Picking up a Sony A7ii as a companion for the A7r2. Why? And how do I like it?

This is the first time in my career in which every camera in my inventory comes from one company. I've always had "main" systems and "side" systems. For example: Nikon full frame and micro four/thirds cameras. In the film days it was Hasselblad and Leica. But right now I'm three formats deep into the Sony world. And the sad thing about all this is that Sony has offered me no free cameras, no cash payments of any kind for writing about their cameras; heck, I can't even get a promotional mouse pad from them....(added for the delirious forum dwellers who are certain that anyone who is actually happy or satisfied with a product is on that company's dole....).

The "best" or most ultimate camera I have from Sony is their A7R2. It's very, very good. Focuses quickly, meters very well, does great white balance and.....42 megapixels! But one thing that is its strength is also a weakness in the hands of an overly prolific photographer, and that's the huge, 42 megapixel raw file. To be honest, while the huge file is impressively sharp and all dynamic-rangy it's also pain in the ass for shooting portraits. I want all the good stuff but I wish the camera would do the same smart camera trick that the Kodak SLR/n (the first full frame digital body on the market) could do over a decade ago; it was able to shoot three different raw file sizes. You could choose between 14, 6, or 3 megapixel file sizes and still get all the editing benefits of raw, but none of the storage headaches, and none of the processing pipeline clogs of today's all pumped up camera bodies. Firmware? Anybody?

I find myself defaulting to other cameras with smaller raw files, like the a6300 at 24 megapixels, or the RX10iii with 20 megapixels, when I head out to shoot anything but big client jobs (meaning client jobs that must have the potential to be used across media). And many of them would be well served with the full frame "look" but at a more modest 24.

The reason for most of us to use a full frame camera  hasn't got much to do with the pursuit of "ultimate resolution" it's more about getting the faster ramp in focusing ,which drives the background out of focus more quickly than smaller sensors used with lenses that have the same angle of view. Most of the time I'm happy shooting Jpegs with the A7R2 since it gives me nice files at the medium size setting of 18 megapixels. But, of course, we always want it all...

This past weekend I made a journey to the local bricks and mortar camera store to replace a lost lens cap. I forgot the lens cap but came home instead with a slightly used Sony A7ii. Kind of the middle of the road model for the current A7x series. On one hand you have the A7R2 which is the king of dynamic range and resolution and on the other hand you have the see in the dark A7S2 with its 12 megapixels. The A7ii is somewhere in the middle, about halfway between the two when it comes to the number of pixels. Not as high a resolution number as the S and nowhere near the sheer detail of the R. It's the essence of moderation, where the A7 system is involved.

I rationalize my purchase with the hoary excuse from the film days: redundant back-up. You need to carry a similar camera as a back-up on every assignment. My rationalization was a bit of a stretch as the a6300 that I own isn't far behind the middling A7ii, in terms of overall image quality (stills) while the a6300 is a faster focuser and has standout, 4K video files. But there is that out of focus background thing we all think we want and need. Another reason to buy the second full frame body is that, at $3200, I am loathe to drag the A7R2 around in the muck and mire to take fun, personal photos. It's become an important tool for work and I'd be upset if I took it out for a spin at a kid's swim meet and it accidentally got dropped into the deep end. A second (used) camera with 90% of the premiere camera's capabilities, but at 1/3 the price, was music to my ears. 

Now, with Ben sitting in the video editing chair today, I finally had some time to go for a stroll this afternoon and to take the new (used) camera for a spin. Here's what I think: Feels great to hold onto. All the buttons are where I expect them to be. I've set up the function menu to match all my other cameras so the learning curve with the new body is minimal. The image stabilization works well. I used it today with an ancient, 50mm f1.4 (pre-ai) Nikon lens, on a cheap adapter, and it was great. Makes me re-think my irrational desire to go out and buy the 50mm f2.0 Zeiss Loxia lens.

The only thing I'm bummed about (but knew it going in...) is that the A7ii doesn't have a silent shutter mode like the A7R2 and the a6300. If it did I would replace the a6300 in tonight's equipment line up for the dress rehearsal of Buyer and Cellar at Zach Theatre. I could put the 24-70mm on one body and the 70-200mm on the other body and be so happy. But for the ten or twelve shows a year that we shoot rehearsals with audiences in attendance I think I'll continue to manage with the mixed format. 

For regular commercial photography assignments the noisy shutter (not as bad as the original A7) isn't really an issue. My clients are keenly aware that they are being photographed. There are really no differences in the finders or the overall feel of the cameras when comparing the two A7x models. And there's really no difference in battery life either. 

The other area that is different is their video capability. The R is a beautiful 4K shooting camera but the 7-2 caps out at 1080p. But it's a nice 1080p and the menu features the range of picture profiles while the body also features a microphone input and headphone output. Those are great things. 

I am happy (though probably irrationally so) to have two nearly identical, full frame cameras to take out on assignments with me. I know that today's cameras are very reliable but being somewhat old school I always feel a bit naked when I go out with a mix of formats or, even creepier, no back-up at all. 

I think my purchase came at an advantageous time. The earthquake in Japan seems to have stabilized the market for camera gear and halted the downward slide of prices. With sensors in short supply for the near future I think the prices of used A7x cameras will bump up a bit while discounts for new product will be aggressively curtailed. 

