An interesting counterpoint to my Saturday SXSW shoot with the Sony a77....

After hours of deep and tranquil meditation on the question of which camera to take downtown today I decided, in a moment of instant satori, to lay aside the bulky Sony a77 and harken back to the two most comfortable street shooting cameras in my current collection, the Panasonic GH2 and the Panasonic G3.  In the instant of satori I became enlightened about many things.  One of the them was the need to use the 14-45mm zoom on the GH2 and to honor the G3 with the 25mm Summilux.  I placed extra batteries for each camera in my pocket and headed downtown with the G3 over my left shoulder and the GH2 in my hands.  I set both cameras for face detection AF and varied the ISOs based on lighting conditions of the moment.  After a few days with the Sony I felt I'd lost weight.  The two cameras and two lenses were less weighty than my one a77 with the fast 2.8 zoom.  I saw this wonderful Buddha statue in a shop on west 6th street.  I took it as a sign that my selection process was correct.

My parking karma was good today.  I found a free space just a few blocks from Whole Foods Market at 6th St. and Lamar Blvd. which I took as a sign that I should have a slice of pizza and a local IPA style beer, fresh from the taps before embarking on my personal journey of SXSW discovery.

Fortified, I set out with the intention to shoot whatever caught my eye.  I will say, at this juncture, that I ignored the G3 and the 25 Summilux entirely.  The 14-45 is a wonderful, small lens and it fits so well on the GH2.  I also upgraded the GH2 firmware to 1.1 which gives me the ability to preview all the settings in all the exposure modes instead of just at M.  Bravo to Panasonic for increasing my usability pleasure with their camera.

The Pedi-cabs are popular this year.  I could have spent the whole day just photographing my favorite combinations of cabs, customers and peddlers.

Sony a77. First report. No Technical Jibber-Jabber.

Okay.  Let's get the "attack fodder" out of the way first so the lunatics in the forums don't start howling at the moon....  Sony doesn't know who the hell I am.  They've never talked to me, called me or offered me any sort of bribe, swag, quip pro quo or payment to either buy their cameras or write about them.  Just because I'm writing about a Sony a77 doesn't mean I'm tossing out my cameras from Canon, Panasonic or Olympus.  Just because I also enjoy shooting this camera doesn't mean my affection for the micro four thirds cameras is dead in the water.  Camera bought and paid by Kirk Tuck.  It's not the world's greatest camera.  It certainly is an interesting one.

You'll remember, if you read the VSL over time, that I'm a big proponent of the idea of EVF's.  I like them a lot.  And interestingly, the first EVF camera I owned (and still own) is the Sony R1.  While the finder is no technical wonder it was my first full time "live view" camera and I like it a lot.  I still pull it out and shoot with it from time to time.

The camera that convinced me that EVF would be, is, the wave of the future in camera design was the Olympus Pen EP2 with it's stellar little VF2 accessory finder.  I love being able to view, before I shoot, all the changes that the camera will apply to the final image.  Dial in a different color temperature, see the results.  Dial in exposure comp, see the results.  The implementation on the GH2 is a bit different.  The preview only works in the manual exposure setting.  But that's okay.

I first read about the Sony a77 24 megapixels (APS-C) camera when it was announced last Sept. which prompted me to write this:  Why the Sony a77 Changes Everything.  That entry pretty much sums up why I think what Sony is doing is so game changing.  When I had the opportunity to divest some older gear at a good price I decided I would put my money where my keyboard had been and buy one with the 16-50mm f2.8 lens.

Do I like it?  Yes.  Is it perfect? No.  Will it replace everything I own?  Not hardly.  This quick report is based on my first full week of ownership and I'll probably supplement it with more as I become more conversant with the camera.

Let's talk about handling first.  This is a big, heavy camera.  More so with the big, fast zoom on the front.  The zoom is sharp.  It's centrally very sharp when used wide open and hits max sharpness about one stop down for the center two thirds of the frame.  5.6 brings in the rest.  It has distortion at the wide end.  The camera corrects this in Jpeg.  But I've been shooting in raw.  The Sony raw software will also correct it automatically.  I haven't upgraded to Lightroom 4.0 yet but I'm sure there's going to be a profile in there as well.  I like shooting with this lens but I am a portrait guy so I wish it was a little bit longer.  Tough.  I'll get a longer lens to cover the rest of the focal lengths I shoot.

