A Year Without New Cameras. A New VSL Record.

Shooting the RX10iii on a freezing day in Burlington, Ontario.

Photo courtesy: ODL-Designs

For many years I was known as "one of those photographers who changes camera systems as often as he changes his socks!" I bounced around from one system to the other looking for the magic mix of features and handling that would create a shooting tool box that got me the results I wanted, in the way I wanted them. But looking at my current inventory I am surprised to see that my last camera purchase was almost a year ago, and it was not a wholesale system change but just an addition of one more camera from the same brand of cameras as all the others in my collection.

At my age I'm pretty sure I haven't somehow changed my stripes and somehow become more careful and measured in my proclivity for reckless change, and avaricious acquisition urges, so something else must be in play.

Could it be that a major camera company helped me to check all the boxes pertaining to the way I use cameras? Across six models from the same maker.... I am inclined to say, "yes."

One of the big reasons I switched from Nikon to Sony was my belief that conventional photography would continue to evolve as an ever diminishing business opportunity and that video would be the ascendant tangent for visual content creation. Video will continue to rise in popularity amongst clients while photography will continue its change from needed craft to utter ubiquity. (Commercial) Photography is quickly following the path that typesetting did so many years ago. Typesetting tumbled from being a poorly understood craft that required experts and dedicated machines to something that everyone can do (not always well....) with their word processors. Very few typesetters still exist. Graphic designers can do a better job (mostly) making type look good than can the general population but most people just crank out their written work and the idea of typesetting becomes as automatic as getting coffee. Maybe even more so. 

I believe that the vast majority of photography used in fleeting commercial applications will come from employees' smart phone cameras, sometimes aided by the gentle nudge of a canned "enhancement" filter or two. Most other still imaging will be purchased for pennies from the Stock Photography Walmarts of the world. 

I don't think the role of professional photographer will completely disappear. Perfect product shots (that are not just skinned CAD renderings) will still be desired, as will images that desperately need to be lit. Or perfectly styled. Or used enormously large. Or fill needs for a specialty market. But I do think the role of the generalist photographer is dying quickly and, along with photojournalists, will end up represented only in small niches for declining pay.

As with most trends things will change quicker in some locations than others. I'm not particularly pessimistic about my ability to make a living at traditional photography but I know I'll have to spend more time and effort marketing in the future to return the same income I earn now. I'm riding out the (hopefully) long tail of the decline. 

So the cameras I was looking for, and ended up choosing, needed to be as strong on the video side as they were on the photographic side. That necessary combination was the main driver of my 2015-16 camera change. I hedged my bets by getting a Sony A7Rii which is still regarded as one of the strongest still image making cameras on the market. It's a camera I can pull out when we are engaged in a traditional still imaging project that requires a highly competitive set of image quality parameters. 

Since its only weak point is the continuous focus performance required for shooting sports it is more or less the perfect camera with which to shoot traditional portraits, studio still life and general lifestyle advertising project. It routinely delivers very high resolution files with state of the art dynamic range and (with the tweaking made possible by a highly flexible profile interface) the color response is very pleasing. 

I also filled in some gaps with other cameras from the same maker. A fast shooting a6300. A cheap but effective "daily shooter" in the form of an A7ii, and a few "do everything" cameras from the RX family.

But the camera that more or less put a cap on new acquisitions was the RX10iii. If your idea of the future of imaging is based on the idea that photography and video will be intermixed and interchangeable; and that it is almost entirely made for display and distribution on screens, then the RX10iii represents a kind of camera possessed of a feature set that neatly checks nearly every box on the checklist. 

I believe it is the most subversive camera on the market today. Subversive in that it challenges the hierarchy of camera types that we've been conditioned, by experience and marketing, to expect for each application. 

The 20 megapixel sensor is more than adequate for almost everything we use cameras for commercially. The 4K video out of the camera is competitive with dedicated video cameras ranging anywhere from 2X to 5X the price of the RX10iii. The 1080p video is wonderful and detailed. 