All the cameras have their strengths and targeted uses. I'm happy that they share a universal menu interface and a universal function menu. It makes life easier when we switch gears to a different format. 

If I lived in a perfect world I'd buy a second A7R2. It really is a magnificent camera. But living in the real world means paying for college and stocking some cash away for the inevitable post election economic slide. And that means a great companion camera at 1/3 the price makes good sense. But that's just me. 

Studio Dog was clearly miffed at not being invited along to record narration on our latest video...

Caninus Emeritus. 

You could see the look of disappointment on her face as Ben and I left the Visual Science Lab compound, cleared outgoing security, and headed out on our assignment for the day. Sometimes we need to travel light. And Studio Dog needed to stay behind with the rest of the staff to sniff out shirking and possible mutiny...

The travel crew thought we'd just be recording audio but we packed to be prepared. Three cameras and a couple of light units, as well as light stands and other accoutrement. 

We hit our location an hour later and pulled our two cases filled with audio gear, into the front door of the company that had engaged us. After a quick scouting we found the quietest area in the entire building, ran out all the usual inhabitants and set up camp. 

Our primary recording rig for this voice-over narration was a Tascam DR-60ii, powered by an external, lithium battery pack and fed by an AKG, large diaphragm, model 2035 microphone; with spit screen. Our secondary (back-up?) rig was a Zoom H4n, fed by a Sennheiser MKE 600 shotgun microphone anchored to a Gitzo boom pole.

My bright assistant and I brought along a number of big, fluffy backgrounds to muffle bright surfaces that might effect our audio quality. We also brought along five or six 4 foot by 4 foot foam tiles to break up any room resonances that might wreak havoc on our lower frequencies...

Ben prepped the room while I set up the gear. We were aiming to keep levels between minus 12 db and minus 3 db on our two recording units. The Tascam has a very useful feature: You can set one channel to record at whatever db level you set and set the second channel to record the same signal at 6 db lower. I think you can program in different values as well, but -6 db was perfect for me. In this way, if you have a spike past zero db in your primary channel you may be able to use the lower input channel instead. It's a bit like bracketing in regular photography. 

With the room and the gear prepped all that remained was to actually direct the reading of the script. Sometimes our narrator hit the exact read in the first take while at other times we did up to 17 takes to get exactly what we wanted from the script. 

During the process of getting takes and directing Ben was logging takes, noting issues and also starring the good takes with one star and the great takes with two stars. Every once in a while we had to stop taping to accommodate a chirping bird outside or a helicopter gliding noisily by but we figured that no recording environment, outside of a full blown studio, would be perfect. We got close with this one. 

I have reviewed the audio and haven't found any hiss, noise or distortions from overload or electronic failure. Since we were using external power for our Tascam unit I was able to use phantom power for the microphone and also keep the meter lights lit without worrying about low batteries. 

We got what we needed and a lot more. We got different intonations and different inflections. We even got a series of possible taglines to slide into the ending graphic treatment. We might not use them but we do have them. 

It's fun when everything goes according to plan. 

Why the cameras? Well, in a post recording meeting we decided to drop a still frame from the project but add video of a certain process. We were able to pull a camera out of the bag right then and go video record a wide, medium and close series of shots and load them into our program back in the studio. More stuff got done. It was fun. 

I'm both learning more each day and also making use of the knowledge gained from creative directing hundreds of radio commercials back in my advertising days. Remind me to polish some of those Addy awards.... But seriously, there's a lot of knowledge that both sticks and transcends technical advancement, and a lot of it is knowing how to help a narrator get his performance where you need it to be.  Not a technical skill. More importantly; a human skills. 

Sounds good? That's more than half the goal for a video project....

In your search for great full frame lenses just how weird and counter-intuitive can you get?

This is a full frame image with no post production or cropping. 

I picked up a used Sony A7ii today because it was too cheap to pass up. That's another story. I brought it home and gave it a good once over, was satisfied that everything worked as expected, and then proceeded to update the firmware from 1.20 to 3.30. That took a while... but it worked.

I may be the laziest photographer alive because after I upgraded the firmware I decided to shoot some quick shots and needed a lens for the camera. I could have stood up, walked across the room and grabbed one of the Sony/Zeiss beauties out of the cabinet drawer but instead I looked around on the top of the desk and found a totally inappropriate lens to try out. It was providence, since the lens already had a Sony E adapter on it. 

It was a lens made many, many years ago for a much different kind of system. In fact, it was made for system with a film size that was slightly less than half the area of a full frame sensor. Not even as big as an APS-C sensor. I was certain that the lens would have a very small circle of coverage and that anything I shot with the lens would have a center circle of image on the frame surrounded by a terrible and quite obvious vignette. But, of course, I was too lazy to get out of my chair and go off in search of something more optically appropriate. 

I clicked on the camera, adjusted the various settings and then pointed the camera and the misfit lens at general stuff in my studio and then clicked the shutter. Then I sat up a bit straighter in my chair as I reviewed what I had just shot. The image was sharp and as far as I could tell it covered the vast majority of the full 35mm frame with very little vignetting. Oh yes, the very corners of the frame showed vignetting but just the tiniest bit. I was stunned. Here was a forty something year old lens, designed for a manually focusing, half frame camera, and it was basically doing double duty as a full frame lens. 

