Two Years Ago in June. All water all the time. A re-post.

http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2010/06/aquatic-saturday-dateline-austin.html

Best Book Buys for Photographers.

Someone asked me what books I recommend to other photographers.  I'm leaving my own books off the list.  But here is my favorite in each category for photographers who either want to work professionally or work with greater satisfaction in doing their personal art.

The first book is all about lighting.  In fact, I think it's pretty much the best, comprehensive lighting book on the market today.  It's not about specific brands or the latest techniques; it's much better than that. This book, now in it's 4th edition teaches you the theory of using light as a photographer.  Read this and you WILL understand light.  Also Fil Hunter and his crew do a great job making the subject readable.  It's called Light, Science and Magic.

John Harrington has written the definitive, in-depth, nearly official book about the business of photography called, Best Business Practices for Photographers, Second Edition. John goes through step by step and explains how the business works, how to make money at it and how to stay out of legal trouble.  The ASMP tried to write a book along the same lines.  They should have just gone straight to John.  I use this as a desk reference any time a business question comes up and I need to do it right.  I know that not all the VSL readers do photography as a business but if you know someone who is entering the profession do them (and the rest of us working photographers) a favor and get them to buy this book.  A lot of the advice crosses borders and might be just what you need to run your own business in a different way....

If you have lots of great ideas but you seem to have problems getting started, staying inspired and following through in your creative (or business) projects you probably need my favorite non-fiction book of all time, written by a writer who failed and failed until he finally understood the process of being successful and satisfied.  It cured me of a very bad bout of anxiety. Really.  A $9.95 book that worked better than therapy or drugs.  I keep a few copies on hand for emergencies with other artist friends.  You should too.  It's called The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield.  It's short, to the point and amazing.  Two days ago a reader of the blog e-mailed me and recommended I read it.  I agree, I'll go back and read it again...

I think I know a lot about portraits but I don't know as much as guy named Chris Grey.  He writes really good stuff!!!  His book, Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photographers, is well written, well illustrated and provides a very good base for anyone who wants to do traditional portrait photography or is ready to do their own highly creative work but wants a good grounding in the nuts and bolts and the reasons behind the nuts and bolts. Chris has been making good books and good portraits for a long time.  Take advantage of his foundation.  I have three of his books.  I read them every once in a while, just for technical inspiration..

The fifth book on the list is for all the people who are trying to do good work with speedlights.  And by speedlights I mean portable, battery powered flashes that were originally designed to sit on top of cameras.  There's a guy named Syl Arena who has written the definitive, highly illustrated and very well written Bible of lighting books for people who want to go far beyond the untidy world of web-flash-quasi-knowledge.  It's all right there in Syl's book. Speedliter's Handbook: Learning to Craft Light with Canon Speedlites.  Paul has my copy and won't give it back.  The book is based around Canon flashes but don't let that dissuade you if you are a Nikon/Sony/Pentax/Olympus, etc. shooter.  All the techniques are the same, you'll just have to figure out what stuff means the same in your camera flashes language.  He will teach you how to make that stuff.....fun.   Yes.  I too hate the cover.  But the insides are sooo good.

Finally, after all this technical reading you'll most likely want a nice palate cleanser.  Something to refocus you on actual shooting.  On the enjoyment of shooting.  And what better way to do that than with an inexpensive, thick book by one of America's master street shooter, Elliott Erwitt?  This is a compendium of hundreds of witty, wonderful and odd dog shots.  It's called, Dog Dogs.  I keep a copy in the car. It's fun to look at when I'm trapped somewhere and held against my will by the lure of commerce.  I also have one in my studio.  It's a happy testament to the fact that a body of work builds over time.  Years and decades rather than weeks and months.  At least the good stuff works that way.  This is your intro to Erwitt, once you're hooked you'll move on to the more addictive stuff and someday you'll thank me...maybe.

That's enough for now, and a good start. Layer in some shooting between chapters and you'll have big fun. It's Summer! Time to read.

Thanks for reading.  Kirk

Fully Committed. Shooting a play with an old, manual focus lens.

Martin Burke in Fully Committed.

Camera: Olympus Pen EP3.  Lens: 45mm 1.8  ISO 1250.

One of my favorite actors of all time, Martin Burke, will be starring in the one man play, Fully Committed, at the Zachary Scott Theatre, opening this evening.  Last night was the dress rehearsal.  The play is about the person in the basement office of an ultra-trendy, Manhattan restaurant whose job comprises sitting at a desk taking telephone reservations from a group of the most entitled, eccentric and sometimes sociopathic group of patrons imaginable.  Martin plays both sides of every conversation, including conversations with the slimy head chef and the head waiter.  At the same time he also fields calls from "friends" who are anxious to let him know they've landed acting jobs in parts that he also auditioned for. 

