I'm always curious to see things with my own eyes instead of taking everything I hear or read as objective truth. There's a lot open to taste and interpretation. Like the noise in a GH4...

A Twilight, Handheld Test Run of The GH4. Shot in 4K, edited in 2k. from Kirk Tuck on Vimeo.

If you want to see this in HD you'll have to click through the link to Vimeo (above). And if you hate gratuitous sound effects you should turn off your speakers....

I bought a GH4 last January and I really like the camera, especially when I am using it as a video camera. I did a hand full of major (for me) video projects last year where we used the GH4 as the primary shooting camera and then used one or two GH3s as b-roll or secondary angle cameras. I mixed lenses between the Panasonic X series and my older, manual focus, high speed Pen FT lenses and in every situation I was very happy with the performance. But I'll be the second one (after my wife) to tell you that I am more of a big picture guy and not so focused on the details.

Most of my use of the cameras was in conjunction with decent lighting. If there's one thing I can do pretty well in video or in regular photography it's to light stuff. So I rarely used the cameras at ISOs higher than 640 (except for some of the restaurant footage for Asti Trattoria which was done at ISO 1600...). All of our paid projects last year were also done in 1080p.

So recently when a good and experienced video shooting friend of mine sat down with me over coffee and exclaimed, "I'm over small sensor video!" I paid attention. I'd lent him the GH4 for several commercial projects and while his clients were always happy with the final footage he frequently alluded to the noise in the mid-tones and shadows. And I'm pretty darn sure that my friend knows his stuff, his resumé includes many projects for large, picky corporations and ad agencies. He was also one of the first people in town to throw down for a Red camera...

But here's the deal; some people really care about shadow and mid tone noise and some don't. It's like a sensitivity to wool sweaters or cheap sunglasses. I'm sure you know two groups of photographers: one group that thinks grain adds a lot to images and another group that sees grain as a major failure. It's the same thing. Given my perspective that a certain intolerance or over-tolerance for noise might be highly subjective I felt duty bound to shoot the camera in a dark set of situations and just see for myself.

I grabbed the GH4 with a Leica 25mm f1.4, a fat memory card and an extra battery and went downtown to shoot some minute's worth and check out the noise for myself. And I set up the camera just the way I thought it should be set up by a typical user. I shot at cinematic 4K which is 24 fps. I set the exposure to manual and set the shutter speed to 1/50th while leaving the aperture wide open (it's not a lens performance test, after all).  I used AWB and I varied the ISO sensitivity from somewhere around 640 all the way up to 3200 over the course of my little experiment. I used the "cine-like D" color profile and just to make it real  I hand held that little sucker (also an experiment to see the effects of coffee on small camera holding technique).

I shot with camera movement and with subject movement. Every scene is a veritable symphony of mixed light. I brought everything back into Final Cut Pro X and did not do any grading or noise reduction or color correction at all. As I cut it together I put in some annoying sound effects so you'll probably want to turn your sound off...

So, what did I find? Hmmm. I can see the noise in the deep blue sky areas and in some of the mid tones but it doesn't bother me at all. The highlights seem clean and clear. I'd use the footage as long as the content was good. If the content isn't there the cleanest file in the universe is pretty much a non-started. My overall thoughts?

If you do good lighting and you get enough level to work at ISO 200-800 you can pretty much use the footage for just about anything. Yes, you might hit the noise reduction a bit and you will want to sharpen but at the lower end of the ISO scale you shouldn't have any issues whatsoever. It may be the downsampling from 4K to 2k that helps but the times I've shot these situations originally in 2K yield pretty much the same results. The camera is quite good and the focus peaking, zebras, potential to use a 200 mbs codec are all nice extras. I won't disagree with my pro video friend, I'll chalk it up to different sensibilities.

I know this is not about still photography but the test was, in fact, part of my overall decision making matrix about gear for the year. The Panasonic wins again---at least in the video category. I'm keeping it!

Photographic Tools and Toys that have my rapt attention in 2015. For better or worse.

I want one more of these at the same price I paid in December. $1249.