This is a full frame image with no post production or cropping. 

The other thing that surprised me was how filmic and sharp the images created by the lens were. It was rendering banal images beautifully and, even close to wide open, whatever was in focus was sharp. Sharp in a (better?) different way than the Zeiss lenses I have been using. You know, the ones computed to cover full frame?

This is a full frame image with no post production or cropping. 

Since I saw so little vignetting in my interior shots I started wracking my brain to figure out what was going on here. Both of my initial shots were done near wide open which should have accentuated the vignetting. But, both of the initial shots were taken at distances of less than ten feet, and the closer you focus most lenses the more of a frame they tend to cover.  I decided to test the opposite extremes. How would the lens stand up to a shot at a small aperture like f11 while set at infinity? That should show me some clear vignetting. And yes, you can see it in the bottom left corner of the shot just above. 

But it's nothing dramatic. While not convincingly eradicable in the lens correction panel of PhotoShop it's also nearly invisible in the zone in which I typically work: portrait distance and nearly wide open.  A bonus is that shooting in an aspect ratio 16:9 or 1:1 shows no vignetting at all !!!  

In fact, hours later, it's the lens that's on the front of the new camera right now. 

Which one is it? One I have written about many times. It's the Olympus Pen F (half frame film camera) 60mm f1.5 lens. Smooth as silk in the focusing ring and some of the loveliest out of focus rendering I've seen in a normal focal length. 

It's not supposed to work this way, though. I'm supposed to have to spend big bucks on top glass for the full frame cameras. I don't want the more talented tier of photographers to look down on me for not have bespoke magic glass. It's bad enough that I don't personally own any Zeiss Otus products already....

But you know what? There seems to be a perverse charm in finding ways to use totally inappropriate, ancient lenses to do fun things on full frame, very modernistic cameras. Casual environmental portraits, here we come....

Narration is the name of my game on Monday. It's all about..."the Voice."

If you look at the typical videographer's set up on the web one of the first things you seem to always see is a microphone in a "zeppelin" at the end of a microphone boom arm; being held up by a guy with headphones on. Big headphones.

Judging from my friends who've been in the video production business for years and years, shooting for clients like Time Warner, Dell, Motorola, HBO, Purina, and many other big clients, the reality is that most production dialog is mic'd with neatly hidden, wireless, lavaliere microphones. And, these days a good amount of the programming and commercials you watch are probably being over-dubbed in post production.

But there is a widely encountered situation in film and video in which you will need the strong, clear voice of the Narrator to slide into your program and move it along. There's no law that says you can't record your narrator with a lav mic or a shotgun mic (in or out of a zeppelin...) but there might be a better way to go about it. You might consider a side address, large diaphragm, studio microphone like the one in the image above.

These generally feature very clean and clear voice reproduction with a very, very low noise base. Which means more dynamic range and less hiss.

The microphone I'll be using Monday is the AKG 2035 which it not a very expensive microphone but is very good at its narrow specialty. The larger diaphragm gives a very pleasing sound to voice with just a hint of more bass, probably induced by being able to use the device closer to the speaker and getting a proximity effect.  The round object to the right is a spit screen which actually subdues sibilants and puffs and other audible artifacts created when normal people talk.

Most of these microphones are condenser units that require phantom power to work. I'll be doing my recording with a Tascam DR-60ii recorder which is also not too expensive but has proven to have very quiet microphone pre-amplifiers and provide 24V or 48V phantom power to XLR microphones that need it.

Ben and I will probably be working with our talent in a small conference room at a client location. We'll prep the room by adding padded furniture, putting sound blankets on hard surfaces and putting up a three sided wall of noise abatement foam to help kill reflections bouncing back to the microphone from bare walls.

The talent already has our script and we'll all work together to make sure we read it in chunks. Several sentences at a time, in a way that makes sense for a script that is divided between a narrator and on location interview audio. If there is space between the narrator paragraphs well be able to work them into the final video edit more easily.

Ben will be taking note of the timing for each take and matching those times to reference times we used to create a "scratch narration" back in our own rough cut editing. We're going to be trying to match the real V.O. with our scratch version so words fall right on the images for effect.

I'm crazy for redundancy so we'll be recording simultaneously with a Sennheiser MK600 shotgun microphone running into a Zoom H4n. We'll sort out which system we like best when we really sit down and focus on comparing the two. One way or the other we'll have nice back-up because....you know.... Murphy's Law.

So many moving parts in video. It was actually much easier to be a carefree studio photographer in the film days. Back then we'd just pull ourselves a good Polaroid, bracket the crap out of some film and then hand over all responsibility to the lab. Now we're paying attention every step of the way.

Great for control freaks but a little intimidating for inveterate slackers....

Just a preview of our battle plan for Monday.  And another version of: Right tools for the job.

By Request: A very short description of how I use off camera flash with my mirrorless cameras. In particular, my "bridge" cameras.

Sony RX10iii with Cactus RF 60 flash and V6 trigger.