Martin is amazing and the play is so much fun.  So fun, in fact, that I was able to convince my 16 year old son to come with me.  I was going to shoot images during the dress rehearsal that we'll be sending to the press today.  

First, let's talk about the photography part.  I would be covering one actor on a small stage. I wanted to try something a bit different and I'd been champing at bit to pit two of my favorite lenses against each other to see which would emerge triumphant.  It wouldn't exactly be a fair fight as one lens would be on my Panasonic GH2 and the other on my Olympus EP3.  What the Olympus has in design panache and build quality it gives back in resolution...Yes, that has been remedied in the OMD but I'm still holding out...

I wanted to shoot my Olympus 45mm 1.8 and my Olympus (old school Pen) 60mm 1.5.  How would the ancient legacy lens do against the young favorite of the m4:3 crowd?  How would I do pitting my skills in manually focusing against the fast sample rate and quick AF of the EP-3?  Who would emerge as the top contender in the America's Top Small Camera Contest (A trademark of the Shooting with the Stars Corporation, ltd.)?????

Martin Burke. Fully Committed.

Camera: Panasonic GH2. Lens: Olympus 60mm 1.5  ISO 1250

I brought along the two bodies I mentioned, the two lenses I mentioned and also the Pan/Leica 25mm 1.4 and the Panasonic 14-45mm zoom, as well as two extra batteries per camera.  Everything packed into one small Domke camera bag with room to spare.  Lots of room to spare. Ben and I left the house a bit early and headed to the theatre. Little did we know that the city of Austin was hosting one of those "everyone-with-nothing-better-to-do-come-to-the-park-sit-on-the-grass-and-listen-to-jazz" things where hordes of people looking for free entertainment drive in from the suburban hinterlands, and fill all the roads between me and the theatre with hapless, confused and generally incompetent drivers who are afraid to make left hand turns.

Through a combination of patience and profanity in equal doses we were finally able to arrive at the theatre with five minutes to spare.  Ben settled in to a comfy seat behind me and I got to work setting up my cameras.  They were both set identically.  ISO = 1250, manual shutter speeds, manual apertures.  White balance set to tungsten. Noise reduction on stun (low) and each camera set to large, fine or extra fine jpegs. (The Panasonic has only "fine" as a choice...).

My routine with the Panasonic was to push in the little wheel on the back, top right of the camera which magnifies the finder image.  I would fine focus the 60mm lens and then touch the shutter button which got me right back to the 100% finder image.  Then I'd be able to shoot for a while without worrying about focus until Martin moved.  The method was quick and pretty accurate.  When I hit sharp focus the lens worked well.  Most of the time I was shooting with the lens set to between f2 and f2.8. 

My routine for using the Olympus was to evaluate exposure on the VF2 screen and then rely on the camera's autofocus for the heavy lifting.  I even used the face detection AF for a number of the shots.  

I think both cameras did well.  The GH2 files seem a bit more solid and I find that I actually prefer to manually focus my lenses.  Probably a holdover from the past.  I was happy to see that neither camera seemed to struggle with noise at the 1250 ISO setting.  I found the controls on the Panasonic, especially the push wheel for toggling between, and setting, aperture and shutter speed to be more usable than the two different dials on the EP3.  I also found the files on the GH2 to be a bit cleaner and more robust.  There is a color difference between the cameras but nothing that can't be duplicated or remedied in Lightroom or some other piece of software.

The big difference to me was in the lenses. I much prefer the look of the longer, 60mm lens. I think it has a sharpness and contrast that the other lens doesn't quite share. They are very, very close and by f2.8 and beyond you'd have to have your nose stuck to the front screen of your monitor to see the difference, but, at f2 the winner for contrast and center sharpness (to my eye) is the ancient metal beast of a lens.  The 60mm f1.4.

The big caveat is the fact that it was used on a body with 24% more pixels.  

Why use the smaller cameras when I have bigger, faster stuff?  Because I wanted to and because the action in the play was constrained to a smaller space which meant fewer changes in  focal length ranges were needed.  The prime lenses are nicely sharp and gave me the opportunity to work at higher shutter speeds.  That's always nice.  Next time out I'm going to match up my old 70mm f2 against the 60mm 1.5 and see which one really is best.  Nice to see Olympus re-introducing so many high speed primes.  It's always a nice option in the age of relentless zooms.

The biggest issue I had, technically, last night was all the laughing.  Most of the play is so funny that I found myself laughing out loud with the rest of the small (family and friends) audience. Hard to keep your equipment steady during a full out belly laugh. Ben thought the play we great as well.  Score one for fighting against video games....

Both cameras made it through the show with their original batteries.  Paranoia proved once again to be unnecessary.