The camera is highly flexible. Need better audio than you might get through the 3.5mm stereo mic inputs? Sony has an XLR unit that plugs right into the multi-interface hot shoe. Nice and clean. 

Need to shoot wide? The camera gives you a 24mm equivalent focal range with pristine software corrections of geometric distortions and other optical flaws. Need to shoot long? The camera gives you the equivalent of a 600mm super telephoto. Need a remote? Open up your cellphone and launch the free camera control software. Need to shoot fast? How is 12 fps? 

It's not just that the RX10iii has many features it's the fact that Sony made so many of the features to such a high level of performance and quality.

Why have I kept the system for so long (relative to my past experiences)? Because nothing out there currently matches or exceeds (in any real, discernible way) what I already have in my hands. If I need ultimate image quality (short of the nose bleed, rarified level of the 100 MP medium format cameras) I have that well covered by the A7Rii. If I need 4K video with great low light performance and fast, accurate AF, then the Sony a6300 camera is my choice. If I need a great, all around performer for video and stills, with ultimate flexibility, then I select the RX10iii. What else could I buy?

In a few years Nikon and Canon might catch up. They would need to embrace EVFs to even begin to make my curiosity twitch. I could never willingly go back to a DSLR with an optical viewfinder. It would be like going from a 60 inch 4K flat screen TV to a 21 inch CRT. Just not going to happen. 

A few of my friends have asked about my interest in the Fuji medium format camera but they misunderstand the needs of most video producers. Our goal is to get the people we interview into focus, not to chase after the thinnest, most vaporous pane of sharp focus imaginable. 

We've reached an intersection of sorts. The business in general no longer returns the large and easy money we saw in the 1990s and the earlier part of this century. Like most industries photography is continually being flattened out. The costs are being reduced. There's less margin per hour. What this means in an existential sense is that the old mantra that: pro's can afford to buy the most expensive gear because they can depreciate it and it "makes" them money, is becoming less and less true with every round of flattening and budget "normalization." 

For a smart business person this means we no longer want to chase ephemeral and minute potential enhancements to image quality that might be delivered by something like a medium format system. It all becomes a drastic case of overkill and creates an over-rich equipment inventory chasing an under-capitalized business model.

So, the flattening of photographer income nicely coincided with the maturity of the camera market, which means that once we find gear we love to work with we have the luxury to coast along with it into the foreseeable future because we are already bringing the equivalent of 50 caliber machine guns to a carnival target shooting booth. 

There is a downside to the diminishing of camera lust = lower readership for a photography blog. But I'm okay with that. (#NikonversusCanon: The Death Match!!!!)(#WhatIsTheUltimateLens????).

There is an operational calmness that comes from being satisfied with your current selection of cameras and lenses. If they deliver the results you want it frees you to think about different investments and different issues that impact image quality or profitability.  Would the $6500 you were thinking about dropping into that new medium format camera be better as an addition to your retirement account? Would it be more fun turned into a pair of plane tickets to see someplace on the other side of the world that you've always wanted to see? Would it buy you the time off you wanted in order to finish your short film, your novel, or your first person research on napping in the afternoons? 

To be truly happy with your cameras means knowing them better and better. There is some sort of bargain my mind has made with the Sony cameras. You may need a different set of parameters for the work you do. You might need the features that another brand does better. But we've all reached this technology plateau together and I don't think we'll spend our way to any radically better cameras any time soon. 

In other news.  We all got up at the crack of dawn today to take the kid to the airport. He's not flying back to his college in the northeast U.S., rather, he is embarking on an exciting adventure: A semester abroad. He's been inoculated, vaccinated, visa'd, etc. He applied spend the Spring and early Summer at one of the top research universities in S. Korea and he should be rolling into the airport in Seoul in about 18 hours. 

He's taken three years of Korean language and is enrolled in an intensive, six credit hour Korean language course this semester as well. He's got a full roster of other classes as well. 