The camera is stout and fat and I don't know where all the buttons are yet.  It feels good in my hands but after walking around with an Olympus Pen it feels monstrously heavy.  The fast zoom doesn't help with the weight.  It's no more ponderous than my Canon 5Dmk2 with the 24-105 attached so I guess it just goes with the territory.

The menus are incredibly straight forward and I have mastered them to the extent that I need to.

The finder is remarkably cool.  If I'm not shooting with studio flash I have the camera set to no post shot review.  And I have it set to show me exactly what I'll get when I push the button.  After using it for a day and confirming that what I'm seeing in the EVF while I'm shooting is the same thing I would see if I reviewed I am happy.  It makes for a faster shooting experience since, for all intents and purposes, you are pre-chimping.  Love it.  PRE-CHIMPING.  And when you do it in the EVF you can disguise your lack of confidence in your mastery of technique.

Once I started using the EVF on the Sony I found it hard to go back to a regular OVF on the Canon 1D series or the 5d2.  The reason is that the 2.4 million dots of the Sony finder give me a very realistic image with so much information (the info can be turned off if you want  a clean screen to look at).  I can see exactly what I'm getting all the time.  It's amazing.  It's like science fiction.  And, the finder is better than my VF2's with which I'm already quite satisfied.

The battery life is not nearly as good as the pro Canons or Nikons.  I expect to get somewhere around 500 shots per charge with the way I usually shoot.  I'll need a total of three batteries to get me through a typical still photography shooting day.  If I'm shooting video I'll want six.  But shooting video all day with a Canon 5Dmk2 I want six as well.  No big changes in on the video side.

The camera and lens are advertised as being weather resistant.  Kai on Digital Rev sloshes water all over the combination in his video from last year.  I'm not so flippant since it was actually my $2000 that went to buy the camera but I did shoot a full afternoon in downpours last saturday at SXSW.  I tried to keep the camera covered but it eventually got soaked and it's still working fine.

I hate the weird hot shoe that Sony inherited from Minolta but I found some $10 adapters and they seem to work well for flash triggers and manual flashes.  The camera also has a PC socket for good, old school sync connections.

The camera focuses very quickly, shoots even quicker and has fast frame rates. There's a "trick" frame rate at 12fps but you give up control.  The "real" top frame rate is 8 fps and that's fast enough for rational people. So, the camera is tough, water resistant, has a kick ass EVF, shoots faster than Bruce Lee punched and cycles like a rocket (with caveats). That leaves only one real question for a preliminary overview:  HOW IS THE IMAGE QUALITY?

Well..........If you shoot in the studio and you use ISO 80, 100 and 200 you'll be in the dynamic range territory of the real medium fomat cameras.  In a word, those settings make this camera stunning.  Want to shoot portraits with total control of tonality?  Done.  Super sharp and super high resolution? Done and Done.  But what about all the people for whom 1600 is low ISO and 3200 is their general comfort zone?  I have a suggestion.  It may cause people to grind their teeth at Sony.  I suggest that, if low noise at high ISO is your over riding priority for a camera that you pass on this one.  You actually start seeing a bit of noise in the shadows as low as 800 and it just gets grainier.  Now, up to 3200 the graininess is monochromatic and looks like good, old fashion film grain.  And I personally am okay with that.  But if you are coming from a Nikon D3s or a Canon 1Dmk4 you'll be appalled.  It's just not quiet.  On the other hand, the files are huge and as you down res them the noise gets down rezzed as well.  (added: I've just discovered the MF noise reduction which stands for multiple frame noise reduction.  If the subject isn't moving the camera can be made to shoot multiple frames and process them into one, throwing out all of the noise anomalies. Very cool and very effective for night scenes, etc.)