I've already made reservations to go back and see the play again.  All fun all the time.

Hope you've got your Summer in a good trajectory.  It's not nearly as hot in Austin as it was this time last year.  The lawns are green, the pools are cool and it's even possible to go (comfortably) for long walks.  With a camera.

Thanks for reading.

The first generation of Olympus "small sensor" cameras.

Painter in the marketplace.  San Antonio. Scanned at 4800 dpi for a final size of 10x15 @300DPI.Reduced to 2000 by 1300 for the blog.

Scanned at 2400 DPI and reduced for the blog.

I've written often about my admiration for the original line of Olympus Pen-F and Pen FT cameras but I rarely show many photos from that camera.  One reason is that I long since gave away my dedicated film scanner and I didn't think the cheap flat bed scanner I used for everything else was up to doing scans of really small transparencies. The actual film size is less than half a frame of 35mm film.  I think that makes this ancient line of cameras the first real "smaller sensor" professional cameras.

Once Eugene Richards, a bunch of Life Magazine photographers and a few Magnum photographers adopted to the half frame, with it's very small and discrete form factor, the photo community at large didn't even try to start arguing about "equivalence" or the impossibility of doing professional work with small cameras.  Back then all that mattered was results.  And generally the images were judged for things like: content, timing, composition and juxtaposition.  Not ultimate sharpness and certainly not a camera's performance at a zillion ISO.  Maybe that's why they called the 1960's and 1970's the "golden age" of photography... It was largely done by impassioned artists and not geeks with the hots for working out the SNR on a graph.

I was cleaning up the studio this week, in anticipation of painting the walls, when I came across a metal case full of 1/2 frame transparencies.  Most of it is portraits of Belinda from the 1980's and Ben from the 1990's but there were a bunch of slides I shot in San Antonio that I always liked.  So I decided to give the much maligned flatbed a test run.  I tossed on the slide holder (holds four) and revved up the Epson Scan Software (runs with no hitches on OS 10.7).  

The images above and below were all shot on some day in 1980.  That's what the slide mount says. That's 32 year old film technology in a small space.  I was pretty amazed at how well it holds up when scanned.  If I remember correctly I was using a standard FT camera with the 40mm 1.4 lens.  The meter had long since given up the ghost so I was dependent on guessing and conjecturing.  Which is kind of scary given the limited dynamic range of color slide film at the time.

These informal tests tell me lots of different, unconnected things. First they tell me that, for around $160 new right now, the Epson V500 is a pretty darn good, all around scanner.  Just about perfect for the person who is knee deep in digital but still wants to tool around with film.  It tells me that the half frame format was capable of doing good service up to 8x12 inches for most uses. The lens seems sharp and snappy for something created over 45 years ago.

I can see that I was able to focus manually much better thirty years ago but I'm convinced it's a practice thing rather than whole scale disintegration so I'll keep practicing.

Finally, looking at the images reminds me that there was so much less to decide on back then.  If you left the house with a pocket full of 100 ISO daylight film you made due with that.  If you left the house with one lens and a body you tried to squeeze the most out of that combination.  Largely, everything else is just a distraction.  

I'm not saying I hate digital or I'm only going to shoot film from now on but I would like to be on record as saying that someone could satisfy a big niche of the market by putting out a digital camera with only five controls on it:  Focus. Aperture.  Shutter Speed.  Color balance.  ISO.

All the rest of the stuff we keep getting is just bullshit to fill our minds with mush and make the process of taking photograph harder than it needs to be.  If we had fewer decisions to make we sure have a hell of a lot more concentration on what's in front of the camera.

And, to the smarty pants who will write and tell me how I can turn off all the unwanted items, I have to respond:  It's not the same thing as designing elegantly in the first place.

Raspas by the Alamo.

The black and white conversion in SnapSeed is not bad.

Late in the afternoon, fishing at the old Perdanales State Park.

A few years back there was a magazine in Austin called, Texas Life.  It was a bold upstart that intended to go toe to toe with the heavyweights like, Texas Monthly.  They ran out of money and in a matter of months were gone.  But while they were rolling we did a lot of photography for them. At one point we did a fashion-y piece about the outdoor life in central Texas.  Fishing, hiking, taking a long swims in cool streams...that kind of thing.

I photographed these two models using my favorite camera and lens of the moment.  A Leica R8 with a 180mm Elmarit Lens.  These are from e-6 slides scanned on the Epson Perfection V500 Photo scanner.  It's a different look...

The Leica R series cameas and lenses never got the press that the M series does.  Probably the more conservative and traditional body put it directly in competition with the much less expensive Canon and Nikon flagships.  Kinda tough to justify spending twice as much for the tool...unless they are better.

Street Photo for Father's Day.