As a parent I will miss him almost as much as his dog will miss him. As a video producer I am in the depths of depression because, with his exit, I lose my editing lifeguard. Ben is one of the best video editors I've worked with. I've been preparing for this event by binge-watching all the editing tutorials on the learning site, Lynda.com. It takes time to learn this stuff, but Ben didn't leave me empty handed. He gave me short list of alternate resources....just in case. 

I'm sure all you parents out there with grown kids have been through this same sort of thing. You want your kiddos to sprout wings and fly well. You want them to gain independence and have fun experiences but you sure do miss them when they are off somewhere else in the world....

For photography or videography I really like using the Aputure VS-2 FineHD monitor. It just got 4X better.

Aputure VS-2 FineHD.

I was very happy with my purchase and subsequent uses of the the Aputure VS-2 HD monitor. It did everything I expected a seven inch, 1080P monitor to do, and a lot more. It was a screaming bargain. But, it was only a 2K monitor. It was not designed to accept and display a 4K signal. If I plugged it into the HDMI output of my 4K cameras I could see my composition while in "standby" but the second I hit the red record button the image on the screen would go black and the screen on the back of the camera lit up and became my display screen for UHD video. 

I was okay with that. No one promised me a 4K monitor for the princely sum of around $250. When I came back from my recent assignment I happened to read something on RedShark or Cinema5D (can never remember which) that indicated there had been a firmware update for the monitor. How wild!! A firmware update for a bargain monitor. I was impressed just by that. A few minutes later I went to the Aputure site and was impressed to find that the firmware update would give me monitoring capability for 4K. Very exciting, and just in time. 

I tried to download and expand (unzip) the file on three different machines and three different browsers but something kept tossing the download into a loop and it just kept making more zipped files when I clicked on it to expand. 

That's when I called in an expert. Enter Frank. A few deft keystrokes later and he sent me the .bin file like it was no big deal. I hooked up the download cable supplied originally with the monitor and carefully followed the instructions. Three minutes later I restarted the monitor, hooked it to a Sony A7Rii, and monitored me up some 4K. 

Of course, the screen resolution hasn't changed, it's just that now the monitor can handle the bigger video stream and downsize it on the fly for me to see. 

That's some pretty cool customer service. Some of the big boys could learn from that. I've bought six Aputure products in the last two months and so far not a single one has disappointed. Happy to have discovered this brand of photo stuff. 

Disclaimer: I'm happy with the stuff I've bought and used from Aputure. I paid for all of it with my own money. All bought directly from Precision Camera in Austin, Texas. Nice folks. They also don't pay me squat for saying nice things about them. I go there for the service, the great prices and a mix of products that work well for me. Sometimes I just call them and they deliver. It's so (nicely) last century.  Next product from Aputure for me? Might just be their new "Diety" microphone. Looks interesting and it's getting some great reviews.

Quick Turnaround Video. Substituting for a colleague waylaid by the flu.

Elephant+Piggy from Kirk Tuck on Vimeo.

I spent last week up in Canada, working on a video project for a healthcare client. I got back to Austin, Texas around 7pm and I was pretty wiped out from two days of travel and three days of non-stop shooting and interviewing. But the freelancer's credo is to make hay while the sun shines so instead of taking Sunday off I recharged my batteries, unpacked the video stuff and repacked the photography gear so I could do a Sunday afternoon assignment at Zach Theatre. We were booked to do marketing photographs for a children's play called, "Elephant and Piggy go to a Play."

This production was done on one of the theater's smaller stages; in fact, my favorite stage and one I've made photographs on for nearly 30 years. I packed a motley collection of cameras but I used only one for the entire performance. The shoot started at 3pm and I was on my way back home by 5:00 to post process the images I'd taken for the marketing staff.

I used the Sony A7Rii to shoot the entire performance; along with the 18-105mm f4.0 G lens. It's a bit counterintuitive since this is an APS-C lens and the A7Rii is a full frame camera but let me explain. We love the performance of the sensor in the A7Rii but don't always need to use the full, 42 megapixel potential of that sensor. Many times our clients' needs are such that 16 to 18 megapixels is the sweet spot between capture, storage and online transfer. Most of the marketing for the kid's shows is done on the web and via post cards. Neither application demands the highest levels of resolution.