Every once in a while I get into the mood to go shopping. It usually happens during the slow periods for the business. Like right after major holidays when the business world is trying to get some traction and rev back up into action. I start looking at what I've been shooting with and I look over the fence to see if the grass is greener in the other yards. Sometimes I think it is and sometimes I wonder why we don't just all xeriscape and get it over with. But shopping doesn't mean looking. It means touching, fondling and usually rejecting the final purchase of new stuff because: a. We don't need it. b. We can't afford it. or c. The merchandise is not as pretty and magical in person as we thought it was when we read the breathy reviews on the web. So, here is a list of stuff that I'm ogling in 2015. It doesn't mean some or all of it will end up in some corporate board room, pressed into the service of commerce and it doesn't even mean it will end up in my bag. But it's stuff that's whetted my appetite for sure.

First off, every store in the USA is selling the Nikon D610 for about $1499. When you consider that the sensor inside this camera is one of the top three or four sensors for the 35mm and smaller format cameras at DXO and that the body is pretty utilitarian and straight forward it really is a good deal. Well, it's a good deal if you have a drawer full of Nikon lenses and a few older DX (APS-C) cameras and you want to be shooting with full frame cameras. If you don't mind the size and weight of the body and lenses it's a pretty convincing argument. I bought one on December 27th and, as I believe that cameras are always happiest (and jobs safest) when they travel in pairs I would like to add a second one before the rebates expire at the end of January.

But to be honest, if I weren't cheap, hadn't just bought a really nice couch and paid for another semester of college at a nice school, and put money into my "pay the IRS" account the camera that I am really interested in is the Nikon D810. What can I say? Even though I know that in most of my hand-held shooting there will be no discernible imaging advantage between the 36 megapixels of the D810 and the 24 megapixels of the D610 my irrational mind is trying to convince me that I will spend more time with my cameras on the big, stout Gitzo tripod this year, carefully fine focusing miraculous lenses in live view and using some sort of esoteric remote to trigger it all with. I know this is a fantasy and that I'll continue to hand hold, use cheap lenses and generally have more fun then technical virtuosity will allow. But, it is an aspirational camera for someone who has grown up with every generation of digital, professional camera. I keep dropping by the dealership and test driving. We'll see, we'll see.

But every time I buy a new camera body from one of the big makers there's always the lens penalty. I may have a treasure trove of interesting lenses for a system but when I make bigger moves there's always one that's missing. One that really works well for my type of photography business. While I have enough wide, semi-wide and somewhat wide lenses for Nikon bodies the one lens I don't have anymore is the fast telephoto zoom. I've owned several variations of Nikon 80-200mm zooms and I've shot a lot with the 70-200mm f2.8 zoom but every time I play with those lenses I have three complaints. The first is that they are never as sharp as I'd like wide open, at the long end. Getting f 2.8 and 200mm and sharp at the same time always seems like too much to ask. Then, the lenses are heavy. Really heavy to carry around all day in concert with a big camera body. I'm in good shape but I'm not into photo-masochism. Finally, the long, fast glass is too expensive. When did every good, fast zoom spring up into the $2500 price point? Who do these manufacturers think they are? Leica?

No, the lens I'd pair with the newer generation of full frame Nikons would be the 70-200mm f4.0 G lens. Sharp wide open, half the weight and almost half the price. Given the sharper performance (f4 v f2.8) and the amazingly good high ISO performance of the newest, biggest cameras I think the f4.0 is the perfect compromise. I made the same choices when shooting full frame with Canon cameras and I  always felt it was the right combination of features, performance and price for me.

It's interesting when one system gets under your skin again (I have good nostalgia for Nikon's flash system and general performance from the old days...) but it's more complicated when several types of cameras capture your attention. For me, and for a lot of other long time shooters, Pentax creating a tipping point medium format camera in the 645Z. All of a sudden the sensor performance leapfrogged everything in the MF arena (soon fixed by Phase One but not at a similar price point) and did so at what passes for a bargain price in the medium format realm. Now, for around $12,000 we can have a monster good sensor in a very well designed and constructed body, with lots of modern bells and whistles. along with two good lenses. Pretty amazing. 

Lots will argue that the D810 is so close as to be interchangeable in performance but they miss the point. The overriding reason to own a camera with a bigger sensor is to get the benefit of the way longer lenses draw at the same angle of view as their smaller brethren. The 150mm f2.8 on a bigger sensor achieves a focus fall off that gives portraits a different signature. Is that different signature worth $5,000 more? For some, yes. For others, definitely not. But for an eternal optimist? I'm thinking probably so. Will I buy one? Well..... that's hitting a price point at which my business partner definitely gets a strong say and a veto vote. I'd have to convince here (with a signed contract in hand) that a client job would effectively cover the cost. Do I want one? What red-blooded photographer doesn't?  But I'll be frank, I don't have any clients clamoring for more than current 35mm sensor sized cameras can deliver. Just no demand in my niche.....yet.

