What I'm expecting (as a working photographer) in the New Year (2017).

Author metering in Scottsdale, Az. 

With the near collapse of the middle of the camera market and the crazy fallout from the 2016 U.S. presidential elections the crystal ball of most photo-futurists is murky. We are good at predicting the past. The future? Not so much. But I thought I'd at least let you know what I'm planning on and hoping for in the year to come. Not as a politico or social commentator but as a guy in Austin, Texas who owns a very small business that makes creative visual content for regular businesses, big corporations, medical practices, associations, and advertising agencies. There's nothing earth shattering here because the direction that your business takes is more often driven by your clarity in marketing and outreach than external economic changes or short term social upheaval.

I am expecting more and more photographic jobs to come with shorter face-to-face client engagements. We'll see more one person portrait shoots and fewer daylong "cattle call" shoots. More "We need this particular image done in this particular way" rather than a daylong trawling for likable images that may be used sometime in some unknown future. There are advantages here. We move away from the tendency to bid things by day rate and start pricing by the value of the image to the client, along with the complexity of the shoot and the knowledge and talent that will need to be brought to bear.

I've already seen this in the business and while, at first, I had some concern that billings would drop I find that we end up making nearly the same money in fees but our time (both mine and the client's) becomes more flexible and manageable. If I don't need to be somewhere first thing in the morning and then need to hang there all day long it's easier for me to schedule in my morning swim practice, an afternoon walk or a delicious nap.

We'll still have reasons for doing daylong shoots, sometimes it's more efficient to just make a list and get stuff done, but we are moving away from commodity photography into a nicer realm where we are being engaged (hopefully all of us) for things that can't be easily done by the shipping clerk with a Canon Rebel. In turn, this adds to the (rightful) perception of value that makes it easier to ask for profitable fees.

Clients have been treated to lots and lots of bargain photography since the market declined back in 2008 and they've become keenly aware that poorly produced images have a net negative effect on their brands. Lately, my new clients are all concerned about one issue that I find interesting: They want to know if I can light, and if I have lights, and, if so, will I bring them along and use them on the job I'm potentially doing for them??? It seems that everyone everywhere who is in the position to hire outside photographers (and videographers) has been burned, and burned badly, by the available light expert.

2017 is the year that we acknowledge that we have great cameras (better than we need) and we understand how to use all the neat settings and whiz bang function buttons and that nobody gives a crap about what camera you own or what lenses you use. Now clients just care about results. What it all adds up to, in my mind, is that this is the year we ignored cameras and concentrated on learning to light and light well. If a new photographer is really adamant about "upping their game" my first recommendation is to thoroughly learn all the basics of lighting. The ISO dial on a camera is not a substitute for a brilliantly motivated key light or a subtle and elegant fill light. Clients are figuring that out too. It can be a differentiator for those not too lazy to learn some skills...

No curmudgeonly photo-luddite is going to want to read this paragraph but I look at it as a bit of tough love. We are no longer in the business of "making photographs." Clients don't want "a photographer" they want someone who is a creative problem solver who creates visual content. All kinds of visual content. Every year the percentage of our income from video grows. It's growing faster. Our second job out of the gate this year (in the first week of the new year) will be producing a 1:00 video for an international medical devices company. We'll have to know a bunch of different ways to move the cameras, how to light the interiors of practical locations, which shots we'll need to have on hand to make good edits in post, and how to handle audio; from interviews to voice over narration.

We'll be shooting video and photography on the same locations with the same model and clients and we'll need to deliver lifestyle photos as well as the video programming. But as you can plainly see this opens up 100% (or more) increased billing for us over just doing the photography alone. Not everyone wants to go out and produce video and it's not my intention to build a new army of photo-videographers. If you aren't comfortable with that end of the business you can also look at the other end; building websites and live sites and offering those kinds of services.

If you have no other talent or skill set beyond taking photographs you might want to consider heading back to a good community college to pick up a complementary skill set in addition to photography because I will tell you this, clients are looking for turnkey solutions. The worker bees of American Industry are already working too much and anything you can take off their plates (in terms of creative content creation) is a big relief for them. Do the photography for the website and then design and produce the website. Do the photography and then switch into video and do the video content.

It's not that there will be less photography to do, in total, it's just that clients will expect vendors to be able to offer a wider range of associated skill sets that usually go hand-in-hand for corporate projects. You can bet that if there are photographs required for a new website that there will also be a video component for the same website. Still images for the annual meeting? Those stills will probably be produced, in part, to fit into the video that will also be produced. The reverse is also true. You might find yourself commissioned to do the video only to have your client ask, at the beginning, or halfway through the job, if you can also provide still photography.

If you are a good portrait photographer, with a good grasp of creating rapport and directing portrait subjects, you may also have a talent for producing interview footage or announcement footage with the same CEO you have in front of your camera for portraits. It's a nice and efficient use of time for the marcom people who are always, ALWAYS, frugal with their top executives' time.

