A note to myself: You must continually update the printed portfolio. Whether you print it or the lab prints it, you must keep moving forward. Like a Shark. You must have new work to show.

I've had a number of new clients ask me to come by their offices and show them work. They'd like to integrate my work further into the work that their companies are producing. They are looking for a pairing that would be advantageous for both of us. But implicit in the invitation is the assumption that I'll bring along a really great portfolio which they will be able to share with their teams. The portfolio is the cement that makes the working relationship initially bond. It provides a concise statement to their peers that says, "See, I told you this guy could do good work!"

But I've fallen down on the job. Like so many other photographers and visual artists I've let myself believe that the web could be a good, all purpose portfolio. "Need to see my work? Head on over to the website." The sad thing is that I know better. I know how important it is to sit across the table with someone and be there when they look at the work. I also know how much more appealing two dimensional art is when you show it big and well. We should all have up-to-date portfolios that we can toss in the car and go show at a client meeting. It's like bringing your own welcome mat.

I have a number of printed portfolios here in the studio but most of the work in them is older, and that makes no sense at all. I've done about a hundred projects (both personal and business) in the last year and at least half of those projects produced work that I like and which I would enjoy showing. But there's an inertia against moving through the process to a print.

I wrote over the weekend about buying a 50 sheet box of matte surface, 13x19 inch ink jet paper and my intention to fire up my personal printing press and see if the truly ancient Canon Pro9000 was still capable of outputting acceptable prints. Well, as it happens I am not as unorganized as I sometimes pretend to be. There's a folder on my desktop entitled, "Portfolio Files to Work on and Print, 2014."
I opened that folder up today and started fussing with work in PhotoShop.  I downloaded and installed the printer profiles for the exact paper and printer I am using. And, with more than a little anticipation, I did a test print.

Why "anticipation?" Because getting a good or a bad print will also tell you volumes about the quality (or horrifying lack of quality) of your monitor profile. I waited the five minutes or so it takes to print out a high quality, 13x19 inch print and then I exhaled happily and held in my hands a print that is so exactly like what I am seeing on the screen of my current model iMac 27 inch monitor that I almost cried. I'd presumed that printer tech had moved on in the last six years but I wasn't seeing much wrong on my output.

I have a 13 x19 inch portfolio book just waiting for dry prints. By the end of the week I should have a hundred new prints from which to choose. I'm promising myself that I'll keep up with my promotional materials from now on. I love seeing big, detailed, wonderful images come inching out.  For the first time in months I feel like grabbing the phone and making some dates to show off the work. That's how it's supposed to feel. That's when you know you're on the right track.

And I'm happy to see that I don't need to run out an buy a new printer.  More ink? Yes! But more printer? Not so much...

Random Sunday Evening Notes. Wrapping up Summer in Austin.

I just got off the phone with the boy. It's his first semester at college and he seems to be handling everything in stride. He's got a small amount of work study which provides him with his first menial job, working in the dining hall. Funny to think of my distinguished scholar scrapping congealed food off plates, chopping vegetables and cleaning stuff. Nothing he was trained for at home... (humor intended). I've adjusted pretty well. The Studio Dog has made peace with his absence and she follows me around like a furry shadow.  

We've had a lot of much appreciated rain here over the last week and there's a small area at our back yard fence that gets a bit muddy after prolonged rains. The Studio Dog has a daily routine that she very much enjoys which consists of listening intently for the arrival at the fence of a pack of hostile chihuahuas that come rushing from out of our neighbor's back door. When she hears their barking she begs to get out, rushes to the fence and runs back and forth, growling ferociously. The chihuahuas respond in kind and it gets very dramatic. Then Studio Dog turns her back on the pack, walks back toward the house, stopping ten or fifteen feet from the fence to urinate. I think she does this as an additional insult or slight to the other dogs. Then she hustles back into the house. I don't know what all these dogs are saying to each other but it's pretty clear that they are talkin' trash.

I asked Ben today if he misses his parents and he artfully deflected my question and volunteered that he did miss his dog quite a bit...