Street shot from San Antonio.  Originally created on color slide film and then scanned on an Epson V500 Photo flatbed scanner.


It's coming up next saturday. Father's day. I can hardly wait. I haven't been at all subtle. I've been leaving little hints all over the house. Notes on the front door.  Notes on the bathroom mirrors. Even notes on the TV screen.  My wants are simple, my needs even simpler. I've worked hard to be a good dad and I'm ready to sit back and be showered with teenage appreciation.

So, besides a $50  cash loan (shot in the 1980's....) what's on the list?

I'm looking for just a few upgrades.  To start with a new MacBook Pro with a retina screen would be nice but it's a little bit out of the price range capabilities of a non-working 16 year old.  So I've made some adjustments...

I would like to get my hands on an OMD EM-5.  I'm still resisting getting one for myself because I want to see what else hits the market this summer, but, if someone were to buy me a black one as a father's day present I couldn't bear to return it....

And while I'm at it I've heard some nice things about the Panasonic 14mm lens.  But if you're going to get me the 14mm you might as well get it with the GF-3 body because it's not that much more.

I can always use another one of those great Fotodiox 312AS LED panels that changes color temperature.  One can never have too many and they're great for quick lighting set ups.  But I wouldn't protest if Ben and his mom went in together to pop for a Lowell Prime light...

I lent a fellow photographer three of my Elinchrom D-Lite 4's and it caused me to realize that five would be better than four when it comes to lighting inventory.  The D-Lites have been flawless performers at a small price.  Nice to have one more back up.

I know this  will come as no surprise to long time readers but----the Nikon D3200 has piqued my interest.  24 megapixels and a lens for only $699?  Freakin unbelievable.  And as I'm on record having said,  "There's no law that says you can't have more than one really cool camera."  Just to  experiment with, you know...

If the OMD EM5 doesn't make the cut could we settle for one more EP-3?  I need something to hang the 12mm lens on when I'm carrying multiple bodies for shoots...

Do I think Ben is going to go for any of the stuff above? Naw, but I can always dream.

I think the real trick for father's day is memory cards.  They're scalable and always in fashion.  I'd like a few more of the Transcend 16 gb SD cards.  But if money is an issue I'll be happy with more 8's.

And I'd like one more set of Eneloop double A batteries, if possible.

Wait, wait, I forgot that I wanted a new table top tripod and a few umbrellas.

Ah well.  Maybe a necktie with a picture of a Leica on it and a hand drawn card.  That would work too.

Quick note on scanning.  I do all of my scans, both print and film ( medium format and 35mm) on an ultra cheap Epson V500 scanner.  I used their canned software as well.  I am very happy with the results I get and don't want anything better.  If there's any interest from people who still have film then let me know and I'll write a piece on how I scan stuff.  I've heard the v700 is a bit better.  But I haven't tried it..

I have one suggestion for every father on your list:

Coming up soon....

K.B. Dixon's Book, A Painter's LIfe, is wonderful. Perfect Summer reading.

"Bullshit is a preservative.  There is nothing better for a reputation than a hopelessly convoluted analysis by one of the tenured gods of critical commentary."


----an excerpt from A Painter's Life,  by K.B. Dixon.

I've never met Kenneth Dixon but I just finished reading a second book by him.  It's not about photography, per se, but there are so many tangential tentacles...  The book submerges the reader into the day to day life and thoughts of a painter named, Christopher Freeze, by way of a mix of conventional narrative, passages from Christopher Freeze's journal, and pithy, witty excerpts of reviews from critics.

Freeze grapples with issues that plague all artists:  How to start. How do you know if what you are doing is any good? Where will the money come from? How to balance the time needed to create art with the time needed to actually sell enough art to have the time to do the art.  Dixon's character is flawed, self-indulgent, effete, and enmeshed in a lifestyle that straddles the academic world, the art world and the small, personal world of the artist.

His characters' observation are both witty and bitchy and entertaining.  It's a wonderful book to read because it's like looking into a gold fish bowl at an occupation that most of us will never understand.  But at the same time photographers always seem to be grappling with the same basic issues:  What is inspiration and how can I get some?  Why can't I just photograph?  Why do I have to waste time doing all this other stuff.

But the book is also a wry and slightly subversive tweak at the art industry, the critics, the dealers and the amateur collectors.  Freeze's observations about the patrons of the gallery are wonderfully cynical...

The character, Christopher Freeze, ruminates about his relationship with his art dealer, his painter friends and rivals, and his wife.

The book is extremely well written.  Not in the sense that it speeds you through a pyrotechnic plot with rampant adrenaline and harrowing twists and turns but in the sense that one really enjoys the way the words come together.  His writing is both spare and elegant, and profoundly funny.

It's a book of observations.  Of judgements and opinions.  But mostly it's an explanation of the ongoing conflict between life and art, told with dry humor.

