to the panel form factor.

With a fairly big video project looming, and an intense studio still life project just around the corner, I decided to improve my light inventory by getting a set of the Aputure Light Storm panels. It didn't hurt that I needed to buy and put a few more things into service in order to reduce my tax burden....

I ended up getting two of the LS-1s panels, which are very bright, and two of the LS-1/2 panels, which are smaller but only a stop less powerful. According to reputable sources, who have measured them with the latest Sekonic 700 series color meters, both of the units exceed 95 CRI and the smaller unit measures at 97+ CRI. We're well into the territory where the diffusion material you put in front of the lights makes more of a difference in color accuracy than anything else. They are color accurate plus they provide the punch I used to get from a 750 watt tungsten bulb in a decent, open-faced fixture. Hard to beat at the price. (They retail for $695). 

Each light is not exactly self-contained. They come in three "parts." The first is the light itself which is mounted in a sturdy yoke and has no controls or connections, other than a power cable. The cable connects to a control box which allows one to raise or lower the power of the lights in 90 discrete steps. Since the control box is separate you can put the actual panels up high and you'll have two benefits.  First, you move a good amount of the weight off the top of the stand, which makes the light and stand more stable. Secondly, you can adjust the intensity of the light without either bringing the light back down or standing on a step ladder. 

The controller will also allow you to mount up a V-lock battery. With these bigger, more robust batteries you should be able to get about an hour of full power lighting without having to look for a wall plug. That's great for remote locations but the cost of the batteries is atrocious. Ah well, there's rarely free lunch. 

Just downstream from the controller is a black, rectangular power supply. This plugs into the wall on one end and into the controller on the other. So you have three physical devices (light, controller, power block) as well as the interconnecting cables. A bit messy but manageable. 

One more interesting feature is the inclusion, with every light, of a wireless, 2.4G remote control. With the remote you can turn the lights on and off, and you can control the power settings. Great for changing ratios while you are at camera position; especially when the lights are hung up high. There are separate channels so you can control three different banks of lights from one remote. Interesting, but I still keep reaching for the controllers and enjoying the tactile reality of lighting control. 

The bigger light, the LS-1s, uses SMD LEDs but, like previous generations, hides them behind little plastic nubbins or clear lenses that create directionality (or micro focus) for each LED. The way the light is designed gives it a 20-25 degree light angle. It's got more throw that way. If you need a softer or wider beam you can easily put diffusion in front of the fixture. In fact, the maker provides an envelope with sheets of carefully selected diffusion to do just that. 

The LS 1/2 uses its SMD LEDs naked. The light emitting business end of each small "lamp" is right on the surface and the fixture uses nothing to focus the beams. The light seems exceptionally bright but it does cast a very wide spread of light. You'll either want to use them with big diffusion or as background lights. They have beautiful color but you'll need to practice what you learned working with Lowell Tota-Lights from the tungsten era in order to get the most out of them, vis-a-vis modifications. 

So, now that I've had a chance to play with them what's the bottom line assessment?

The color is so clean that this by itself means they've grabbed a spot as my preferred lighting tools. It's just so clean and perfect. The flesh tones require very little (usually none) work in PhotoShop and the power is quite welcome. Since the entire back of each lighting unit is one big, extruded heat sink I'm going to give them two thumbs up for engineering and (hopeful) reliability. 

The ones I bought are single color temperature models. They just do daylight. 5500 Kelvin daylight. I've had bi-color panels in the past and, while the color flexibility is great to have, you lose half the power since the flexibility comes from turning a daylight set of bulbs up while turning tungsten bulbs down, and vice versa. 

I bought four lights in total. Two big ones to use with diffusion as main lights and key lights and two of the half units to use to evenly (and widely) light backgrounds with direct (unmodified) lighting. They pack down smaller than the RPS lights and are smaller and lighter than the previous panels I owned. 

All-in-all it's cost effective package for around $2400. 

I've paid more for less...

Were I to persevere as a still photographer only I doubt I would have even considered the upgrade but one of my goals for 2017 is to drive the business toward a 50/50 split; photography and videography, and a set of Profoto strobes just won't hack the moving part of that equation. One more acquisition to write about before the end of the year. Stay tuned.

The Aputure Light Storm LS-1s fixture on the left, controller on the right.

A closer view of the controller, which also features DMX control.

Professional Limo connectors for a locking fit.