It always makes me nervous to even think about dropping close to $10K on a camera and then more on lenses so let's look in the other direction at some of the more sensible cameras that have caught my attention and require more pondering and testing this year. First off, the mirror less stuff. If I dropped down onto the planet with no cameras to my name and I wanted to buy just one and a small handful of lenses, and I wanted that camera to make very good images while not physically impacting my travels much I'd immediately look at the Fuji XT-1. Great finder, great body and great controls, and even the sensor is fun and makes nice files. With a fast 35mm equivalent and a faster 85mm equivalent I'd be happy and ready to go. The one caveat would be the need for a pocket full of batteries but I really don't fear the generics so I think I'd be set. I used to think the price was pretty good until I realized what I could get in full frame sensors from Nikon but as a system the benefits of handling and light weight still make it a contender for the guy who dropped in from outer space with no system at all and intergalactic credit cards burning a hole in his pocket...

But if I were sniffing around the Fuji I'd probably be sniffing around the OMD EM-1 as well and it would be a hard choice to decide between the sexier looking XT-1 body and the feature set of the EM-1. Each has available lenses that are great so it really all comes down to things like 5 axis I.S. and handling. Hmm. I'm still resisting and they are both still a toss up in my mind...

I thought I'd be more interested in smaller, one inch sensor cameras by now but nothing seems to be getting my attention at the moment. I think the Sony RX10 pretty much is the final word in that arena and it's so bulletproof in its operation and image quality that it's almost boring. The perfect choice for someone who wants an all-in-one tool for great video and really good stills is one package for under $1000.  Again, get yourself a stack of batteries if you are the kind of shooter who goes out for all day romps through the urban landscape, shooting with reckless abandon...

There's one last thing that has me mulling over the checkbook balance. It's not a camera. It's not a lens. It's a more pedestrian piece of gear that will be as functional in two years as it would be right now and my interest is more piqued by my recent use than anything else. I want another Fiilex P360 variable color temperature LED light. While they don't put out a huge amount of lumens the ones they do deliver are pretty much flawless and the lights work just as I want them to. Wow. A product on my mental shopping list that's actually useful and functional as well as affordable. Zany. 

Of course, the cheapest and most entertaining photo accessory would be a great book. If you're spending a lot of time indoors because of the harsh weather I have a suggestion that will keep you amused and reading, for a few days at least: 

Tuesday morning random stream of consciousness blog for no good reason.

Lens Portrait.

I didn't want to get up in the cold and the dark this morning to go outside and swim. It was a moist kind of cold that chills you quickly and wraps you in discomfort. But I didn't seem to have a choice. You see, we have new neighbors. The spent enormous amounts of money to scrape an older house off the lot next door and build a new house with lots of big windows and, for some reason, enormous television sets in nearly every room. When I say "big television sets" I mean monstrous ones that are wider than most people are tall. And they are the brightest televisions/monitors I think anyone could buy. Even though their house is two hundred feet from mine when they click on the early morning talk shows in one of the rooms facing my bedroom it's as though a psychedelic lightning storm is occurring right in our own little eco-sphere. 

I don't know what time the neighbor's brilliant television set clicked on this morning but I started responding to the abrupt shift in circadian cues around 6:15 am. Way too early for anyone to be watching cable programming. The "quick cut" editing of the early morning talk shows doesn't help either. It's a series of constant cuts between one bright screen after the other. 

But I was up so I grabbed a clean towel and my car keys and headed to the pool. It was still dark at 7 as I walked gingerly across the pool deck which was awash in the red glow of the digital pace clocks at each end. A puffy blanket of steam floated above the water lit from beneath by the underwater pool lights. I hopped into lane three and began the warm up. The fast lanes filled up quickly. A young woman hopped into my lane and started warming up. I'm always a bit nervous when swimming with college kids because they have boundless energy and love to push the intervals. We made it through the workout and I was satisfied that I had at least kept up with someone a third of my age in what our master's club calls, "The Varsity Practice." 