Sadly, the big Sony camera doesn't give you the ability to photograph at a reduced raw size but I am more than happy, in many situations, to shoot with the camera set to the APS-C crop mode and make use of the 18 megapixel files that configuration creates. But rather than shoot raw I end up shooting in the Jpeg extra fine mode. With good attention paid to color balance and exposure I just don't think the photographer is giving up much quality in the final files....if any.

With the camera set to the APS-C mode the 18-105mm f4.0 G lens becomes, effectively, a 27mm to about a 158mm zoom lens. In the smaller theater this is the perfect lens with which to capture both near and far action.

One more thing I do to ready my camera these days is to select a picture profile instead of using the canned looks. I've come to like the look of PP3 which rolls off the highlights more quickly than the still camera profiles. I've changed the "knee" just a bit to roll off highlights even a bit more aggressively which means I rarely end up with burned highlights. My last customizing step is to turn down the "detail" setting in the picture profile's sub-menus from zero to minus 4 (out of a range of +7 to -7). I can always add a bit of sharpening in post but it sure is harder to subtract over sharpening that is already baked into a camera file.

The images got delivered on Monday morning and the marketing staff was happy. So was I. The new PP3 picture profile method is giving me smoother skin tones and nicer highlights. The shadows are slightly more open as well.

With this small assignment done I got to work on Monday logging my video content from the previous week. It's not fun listening to the same interview over and over but it's necessary if you want to put your project together correctly in the edits.

I was about to call it a day on Tuesday and head into the house to grab a snack when I got a phone call from my favorite marketing expert at Zach Theatre. Seems they had booked one of their regular videographers to videotape a performance of the same kid's play on Weds. (the next day) and the videographer had come down with the flu. He thought he might be able to come shoot at the midday performance but the theater was hesitant about not having someone with full blown flu in the middle of a performance for a packed house of first graders.

Was there any way I could make it over and record the show? A client in need is somewhat like a friend in need except the client also pays you. Even though I was busy with my project at hand I decided to help out. After all, a client of 30 years is generally always worth it.

I asked how they usually record the shows. Some people do it with one camera and then ask the actors to come back and run through some of the performance after the audience leaves in order to get usable b-roll for their edit. Some people shoot single camera and call it a day.

I decided we should use one camera in a stationary mode to capture a wide shot of the stage and then use another camera throughout the show as to capture closer action, to get tight shots of the characters and to follow the action around the stage. I set up on the top row of the house, dead center to the stage. My stationary camera was the RX10ii set almost to its widest focal length and stopped down to f5.6. It gave me ample depth of field, given the relative distance from my position to the stage, and the effective f-stop. That camera was matched with the Beachtek XLR interface so I could get a balanced feed from the mixing board of the sound engineer. With the help of the sound engineer we were able to fine tune the levels in camera for great sound. That camera was set up on a big, wooden, Berlebach tripod equipped with a Manfrotto hybrid video/photo fluid head.

The second camera was the RX10iii set up on a big Manfrotto tripod with an enormous Manfrotto video fluid head. The Aputure monitor was attached to the hot shoe of that camera. The bigger monitor and the much more define focus peaking made following actors upstage and downstage, with good focus, much easier. I didn't bring cages for the cameras but I did want a microphone on the roving camera just to catch sound if I needed to sync up any frames with the other camera but I'd run out of hotshoe space by mounting the monitor there. Instead I dropped the microphone onto the hotshoe of the stationary camera and ran a cable back to the roving camera's input. Problem solved.

With both cameras set to ISO 640, and the white balance set to 4100K, I spent the next full hour operating the moving camera; following the actors, trying to decide who to keep in the frame when they split up across the frame, and trying to smoothly change the apertures on both cameras when I sensed changes in the light levels.