Two observations about Dixon's books:  1.  I wish I could write even fractionally as well as Dixon.  He's never obtuse or wordy.  He has an economy of style that's effective and pleasurable.

2.  Every time I picked up his book and read for a while I saw some of my flaws in his character and there was a sense of recognition. (Cheap therapy?)  He very accurately described the split nature of an artist constantly frustrated with the need to consider the market and the need to spend time and energy in actual creation.

What resonated most for me was the underlying idea that work created for an audience, exterior to the artist, cripples the important work of the artist.  Everyone makes choices and finds a balance.  This book is a look at the shaky balance of one painter.

I've enjoyed Dixon's books because they reinforce ideas I like and make me feel at least minimally attached to part of a thread that runs through our culture.  There's a familiarity that runs through them.  Finally, the books are aimed at adults.  Not that there is anything unsuitable for children but the writing speaks to people who are living adult lives.  Making a living, trying desperately to do their art, trying to balance the need for a bit of isolation with the fear of being wholly forgotten.

If you want to read something fun and insightful I highly recommend it.

It's a novel.

Here's a link to Mr. Dixon's Amazon Author's page: http://www.amazon.com/K.-B.-Dixon/e/B002BRIL56/ref=sr_tc_2_rm?qid=1339559884&sr=1-2-ent

A quick review of one of the best cameras ever mass produced.

There are a zillion Nikon F2 cameras still floating around the photography universe.  There are two compelling reasons for that: 1. It was mass produced for over a decade; from 1971 to 1981, during a decade in which photography exploded exponentially as a hobby.  And this particular Nikon was the ultimate aspirational camera for most photographers.  2.  The camera is just flat out bullet proof.  It's like a giant squad of unkillable zombies.  It's the Energizer Bunny, it goes on and on.  And if it won't break it can go on giving pleasure to generation after generation of savvy photo artists.

Of all the cameras I've owned the Nikon F2 is still the only one I know about that has infinitely variable shutter speeds between 1/90th of a second and the top shutter speed of 1/2000th of a second.  No, I did not mis-type, you can set the shutter dial anywhere in between marked, click stopped shutter speeds and actually get controllable, fractional settings.

See the little ring of numbers that surrounds the base of the self-timer lever?  You can use that control, in concert with the control that surrounds the shutter button to set timed exposures up to 10 full seconds.  And the body?  Solid. Built of some kind of metal that won't melt, break, decompose or break.  It is even impervious to gamma and alpha rays.  Rumors abound that the Japanese tracked a meteorite of considerable size as it plunged through the atmosphere and settled in 300 meters of depth off the coast of their island nation.  Divers located the meteorite and took samples.  After rigorous testing by the JCIC it was discovered that the meteor's atomic structure was unlike anything on the periodic table.

In incredible secrecy Nikon, using a fleet of sixty enormous oil tankers and a system of air bladders the size of Rhode Island lifted the meteor intact (130.1 meters in diameter) and took it to their secret Fortress of R&D Solitude.  When queried by officials of several governments the people at Nikon gave out an official statement:  "Giant ultra-cool alloy meteorite? Never heard of it..."

Over the years they melted down this precious metal and made an alloy they called, "Inspirationium."

All Nikon F2 bodies were constructed out of this metal.  And it skewed the entire camera market.

Competitors came out with cameras built from stainless steel and then magnesium alloy at half the price but once a consumer touched the cool Inspirationium they had to have the Nikon F2.  Nothing else would satisfy them. Car payments were missed.  College funds plundered.  That product coined the phrase, "must have."

Several of these cameras have been on missions to space but most people have never heard of the top secret events in which a Nikon F2 saved the lives of everyone on a returning space shuttle.  The story goes something like this:  During lift off high speed video cameras captured footage of some heat shield tiles popping off the hull of the space shuttle.  Those ceramic tiles were a crucial part of the heat barrier that would protect the crew of the shuttle from the devastating heat of re-entry.  Everyone at NASA totally freaked out.  They were certain that the re-entry would be a disaster. The mission was kept secret because it was undertaken for some national security agency and recon satellites were being launched.

They tried to come up with a plan to save the astronauts but nothing else on the ship could withstand the hellish temperatures.  The  astronauts went on with their mission doing their space walks and talking wonderful images with their modified Nikon F2's.  Then one of the crew (an amateur photographer) remembered the rumors about the space alloy being used in the F2's and he frantically radioed mission control.  A quick satellite link up with Nikon (and much strategic arm bending concerning tarriffs and such) confirmed the rumor.  The space alloy had an incredibly high melting point.  It just might work.