The wonderful thing about this combining of disciplines is that there is an efficiency gained from mixing the tools and skills from each. My most current realization of that revolves around the use of small, field monitors in both areas. I find tethering to laptops, in the field and in the studio, to be a cumbersome waste of time that is a holdover from the early days of digital where multi-shot cameras required computers to drive them and to also capture each file directly. I suffered through the early days of lost cable connections and crashing software and I'm very aware that most computer screens are utter crap in full sun. I much prefer attaching an HDMI cable from the camera to a good 7 inch (or larger) field monitor that is originally designed for video work ---- especially when shooting photographs with an art director, client or combined entourage in tow.

We did a photography shoot in the studio right before Christmas which required shooting from an overhead viewpoint for all of the shots on our (extensive) list. Putting the camera up over the set was easily accomplished with a high rise C-stand and a solid arm. Controlling exposure and triggering the camera was straightforward with an IR trigger or an iPhone but seeing the review image could be problematic.

With a monitor attached we could see exactly what we were getting for each frame. And because the monitor is designed as a video tool it comes with focus peaking which came in very handy for getting our camera and lenses zero'd in, as well as false color  which let me see just how white I could get the background before blowing it out too far. We hung the monitor on a shorty C-Stand making it easy for me, the designer and the art director to all see, and to collaborate on the project. We also used the monitor to review shots on location for several annual reports this year, and, of course, we used it on our video projects.

I originally bought the previous set of LED lights with the idea of using them mostly for video only to find that, using them, I've evolved a new style (for me) of on location portraiture that is perfectly suited to the use of both LEDs and continuous lighting. Here is a sample:

The same is true of the diffusion panels and flags I bought to use for video productions, but which have been pressed into service in making portraits because they offer more control than just a typical softbox or umbrella modified flash. 

The mix of photography and video will continue to emerge as its own media. Magazines, which have morphed into websites, are already evolving the style of the mix and are voracious for content. 

No, the market for visual content is far from collapsing, abating or slowing down but it is morphing into a different thing than the heavily silo-ed constructs we've worked with for so long. I'd say that the classiest thing you could call yourself today; when dealing with agents from big enterprise, is a producer. It brings everything together. It's a job title that works for a new, layered and more complex, paradigm of imaging. And it seems to command higher rates and more creative control than clients are willing to invest in just a photographer...

I spent some time with Belinda this afternoon at the Elliott Erwitt exhibit at the Humanities Research Center on the UT campus. Today is the last day of the show and it was crowded. What I saw was what some might refer to as the Golden Age of Photography. Erwitt worked for multiple magazines and spent decades on assignments all over the world. His work ran across pages and pages of magazine paper and thrust his work into the spotlight for readers of what were once homogeneous touchstones of collective culture. These magazines were the places where we got our stories and saw the news.

They were usurped by television and later everything was usurped and divided by the endless selections of the web. While we are never going back to Erwitt's golden age we have to figure out ways to navigate and take advantage of what our golden age offers. This blog is an example (although a bit dated) of what the new paradigms and distributions of content and access look like, on a small scale.

To date, I've reached audiences all over the world. I've connected with some human beings nearly eighty million times (according to Google data) and I've delivered my thoughts and showed off images that I like to an audience I could never have imagined back in the days when print was king. 

Not everything is about monetizing the display and sharing of our art. Sometimes it's the sharing and dialog alone that are critical to artists. To that end the current paradigm is much richer for many, many more people. In earlier days very few people had a shot at a cover photo on Life Magazine. But currently everyone with a keyboard and access to the web can share their art and ideas to their heart's content. The only wall is the need for patience to build an audience. 

If we default to the current pop culture cliché what we are trying to do is to tell a story. The difference between now and then is that "then" we were basically putting our images on a sheet of paper and passing it around to our friends and family. We were lucky if the image made the rounds inside a space of ten square miles. Today we are using a giant delivery system buoyed up by satellites, acres of server farms, gigawatts of power and the potential to go viral and splash our work across millions of screens in places as far away as Mongolia or Aukland. As business people we have to acknowledge the change, not only in distribution but also taste, style and media preference. 

Going forward we have to keep our eyes on the reality that 60% of the stuff we put up online goes to cellphone screens and not 30 inch Retina monitors. Video goes vertical. Written content is relegated to so much "gray space." The change is irreversible but not so overwhelming that we can't figure out how to make it work for our work. That's our challenge in the 2017 and forward: Understand the new things that people want to see and understand just as well how they want to see them. And then figure out how to become a valued supplier of the new media. 

Hey, back in the early 1990's, for the vast majority of people, the web did not exist as media. Now it's the dominant target for nearly everyone. More people are making more money online than the superstars of the last century did across any combination of magazines. There's a generational divide right now but nothing that can't be understood and leveraged. You just have to have the will to do it. 

And, after online content and advertising matures (like TV did) there will be a new wave of innovation but I can't talk about it here because, as far as I know, it has yet to be invented. (No, VR isn't it. VR will be the next 3D TV. It's a filler format in between giant surprises). But when the new thing arrives a whole new generation will explore it, conquer it and profit from it. 

As far as cameras go we've hit the spot where 35mm cameras were just before the tipping point into digital. Mature products that produce flawless results; even in the hands of idiots. 