Last week and the week before have been busy ones for the studio and I'm taking a day or two off to get the car inspected and the registration renewed. I'll do some more book keeping and a bit of marketing but it's nice not to be committed to being anywhere at any specific time this week. It gives me an opportunity to catch up with my swimming. And walking. 

We have press proof copies of the novel coming on Weds, and Belinda and I will pore over them to make sure nothing is out of place. Once that's done the print version of the book will be available for ordering on Amazon.com. I will also order several cases of the books for the studio, just in case someone needs a signed copy (hint, hint).

I've gotten a follow up call from K5600 Lighting which means the review loan of the cool HMI lights I've been playing with is probably about to come to an end. I haven't had as much time to play with the lights as I would have liked and I have to say that the portraits I've shot with them show some incredible tonality. It's almost as though HMIs were custom made to make camera sensors sing beautifully. I'll hold onto them as long as I can. I'm searching for beautiful people to shoot and I'm dying to get some images up on the blog. The first three portraits I've shot were all done for clients and are embargoed until they use them. If you are into continuous lighting (as I am) you will find these lights to be pretty darn perfect. The only conceivable downside is the price. But that's what you get if you want to use professional gear made for the movie industry. It makes our little photo toys seem lame. 

PhotoKina is drawing to a close and so far I have a very short wish list of gear I want to get my hands on. Top of the list is the Samsung NX1. If it does all the stuff the spec sheet promises I think it will be a seriously competitive camera and perhaps a notch or two better than the APS-C offerings from Nikon, Canon and Sony. If they have the EVF perfectly figured out....I'll be thrilled. 

I took one look at the Panasonic LX100 and pushed the pre-order button. It seems like the perfect point and shoot camera. If it performs we may be looking at a new, compact cult classic. I doubt I'd use it for video but for a bus ride across the western states or a side trip to Marfa, Texas it seems like the perfect, little camera. 

The other camera I saw that I liked, a lot, was the silver version of the Olympus EM-1. After shooting in the Moody Theater (black walls, black drape, black high ceilings) and being in the audience area (dark) facing the stage I found that my chrome EM-5 was easier to navigate than my black one. It all had to do with being able to see the buttons and dials in the dark. The EM-1 in silver looks like an entirely different camera to me. I found myself hovering over the pre-order button on that one as well.

That's about all I saw in the Photokina new feeds that interested me at all. It was a quiet show.

Finally, I went to Precision Camera today and did something I haven't done for several years. I bought a 50 sheet box of 13 by 19 inch, matte, ink jet paper. Don't know what possessed me but I thought I'd try cranking out 20 perfect portfolio prints from recent work. I don't know if my older Canon Pro 9000 printer is up to the task but I thought I'd give it a whirl. If it doesn't work out I have my eyes on an inexpensive Canon Pixma Pro-100. We'll just have to wait and see. 

All Images Shot With Samsung NX30 and 85mm 1.4.

Re-visiting a camera after a firmware update. A new lease on life for my Samsung NX30?

(Disclosure: I've been given the Samsung NX30 and the 16-50mm lens discussed in this review by the manufacturer to evaluate. I am not bound by agreement or contract to write reviews or content on my blog about the camera or lens. Samsung has hired me in the past to demonstrate their cameras. I am not currently being paid by Samsung for any consideration, demonstration, etc.)

I am using the Samsung NX30 as an example in this article because my experience with the bounties of firmware upgrades was just reinforced by the enhanced usability a recent firmware upgrade brought to my use of this camera. A camera I had mixed feelings about until....yesterday.

The Samsung NX30 is a very decent camera for its price point. The camera's shutter and AF are quick and I find the sensor to be at least equal to the APS-C sensors in current Nikon and Canon cameras. The Sony and Toshiba sensors in the Nikons might be a tad better in low light but certainly not by any huge margin. Where the camera always fell down for me was in the implementation of the EVF.

You see, the sensor that tells your camera when you've brought it up to your eye was...stupid. You really had to cram your eye into the eyepiece to block out enough ambient light and there always seemed to be a long gap between that action and the camera actually grudgingly switching over to show you a live image in the EVF.