The 1/2 height model. Bright!!!

And now we start talking about audio for video. Yikes, there's a lot to learn.

The very first thing I taught Ben about audio for video was about PROXIMITY. The need to get the microphone into the physical sweet spot for which it was designed. Everything else about using microphones flows from there.

My first real experiences with professional audio happened when I was a creative director at Avanti Advertising and Design. We had a number of clients for whom radio was an important part of their marketing mix. We wrote a fair number of commercials; some very straightforward and some with valiant attempts at humor. The common denominator was either a person narrating or persons playing roles. Since radio commercials are staged and highly directed all the production work was done in a studio. We used a studio called, Tim Stanton Audio, and we relied on Tim Stanton's deep experience to pull off productions that ranged from simple to highly complex, multi-character, mini-shows.

Tim had a collection of microphones and he would select them the way a sommelier would select various wines to match with the different courses of a fine meal. Tim sat behind a giant sound board controlling levels, etc. while I directed the talent, which meant, asking them to read with a different inflection, more or less energy, and always with an eye on the stop watch so we could fit the read into the time constraints of the commercial. Fifteen, thirty, sixty and one hundred and twenty seconds.

I learned a fair amount. I learned from Tim that every room has its own acoustic character which can be controlled with sound absorbing materials and even thick blankets. I learned to watch the meters and not overload the inputs for the recording devices. I learned that multiple "takes" helped us narrow in on our creative "target" and I learned that (optimal) proximity of the person speaking to the microphone is everything.

We're currently living in a time when we have tons and tons of information at our fingertips and most of it is either too condensed to be worthwhile, factually wrong, or just too shallow in scope to be useful. A lot of the information is driven by marketing. I see a lot of ads for "shotgun" microphones where the videographer has the microphone mounted on his camera but the actors are across the room. Clearly, the marketing people never got the text about proximity.

The reason why many, many people are so happy with the sound they get from lavaliere microphones comes from how they are employed. No one sticks their lavaliere mic on the top of their camera, shoots from across a room and expects to get anything worthwhile. Everyone knows that the "lav" gets positioned on a talent's tie, shirt placket or collar at about 12 inches from the talent's mouth. There are other, more creative locations for lavs but they are all on the body and in close proximity to the talent's mouth. So, even with the least expensive of lavalieres we get decent sound. It's because we are using them correctly (usually).

The truth is that in many cases the sound from a decent shotgun style (hyper-cardioid) can be better than the sound from most lavalieres if it is positioned correctly. The bigger microphones seem to reproduce lower frequencies more accurately and many of the relatively inexpensive ($150-$300) shotgun mics have very decent responses through the frequencies.

The best place for shotgun microphones is just above or below the talent's mouth and about 18 inches away from them. The dance that sound people on movie and TV sets do is to aim the microphone at the actor from the correct distance while staying just out of the video frame. If you have a dedicated sound person they can put the shotgun microphone at the end of a boom pole and continually fine-tune the placement by compensating for the actor's movement. This maintains the level and sound quality. If you are working alone you'll need the client to restrict their movements but it's still important to get the microphone off the camera and close to the actor. If I'm shooting solo I take along a stout light stand and a special bracket that holds my boom pole. I get the actor on their mark and carefully position the microphone before we get started. If the shot calls for walking and talking I give up and put a wireless microphone on them. With a sound person along short walk-and-talks can still be handled with a shotgun microphone on a boom pole.

The bottom line, always, is proximity. Unless you need to be ultimately mobile....

If I am out snapshotting video (solo, all gear attached to camera, nothing scripted, no actors) and I think I'll want to catch audio or even grab an impromptu street interview for my own personal work I'll default to a microphone on camera. Generally the one I reach for is not a shotgun mic but a stereo cardioid (heart shaped front sound pick up pattern) model that I can put in the hotshoe of my camera.
I'll leave it on to record ambient sounds and general audio tone, for the most part. But every once in a while I'll find someone who I'd like to interview spontaneously.

The need to get decent sound always triggers an "alert" in my brain. The alert is... Proximity. I need to get that microphone, which is on top of the camera, as close to the interviewee as possible to get decent audio and to diminish the effect of background noise at any given location. The trick is to use the wide angle setting of your camera's lens and get in close to the person. If I can get into a zone about three feet away I have some assurance that the resulting audio with at least be usable.