I do have one idea that I consider to be controversial and it has to do with business success. What I've found over the years is that all new technology tends to physically isolate people more and more but at the same time, with the encroaching isolation comes a desperate need to connect on a real human level. A face to face need that won't be conquered no matter who trots out metrics trying to debunk it. It's why Trump's rallies worked with his followers. It's why people pay enormous amounts to see their favorite musicians or comedians in person. It's why sales people for major corporations still get on airplanes, go see their prospective clients, sit with them over steaks or sushi and drinks, and close their deals with handshakes and bows. This is the way humans like to transact. Efficiency may try to kill it but someone will always pop up to show that this business intimacy works and works well. 

If we are smart we'll try to make everything we do deliver a business intimacy that no one can get from the web or from teleconferencing. It will continue to be the ultimate differentiator between a "metric driven approach to business" and a successful, longterm business. Amazon to the contrary.

So, for 2017, I'm looking for many more opportunities to create video and to also mix photography and video as new media. I'm planning on demonstrating to clients that having a more wide reaching approach to creative content creation makes the most sense for them and that having me produce it makes their jobs easier and more fun. 

In 2017 I'll be honing my lighting skills and trying to create looks and styles that help to brand me as an artist. I'll use the cameras that make pervasive media easier to produce instead of looking at the last century paradigm of trying to find the "ultimate" camera or the one with the most titanium in its build.

I'll look at visual cues from movies, graffiti walls, nightclubs, fashion shows and live theatre and take fewer visual cues from the anachronistic echo chamber of the web. 

But most of all I will continue to swim, walk, eat well, have coffee with friends, dinners with colleagues, and more frequent glasses of wine with clients and future clients. Through it all I'll try to find a balance between making my art the way I want to, spending enough time playing fetch with Studio Dog, and giving the most priority to spending quality time with my family. Life is too short for anything else. 

The future moves, tells stories, has sound, gets spread around, and is unstoppable. You have to be like water in a stream, happy to change direction and go around any boulders that just happen to be in the way. 

Done right, we'll profit. By that I mean we'll make enough money to pursue happiness and enough happiness to make the pursuit of projects that pay that much more fun. And I'll understand that since I've been amply rewarded by life I should give back in ways that are meaningful to me. 

Happy New Year to everyone who reads VSL. Let's make the world look better. Let's be nicer to each other...

My second to the last purchase of the year? Just an upgrade of my Zoom Hn4 to the Zoom H5 digital audio recorder...

There are several devices that I employ when I'm using microphones with XLR connectors. If the microphones have good, robust levels and I just need a connection, and possibly a way to reduce their levels, I'll use the little Beachtek D2a box. It's passive so it doesn't require batteries and it works with most of the microphones that don't need phantom power, or more pre-amplification than my cameras can handle. Ah, the vast nest of details involved in producing nice video...

For microphones that need phantom power, or those that just need a boost in the pre-amplifier stage in order to match the camera for less noise, I have been using the Tascam DR-60ii. It's a nice unit and has a plethora of features but it has an ungainly form factor and it eats double "A" batteries like candy...

My first digital audio recorder was the venerable Zoom Hn4 but it had one fatal flaw (as far as I was concerned) the only output available to my cameras was set up as a line out with a much higher level than most cameras could deal with as an input. Since I like getting the final sound into the camera this was a pain in butt. There is a workaround which calls on using an "attenuating" cable between the Zoom Hn4 and the camera which reduces the juice heading to the camera so as not to overload the camera inputs, but.....it's another speciality cable to buy and of which to keep track. And cable tracking is not one of my strengths.

I was able to pick up the Zoom H5 to replace the Hn4 and I was pleased to find the output to camera was fully menu-adjustable. There are also several other bonus features: Longer battery life, physical level controls which are separate for each channel, and much "cleaner" pre-amplifiers.

After using it for a couple of days I find it's just right. I like the way the files sound, it plays well with my Sony cameras (which is good because my primary use of the external audio recorders is as a pre-amplifier and XLR interface, NOT as a recorder). The difference in battery life between the Tascam and the H5 is striking. I'm on my first set of two double "A" batteries with the Zoom and I've run it a lot. The Tascam runs for about 3 hours (tops) on a set of four regular alkaline double "A" batteries. Ouch. Zoom suggest that I'll get around 15 hours of service from two batteries on the H5.

The one real benefit of the Tascam, and why I'll keep it around, is that when it's mounted under a camera I can easily see the control panel and screen. I'm still figuring out workarounds for the Zoom.

In one of those "hit and miss" sales on Amazon.com I was able to buy one for $219. last week. I looked again the next day and they had gone right back to $269.

Another good use of the Zoom H5 is when using the AT Dynamic, side address, narration microphone I bought last Summer. It needs both phantom power and a nice, strong pre-amplifier. The Zoom checks both boxes.

If you aren't shooting video I'm not sure you need one of these. I guess it would be nice to have if you are a musician. I like them because they have a high "gadget-to-price" ratio and I rationalize that I might do some wonderful recording with it in the future.

We are zeroing in on the New Year; I hope everyone is well and has safe and fun plans for this evening. To my friends and readers in Europe....HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 😁

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.