The regular workaround for this particular issue in just about every other brand of camera that uses an EVF is to allow you to manually choose whether you wanted to use the EVF, or the LCD screen on the back of the camera, or stick with the automatic switching. Adamant about using the EVF? No problem, just set the menu control to make the camera always default to the eyepiece. But the initial menu of the NX30 didn't give you that choice. Your choice on the camera was to decide between the rear LCD screen or the fully automatic setting. There was no option to lock into the EVF. A big oversight.

With this limitation the camera was only really useful to me in the studio while what I really wanted to use it for was walking around in the street making Kirk-Art. Grabbing quick images from the rich parade of everyday life. Or something like that. Shooting in the Summer, in the streets of Austin, is different than shooting in the cloudy, northern climes. We have hours and hours of brilliant, intense sunshine and really, no ambient light facing, exposed, flat screen is any match for that kind of mid-day candle power.

I tried using a big loupe but at that point I might as well be using a hulking, full frame camera. I tried mashing the camera to my eye with gusto but all that accomplished was to give me a big ass headache with gusto. I used the camera less and less even though I really liked and wanted to make pretty images with the Samsung 85mm 1.4 lens. I got a copy of that lens earlier this year (again, as a test optic, for free) and I am pretty captivated with its overall performance. It's a nice bokeh machine. But I didn't feel like the camera was reliable enough to switch viewing modalities for me when needed.

A secondary point was the fact that the brightness of the screen was at odds with what I ended up seeing, after the fact, on my pretty, new, calibrated 27 inch monitor back in the office.  Since we live in a time of too much plenty I pretty much gave up and started using cameras from makers who'd figured out these two parameters. Until this week.

I was made aware that there was a new firmware update available for the Samsung camera so I charged up the battery and did the file upload shuffle. Once I updated it I noticed that the EVF and the rear monitor track more closely. It's still not perfect but now the color and tonal preview through the EVF is quite usable. But there was no mention in the update notes about a menu change in the view/monitor selections. I stumbled across that yesterday. Now you can select to lock in either to the rear monitor OR to the EVF or you can default to letting the camera auto select.  I almost jumped out of my seat. But then I would have spilled my glass of sangria.

All at once the camera had value to me again as a street shooting tool and general art camera. I tried out the "new" system with the 85mm and smiled. Then I decided to take the white, 16-50mm f3.5 to 5.6 OIS zoom lens Samsung sent along with the white NX3000 body and see just how well it worked on the NX 30. I'd tested the lens before and found it to be much sharper and nicer than the original kit lens (and better than the Nikon and Sony kit lenses I've played with)  and it also gives one a bit of extra wide angle coverage; now 24mm instead of the typical 28mm equivalent.

The camera and lens are now a highly functional picture taking duo and I'm finding working with the two to be very enjoyable. This gives me great hope for the upcoming release of the new Samsung NX1 camera body. The view menu is, perhaps, the first thing I'll look at in the new camera... Well, actually I'll check out the resolution and time lag of the EVF first...

Now, none of this should be construed as a new review of the NX30. It's not a camera that will persuade higher end system jumping (although the NX1 might be, if it lives up to expectations) rather I'm writing this to encourage everyone to keep up with firmware updates in every system. On all the cameras in which  you might have an interest. Sometimes a few mid course corrections on an initially flawed camera can have the overall effect of turning around your perspective by materially enhancing the holistic shooting experience of a camera and lens.

I can now shoot the Nikon D7100 and get distortion correction with the 18-140mm Nikon lens, thanks to a firmware update. And believe me, as much as I like most of the things that lens does, it definitely needed the in camera geometry corrections.  The EM-5 seems to have been cured of its "shutter shock" with a recent programming enhancement. And it seems as though the EM-1 is ready to move up to firmware 2.0 with a raft of usability enhancements. All good news.

So now I can use my NX30 at eye level all the time. The function button on the side of the lens allows me to toggle through WB, ISO, Ex. Comp, Aperture and Shutter Speed quickly and easily without having to consult the rear screen. An amazing difference for a dedicated EVF photographer like myself.

Fun when your gear gets better on its own.