Another space walk was planned.  This time it included three Nikon F2 cameras, superglue and two rolls of duct tape.  The cameras were placed over the spots where tile was missing and superglued into place.  The duct tape would certainly melt the instant the hull began to heat up but it would help hold the cameras in place until the pressure of the atmosphere  stepped in to take its place.  Everyone held their breath as the bandaged Shuttle began the descent.  The control crew on the ground was silent as they listened to the drama on their radios.  Radar from stations across the globe tracked the progress of the Shuttle.

Then......splash down.  The mission was saved.  And divers were sent to retrieve the cameras.

That alone would make an interesting story in itself but it goes on from there.  The retrieved cameras were returned to Nikon in Japan for a clean, lube and adjust and then sent back to NASA.  They only needed the saltwater rinsed out and few adjustments, other than that they were in minty condition.  A few years further down the road and budgets were cut.  The cameras were sold off at a public auction and rumor has it that one of cameras went to a famous fashion photographer in London, another is still being shot by some guy who does cigarette ads and the third one is used by a famous photojournalist who will, of course, deny that he's ever used a Nikon camera because he is, in fact, sponsored by a rival company.  But many of the assistants who've worked with him in the field swear that, when the going gets rough, and the Pulitzers and MacAuthor grants are on the line, one of the Space Shuttle F2's comes out of the bag with one of the legendary manual focus lenses and the real magic happens.  Every time.

Then there's the story of the CIA agent posing as a professional photographer in Rumania just spying the crap out of everything.  His camera prop of choice?  Of course it was an F2. The story is long and twisted but in the end he was caught red-handed by an assassin from the Rumanian government.  They faced each other and the CIA agent, Nikon F2 hanging around his neck on a leather strap, Nocto-Nikkor lens on deck, prepared to meet death with dignity.  His adversary lifted his silenced Makarov pistol and fired one shot directly at the agent's chest.

The bullet struck the Inspirationium shell of the camera which both absorbed all impact and then bounced the steel jacketed bullet right back at the assassin, striking him in the head and allowing the agent to escape.

But there is also the sad, sad story of the man in the hot air balloon who got too greedy.  He was trying to set a new altitude record for ballooning without supplemental oxygen.  He'd attained 30,000 feet and wanted to document his feat with his Nikon F2.  He was wearing it on a new, experimental strap the fit across his chest like a bandolier.  It was made of burgundy colored leather and it attached to the camera via the tripod socket. He called his strap the Burgundy Express.  But of course that single point of attachment was ludicrous and, as the camera twisted and turned on the strap it came loose and started to plunge to the earth.  Addled by the thin air our balloonist reached desperately for the camera and lost his grip on the safety ropes for the balloon.  In a flash he and the camera were accelerating toward terminal velocity.  The camera, with its small profile, accelerated more rapidly and hit the corn fields of Nebraska with a dull thud.  The balloonist landed directly on top of his own camera and was killed instantly by the impact.

But there was a silver lining to this story as well.  The camera, after falling 30,000 feet was sent to Nikon service for a quick CLA and, after an adjustment to the second shutter curtain, went back into service.  This time in the inventory of a photographer who had been struggling to succeed both artistically and in business.  Once she picked up the F2 her business picked up as well.
She went on to shoot for a number of major magazines, even shooting royalty.  And she's shilled for several other camera companies.  But you guessed it.....When the chips are down and the assets are on the block, out comes the F2 and in a matter of a few purchase orders everything returns to fashionable success.

Well.  That's all I really know about the Nikon F2 except that I have one as well.  It works.  It only takes film.  Seems you can't mix digital sensors with Inspirationium metal.

(for the painfully literal:  this is all fiction.  That means I made it up. )


I recently bought another F2 just so I'd have a back up.  I was amazed to be able to buy one for around $150. Perhaps the existence of Inspirationium is  a better kept secret than I thought.

Don't run out and buy a Nikon F2.  There aren't enough used ones to go around as it is.  And it's very complicated to use.  It has three major controls:  Focus, Aperture and Shutter Speed.  Too tough to remember without the manual.

Portraits? Read this interview with Kurt Marcus.

http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2012/06/11/kurt-markus-the-portrait-finding-your-voice/

Lots of interesting things to read over at http://www.aphotoeditor.com

Here's one of mine:

©Kirk Tuck.  Russian Girl on the Spanish Steps in Rome.

Lisbon Pool. Snapshot.

I'd just finished shooting for five days at a trade show for Tivoli Systems (now part of IBM) and I was out walking through the streets of Lisbon with an old Leica M3 and a 35mm lens.  I walked by this pool and shot just as the boy jumped.  Of course, since the camera was already focused at its hyperfocal distance there was no delay for autofocusing and no shutter delay. I was able to capture the action as it unfolded.