What will I do?  For now I'll use the a77 in bright light, in the studio and under controlled conditions and I'll impress the hell out of all the people who want to see flawless, super high res files.  I'll give it a try for theater photography because I love the way the camera operates. But the files will need some work in the ole noise reduction software.

Is the camera a noble effort wrapped in a "big FAIL?"  Not at all.  It may be the best camera on the market for low ISO work and for fast work.  And even though the high ISO crowd tends to yell and scream and drown everyone else out there are lots of people who get the advantages of lighting and careful technique in the pursuit of beautiful and different image quality.  I think I'll keep it.

More to come after some studio sessions.

Here's the link to the shots I did on Saturday at SXSW: http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2012/03/one-of-our-favorite-barristas-at-caffe.html

The time of year we've all been waiting for. Welcome to SXSW.

One of our favorite barristas at Caffe Medici.  

It's here! The event that all the local hotels and restaurants have been waiting for. 

It's South by Southwest.  The logos all read, "SXSW."  And the hipsters all just say, "South by."  Whatever.  It's here in my city.  And it's going to be happening for the next ten days.  

240,000 techies, movie lovers and live music lovers crammed into our downtown for a 

current cultural love fest. They're here.  

More are coming every day and some of them will probably end up staying.  

And that's okay as long as they sign the pledge card to "Keep Austin Weird."

If there are any visitors reading this you'll want to make Caffe Medici on Congress Ave. your operations center for caffeine replenishment.  Best cappuccinos around.

Always amazed that people travel in from everywhere to do the "face-to-face" 

and then really end up "face-to-computer.

That's my friend, Cindy Lo in the background (No, not the one in the plaid).

She's an ex-techie who now runs an event company.

Just taking a break from the first day of sessions.

Ready to photograph.

Bernard, Frank, Nathan and I met at Caffe Medici today to have 

a PHOTO SIT.  It's different from a "photo walk" in that

no one is in charge, no one's ego gets massaged, there's 

no ulterior profit or mindshare motive and 

we get to sit around and drink great coffee.

Occasionally one of us will jump up

from the bar and take a photograph of someone.

It's spontaneous.  And no one 

poaches anyone else's shots by

Leaning over their shoulder and 

Double shooting.

Cool.

This is Nathan.  And I have to admit something embarrassing.

We both showed up with the same model of camera.  We both showed up

with a Sony a77.  How weird is that? So embarrassing, right?

This is the look he gave me when he found out I was 

carrying his brand. It's his territory. He had one 

first.

(Just kidding.  We did have the same camera and lens but I asked him to pose "mean.")

When I jumped up from the bar to photograph someone it was because

I saw this person on the other side of the bar and loved her smile.

And her amazingly present scarf.  

When the rain hit a crescendo, really pounding down,

 I decided to venture out of the safety of the coffee

house and face SXSW outside.

Did I forget to mention that it's been raining for days here?

Well, it has been and we're all damn happy about it even if 

it's mildly inconvenient for the visitors.  You see, we've 

been in an extreme drought for the last 18 months and 

we desperately need rain.  In fact, when I strolled out of the coffee house

into the downpour I thought I saw our governor dancing naked up near the Capitol.

Not sure.  Could have been a trick of the lightning.

Out we go into the elements with Nathan assuring me that our

cameras are weatherproof....yikes.

Downtown Dogs. 

Bernard is sporting a camera cover and an umbrella.

Nathan has gone and decided to ignore the Amazonian-style deluge.

He photographs me photographing Bernard photographing and 

suddenly I feel like I'm in an M.C. Escher photograph.

Away we go.

I lost track of Bernard and Nathan somewhere between Congress and San Jacinto Streets.

I think they got caught in a cross current.  For all I know they're floating out toward 

Lady Bird Lake.

They were good comrades in camera straps.  They will be missed. 

But I was happy and dry in the Austin Convention Center trying to make

sense of all the frenetic activity.

I was confused. I didn't even know who the guys in the 

giant cardboard heads were supposed to be.

Everywhere I turned people were being interviewed.  I'm not sure what they 

were talking about but I'm sure it will someday be as important as Twitter.