HOLY BOOK UPDATE! BATMAN!!! Print version arriving soon.

The Kindle Version is Available here.

Just wanted to update you all on what's happening with my insanely fun, vanity publishing adventure, the photo novel: The Lisbon Portfolio. 

Belinda finished fine tuning all of the interior design and building the print version from scratch. We could have gotten up quicker if we'd just taken the short cut and uploaded the e-version. But we knew it wouldn't look as good. She's done an incredible job but that shouldn't surprise anyone who knows her since she's been the lead graphic designer on countless magazines and books for corporate clients.  Can you say #BrilliantDesigner ? 

So, we uploaded the print version and passed all the publisher tests and formatting double checks with flying colors. I ordered three proof copies today and they should be here early next week. We'll go through and make sure everything from the front cover to the last manuscript page is perfect and then we'll push the magic button and let Amazon.com come publish the printed version (all 472 pages of it) and make it available to an international audience of photo spy book cognoscenti. I'll post the links to the print book the minute after we launch. 

Thanks to my readers for their patience and support with this project. All the help and encouragement behind the scenes has been wonderful. What a nice group of people we've got here!

Have you shot with the Olympus 75mm 1.8 lens? If you have I would love to hear your opinions about it.

I am vacillating between buying one of these

or buying one of the 42.5 Nocticrons.

I can't buy both at once. 

This one is half the price. 

What do you think of yours?

Or the one you've used?

I can read the review sites. 

I might just trust you more.

Comments?

Layers are lovely.

I experimented yesterday with turning things off. I was heading out for a walk and I decided to take a counterintuitive camera and lens combination with me; the Samsung NX30 and the its 85mm 1.4. The general twist is that I set the camera up in manual exposure, center focusing spot, raw, AWB and ISO 200. Then I turned the rear screen completely around to it faced the camera body. I wanted to shoot as we used to shoot with film cameras, without the benefit of instantaneous review of the images I was shooting. I wanted to trust the camera and let it do the work.

I actively ignored the EVF image and tried to just meter each shot using the metering indications in the finder. I think that I've become so dependent on "pre-chimping" and trying to get everything just right in the moments before exposure that I've been losing my connection with the subject and the real reason I might want to take a photograph in the first place. I didn't adjust anything if the screen in front of my eye seemed too light or too dark. I concentrated on using my exposure experience and fine tuning based on a spot metering of a subject and a little dial in of aperture to avoid running out of shutter speed. I find this is a good way to shoot this camera. The EVF never seemed to track proper exposure (or my interpretation of proper exposure) anyway. Juggling screen images was becoming a distraction. 

I found that willfully ignoring the rear screen and squelching the idea of making lots of little adjustments at the time of shooting freed me up to enjoy the process of actually looking for images more. We've talked here before about having a camera with just a few basic controls. One which would shoot to raw files and allow correction from there. This is what I was trying to do. Essentially pushing the ability to recognize something I wanted to shoot instead of focusing on how to optimize a scene.

Was I successful? I was in that the images I captured pleased me and my walk was more fluid and less stoppy-starty. What would it take to really do this right? I'd want to use a camera with an optical viewfinder and put gaffer's tape over the screen on the back. The finder would merely be an indication of composition and whether the camera had hit focus. All other information would be blacked out. Is this a new trend in shooting? Well, judging by the new Leica which does away with a screen entirely, maybe. Will I be shooting this way a lot? Probably not. More of an exercise in re-asserting my visual primacy over the highly addictive interplay of pre-chimping and compulsive correction. 

It has piqued my curiosity though. I'm heading out the door this afternoon with a Nikon F camera and a 50mm lens. Two rolls of generic ISO 100 print film. 72 blind exposures. Should be frustrating and exciting. But to me the "hunt" is always better than the "dissection."

Walk Image #1 and Walk Image #2

Clicking through life. One website at a time.

This image is for visual anchoring. It's a frame from the King and I, 

now playing at Zach Theatre. It was shot with a Panasonic GH4

and the wonderful 35-100mm X Vario lens.