While it seems like a shotgun mic would be just right for this they can be too focused and require too much effort to aim them. Again, if you have a helper you could take the microphone off camera and allow the sound person to aim it correctly... but we don't always have that luxury. In fact, if you are shooting for yourself you probably won't.

The microphone I've been using on the camera for the last few years is a Rode SVM, which stands for "Stereo Video Mic." It's not very long but it has two microphone capsules behind its wire screen. Used close in it has very good sound quality, and the stereo nature of it means that I can often stick two people in a tight frame and get good sound from both. It's probably not the best microphone for this kind of work but it's the one I thought I could afford at the time. It cost me about $200 and it's come in handy a number of times. (I'm linking to the current model as the one I have has been discontinued).

The quieter the environment the easier it is to use an "all purpose" microphone like this to get good results....as long as you get it close enough.

Along these lines; meaning run-and-gun video versus controlled video, I've come to also appreciate the standard "reporter's microphone." You've seen them forever on the news shows. It's the classic microphone that reporters stick in front of their faces to do their remote, location "stand ups" in front of the news cameras. When they interview the crooked politician or the man on the street they alternate pointing the microphone at their own mouth when asking questions and then aim it at the person they are interviewing when they answer (usually from about 12-18 inches away....). These microphones (reporter mics) are counter-intuitive for many people. It would seem that a shotgun microphone would be more useable because we have the idea that the shotguns zero in on what we point them towards. It would seem that a reporter microphone, with its omni-directional pick-up pattern would pick up EVERYTHING!

But being wise photographers we understand that sound and microphones are subject to the inverse square law and, that the closer we have the microphone to the source of the sound the quicker audio "falls off" as we increase the distance from the other sources of sound. If we get the microphone close to the subject then everything else is relatively further away and much quieter. This is how someone with a reporter's mic can get decent audio even when surrounded by screaming fans at the end of a sports competition or political rally. It's also why people have more luck a lot of the time with lavaliere microphones (which are generally omni-directional). The sources of the main audio is much, much closer than the distracting background sounds which quickly "fall off."

I like the way shotguns microphones sound. The can be very, very good. I have a case full. But we have come to love them because most commercial production is done in rooms insulated from air conditioning noise, with appliances turned off, with reflective surfaces covered and microphone to subject distances (and angles) optimized. This is where they shine. But they are not "Swiss Army Knives" of the sound world. I reach for my reporter's mic when I know we'll be moving fast and working in uncontrollable environments. If I'm not working on a tripod and don't have a hand free I default to something like the Rode SVM, on camera.

It's good to understand the how the environment and the use dictates the right microphone. As long as you remember the primary rule = proximity = you'll come away with cleaner and less distracting sound. Get close. Even in the studio getting close means less necessary gain and less noise.

So, next up let's talk about lavaliere microphones and I'll show you the two options I use.

Rode Reporter Microphone.

A modest and short list of the three most useful interchangeable lenses I used in 2016.

Sony 18-105mm f4.0 G lens.

 Hot cameras and fast, fast glass seem to get all the attention but I wanted to talk about the two top lenses that I used this year and what makes them special. They aren't sexy or fast and in both cases the web-based reviews are quite mixed. Don't just read mine, if you are in the market for one of these either shoot it and test it yourself or, at least, read a bunch of different reviewers and decide which ones you trust most. 

My top award for usefulness and profit-enabling is the middle of the road, Sony 18-105mm f4.0 G lens (which is also the "kit" lens for the Sony FS-5 video camera...).  It's not a small lens but it is much lighter than its bulk might suggest. It's part of a new generation of lenses that are pretty sharp but designed with (seemingly) no regard for actual, optical distortions. But, it's also of the generation of lenses that is designed from the ground up to be corrected by in camera and in software lens correction magic. My copy is nicely sharp in the middle and more than adequate on the edges. The optimal stop for balancing most of the parameters and giving good performance, is f5.6. I routinely shoot it wide open for both stills and videos with no ill effects. Most of what I shoot has a subject in the center part of the frame and background stuff on the edges. Unless I'm willing to shoot everything at f16 the background of nearly all my images is going to be somewhat out of focus anyway, making discussions about edge sharpness a bit silly. 