Or more so.  And it will have all started here.

There were demo areas all over the first floor.  And at everyone of them

people were staring into laptop screens.  Staring and typing.

I don't know what the VIP Tickets are for but I'm

betting it's something very special and very good.

Talk about getting a big head.  Must be a Nikon D800 Shooter....

 This (just above) pretty much sums up the interactive component of SXSW for me.

People staring at iPhones.  Surrounded by lots of other interesting people.

Who are also staring at their iPhones.  And the messages probably read:

"I'm having dinr.  What are U doing?"

But from what I saw today typing on laptops and staring at iPhone screens is 

sporadically interrupted by the drone of presenters in big, dark rooms talking about

the latest way to "Stay in touch" while Power Point slides 

slip across the screen over their heads.

Stay in touch.

Stay in touch.

Stay in touch.

"How can we monetize that?"

And anywhere you'll find 200K attendees you will find long lines.

A pre-perestroika Soviet citizen would feel right at home.....

At least it was safe and dry.

Still not getting the hang of this one...

We could look at the wall.

Or we could look at a screen shot of the wall.

Or we could look at a cellphone screen shot of a three word Post-it note.

This guy is running sound for a video crew.  At least that's what I deduced.

He's got a microphone with a fuzzy blimp on a pole under that blue plastic and 

he's got one of those "sound guy" waist packs as well.

He is also standing alone and staring at the screen of his cellphone.

These guys are part of a club that roams the streets of random cities.

The club requires that they wear laptop bags.

The code of the club also requires that they wear them across one shoulder.

They are walking down the creepiest part of Sixth St.

And the rain is abating.

Pedi-cab on West Sixth St.  Looking good.  Love the well 

engineered shelter for passengers.

Drag coefficient? 

Darn. I missed the Third Eye Blind concert at the Moody Theater. 

They call it the "Moody Theater" because that's its real name.

The natives call it "Austin City Limits."

Austin City Limits box office doohickey.

1600 is about as far as I'd go with the a77 for perfectly clean files from

Jpegs.  I might risk 3200 in raw.  I'd rather shoot everything under 400.

But that doesn't make it a bad camera.  Just one that's not very good at ultra high 

ISOs.  And that's okay with me as long as it delivers on the low end.

We'll find out about that ASAP.

Pedi-Cab on Lamar Blvd. Just in front of Whole Foods Super-Hyper

Flagship store.  Such a euphoric look for someone in the middle 

of crazy Austin traffic in the rain...

Some hints for the newcomers:

1.  Don't swim in Barton Springs right after a big rainstorm. The run off drives up the fecal coliform 

content of the water, making it unsafe.  Wait a few days.

2.  Don't drive in Westlake Hills. Ever. The natives are ferocious.  And besides, we don't need anymore traffic over here.  Stay downtown.

3.  Don't toss out the sunscreen.  Just because it only hit 45 today doesn't mean we won't be in the sunny 80's tomorrow.

4.  Snarky comment about dressing in black removed.  I realized I was wearing black too...

5.  Try to spend all your money in local bars, restaurants and coffee shops.  We love you even more when we get to keep most of the money in the city limits...

6.  The light levels in the convention center (locus of most SXSW activity) are very low.  You will not need the sunglasses inside.

7.  None of the BBQ is authentic unless you are eating it at the Salt Lick, Artz or maybe Franklin's. Everything else is just cheap meat in spicy ketchup.  Frank just reminded me about Iron Works.  It's good too.  And they have good BBQ ribs at Whole Foods.

8.  All of the Tex-Mex food is authentic unless you are eating it in the restaurant of your hotel or at Taco Bell.  Not all of it is good...but it is authentic.

9.  If you see a really cool guy with gray hair point a Sony a77 digital camera at you this week try to feign a look of inspired brilliance and try to look really, really interesting.

10.  ........So much for Top Ten lists..

So, have a great time while you're here.  You might as well go a little crazy, clean out your 401k and really party in style but when the conference is over you'll probably want to go back to your own town.  I'm sure it's much nicer than Austin.  Have you been to Madison yet?