Doesn't matter what I say or do, the steamroller just comes along and flattens everything down to the same level. Every day I get e-mail messages that guide me to sites. Some sites are touting medium format cameras. Invariably the images are of models or race cars. These images are all sharp and contrasty and grainless but uniformly safe and boring. One site shows me "new talent" (which means young photographers) that is selected by "anonymous" art buyers and editors but all the images look like they were shot by the same person. They're all casual lifestyle scenes that seem as though they were shot by someone who has never even see a lighting instrument, let alone read the instructions about how to turn one on. How many images of wandering millenials in quasi (dispassionate) love do we need to see? How unlit can an image be? Do we need to even recognize the person being portrayed?

I get e-mails guiding me to sites that tell me how to shoot models. But all the models are lit the same way and all of them seem to have gone through the same retouching car wash that scrubbed all the detail off their faces. Are we still at all even mildly amused by tattoos and piercings? Do all video cameras have to slide during every take? Help me, Jim Jarmusch!

Sometimes it makes me just want to put my camera down and go for yet another walk. To see what real people are out seeing and to see what real people, with lives and jobs and kids, are doing. How do people look when they are walking through their reality trying to balance a cellphone on one ear, a cup of coffee in one hand and a messenger bag in the other? What does beauty feel like for unattractive people? Can anyone pull off looking cool as they climb into their ten year old mini-van? Can anyone not look like a sociopath as they climb into a Ferrari at the grocery store? Do men really still wear gold chains around their necks in 2014? Are small children being parented while their parents look into the vague middle distance and chatter inanely on their phones.

I have other questions that vex me as I "learn" more about the "importance" of creating visual content for the cellphone screen. Here's one: Why do we give a crap about huge, wonderful video cameras or "4K" if 65% of the population will "enjoy" the content on the screen of a phone? Is there any correlation between the sheer, enormous, corpulent size of people and our new addiction to the web?

I thought of all this as I was taking images in a very high end tech company a few weeks ago. One person asked another if the web was systematically destroying all jobs. "No." replied the other, "technology has been doing that for a long time." They went on to discuss the recent protests by fast food workers. One person said to the other, "If they push this wage thing too far we'll just put an app on a bunch of iPads and automate the fast food front counters. People can handle ordering and paying for themselves..."

And, for a second I imagined that this would only flatten the finances of the poorest people, but someone else had just finished telling me about decision tree software for psychiatry that may be at least as effective as talk therapy performed by a psychiatrist/analyst. Most psychiatrist have long since been relegated to prescribing pills instead. This next step will allow their jobs to "migrate" down to trained nurses. And then we'll automate mental health care and what next?

What does any of this have to do with photography? Well, nothing and everything. A life that goes from screen to screen to screen. Perhaps photography is one of the things that actually makes people go outside and see for themselves. That's a start.

"The King and I." The latest Zach Theatre Project ramps up. We catch the dress rehearsal.

I mentioned yesterday that I'd be covering the dress rehearsal of The King and I, at Zach Theatre last night. I showed up with a bag full of toys. I took along the Nikon D7100 which I used for a large percentage of the images. I brought the GH4, fitted with a 35-100mm, which I used and a GH3 fitted with a 12-35mm lens, which I did not use. I also brought the black EM-5 fitted with the Sigma 60mm DN "art" lens-lite which I used and wished I'd used on everything.

I'll cut to the chase here, on paper the D7100 is the best of the cameras. Biggest sensor, highest resolution, fastest focusing (?), and a real live optical viewfinder. In practical use, doing theatre images under constantly changing light the GH4 and the EM-5 just kept kicking its big jelly-bean-Ford-Taurus-bubble body around the block. From a sharpness point of view the Panasonic 35-100mm, stopped down one stop, and the Sigma 60mm 2.8 wide open are an even optical match for Nikon's 85mm 1.8G lens. Especially so when you consider that the two mirror less camera/lens combinations hit focus 100% of the time while the Nikon was....variable. 