I knew the client was in a rush to get something they could use for distribution to media outlets so I had a quick lunch and headed back to the office to edit. At 5:00 pm I sent off a finished 1:30 minute edit to my client. We'll probably have a few little changes to make; that just goes with the territory, but she did e-mail me within minutes of downloading the video to tell me she "LOVED THE VIDEO!!!"

Starting tomorrow morning it's nose to the grindstone on the Canada job. Well, maybe after swim practice...

Improvising on location. Making mobile, solid, light stands in real time.

This blog post image is about the cart in the foreground, center frame.

I tried to travel light on my last trip. I didn't want to check a third bag. For the most part it worked out just fine. But no matter how many light stands you take with you any time you venture out of your studio you probably know that Murphy's Ordnance declares that you will need at least one more.

I brought along 4 Manfrotto light stands but the optimal number for location work seems to have escalated to five; minimum. My first two days of interviews went smoothly, as far as lighting and light stands were concerned. I used two to hold LED light fixtures, one to hold the diffusion panel and one to hold the microphone boom. Easy as pie.

But then I tried to get fancy and use a larger part of a big room to do my Friday interviews. I marked the position I thought would be best for my interviewee with an "X" of orange gaffer tape and then went divining with my camera and tripod until I found the right combination of focal length, background and distance. I marked that spot with tape and then started lighting. I set up the big scim first because I knew that would be my key light and you kinda always have to have a key light. And through some quirk of my personality that key light (nearly) always has to be diffused. Two stands down.

I knew I needed a light across the background, a mural of a forest, to keep it from falling into noisy darkness so I put up a LightStorm LS-1/2 on a third stand and sprayed the wall. Just lighting up that particular plane (the wall) and nothing else (except a welcome little spill that served as a backlight for my interviewee's shadow side...). Lighting in planes, in a big room, is a good strategy because you only end up lighting what you'll see instead of trying to fill up the whole space with photons. See more in Russ Lowell's great book, Matters of Light and Depth. 

At that point I turned on the camera, walked over and sat in the spot I'd designated as the "interviewee" spot and ran some selfie video to test. When I looked at the test I knew I would need some fill for the main light (key). A traditional solution for photography would have been to tuck a big flex fill reflector near the subject's shadow side but I had a "B" camera set to film from that side so that was a "no go."

I bit the bullet and tossed the second Lightstorm LS-1/2 (CRI 98 !!!!) onto the last remaining light stand and bounced it off the ceiling at full power. Gone was my fill light dilemma but newly arrived was my microphone/boom arm imbroglio. Now bereft of light stands I was temporarily stuck. Fortunately, I was setting up all this after a long day of shooting (instead of waiting for the morning of...) and I had time to scavenge for a support.

I roamed around my client's facility looking for something that would work as a light stand. The limiting parameter being the need for a 5/8ths inch termination at the top to accommodate the grip head that would hold the boom support. That part was a non-negotiable.

I found the Metro cart first and realized that the corner construction would make a channel in which to insert a long pipe. It would also make the who assemblage portable. In a store room I found some metal conduit that was the right length but its diameter was to large. Finally, I found a length of aluminum tube that was just the right diameter; and long enough to work. I put the conduit into place through the gaps in the shelves of the cart. Then I gaffer taped the metal tube to the top of the conduit. Finally, I attached the head and boom to complete my grip project.

When the cast and clients came in the next day no one gave the "Rube Goldberg" assemblage a second look. I seated my first interview subject, wheeled the "microphone cart" in the right position and made a few small adjustments, and we were ready to roll.

Yes, I'm sure someone will tell me they never travel without ten stout light stands and some very compulsive visitor will regale me for not mapping out every single shot on a spreadsheet along with sub-categories for every screw and bolt that might be necessary. I don't care. I'm happy I got to do some basic problem solving and that it worked as seamlessly as it did.

Next time I'll suck it up and bring the fifth stand. Then I'll find the hidden Murphy's Regulation: All people packing five light stands will find, on location, that they actually need six light stands. It never ends.