Not Exactly a Portrait But One of My Favorite Working Shots.

Quick shot of a sweet kid in a CT Scanner.

Even though it's not a portrait I've always liked this shot. I took it a few years ago with a Nikon D2x (how did we ever survive with only 12 megapixels???) and a 17-55mm lens.  I lit the image by placing four slaved hot shoes flashes in various spots around the room.  All the flashes are aimed toward the ceiling except for the one in the far background.  It's feathered down to light the doors and wall behind the people.  We didn't spend a lot of time on the shot.  We had dozens to do that day.  But the interaction between the nurse in the blue scrubs and the little girl is great.

With the soft light from the flashes bouncing off the ceiling not much post processing was required.  

Just another day at the "office."  I love location shoots.  They move fast.  They require quick problem solving and you get to use lots of what you've learned to make it all appear easy for the rest of the people involved.

Shifting the discussion back to portraits.

This is Suzy.  It's a quick portrait.  No more than a snapshot.

If there's one thing the blog has done for me it's to help me discern what I like in a photograph and what I don't. For the most part I like to see people in my photographs.  And I've discovered that I'm not really at all concerned with "ultimate" sharpness and resolution or perfect color.  I'm drawn toward grainy images with implied movement.  I'd rather look at black and white than color.  I like deep, rich blacks and I like highlights that hover on the edge of dissolution into white.

I like soft, directional light that spills across a face and I find most beauty lighting as boring as the output of a photo booth.  I like backgrounds that go tremendously out of focus.  I don't like monotonal backgrounds.  I like backgrounds that shift thru a register of values. 

It's hard for me to make a portrait I like if I can't make some sort of connection with the person I'm photographing.  Doesn't matter if I "like" them or not but I have to have some understanding of who they are in order to continue into the process.

Like any other creative process there is a resistance I encounter when I start to think about creating portraits.  Resistance tells me that everyone is too busy to come and sit for a portrait.  That I need to do something different with my lighting and taking portraits would be a futile waste of time if I haven't figured out my new lighting yet.  And there's always the idea that there must be a lens and a camera out there somewhere that would do a much better job making portraits than the ones I have in my hands.

In a very real way this blog is a manifestation of my resistance to moving deeper and deeper into making portraits.  Why bother to call and arrange rendezvous and set up lights if you can harvest the past and pontificate about the future?  Why? Because like the sharks artists need to continue to move forward to breathe.  

I think we'll spend the next few months shooting and writing and reading about portraits.  New portraits.  In fact, the re-invention of the photographic portrait.  Not more quick hits on the street.  A more focused intention to see people and share what we've seen.

This is not my blog. Please read this blog!

I got a taste of this blog from Rob at APhotoEditor.  If you don't know his site you should.  The taste led me to find the original blog and I read it.  It's exactly what I feel about photography, postprocessing, etc.

http://www.derekshapton.com/planet_shapton/?p=1204

Read and discuss.  But remember, it's Derek Shapton's blog, not mine.

Today is the first day of SXSW.  Thank you to all the people dressed in black who've come here to learn, create and add dollars to Austin's tax base.  We love you.

What a week. What a life.

This, of course, is Ben. Years ago. Dynamic range?  You bet.  It's called negative film.

I'm always amazed at the lunacy of the web.  I posted something about using a homemade florescent lighting rig for a specific need and I've waded through several blogs about how I must be a cheapskate or a noob or a person who doesn't care about my clients or someone who only cares about "good enough" instead of great photography.  How handy to have other people make my point for me and even put an exclamation point on it for good measure.  I am, of course, referencing my post this week entitled, "You can't use that.  It's not professional."

In the early 1970's, even in to the mid 1970's there weren't any readily available, affordable softboxes.  Certainly nothing light enough or small enough to take on location.  But photographers looked at giant, metal "scoops" and "softlight" fixtures (made of metal and mounted on dedicated light stands) and they adapted them for location work by making their own "softboxes" out of foamcore panels and tape and sheets of diffusion material.  Then Chimera and Photoflex followed with their own portable designs.