I didn't have a light meter with me but I had the paper with the exposure pictograms that used to come in every box of Kodak film taped to the bottom plate of the camera and covered with Scotch tape.  I'd set the shutter and aperture for sunlight and didn't need to change the exposure again until I walked into the open shade.

Because of these two technical aspects my film shots from 14 years ago are more consistent and more in focus than what I get from the most advanced digital cameras.  Besides the immediate gratification have we really come so far?

I know that the feisty ones among you will immediately respond that all the current cameras can be used in manual exposure as well.  And that's true.  But I sure am finding fewer and fewer lenses with distance scales and even fewer with depth of field scales.  And that's a pity for street shooters.

Getting Theatrical. Do you go to the theater or does the theater come to you?

The Majestic Theater, San Antonio.

Belinda and I went to see a performance of Dividing the Estate at Zachary Scott theatre last night.  I wasn't there for a shoot so I had to leave my camera at home.  As I sat in the theater I started really thinking about the positive, symbiotic relationship I have with the theater.

Zachary Scott Theatre has a collection of over 100 framed and matted, 12 by 18 inch, color prints of my work spread across three buildings, in public traffic areas.  Each one has my credit boldly displayed.  My work for each production gets prime newspaper display with a large credit line next to each image.  The marketing people chose one archetypical image from each dress rehearsal shoot and make it into a beautifully designed, printed postcard that gets mailed out to sometimes as many as 25,000 very well targeted and very affluent house holds (approximately 250,000 local impressions per years in print). I am listed in every program as a sponsor.

And I am well presented by them on the web:  http://www.zachtheatre.org/show/dividing-the-estate  http://www.zachtheatre.org/show/xanadu  http://www.zachtheatre.org/show/fully-committed

I get all the comp tickets I can handle and last night there were four complimentary drink tickets paper clipped to my tickets.  I love a theater where you can take your glass of wine in for the performance...

Every year Zach sponsors a Christmas party for me at their production of Santaland Diaries  which means I get to invite 100 or so of my friends and business associates to an incredible night at the theater.  I've learned more about lighting than I can possible imaging by watching the ultimate lighting pros of live theater.  I've learned at the actor's feet.  They've taught me about the importance of gesture and timing and even improvisation.  I've gotten an advanced education in theater with over 200 different plays under my belt.  And they've taught me so much about marketing.  Because they do it non-stop.  And they do it well.

And I've recruited the actors as paid talent for advertising campaigns and even a corporate trade show presentation, all with great results.

The performance last night was so much fun.  Real people, acting, just a few feet from my seat.  Every show, every performance is an original piece of art.  Nothing is canned.  Nothing can ever be perfect but it can make you laugh, make tears drip down your face in public and move you emotionally in a way pre-recorded stuff never can.  In short, it's always amazing. Even when it's a genre I don't usually care for it's amazing. And Zachary Scott constantly expands my idea of what it's like to be alive and unique.  From Angels in America to Jesus Christ, Superstar every single play examines what it is to be a part of humanity.

As I sat in the theater last night I remembered the first time I shot a dress rehearsal for them so many years ago.  It was a play called, Six Degrees of Separation.  In those days we'd shoot "set-up" shots on medium format color transparency film.  We'd put the cast into a scene or a close up moment and then light it and shoot with a Hasselblad on a tripod.  We shot the actual dress rehearsal with whatever 35mm camera I was shooting at the time.  And the dress rehearsal shots were done in black and white because that's what the local newspaper and all the smaller publications printed at the time.

I shot Six Degrees of Separation with two Leica cameras.  I used a 35mm f2 Summicron on one body and a 90mm f2 Summicron on the other and almost certainly I was shooting Tri-X.  I had a Pentax one degree spot meter and I'd use it sparingly.  The light changes weren't as dramatic in the days before programmable lighting boards...

How much fun it was to see my work, just a few days later, splashed across a quarter page in the Austin American Statesman newspaper!!!  The cherry on the whip creme was the large cut line right under the photograph.  I can't remember what I got paid for that first shoot.  Iy couldn't have been much because the theater was struggling 19 years ago.  This year we're about to open a new, $20 million theater.  It makes me smile to think that all those past evenings of shooting in some small way helped to make the theater successful enough that we could raise $20 million for the new theater complex in the middle of the biggest economic downturn our generations have ever seen.

If you don't get out to see much live theater you might consider giving it a shot.  As a photographer you'll find the lighting very interesting.  And the way people move through light.  But I think you'll also have a growing appreciation for gesture, expression and movement.  It's one of the arts.  We might as well integrate it into ours...

The 50mm focal length (or its 35mm equivilent) continues to be my favorite focal length.