Maybe it's because I can be a control freak when it comes to lighting but I never really warmed up to TTL automatic flash exposure with flash. I like to set exact power settings because once I lock into a "look" or exposure I like I want the flash to put out exactly the same power, over and over again, until I move on to the next subject. Please don't assume that I don't understand the benefits of automation when it comes to flash, and even off camera flash, after all, I wrote a best selling book on the subject back in 2008 for Amherst Media. 

No, I want my light to be consistent from flash to flash and that's something you give up when you allow the camera to control the flash, based on TTL readings. Moving the camera so it sees a different part of the subject, or moving into the path of a reflection, will change the exposure. At best it means you won't be able to easily batch photos; you'll have to fine tune exposures that change. At worst it can mean that your ratio between existing light and flash light is all screwed up, as is the color balance, etc. 

So, in this very short blog post I am going to tell you how I typically work with off camera flash and mirrorless cameras like the RX10 series. 

First things first. There are no disadvantages to using a mirrorless camera set up with flash. In fact, there is one big advantage. Mirrorless cameras have two settings that allow you to view images before shooting in two different ways. You can see exactly what the camera will eventually give you based on your exposure settings. If the setting make the image too dark you will see a dark frame. If the settings make the image too bright you will see and overexposed frame. You get this effect when you have "setting effects on" in a Sony. That means the camera is overlaying all of your settings when it shows you the frame you are considering snapping. It's a wonderful way to work when not using flash because you have a much better chance of estimating exactly what you future image will look like once you've shot it. 

But traditionally an optical finder shows you the same basic scene through the finder no matter what you have set. You could have your shutter speed set for 30 seconds but you won't see overexposure when you look through the finder; just a pleasant image which your eye compensates for, making it look to you like real life. There's really no way, other than experience (or blind trust in the metering) to understand what the image will eventually look like.

Sounds stupid to pass up a good, accurate preview for a pretty image that lies but that's what all the defenders of last century's technology (the optical viewfinder) are doing when they rush to defend the non-preview of OVFs. There is one place where this system works as well as the EVF on a mirrorless camera and that is when using flash. Whether your ambient exposure settings are dark or light the OVF shows you a bright image most of the time. At least bright enough to focus on...

If you leave the mirrorless camera of your choice in the "setting effects on" setting you might get a really dark finder or a really bright finder depending on the conditions created by your exposure settings. The camera shows you what you WILL get and not an image disconnected from the holistic process. It's not an optimal way to shoot flash because you'll need enough brightness on the EVF to compose the subject. 

Easy-peasy. If you turn off the "setting effects on" feature you'll get the electronic mimic of the old optical viewfinder. The camera will create a balanced, automatic exposure level that makes your viewing less accurate but more practical for flash. 

Just for example. If you are in a dimly lit room,  shooting at ISO 100 and want f5.6 as a starting point for your flash exposure and you would like to set a shutter speed of 1/125th of a second to freeze any subject movement, those settings (with "setting effects on") will give you a very, very dark finder... nearly black. Hard to work and hard to compose upon. If you switch the "setting effects off" you get a bright, even and automatically compensating (for overall exposure) view. 

Onward. I like to use manual settings with my flashes. So I get a meter reading for the ambient light I'd like to have as part of my exposure mix and set the camera there. Then I experiment with various flash levels (in manual) until I get the balance between ambient and flash that seems correct to me. 

If nothing changes I can move the camera all around without changing anything about my principal exposure.

On the Sony RX series cameras (and on my other cameras as well) I use a flash trigger in the hot shoe and a radio trigger controlled flash on a light stand to get the light I want. Right now I am using Cactus V6 radio triggers with Cactus RF60 flashes. They are totally manual and totally reliable. They trigger whether I am in close proximity or across a big space. They also trigger without failure in soft boxes and other modifiers. The Cactus combination allows me to use up to four groups of lights and also allows me to control the flashes, in thirds of a stop, from minimum to maximum power, from the camera position, using two buttons on the shoe mounted flash trigger. 

Usually, when I am using off camera flashes I'll be using more than one flash and it's typically when I am doing a location portrait or a small group of people. 

With decades of experience I am usually able to guess the approximate exposure but, like everyone else, I take test shots to narrow down the slop and get to exposures that are just right. I could do the same thing with a meter but it's quicker and easier just to chimp it until I hit it.

The advantage in using the RX10 series cameras with flash lies in their ability to sync all the way up beyond 1/1000th of a second with no major trickery or machinery involved. Just set the power and the shutter speed where you want it and, voila, trouble free exterior fill flash at your fingertips.

A lot of the time though I am working with mono lights in the studio or on location. In these situations I use a generic flash trigger from Wein that, when triggered, sends out a pulse of infra-red light which triggers the internal slave eyes on all my flashes. It's a small trigger that also fits in the hot shoe and requires little, if any, technical skill. No channels to set, no groups to corral. Just a pulse of intra-red and the musical sound of big lights quickly recycling. 

By doing everything in manual I never get burned by not paying attention to something the cameras are doing without my permission. 

Wanna do flash just like we did in 1999? Or 2010? Or 2015? Put a flash or a trigger in the hot shoe of your mirrorless camera, set the manual power level where you think it should be and then test to taste. Just remember to turn your controls to: "setting effect off" for flash.  