There's a rich tradition of the very best photographers making their own, "do-it-yourself" devices when the need arose.  A great photographer named Peter Gowland even started a side business making and marketing interesting cameras like a 4x5 inch twin lens reflex camera, the Gowlandflex.  It's only in the age of digital photography that it seems that photographers have become such unimaginative wimps that they only feel comfortable with the (mostly) dreck foisted on them by the hive of companies that swirl around the periphery of photography offering up silly crap to the rubes.  Did everyone give up their balls when they got issued credit cards?

On one forum a very challenged poster postulated that my makeshift florescent fixture could, at any moment, fly apart and cripple my clients and everyone within a 200 meter circle.  Imagine the liability!!! He suggested that if I had the financial wherewithal to buy a "professional" product I would be spared this devastation and loss of human life should the assemblage ever be "knocked over."  I can only say, "moron."  

But the sad thing is there are legions of photographers running wild in the world who equate spending money on branded gear as the zenith of professionalism.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The guys who shill the gear directly for the makers get paid and get gear in exchange for constantly chattering about their wedded brand.  They have a fiscal relationship with a manufacturer.  It's in their best interest to interest you in buying what they use.  The relationship continues.  The marketing advantages continue.  The pipeline of gear continues.  But it does raise the overall level of photography? No.  And it keeps too many smart people from experimenting and inventing their own solutions.  And having the satisfaction that goes with personal success.

But if you are doing this as a real business instead of entertainment for amateur photographers you use the gear that matches the project.  And sometimes you make that gear by hand.  The crews on films that cost 100 million dollars to make have been doing it for years.  They have access to the best stuff imaginable but sometimes they invent their own lights for special needs.  And they work with manufacturers to make it in a repeatable fashion because, once other film makers see the results they will probably want to try something similar.  Kinoflos were invented on the set of a police movie for under dashboard lighting and small area fill.  Now they're the big name in professional florescent fixtures for video and film.  But it was a lone gaffer or DP whole came up with the idea and did the initial product.  Same with the first uses of LEDs.

Buying everything off the shelf means that you're doing stuff the way everyone else in the business does the same stuff.  That's called "boring." Real pros modify, adapt and create. They use off the shelf gear but they use it in their own way.  Hotshoe? Really?  See David Hobby.  See Syl Arena. They looked at the hotshoe for mounting flashes on their cameras and they said, "We can do better." And they used the flashes off the camera.

The monetary price to enter this field isn't much.  It's not about the "best" gear.  It's about the best ideas and the diligence and patience to pull them off.  The best work I see nearly always comes from the kid who's 30 days from being evicted, doesn't own more than a body and a few lenses and has an overflowing box full of ideas.  The more gear you need the weaker the concept.

You need a box with a sensor (camera), a lens, some light and a subject.  Then you need an idea, a point of view and the ability to make it all happen.  That's it. Bob Krist talked about using king sized bedsheets as a diffuser in a pinch. That was years ago.  That was before people marketed ScrimJims or Photoflex panels or Chimera Panels.  People started asking for ready made panels after Bob Krist used the bed sheets and talked about it in his first book.

An American Express Platinum card with a stratospheric spending limit never made anyone a great artist.  

But that's just my opinion as a noob.

My favorite comment.  From Scott Baker:  All true, Kirk. When fans of a specific brand see the introduction of a new much anticipated camera, it is such a deflating experience if the review sites label it "enthusiast" or "advanced amateur." They would love the camera if it was labeled "professional," but because the label said "enthusiast" the collective gasp is FAIL! Then the genius comments start coming in like "don't they realize that if they made a professional level camera with (insert XYZ specs) and sold it for (insert figure about $1000 under going rate) they would corner the market?! Don't they realize what we NEED?!" If I was to introduce a camera it would be called the Pro Elite Professional Pro 1.

Just another day.

 Sony a77 with 16-50mm 2.8

I flipped my day upside down.

I slept in late.

I skipped my swim.

I avoided my office. 

I saddled up my car and flowed into downtown.

I got a breakfast taco and some coffee.