But I don't really care if one sensor is just a bit better than another sensor if the instantaneous feedback loop of a great EVF (or even just a good one) can help me nail color and exposure with a higher degree of accuracy every single time. Big sensors do everything well that their proponents talk about. And EVFs do everything well that I talk about. I'm not a small versus big sensor guy. I don't care. If all things are equal I'd probably stick with a 24x36mm sensor because, logically, it should yield a higher quality file. But to make that file you have to nail exposure and focus and color. You can tell me you never chimp with your D800 or Canon 5D3 and I never do either----under continuous, consistent lighting. But if you are telling me you don't chimp under constantly shifting light sources; light sources that are also changing color, then you are either lying or stupid enough to want to spend ample, quality time in post production. Hey, I get it. Some people like to sit around and stare at their computers and the need to individually post process every few files is as good an excuse as any. 

Comparing all three camera files at the same ISO I saw pretty much the same amount of noise. The nice thing is that all three cameras have "nice" noise. Small, black grains. No big, out of control color splotches. The Panasonic was the least noisy of the three. The Olympus had the highest appearance of sharpness and over all quality of the three and the Nikon.....well, since the files are bigger when you compare all the files at a 16 megapixel size it does have the appearance of slightly smaller noise artifacts. Nothing exemplary to write home about. I shot raw on all three and developed them side by side in Lightroom. No big variances. 

How was the play? It was one of the best performances of live theater I've ever seen. Mel and Jill (the King and Anna) were just flat out amazing. The cast of children was delightful. The stage sets were magnificent. The music (directed by Alan Robertson) was perfect and the choreography was tighter than a moon landing. 

If you have a spouse, significant other or friend who says they "hate" live theater, this play, done by Zach Theatre, will convert them to big time fans in one pleasant evening. It's like curing vegetarianism with bacon. 

I'm shooting another performance in the next week or so to capture images of the backup group of children who are in the play. I wouldn't call them understudies as I think they cycle the two groups so no one misses too much school or homework. At any rate, when I come back I'm coming with the two EM-5s and the two Panasonic X zooms. The files impressed me that much in this application. 

Smells like that EM-1 is getting closer and closer.

All images ©2014 Kirk Tuck

All rights reserved.

Getting back into balance. Mulling over the offerings at Photokina. Packing up for assignments.

A week and a half of sustained photography work really cuts into one's swim time. I dragged my lazy self out of bed at 6:30 am for the first time in too long and just about crawled to the pool. Coach Kathleen was on deck all alert and chipper. "Haven't seen you here in a while..." she remarked. After great hesitation I finally threw myself into lane 3 and started the warm up. I felt like a old car left out in the cold too long, just trying to crank over into some sort of virtuous idle. Eventually I got back some feel of the water but when we exited the pool 3400 yards and seventy five minutes later I felt like going back to bed. I'm on a more manageable photo schedule of the rest of week and in the interest of accelerating the process of getting back into shape I've sworn off the occasional glass or red wine or refreshing cocktail for the rest of the month. Same with queso, chips, chocolate and puff pastries (the standard munching fare of corporate shows...).  Oh hell, in the interest of being fit I'll even boycott Pistachio Almond Ice Cream for a while.

Mulling over the stuff on display. I'm sure everyone is reading the same blogs and websites and marveling over the new stuff on offer at Photokina. There are a few products I want to discuss just because I either find them interesting or because I don't.

Canon 7Dii. I'm partial to EVF enabled cameras and cameras without flappy mirrors but I don't mind what Canon announced with their 7D update this week. I owned the original camera and I found that in almost every regard it was (at the time) one of the very best APS-C cameras I've used. It was the right size and pretty much bullet proof. The finder was very good for a smaller format camera. I like the solid improvements in video on the new camera and the one thing that baffles me is the sensor technology. Canon obviously knows how to make a great camera body. They also know how to make great lenses. They seem to be a little behind on the sensor tech, especially when you compare their cameras to Nikons on DXO. But here's the deal: Nikon isn't a hotbed of genius sensor making. They are smart enough to turn to Sony and Toshiba for better tech where it makes a difference.

Canon seems to be focusing on focusing instead of stuff like dynamic range, color and low read noise. Their new chip might be an aid to amateur videographers who like the camera to do their focusing but most of the aspiring video pros who will buy this camera will probably use it in manual focusing mode. Canon would have been better off skipping the upgraded phase detection points on their new chip and instead concentrated on where the rubber meets the road= image quality. But I guess we'll have to wait and see how the newer Canon sensor performs...