That's it. 

I'm stalling for time while my footage from this afternoon renders. Screw DSLRs. Everyone should have a superzoom for day-to-day stuff.

Tom Miller Dam. Austin, Texas

Hyperbole, hyperbole. I'm kidding about everyone needing a superzoom but I have to tell you that it's making my ongoing project work delightful, to say the least. I know, I've done this kind of work before with the D810, D750, GH4, OMD-EM5ii and even the older Sony a99. Shooting video with DSLRs just flat out sucks unless the only parameter that matters to you is how far out of focus you can put a background. Compared to the Sony RX10 cameras the audio is no better, the codecs (excepting the GH4) are no better (and in most cases much, much worse) the focusing is worse, the controls are more limited and you need to drag around a wheelbarrow to bring your lens selection along.

I'm always frank so I will say that 90% of the stuff I shot in video with the Sony RX10iii could have been done exactly as well with the Panasonic fz 1000. But I'll draw the line there and say that any other DSLR or hybrid camera would have made life more miserable, taken longer to shoot with, and required more lenses. Of course, if you were smarter than me you could trump my whole argument (as it applies to video only) by just grabbing one of the newly plentiful Sony one inch, dedicated video cameras and maybe your job would have been even easier. Not so with non-dedicated-video camera choices. Sorry. No way.

And the funny thing is that what I was shooting was not earth shattering or the kind of material that requires the lowest noise and the highest degree of sharpness.

I'll back up and go from the start; which was around 4:30 pm this afternoon. I've been working on a video about the Memorial Day flood last year. We've already handed off a rough cut and we used some archival footage, provided by the client, of flooding. You know, cascading water and water overflowing roads. The problem was that it didn't look dramatic enough. We wanted something with more power and punch behind the water. And we wanted swirling, angry, brown, fast moving water.

I got an e-mail around 4:30 to discuss raging water aesthetics and five minutes later I had my "go" bag (video) in the car and was heading a couple of miles away to the Tom Miller Dam where, I had learned earlier today, they were opening flood gates to deal with a tremendous amount of flood water coming to them from upstream. The area around the dam was boiling as the water roared down into the narrow chasm.

The Lower Colorado River Authority is officed just in front and high above the dam, over to the right of this frame. You can be sure they built their HQ far out of any possible flood zone but they like to keep their eyes on things and, you know; location, location, location.

The LCRA was kind enough to build an observation deck at the end of a catwalk that puts you in the perfect position to videotape or photograph the damn from the correct angle as well as the raging torrent flowing from the dam. I had my RX10iii in my hands and I've had it set to all the appropriate settings from the moment I left the car. I put a variable neutral density filter on the front because we had full sun this afternoon (for a change) and I started composing shots. The water was so co-operative. It swirled, broke and sluiced with all the enthusiasm you would expect, given the thousands of feet per second being released...

I got great overall shots at 24mm and amazing shots of the suffering, half submerged tree lines that used to be on little islands in the lake. I shot at 60 fps to I could get smooth footage. The range of focal lengths was like having magic in my hands and, with some practice on the little zoom switch by the shutter button, you can get some great zooms from wide to mid-telephoto which were smooth and kept focus.

No lens changing. A complement of zebras to show me just were the highlights break. Focus peaking for those really long focal length shots, and a wonderful EVF. All writing to an inexpensive SDXC card. So, we're on like, day ten of our project and, computing a rental rate of $150 per day, we've already hit the break even point at which the RX10iii has paid for itself and is now entering the realm of pure potential and profit making.

The camera is not perfect, but then neither is the operator. But that mutual understanding of our  deficiencies is a bond rather than a wedge. I help out the camera and the camera helps me.

If you shoot a mix of video and still photography for a living you might want to consider a camera like this one. Get an fz 1000 if you are on a budget. But don't tell me your DSLR is as good or better for hybrid use. I just won't believe you.

I am re-reading a great book by Steven Pressfield....

The book is called, Turning Pro, and is subtitled, Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life's Work. I'm not putting up an Amazon link because, today, I am just tired of the endless merchandizing that infects blogs in general. Ask your library to order a copy.

The book is great for anyone who feels stuck. Stuck in the moment or just stuck time to time. It's great for people who can't seem to get their projects started. It's a kick in the pants for people who squander time and then insist that everyone else has all the luck.

It's an honest, thoughtful book that has, as its main objective, helping people get past all the self-inflicted resistance in their lives and move forward to realize their own promise.

Goes back to the Tao. Mastering people is strength. Mastering oneself is true power.

Just a reminder to read more books. Now I'm back to work.

What is my favorite lens to use with the Sony A7R2? Why it's a Nikon, of course.

Portrait for Austin Lyric Opera Ad Campaign.

Camera: Kodak DCS 760C. Lens: Nikon 105mm f2.0 DC

If you are a frequent reader of the VSL blog you know I sometimes change camera systems. To the uninitiated it may seem like I do this capriciously; like a raven following the latest shiny object. But the real reason I do so is just to confound the readers of various camera forums. I routinely drop thousands of dollars to see how many people I can get screaming, "Fanboy!" "Paid Shill!" "Gear Whore!" and, my favorite: "Tuck changes systems more often than I change my underwear." 