I would have loved to have stopped by Starbucks for a venti "half-caff" and a warm, chocolate croissant but I wanted to get home. We were scheduled to have a sectional couch delivered in the morning and I wanted to be there to help. We only buy couches once every thirty years so it's a big deal to me. I also wanted to be on hand to slip some money to the guys from the Salvation Army who were coming to take away our old sofa. As I got close to home I could see that Belinda and Studio Dog had just started their morning walk and were halfway around the loop that runs near our house. I had just enough time to hit the kitchen, make coffee in a Keurig machine and head out with a to-go cup and meet them for the next leg of their walk.  Studio Dog was pretty happy to see me. I'm a soft touch when it comes to handing out treats...

The delivery people from the furniture store were here early and did a nice job getting the sections of the couch in, unwrapped and set up. We inspected everything and gave them a "thumbs up." A few minutes later the guys from the Salvation Army came and looked at the old sofa. "Today is your lucky day! We'll take it." they said. We breathed a sigh of relief because who really knows how to get rid of an old sofa in this day and age? Especially a sleeper sofa that weighs too much. Once all the non-family members cleared out Belinda and I took turns making subtle changes in our furniture arrangements. I knew that the couch was just an opening feint in a new acquisition binge as we started talking about new chairs, a new rug and the idea of perhaps refinishing the hardwood floors.

I finally made it out to the studio/office where I was curious to see if I'd gotten any more results from an e-mail marketing campaign I embarked on last week. To date I've gotten three bid requests, one from as far away as Boston, and several dozen, "Beautiful Work!!!!" responses. I did my mailer differently this time. I sent out 500+ messages and each one was sent individually. Personalized notes included, where appropriate. I think bulk e-mails tend to get spam filtered but I have no real data to back up that presumption. I am happy with the initial response and I took a few more minutes to look over a greeting card (physical) mailer that I'm sending off to Overnight Prints later today. I'll have 500 cards printed, we'll stuff them into envelopes and mail them to the same list as the e-mail blast, as a follow up. 

I went back into the house to take another look at the couch and to wake up Ben. He and I are meeting my advertising mentor-friend, Mike, for Chinese food at 1 pm. He's known Ben since forever and he thought it would be nice to have a meal together before we bundle the boy up and send him back to college in the frigid Northeast. Funny, my old sofa is out. My kid is leaving again and I'm going to have to get used to a new piece of furniture. I'm certain Studio Dog will help me break it in. 

Just as in every previous year I am in the danger zone when it comes to gear. A year has come and gone and I spent it mostly doing jobs with the smaller format cameras. For the most part they worked well. Especially for video. But while I sit here and wait for clients to get fired up again after a long holiday of non-work I wonder if I should change everything up again and dive head first into something crazy like the Pentax 645Z or the Nikon D810. It's dangerous to be adrift for too long. I start over analyzing everything and making all kinds of photographic contingency plans. 

I'm just back from lunch and I've already been on phone to Precision Camera to talk about trade ins. Here's the root of today's first world problem: I can't find anything in the drawers that I dislike enough to trade in. I was thinking about the Panasonic GH4 system till I watched some 4K test footage earlier. That stuff is too good to lose money on. The EM-5's? Now way. They're going too cheap and they are too much fun to have into the bargain. 

I guess I'll have to do this the old fashioned way and just buy new stuff when the old stuff breaks. It could take a while. I'll think about the 2015 gear inventory later, right now Studio Dog has made the brilliant suggestion that I join her on the new couch for a nap. Now that seems like an intelligent priority.  I guess nothing gets traded or acquired today. 

While not earth shattering news, it's fun to see that one of my favorite lens makers, Samyang, is bringing two versions of the 135mm f2.0 lens to market.

I couldn't find an official image of the new lens so I am using this photograph of

Lou as a place holder. It's not retouched or "PhotoShopped."
It wasn't done with a 135mm lens, it's a 250mm lens
but it's on a medium format camera so the angle of 
view is close.

I was happy to read in my Google+ feed, a comment from VSL reader and web friend, Mohammad Shafik, who let me know that Samyang (aka: Rokinon, Bower, etc.) has announced the introduction of yet another in their series of quirky but serious manual focus lenses. This one is a 135mm f2.0 lens that features a more complex optical formula than similar lenses from past decades. It is being released in both a photographic style with a large, comfortable focusing ring, and in a "Cine" style with geared focus and aperture rings that can mesh with follow focus mechanisms for----cine use.