I'm pretty happy that they left all the good stuff alone. The camera itself was in need of a total make over it just needed imaging tweaks. I like APS-C cameras. It's a zone of very good compromise.

Panasonic LX-100. What's not to like about this camera? Saucy big sensor. (Mandatory for me) EVF.  4K video.  All wrapped up in a small and inconspicuous package. A nice competitor for the Sony RX100iii camera. But maybe even better...

Nikon D750. So they announced a little early. If you are into traditional and you really crave the full frame thing this is the camera that the 600 and 610 should have been. Mostly because we hope it won't leak oil and dust and tiny pieces of its own shutter mechanism all over the sensor. That's kind of a standard and expected bar to jump over in the field of camera making and you'd think that Nikon would have figured that out long ago... But, the camera is the perfect blend of IQ, performance and price for traditionalists of all stripes. That body, with a 35mm and an 85mm would be a nice set up for someone who does photography just of the unalloyed joy of it.  I'm happy they worked on this niche until they got it right. The reason it spiked my interest lies in my recent purchase of the 85mm 1.8G for the D7100. What a lovely, happy lens. If only Nikon would make me a mirror less D750. That would be a sweet system.

Olympus. Panasonic. Yes, yes, I am happy that both companies are upgrading their firmware to allow for easy tethering. Makes perfect sense if you want people to take your flagship cameras seriously as professional tools. The silver paint job? Not so much... Although I must say this for the silver bodies (which probably speaks more to the aging of my eyes that anything else...) and that is that in big, dark theaters (like the ACL/Moody) where the walls and ceilings are painted matte black and the room seems to suck out every random photon, the silver EM-5 I was using made it easier to see the buttons and the controls. I am thrilled to see the 40-150mm everything resistant fast zoom from Olympus. But all I really hanker for is that Nocticron. If only the boy had decided to go to trade school instead....

One more thing! Panasonic GM-5. They got that just right for its target audience and I am so happy that the EVF was added. It actually makes the little camera a potent, stealthy contender for a place in every Panasonic shooter's camera bag. Or jacket pocket.

Fuji. Circling back to the Canon comments...I am happy that Fuji keeps doing evolutionary improvements to existing products rather than changing direction at every cycle. To wit, the X100T. It's a camera based on incremental improvements of an already well loved duo of instant classics.

Samsung. Most of the camera (NX-1) and its specs look really good but I'm withholding final judgment until I can shoot that camera's 4K video. The new codec features pretty insane compression. If it works then we all cheer but like pros everywhere I have an innate fear of the unknown....

Packing up for two shoots.  When it rains it pours. We're busy and getting busier as the season roars on. Today I'm packing up for two shoots. One project is to take four different executive portraits via available light on the 26th floor of a downtown hi-rise. That shoot calls for a stout tripod and some reflector panels but I'll fudge by taking along two flash and a trigger along with a big umbrella and a light stand in case the ambient light throws me a curve ball. This is an extension of  a project we did last month. I'm packing the Nikon D7100 along with an 85mm 1.8G, a 50mm 1.8G and the 35mm 1.8 G. It's 1.8 in the afternoon. I'll do most of the shooting with the 85mm but I might go a bit wider on some of the variants, just for fun.

Then I come back to the studio and get re-packed for the dress rehearsal of The King and I, at Zach Theatre, starting at 8pm. I'm feeling whimsical so I'm packing the GH4, the GH3, two EM-5s and a brace of lenses, including the 12-35mm X, the 35-100mm X, the 60mm 1.5, the 45mm 1.8 and maybe even the Sigma 60mm f2.8. I have no reasoned plan but that's never stopped me before. Efficiency kills passion and passion kills efficiency. It's just something we always try to balance.

Obviously, no lights or tripods for the dress rehearsal. And a major reason for using the m4:3 cameras is the quietness of their shutters.

Well, that's where I am on Tues, the 16th of September. Hope you are having fun doing your own thing.