If you need a lens with which to shoot perfect brick walls or test charts with straight lines to the absolute edges of the frames this is NOT the lens for you. If you need a very versatile lens that covers a wide range of focal lengths well this might make you happy. I like it because it has a nice, variable response power zoom for video, it focuses silently, and the image stabilizations works as well as anybody else's stabilized lenses. Another nice feature (mostly for video but still shooters who use manual exposure will like it as well) is the fact that it's a constant aperture zoom lens. The f-stop doesn't change as you zoom. A downside for some videographers is the focus-by-wire nature of this lens. You won't be using this with a follow focus rig. That's okay, we have other lenses for those uses.

For about $550 it's, I think, one of the bargain lenses in the Sony APS-C lineup. I'd buy it again and, for paying work, it seems to stay glued to the a6300. It's a great combination for shoulder mounted and handheld video. It's probably my most used Sony lens in 2016. The one issue I have? It's not full frame....

Sony/Zeiss 24-70mm f4.0 lens.

My second choice, based on the amount of use it gets and the amount of billing it helped to engender, is the 24-70mm f4.0. When I first bought it I'll admit to rushing into the system and not reading enough about the Sony lenses. In retrospect, I am happy it turned out that way because if I had read the reviews of this lens I probably would never have bought it. The biggest strike against it was, again, the edge sharpness. Probably not the optimum choice for shooting flat documentation of circuit boards....

A common, negative refrain was that it just didn't have the overall performance to demand the high price... What I found in day-to-day use was a good, medium range, standard zoom lens that created very nice images. It is, again, a lens from the new generation of firmware tweaking and software corrected systems. But it's nicely sharp (instead of clinically sharp) and seems to be a well behaved lens for photographing people and events. I've used it as the primary lens (along with the A7Rii) on eight multi-day advertising shoots and have never found it wanting. But again, I'm not shooting flat, perfectly rectilinear test charts, I'm photographing lifestyle images that have depth to them. 

The one stop difference in aperture between this and the new G Master lens means that this lens weighs less than half as much, is much smaller overall, and, according to DXO is about one point off the performance of the faster, fatter and heavier G Master f2.8 version. You get to spend about $1,000 more to get a very, very small amount of improved performance. The f2.8 might have been vital in the days of 400 ISO being the top sensitivity you'd be willing to use in digital imaging but now? With the amazing cameras we routinely shoot with the difference is a rounding error. 

The benefits of our lens is that it can be handheld for a lot longer because it doesn't make your (smallish) Sony camera too front heavy, the OSS (image stabilization) is very good and, you'll probably need to start at f4.0 and go to smaller apertures if you want to get enough in focus to satisfy most clients. It's as sharp as I've ever needed, even when photographing product in the studio, by the time I get to f8.0. The final point is that it's a congenial lens to carry along with you as a daily walk around lens. Not something I would ever say about its faster sibling...

Again, on the "con" side, the focus is focus-by-wire and that's always dispiriting and I'd love the lens even more if it was $895 (there I go, slagging it on price with the other reviewers....) but the reality is that you only pay for it once and you'll soon forget the premium you paid if it gets you the kind of images you need to make your clients happy. It's primary advantage over the 18-105mm is that the 24-70mm covers the full frame of full frame...

And, YES, I would buy it again (but I'd try to find a mint copy, used...). 

And that brings me to my "runner up." This is a lens I've been using more and more for portrait work. I use it instead of all the nice manual focus Rokinons and Contax Zeiss lenses for one simple reason: It works well with eye autofocus on the A7Rii and the a6300. Every frame with a person is tack sharp exactly where I want it; right on the eyes. 

But there are many more reasons to like this lens. It has very good image stabilization. The f4.0 max aperture keeps it from being too heavy and too big. Sorry, I just won't carry a 70-200mm f2.8 around anymore. There's no optical advantage and nothing but a cluster of handling issues. According to DXO, this is the sharpest zoom lens in Sony's entire lineup. Amazingly sharp for me, even at f4.0. And it's off white like the groovy lenses that Canon makes and I'm certain this gives comfort to my clients as they think they are getting something on par with the Canon lenses (dripping sarcasm...). 

The only reason this is not my first or second choice is that I've only started using it a lot recently. Given the results I've gotten I know I'll press it into service a lot more frequently in the year to come. As far as I can discern it has NO flaws at all. Not even the price. The only reason I can think of not to buy one is if you don't shoot with Sony cameras....