I am a big fan of many of the Samyang lens creations, having owned some of their more popular lenses (the 85mm) more than once. While the 135mm focal length is a bit long for m4:3 and APS-C users for most portrait use (especially in the studio) it's a nice and classic focal length for full frame shooters.

When I was a beginner photographer I spent time with a fixed lens camera. It had a 40mm lens on the front of it and shot 35mm film. I "graduated" to an interchangeable lens SLR and for nearly a year the only lens I had for it was the 50mm f1.8 lens that came with the camera at the time of purchase. Once I saved up enough money the very first lens I wanted (and could afford) was a used Vivitar 135mm f2.8 lens. I thought I was in heaven. It was so much fun to compress distance and decimate backgrounds into blurry soup. I used the lens for a long time and took many images that I still like with it.  All the images below are from that lens and some old camera.

Romy's Feet at Dance Class.

Woman eating ice cream in Paris.

A casual snap from a few tables over. 

At Les Amies Café in old Austin. 

Long since torn down and now 

a thriving----Starbucks.

At a point in the early 1990s photographers became convinced that zoom lenses were the panacea for everything and, en masse, abandoned the fixed focal length lenses that had served them so well. Flexibility was the watch word of the new age. For a while the used shelves of camera stores were littered with 135mmm and later 180mm lenses that could hardly be given away. Every once in a while a new 135mm design would surface, mostly aimed at portrait photographers. Canon had a variable soft focus design which is actually the lens I used to take the image of Renee Zellweger that I showed in yesterday's blog post. Nikon still has the 135mm f2.0 defocus coupling lens around and it's supposed to be fantastic. Infinitely sharper than anyone's 70-200mm f2.8 zoom at the same focal length but a lens used only by a tiny group of very knowledgeable photographers. The Nikon 135mm DF lens has a feature that allows one to manipulate the apparent distance of the background edges which adds a spherical distortion softening to the edges of the frames and is a cool visual effect for fashion and portrait work----if you aren't one of the folks who believe that every frame must be pin sharp from edge to edge....

But the lowly and inexpensive 135mm f2.8's have largely vanished and been replaced by their multi-focal length, slow, tromboning brethren. And it's a real pity because there was a lot to like about those older lenses.

At any rate, I am delighted to know that Samyang is releasing this new lens. Because it's a manual focus lens, made by a smaller and, in some circles, less respected maker it means I will probably be able to afford to buy one brand new. I'm pretty sure I'll opt for the one in still photography dress so I can get the focus confirmation chip that comes along with the Nikon version. 

Do I have any worries about focusing this one? Have you looked through a 135mm f2.0? The depth of field is so small the image snaps into sharp focus on just about any focusing screen in an almost binary way. I can't imagine that even the most feeble practitioner will have difficulty focusing this one. 

As I look through the equipment drawers lately I am struck by the realization that I am turning into both a single focal length fan and also a manual focus lens fan. I am tickled with the performance of the Rokinon 16mm f2.0 lens. I love the portraits I've been shooting with the Rokinon 85mm 1.4 lens. I begin to salivate just pulling the old 25-50mm Nikon f4 lens from the drawer and putting it on my full frame camera and I keep the Nikon 55mm f2.8 bolted onto the front of a convenient D7000 camera at all times. 

The story isn't much different in the m4:3 drawer where the 7-14mm, 12-35mm and 35-100mm Panasonic super deluxe zoom lenses routinely take a back seat to the three Sigma DN art lenses (the 19mm, 30mm and 60mm < which is stunning) but usually those lenses are sitting in idle jealousy because I keep being fascinated (and pleased) with the results I routinely get from the 40mm f1.4 and 60mm f1.5 Old Pen Lenses. 

It must be the formal boundaries to seeing created by the fixed focal length that appeals to me. It's something I work with rather than being coddled by the choice of zooms. Conscious thought while shooting? Who would have thought that could be a benefit to creative camera use? I wouldn't be surprised if after that we actually started metering manually. 

At any rate I am looking forward to the newest 135mm lens. I can hardly wait to see how it performs when used wide open in a dark theatre from the center of the house. Thanks Mohammad. I appreciated the "heads up." 