I talked to a nice person I'd never met before.

She's has a business importing and selling Fair Trade

fashion accessories from third world countries.

We had fun talking about advertising and photography.

Then I went for a walk.

Whose flowers?

They were on the sidewalk just south of the grocery store.

I was going to pick them up but I didn't know what I'd do with them.

I photographed them, wondered who they were intended for 

and then shrugged and walked off.

I finished drinking my coffee in the middle of the bridge.

I looked for a trash can.  There wasn't one.

I decided to photograph my empty coffee up with Shoal Creek in the 

background.  I love the out of focus background.

I picked up my cup and went on looking for a trash can.

The coffee was from Mexico.  At least that's what the little sign next 

to the coffee pot

said.

Every downtown business is stocking up for SXSW.

The chubby guys with the black button down shirts

under black sports coats worn over black jeans have landed from the 

coasts.  Their eyeglasses are geometric and 

fashion forward.  They all dress the same.

When all glasses are fashion forward......

I hadn't seen a Yumi Ice Cream Truck before.

I loved the product illustrations on the sides.

The swirl cone looks incredible

and 

the Håagen-Dazs looks really rich.

A nice burst of color on a grey and misty day.

I've finally figured out how to do a 100% crop.

Now all the people who must know will be able to know.

This is the window at Estillo. 

They sell "fashion." 

It looks like clothes to me.

The top one is 100% the bottom one is full frame.

"I hate EVFs.  If XXXXX camera company switches to them I'm 

switching to YYYYYY."

"I love EVFs.  I'm selling all the cameras I own that don't have EVF's."  

I love the middle ground.  I get to shoot with both.

Switching is fun.  Even chocolate pudding would get boring

if I had it at every meal...

Sometimes I really want chocolate mousse. 

"Are you from out of town?"  "No we're just heading out for lunch. We live here."

"Can I take your picture?  Would you squinch a little closer together?"

"Me?  Yeah, I live here too.  I'm just talking a day off to do my hobby."

"Have fun!"  "You too!"

(And don't forget to dial in a stop of exposure compensation for that bright sky

 in the  background. Got it.)  

At some point, for some people, life is all about disk golf.

That's a great collection of disks.  Some go left and some go right.

Some go straight ahead.  A man's got to use the right tool for each throw.

I used my zoom lens.

This is the guy who owns the brightly colored disks above.

This is Trevin.  He's in radio.  He does a show 

on 101x every night from 6 to 10 pm.

He was going to hide the cigarette but I liked the "retro" 

charm.  Thanks for posing!

I made him black and white to offset the color from the disks.

I found this fellow at the Belmont.  It's a popular restaurant and bar

on West Sixth Street.

He's re-wiring the whole place.  And he's an electrician.

Isn't that an amazing yellow door in the background?

I don't think he had anything to do with that.

I felt a little guilty since he seemed to be working hard 

and I was just out walking around with a camera

being a tourist in my own town.

I was walking around with a Sony a77 camera and the big, honking

16-50mm f2.8 zoom lens.

You shouldn't be surprised since I talked about that camera

last year.  It's been out of stock forever because of the floods in Thailand.

Did I mention that I really like EVFs?

It's a nice camera.  If you need one with lots and lots of resolution you might consider it.

If you need a camera that takes Canon or Nikon lenses it's probably not a good choice....

Also, I've read but haven't tested this for myself, some testers say that the files are noisier by a stop than other cameras in its class.  I wouldn't know.  I was shooting at ISO 200 most of the time.

I'm getting ready to do a shot in the studio at ISO 50.  I've heard that the 

Dynamic Range at that setting is pretty darn amazing.

But I'm sure I'll show you what turns out for me in due time.

Don't buy this camera just because I did.

I have a long history of buying strange gear.

Mellow Kirk signing off.

Post note 5:11 PM same day:  It's dark and grey and raining here and getting colder by the minute.  What a wonderful time to be in the studio, looking west out my wall of windows and working on a book.  The glow of my laptop screen tanning my face, and my mind churning out little plot points and descriptions.  Beats the hell out of working.