One more note about this lens; I don't have anything longer than 200mm for my full frame camera precisely because I have this lens and the amazing sensor in the a6300. The combination gives me great 300mm equivalent files with good, dense details as a result of the resolution of the sensor. It's the perfect combination of the strengths of full frame and APS-C, used across the system. Much like the combination of something like the Nikon D500 and the D5. Nearly equal image quality but with more reach on the smaller format. 

Sony 70-200mm f4.0 G lens.

These are the lenses that have been getting my attention this year. Not nearly in consensus with the majority of other users and reviewers but that's part of the rich stew of subjectivity. A lens is more than just sharp it is. Usability, color, contrast and, of course, NANO-Acuity are also vital features.

We could all be shooting with an 85mm Otus lens but the overall handling would cause us to end up hating photography and taking up some other passion. Not everything Zeiss makes is designed to really be used in the field. At least from my point of view....

Curious to know what your favorites are. If you have a moment, let us know.

The Day After Christmas and We're Back to Work.

Amy. At the ready with the best of Kodak, circa 2002.

I came into the studio today and the first thing I did was click on the air conditioning. It's the day after Christmas and it's already eighty degrees at noon. The humidity is also quite high. Not that unusual for Texas, although we broke a record yesterday morning for the highest recorded morning low on December 25th.

I also had a call from a friend/art director who was just calling to chat. I asked her what she was working on and she chuckled and told me that she was revising a series of ads that we had first worked on 14 years ago. Seems the client (a national pharmaceutical testing company) loves the original images we created back in 2002 and just goes back to update logos and type treatment, as well as written information, every couple of years. The photos seem to be solidly withstanding the tests of time.

The photographs in question were a series of studio still life shots that were a backlit medicine cabinet filled with generic pill bottles and pills, as well as so props to finish out the styling. The images have been used in print ads, on the web and in posters.

The thing that seems so funny to me is that, in this day and age of compulsive camera upgrading (and we always hear the rationale that clients are demanding that we spend money to energize our "hobbies"..."client MUST have the 42 megapixel files!!!!), is that the images were all created with a six megapixel, Kodak DCS 760 camera that had no Jpeg capability (added later via firmware) and the top useable ISO was really the same as the base ISO = 80. The camera specs seem like something from a million years ago. But, in fact, I'm once again amazed at just how well the files stand up even now, in the most modern of times.

This was a funny year. It's the first time in nearly 30 years that I have not rushed to the camera store in late October (my birthday) or middle December (Christmas) to buy myself a new camera. I seem to have broken a cycle. The last new camera I bought was much earlier this year and it was the Sony RX10iii. I've been tempted a couple of times but each time I checked back in with what I already owned and found it at least adequate and most times perfect for the kinds of images I want to make.
In any event, every camera I own is up to the task of making images for clients that are only limited by my own imagination, and ability to translate expressions and lighting into photographs.

Nice to step back in time and realize how much we were able to do even with the most "primitive" of digital cameras. With a Sony A7Rii and a drawer of really, really nice lenses my attention has moved from still photography cameras to the world of dedicated video cameras. But even there, every time I consider purchasing a video camera to use on a project I go out and test a hybrid camera I already own and find that, once again, any limitations in quality will come from my inability to direct or even conceive of the correct visual story to tell. It won't be because the cameras I already have aren't up to making moving pictures that will almost inevitably be compressed several times and showcased on the internet instead of on big screens.

Right now, where video is concerned, the spot I'm working to improve is my facility with recording sound. I get the underlying engineering ideas, it's putting them into fluid practice that needs the work. That, and having support gear that gets the job into the ballpark. I'm loathe to spend a fortune on high end audio gear but at the same time I don't want to be let down by the gear. It's a tricky pathway but one that seems as fun as puzzles at this point.

I hope it's okay with everyone if we spend a little time in the next week or so talking about good, inexpensive microphones of all kinds and about digital audio recorders. It's a source of renewed interests for me. And, well, that's what the blog is all about.

Still a week to go in this old, weathered year. I hope to finish it out with five more good swims, a couple of good runs and some nice family meals with Ben and Belinda. And Studio Dog. Always with Studio Dog.

The Sony a6300 as a premier low light video camera. Amazing.

I like to go over to Zilker Park, in the very center of Austin, Texas, at least once during the holiday season to look at the giant "tree" (a moon light tower festooned with lights) and to savor the carnival atmosphere that has evolved over the years. Under the tree are tacky vendors galore, hawking funnel cakes, turkey legs, kettle corn, corn dogs and other weird, Texas festival foods.