But I'll bet I've been more consistent in my use of lenses longer than many of these armchair behavioral psychologists have been alive. You see, I have been shooting with Nikon 105mm f2.5 and f2.0 lenses since 1982. That's 34 years. And for most of that time it's been the same unit I purchased in 1982 for more money than they are worth today ---- even factoring in inflation. I have used it with an adapter to shoot on Canon digital cameras and now, with adapters, to shoot on Sony's mirrorless cameras. I shot with it on Olympus OMD cameras and, of course, on the Panasonic GH cameras. 

You know what? It's still a damn fine lens. As good or better than many of the lenses I buy new from Sony, etc. today. Lens crafting hasn't evolved that much where quality is concerned; for the most part camera companies have just learned how to make stuff cheaper and more cheaply. 

While my favorite, all time portrait lens is the 105mm f2.5 ais Nikon the image above was taken with the 105 f2.0 DC (defocus coupling) lens. Same focal length but the f2.0 lens has a ring on the barrel that lets you shift in some distortion in front or behind the plane of sharp focus. 

This portrait may not be your cup of tea because it's not razor sharp but that's because we were shooting wide open with the full measure of available distortion applied. If you want to see sharp all you really need to do is grab one of the 105mm f2.5s, put the aperture at f5.6, focus carefully (the A7R2 is a much better candidate for using this lens than any Nikon body ----- remember? Focus Peaking and Focus Magnification, made easy). Keep the camera steady (using in-body image stabilization, where available = A7R2) and make sure your subject isn't moving faster than the set shutter speed is capable of freezing, and you're done. You'll have an amazingly good image; at least technically. 

What lenses did I keep in my hands when I switched from Nikon to Sony? Just three. The 55mm f2.8 Micro Nikkor, the 50mm f1.4 (ancient, original, pre-ai), and a pair of 105mm f2.5s.  The most amazing thing for me to read these days? It's about the perennial search for a great, fast portrait lens. And then I go into a well stocked camera store and see a couple of rows of clean, nice 105mm f2.5 ais lensed in the used cases; orphans just waiting to be of some use to a gifted artist or hardworking studio guy. Yours for the taking for around $150.

See, I don't change my mind that often. Oh, the camera bodies? They are more like film to me.....

Part of getting successful work done for clients is expecting the unexpected; and packing for it.

That Boy Scout motto, "Be Prepared." ?  It's a pretty good idea. Fine-tuning my field kit for the job.

The phone rang early this morning. It was my electric utility client wanting to know if I could head out into the rain and join them for a rousing bout of videotaping and photographing the restoration of electrical power in flooded areas of central Texas. What could I say except, "I'd be delighted." And really, I am. This kind of work is so different from a lot of my typical day-to-day work, done in comfortable, interior spaces, mostly with well dressed people and close access to good-to-great coffee. But if you are heading to the middle of nowhere you have to think ahead and pack for the unexpected. The word, "client" is ancient Greek for "throws curve balls."

So, the plan, as it stands right now, is to head to a small Texas town where flooding has destroyed power poles and knocked down power lines. Our hope is to get heroic video footage of a crew getting a new pole sunk, new lines strung and the power restored. A bonus would be to capture this in driving rain with dark, brooding skies close overhead. The ultra-bonus would be that everyone working will be wearing rain gear with our client's logo on it.

What we're shooting is B-roll for future projects. Usually this means that we don't need to get more than just ambient audio but the first thing a client asked me last time we were out shooting storm B-roll was if we could do a quick interview. I hadn't thought about that in advance and so had showed up with just our camera, tripod and rain gear. When I left the house my over riding thought about lighting was the worry that we might not have enough light to make the little pixel wells twitch. It was dark and ominous at the time. So, of course, I forgot to bring along a neutral density filter, which immediately caused the sun to peek out. Enough ball dropping. I kicked myself and then got started on putting together a video "go" bag that has the basics.

Here's the bag I use:

Yes. No. It's not a "camera bag" sanctioned by the general traditionalists of either field; video or photography. It's a freaking tool bag. But you know what? I'm starting to wean myself off any sort of specific-to-the-photo-industry bags because they are frightfully expensive and, in my opinion, of no greater utility than stuff made for working men and women who carry around heavy tools for eight hours a day, five days a week.

I started collecting various sizes of Husky tool bags when I realized that most of what we were hauling to locations were accessories, not precious, delicate cameras. Sure, if you are getting on a plane and traveling on a vacation/photo adventure that doesn't require more than a camera, a few lenses and some extra batteries then you should stick with your Domke bag, over one shoulder, on its elegant strap. But consider, we have one open top Husky bag that is just filled with XLR cables and various connectors. Does that call for a Billingham Bag? (Of course, I would choose the Downton Abbey model with the mink liners....)? 

I think many users have one bag and it's configured to match what they always carry. For non-commercial photographers that's usually a camera and a couple of lenses. But we seem to be re-configuring our cases all the time; to match the jobs at hand. As an example, I used the smaller version of the bag above two nights ago for the theater shoot. Two bodies and two lenses fit well and the bag was easy to carry and work out of. None of these bags are intended to go into checked airline luggage so concerns about ultimate toughness are not so cogent.