Marketing Note: All the cool kids are reading "The Lisbon Portfolio" this year. Be sure to get yours. 

What is your process for sharing photographs?

I'm always interested in the holistic practice people make of taking photographs (the whole process) or of "being" a photographer. The people I know whose work I most admire seem to post their work, have their work published in editorial magazines, and also show their work in gallery settings often. Each venue has its own set of advantages and disadvantages, its own levels of emotional safety and danger.

Taking images is a nice personal pursuit and there's nothing wrong with taking many, many images and not showing them to anyone. That's the way a lot people practice at being photographers. The advantages of not showing real, personal work (as opposed to "proofs of technical mastery" e.g. Cat Whisker Sharpness Test, Fill Flash at Twilight Test, Non-Moustached Brick Wall Test, etc.) is that one will never have to deal with criticism. There are harsh critics and there are kind and well meaning critics but in the end the conversation usually revolves around something that you think you did well (or you wouldn't have shown it) and external influencers think you have done poorly or could have expressed your intent in a better way. While you don't always "invite" critiques I've found that most people are happy to supply them.

When the sharing happens on the web things can get nasty quickly. That's because the critic can be anonymous and it's frustrating to joust with a person whose credentials are unstated and whose analysis may be deeply flawed by a too shallow depth of experience and knowledge. Especially knowledge about modern art history. The happy sides of posting images on the web are several: You never have to have a direct conversation with a critic, physically face to face. You can always blame the technical shortcomings of your techniques on the vagaries of image compression, image size on the web or arcane color space anomalies. Pushed, you can always blame your art's shortcomings on the quality of your critic's monitor (especially easy these days with 70+% viewing most of their web content on mobile devices...).

A different kind of sharing happens when you put work into a gallery setting. Unless you own your own gallery you will have to submit your work to a critic with power; the gallery owner. If the gallery owner is experienced about photography he or she will be judging the content, composition, style and all the technical qualities of your capture and your print. That's a lot to put on the table and for those with fragile egos it can be like the common nightmare of showing up for that organic chemistry final and realizing that you are wearing only your underwear.  Any flaw that tips the gallery owner's opinion into the negative category can disqualify you from sharing your work in their space.

This may be why such a tiny subset of photographers ever get around to approaching a physical gallery. Work that may pass muster on the web, where there are no economic or face to face consequences may not come anywhere close to what's required in the physical world. And the fear of that "in person" rejection is always a specter hovering over someone's shoulder.  Should you pass the test and get into a gallery show you get to face the next blessing or curse, the opening reception.

By this time you will have spent enormous amounts of time and probably enormous amounts of money having your work expertly printed (or you will have waited patiently for numerous Federal Express Packages with printer ink inside them.... so you can handle the iterative process of inkjet printing on your own---- ah, the world's bumpiest learning curve) and then having each piece matted and framed. You will have shared the cost of marketing your show with the gallery and perhaps even shared the cost of the cheap wine and the Costco cheese squares, celery sticks, crackers and other reception fare. You will have gone back and forth with the gallery owner about which image to use on the invitational postcard. Perhaps you've also had a disagreement or two about how the show gets laid out. But in the end you stand ready and the crowd swells in the front door to see your work, eat your cheese, drink your wine and, ultimately, to offer up their opinions. Worse case? No one shows up at all.

What have you accomplished at this level of sharing? You've convinced a gallery owner of the value of your output. You've gone through the process of editing your own work down into a manageable and, hopefully, stylistically consistent collection of images that work well sitting next to each other. You've mastered presentation. Ultimately you've shown your best work in the best way in the best light and in the most appropriate space for viewing your work. If you wrote an engaging manifesto you've added a life preserver to whatever unique point of view you've put on display (and why display work that looks like everyone else's???).  This is a high level of sharing.

This is a big moment and a big milestone for most artists. It's like one's first public speech in front of a crowded auditorium that hasn't yet quite decided whether they like what you are saying. There's always the chance someone will be rude and say something derisive during your opening but self-preservation tells one to pack the crowd on that opening night with friends and allies....

This is deep sharing but a different venue is having your work published in editorial magazines. Magazines that pay for the right to use your work. In that situation it means that you've passed the litmus test of quality and vision with the art director or photo director and you've been hired to produce because you have displayed attractive work in the past. In the editorial arena you are approved before you even show the work you intend to produce.