Odd that I've only had the Sony cameras for a short time but I have already acquired two 50mm lenses, one 35mm lens and one 30mm lens, along with a zoom that also covers the 50mm focal length as well as the 35mm focal length.  I don't have anything wider than a 24mm (35 equivalent) and yet I don't feel nearly as naked as I did when I didn't have the middle of the optical range well covered. (This was written a while ago.  I'm editing:  I've added a Sigma 10-20mm lens to round out the wide end.)

All of my current photography happens between 16mm and 200mm. The lenses are used on APS-C camera bodies so the range actually covers 24mm to 300 mm, in old school speak. But no matter what I intend or what I head out the door with the images that make me happy are always in that narrow band of focal lengths that emulate what I learned on with that old Canon TX film camera and its bulky but stalwart 50mm 1.8.

When I shot everything with the Canon 5Dmk2 I ended up collecting at least five optics in the "normal" range, including:  a 50mm Zeiss f1.4, a Nikon 50mm 1.2, a Canon 50mm 1.8,  Canon 50mm 2.5 macro and a converted 60mm Leica R macro.  I guess it's a bit of an obsession.  But one that makes sense.  We're  seduced by candy and sexy super models and loud music but we spend time with nutritious food, approachable girlfriends and soft music in our ongoing lives.  We think we love the sparkle but we stay pretty firmly in the comfort zones.  It's no different with optics.

From 35mm to 85mm or even 135mm we feel safe and sound.  We're excited to play with a 15mm wide angle but we soon tire of its uncomfortable novelty effects.  We marvel at some shots taken with an 800 mm lens wide open but after a very short while we long for the context that comes from seeing more of a scene.  And seeing more of it in focus.

I've owned the high speed, high priced normals and I've owned the cheapos and I'm here to tell  you that, unless you  spring for something esoteric like a Leica 50mm 1.4 Aspheric, you're not going to notice a heck of a lot of difference between the lenses once you hit 2.8 or so.  You know, the range we mostly shot at or above.

What's in my bag today?

Portrait of a student for the Kipp School Annual Report.

It's a guilty pleasure but I'll admit it.  I'm enough of a gear junky to be curious about what's in other photographers bags on a day to day basis.  When my friend, Paul, the architectural photographer started using digital Hasselblads for his high end projects I invited him to lunch and made sure to invite his camera bag along too.  His rolling case had two Hasselblad bodies and two backs at the time.  A 31 megapixel back and a 40 megapixel back.  He had the Hasselblad shift adapter and just about every medium format shift lens you can think of in the case.

I recently changed over from shooting Canon to shooting Sony.  I thought the Canon cameras and lenses were just fine.  I could shoot them without caveat but I like new technology that makes my life easier and I was anxious to move to cameras with EVF finders.  When I bought into the Sony system I swore I'd just get a couple of really good zooms and try to be the ultimate minimalist.  I should know myself better by now.

I did a location shoot with lots of variables for a client last week.  I didn't know exactly what to expect because we'd be shooting interiors with people and machines, some narrow DOF portraits and some very wide exteriors.  What to pack?

Here's what ended up in the camera bag:  Two Sony a77 bodies (doing this for money? You gotta have a back up camera!) Four batteries for said cameras.  16-50mm f2.8 zoom lens.  70-200mm f2.8 G zoom lens.  Sigma 10-20mm Zoom lens.  Sony 30mm DT Macro lens. Sony 50mm 1.4 lens.  Sony 85mm 1.4 lens and the Sony 35mm 1.8 lens.  As you can see from the selection my sweet spot for optics is between 24mm and 85mm.  Everything else is a specialty focal length.  We've got them but we don't use them a lot.

I brought circular polarizers for all the filter sizes as well as a Minolta flash meter.

I brought along a Tiltall tripod because I like it this week.  I also brought along two small light stands and two small umbrella in case I wanted to diffuse the LEDs.

I mostly lit things with several Fotodiox LED Panels but I hedged my bets by sticking in a couple of the big Sony flashes in case we suddenly decided to rush outside and try to do portraits in full sun.  I also brought along my Swiss Army Knife, a few Cliff Bars and extra batteries for the lights.  I brought a Moleskine notebook and a good pen with which to take notes and an old Ian Flemming book in case I had to wait for someone.

It all fit in one Domke camera bag and one Think Tank rolling case.

This is a case of rolling light and moving fast.  We did 12 set-ups that day without really missing a beat.

When I left the studio today and went for (95 degree (f)) walk downtown I carried only a Hasselblad 501cm camera with an 80mm lens.  Two rolls of film (Fuji Velvia 100)  in my pocket and no meter.  Hell, everything was in Texas sun.  It's always 1/250th, f8.5 @100.  Unless someone snuck and ND filter on the ionosphere.  And judging by the need for good sunglasses I'm discounting cosmic neutral density.

Don't know if this is interesting to anyone but it is what it is.