Here is how the bag opens (above). It reminds me of my great grandfather's leather medical bag. The opening is as wide as the bag but is rigid and pulls back into a closed position quickly. This open maw makes it easy to reach in a grab the thing I want. You'll notice that instead of traditional dividers I'm just putting cameras into neoprene Zing cases to cushion them and to add a layer of water and dust resistance. The bags themselves are a thick and sturdy canvas-like material that is very water resistant. Water will get in through the top zipper so if you have a fantasy of yourself standing in rain shooting, with your loyal bag beside you, you might want to get a poncho for your bag as well. 

So, the bags are very well made, relatively water resistant, voluminous and rugged. They must cost a fortune, right? Well, I haven't checked the Billingham Bag prices lately but would conjecture that you can buy a couple of hundred, various Husky bags for the price of the smallest Billingham made to hold one point-and-shoot camera. Seriously though, the bigger bag, shown above and above, is about $30 to $40 at one of the big box hardware stores. While it's a bit big to carry around for street shooting it does have an included shoulder strap to help you in getting from the car to the location you'll shoot in. 

What's in this bag? After my supply missteps on the last few outings I have this one stocked and ready. It contains two small, Manfrotto light stands, two Fotodiox 312 AS LED lights with extra batteries. One Rode Reporter (dynamic) microphone. One wired Audio Technica Pro-70 lavaliere microphone with an extra battery. One short XLR cable to the Reporter mic. One small, Beachtek mixer, which also matches impedance for the balanced to unbalanced connection. One set of good, ear covering headphones, one Zing bag full of neutral density, variable neutral density and polarizing filters with adapter rings, and cheap rain covers for two cameras. I have a cheap (but comfortable and effective) shoulder mount for my cameras.  I also have a green garbage bag folded up in there somewhere in case the case and I get stuck outside in a rain storm. Finally, I have two Power Bars in a side pocket, just for emergencies. 

When I am ready to hit the door and I drop in an RX10-2 and an RX10-3 cameras, as well as a small bag with four or five extra batteries. My final addition is a larger, lithium battery which will allow me to re-charge camera and phone batteries on the road.

Being pre-packed saves me time and saves me from making inventory mistakes. 

The car usually contains a Manfrotto video tripod with a 501hv head and a five-in-one collapsable reflector set, as well as swim gear and three or four extra sets of goggles. 

The Husky bags are great. I have a small one for grabbing cameras and heading to shoots with no video or audio components. It's just right for most available light situations (gear wise) and it cost a whopping $19.  I also have a big, Husky rolling case which holds as much as my original Think Tank Airport Security roller but cost me only $69. It also has bigger wheels. But, in defense of the Think Tank roller the Husky will not fit in the overhead compartment of an airplane.... I guess that's why we have both. For working out of a car, or off a cart on location, the cheaper bags are just as good as anything out there. 

There are discussions about ultimate bags and weight. I understand entirely. If I'm traveling intercontinentally and intend to work out of my bag, in an ambulatory fashion, I would always default to my Domke bags but job after job informs me that it's the overall amount of gear that requires more logistics not the portage of a camera and a few lenses. 

It seems silly to grouse about a few extra ounces on the camera bag when you are hustling up the stairs with two or three heavy C-Stands in your hands, or a brace of sandbags, or the bags full of electrical cables, etc.

The low cost and the good utility of the Husky line of bags allows me to dedicate bags to certain stuff. I mentioned the audio cables but I also have a bag full of various scrim materials, flags, nets and diffusion, along with grip heads, for use on Westcott flags. I marked it with a Sharpie so I know which bag to pull of the shelf when I need it.

This morning I made sure each camera had a 64 Gigabyte SDXC card inserted and formatted and I stuck them into the video bag, along with five extra batteries. The case is in the car and now I can zoom away from the studio knowing I haven't inadvertently forgotten that one widget that makes everything else possible.

Today, if a client asks me to do an interview I'll whip an appropriate microphone out of the bag, set my audio levels and get to it. Peace of mind. Pre-packed inventory. 

Note: I am kidding about Bellingham Bags. I know some of you have invested as much in fine and proper Billingham bags as the rest of us have in a good lens. You have a vested interest in wanting the bags to last forever ---- it will take that long to depreciate them. ( wry smile emoticon imagined here).

Welcome to June. This is the month in which we write about cheap-ass camera bag substitutes.

A quick re-cap of my work at the theatre last night. Warning: This blog post does NOT include anything about the Sony RX10mkiii.

It was kind of a relief to be back on familiar ground, taking photographs instead of working with video yesterday evening. It was another dress rehearsal shoot for the folks at Zach Theatre. This time we were shooting a farcical English comedy, "One Man, Two Guvnors."  The play is classic theater and the cast was great. Martin Burke is one of Austin's finest comedic actors and he brought some really great energy to the stage last night; as did the rest of the cast.

What a departure from the very serious productions Zach has produced in the last few months! In a total departure from the standard procedure the house opened 40 minutes before the show and there was a full bar up on the stage. Audience members were invited up to buy drinks and walk across the stage. There was a 1960's cover band playing right up until curtain --- on the same stage. A very festive atmosphere to be sure.