Across the street but still in the park is the TRAIL OF LIGHTS!!!! It's a series of Christmas tableaux with lights and Potemkin scenery. The whole affair used to be put on by the city of Austin, and local business footed the bill for creating the myriad "Santa's Villages" and "A Power Ranger Christmas" scenes in exchange for tasteful little signs; along the lines of "brought to you by the folks at H.E.B."

In the days before our massive population explosion the two week long event was free to anyone who wanted to attend. There were "special" days when car traffic was prohibited and everyone would actually walk through the quarter mile long set up. Most recent years, and on most days, the reality was an endless line of cars whose inhabitants might wait several hours in a line, perfumed with auto exhaust, in order to drive through, bumper to bumper, and stare out the window at........Christmas lights.

The resulting traffic jams in all the surrounding neighborhoods led local wags to re-name the "Trail of Lights" to "The Trail of Headlights."

The city ran out of money to underwrite the event back in the bleak days of 2008 and 2009 but then the event rose from the dead and fell into the hands of the private sector. Now the park land adjacent to the "tree" and the "Trail of Lights" becomes home to a giant, compacted parking lot for thousands of cars, each of which pays through the nose for the chance to park close. Thousands of newly arrived Austinites ride over on privately chartered school bus services from points downtown and south of town. And everyone gets to pay $3 a piece to stroll through......Christmas lights.....and the much bigger and better lit signs "thanking" the sponsors.

It's now more like "Monster Truck show" meets "Rodeo" meets the Holiday Season.... They have even introduced a Ferris Wheel, and rides.

But, is there a better time to break out a video camera and walk down from my house to see the cultural show unfold before my eyes? I think not. With a happy, new awareness of the secrets of operating Sony still cameras as video cameras I was anxious to go somewhere visual and put what I've learned into practice.

I grabbed a Sony a6300, along with its 18-105mm zoom lens and a Rode StereoMic, and headed on over. The microphone was there to record natural sound and any chance interviews I might create. I put the camera into the manual mode on the mode selector dial and applied the correct shutter speed and aperture along with Auto ISO (ranging from 100-6400) and headed over. I decided to shoot in 4K just to see how the image stabilization worked with my handheld shooting.

Here's my takeaway: The a6300, when shooting in 4K and downsampling in FCPX to 1080p, makes files that handle noise extremely well, show a high degree of sharpness and saturation and look very detailed on my 27 inch screen. Even with assistance from the lens's I.S. I am hardly a paragon of fine handholding technique and wish I had taken a monopod (at least) to provide a more stable shooting platform. If I eschew the movie mode on the selector dial and just initiate my video clips by leaving the camera in the "M" mode I gain the ability to zoom way, way in for fine focusing before I start shooting, which is a major advantage. I lose the ability to see the exact framing before I start rolling the video. The video frame is always smaller... If I switch to the "M" mode, or one of the other PSAM modes instead of the movie icon I also enable automatic level control for my external microphone. Which can be quite useful. If I need to have exact audio level control then I have to venture back into "movie" mode territory.  C'est la vie.

There were many little voyeuristic snippets I caught as I roamed through the crowds with my camera but I'm resistant to putting up "test" nonsense. My final video observation is that the a6300 is a wonderful and truly portable ENG video camera capable of great image quality; even at ISO 6400. Down at ISO 100 it's almost unbelievable. The cage helps balance out accessories and gives me more to grab on to. I have new respect for my tripods...

My final cultural observation is: I am much more comfortable with these kinds of holidays being more private, family or close community oriented events and less comfortable with them being grand spectacles of modern entertainment culture. The long lines, noisy diesel generators, and crowds of people in the middle of what is usually a beautiful park is a painful reminder that society is in a mad rush to make every life event into a mass spectacle thus robbing each event of its power and dignity. A visual that summed up the intrusion of modern culture into the "tree" at Zilker was the addition, just this year, of big, American flags at each corner of the "tree."  If there is a holiday that should be free of blatant nationalism one would think this would be it...  Can't imagine that Santa has the stars and stripes hanging from his sleigh or that the baby Jesus was swaddled in "old glory" in the manger...

We have succeeded in turning our wonderful "central" park into a tacky, outdoor mall and our holiday into a spectacle. Oh cheer!