This is the first production I've photographed with my full complement of Sony products. My last theater adventure was the dress rehearsal of Holland Taylor as "Ann Richards" and I did that one with the a6300 and the quixotic 18-105mm f4.0 G lens; backed up by a Sony RX10mk2.

Yesterday afternoon I pulled together a kit to take to the performance and it all fit in a very small Husky tool bag. The top of that bag opens wide for quick access... It cost $19 at Home Depot. It's a great bag for a small assortment of day to day stuff, like a note book, some pens, a phone, two cameras and two lenses. Maybe a little zipper pouch with some batteries in it as well.

There was no hesitation in packing yesterday. I grabbed the A7R2 and the a6300 along with the 70-200mm f4.0 G lens and the 24-70mm f4.0 Zeiss lens. I loaded both cameras with fast, 32 gigabyte cards and I brought along an extra battery for each camera.

I set up dead center in the house, just below and in front of Eric Graham, an old friend, and the person who shoots the video documentation of the shows. The row I set up in the cross over row between the two sides of the house so there is no row in front of me. I have the house manager block off the seven center seats so I can shoot from the center and have three empty seats on either side. This is a holdover from the days when I shot with Nikons and other mirrored cameras that were loud enough to disturb audience members sitting adjacent to me. It's still good because I can lean left or right to get a better viewpoint and it also means I'm walking in front of fewer people if I need to get up and re-position to shoot an important shot of an action that plays to one of the corners of the stage.

I put the 70-200mm on the A7R2 and the 18-105mm on the a6300. After a brief consultation with the lighting designer and the videographer I decided to shoot in Jpeg. We'd need to send a ton of files over to the marketing people the next day and extra fine Jpegs at around 20 megapixels is much more fun to wade through than 42 megapixels of raw mania...

I was comfortable in doing so because the nature of the play meant that the stage was lit brighter and a bit less dramatically (dynamic ranges challenges!) than a drama. The videographer asked me to go up on stage with a white towel he keeps in one of his camera cases so he could white balance under actual stage lighting. The lighting designer confirmed that the color temperature didn't change much during the performance. Eric set 3000K on his cameras while I opted to go a slight bit warmer at 3200k. The lighting in the theater is predominantly LED and bare it's seems balanced to around 4400 to 4600K but a large number of the lights used in this production were gelled warm.

So, with the A7r2 set to medium resolution, extra fine, we were getting 18 megapixel files while the a6300 set at large gave us 24 megapixel files. Not a very big different, mathematically speaking.

With the color temperature/white balance set I started looking at ISO settings. Even though the light levels were higher than I am used to working at I decided to set both cameras at ISO 1250 because, well, they make 1250 look like "old school" 200. I've switched from my previous way of using AF in the theatre because the two Sony cameras have PD elements on the sensor and both are very, very fast to acquire subjects. I had both cameras set to C-AF using zones. I'd put the zone over the subject I wanted to focus on a wait for the tiny green boxes to light up in the desired areas. On the A7R2 I'd push one of the focus hold buttons that surround the front barrel of the lens and shoot away, holding the button until my subject changed position. Same with the a6300 except you have to use the AEL/AF lock button instead.

Another change for me was to be able to shoot both cameras in the silent mode, which is really silent mode and not "silent mode."  Really, the only way you know whether you've taken a photograph is seeing the review image coming up in the finder. The lack of mirror slap, combined with good image stabilization in both lenses, and in the A7r2 meant NO photographer induced motion blur.

Speaking of finder... I have gotten into the habit of just turning off the rear screen altogether. It's as obnoxious as the screen of a cellphone in the theater and with a great EVF there's no good reason to add any light pollution to the space. I can review in the finder and set menu items in the finder as well. I have to give high regards to the EVFs in both cameras. They are absolutely the closest to the final image of any camera I have yet used. I am able to use the finder, along with zebras set at 100% to accurately judge exposure. How accurate? Well, I could have sent along all 1300 images without making a single exposure correction after the fact. I didn't because I wanted to add some shadow recovery to a good number of shots and I fine-tuned everything else out of habit.

The images were impeccable. Both camera and lens sets delivered images that were correctly color balanced, sharp and with appreciable dynamic range. I like to add a bit of clarity slider to give shots destined to run small a bit of "presence."

After I edited the take in half (or less) I did my post production and started the upload to Smugmug.com. I make a web gallery so everyone who needed or wanted to see the images (theater staff) could do so concurrently. I'm sending links with folders of downloadable files from Smugmug to the executive who heads up marketing for distribution to the people who will actually use the images for public relations and marketing. They'll make a subset of the images to send along to social media and conventional media.

The Sony's were small, light and outrageously good. The lenses don't have too many faults (as long as I have distortion correction set for the 18-105....) and the battery use wasn't the drama most people would profess it to be. I changed batteries at the 800+ mark in the A7R2 and not at all with the smaller camera.

So, now I have used my little Sony collection for several events, a bunch of video, a theatrical dress rehearsal, two product shoots and about 40 portraits. Am I still happy? Yes, where do I sign up to be "paid off" by Sony? I would dearly like just one or two more things.... A second A7r2 and a 55mm f1.8 lens. Or maybe the 50mm Loxia. But overall? Happy as can be. But ready to become a fanboy for the right price....(not).