If the magazine has a big enough audience and the story for which your images are being used to illustrate is popular enough then you've been given the stage to reach literally millions of people. And unlike the web, if the magazine is well printed and well presented you will have to have good technique to go along with good and interesting content. In fact, your technique will need to be very good just to survive the incremental attacks on quality made throughout the production and printing stages. And when you get that first spread in a popular magazine (and get paid for it----as a pro) you will feel even better, in some ways, than an artists whose local gallery show sells every piece right off the walls because you know that the audience is much wider.

But why share in the first place? I think it's because artists share the almost universal need for some sort of feedback. They like to be told that the work worked. They want an external validation of sorts. It's one thing to have a file folder on your computer filled with images you like but it's another thing to put on that Speedo and jump into a cold pool with a crowd standing around on the deck holding up score cards or stopwatches. If you know your work will be seen (and critiqued) by others it certainly pushes you to work at the highest level at which you are capable of producing. That alone helps to elevate your game. And having to share, either in your own web gallery, a physical gallery or in a magazine, gives you a feedback loop that helps you either stay on a good track or make necessary course corrections. Or, if you are the ultimate egoist, the feedback can tell you that you are the only person with taste left in the universe.

But the bottom line is that each level of sharing brings with it a rise in self-confidence that tells you repeatedly that the worst case probably won't happen. Sharing at each tier successfully gives you the emotional strength to show again, and again. And every time you show the process thickens your emotional skin while giving you the necessary two way communication every artist craves.

But more than that, every successful sharing episode opens up opportunity for the work to expand and in its expansion for opportunities to be presented to you. If no one sees your work nothing will come of it---beyond you personal enjoyment. When you share it to a wider and wider audience you'll find people who appreciate your vision and encourage you to do more and take more chances. You find customers, patrons and collaborators. You find new markets.  Every show offers the potential of something more. On my first show of portraits at the California Hotel gallery on 7th street in Austin, Texas I scrimped and saved (just out of college and broke at the time) and I printed 60 16x20 inch images on double weight fiber paper (Ilfobrom), mounted them on matte board and adhered them to a long wall that I'd spent two days painting fire engine red. The show was fun, the attendees were kind and a few days later I had my first two assignments for Texas Monthly magazine. One assignment was to execute of photo illustration for a feature article and the other assignment was to make a public relations portrait of the original publisher, Michael Levy.

Had I not had the show I might still have gotten assignments but certainly not as quickly or as effectively. I made a sacrifice, bared myself to the audience and waited to receive either the rewards or punishment of my artistic hubris. In this case I won, in other cases I've battled to a draw and in some (very limited) cases I've failed miserably. But in each showing or sharing I've learned something valuable that I stored away and pulled out the very next time I put my work on display.

That's the way the whole thing works. The only time I lose is when I let the fear that someone will not like my work keep me from showing it at all. I've now come to the point where I'd rather have an honest and scathing review from someone whose judgement I trust over just about anything else because the learning is bigger and meatier in that sort of encounter. And the bigger and meatier the lesson the more advantage I take away.

The image above is one I've shared many times. I've heard many things about the image from people at many different levels of my industry. I've also received scathing critics from amateurs. I know how I feel about my portrait work and I react now only to critiques from known sources who truly understand the milieu of portrait photography modern work and its place in the history of our medium. If I am doing anything wrong at this stage of my life it is creating work that is too safe. But I'm working on that too. What are you working on?

Imperfections R us. Do we really make portraits by consciously following "success" formulas? How boring...

Little experiment. I'm putting up an image I like that I shot a while back. There's a lot "technically" wrong with the execution. The black tones are blocked up so much that you can't really see any separation between Lou's arm and the rest of her black sweater. Even the watchband soaks into the surrounding black. The highlight on her left cheek (to the right of the frame) is burned out. The contrast is high. Her posture is hunched over. She is not smiling a vapid, empty smile. Who in the last 20 years would pose someone with their chin resting on their hand? Why didn't I just take the watch off? Was it a mistake to leave the little shadow over on the bottom left hand of the frame? The background lighting is mottled and not smooth. The edges of the frame wouldn't be considered sharp on any planet. There's not enough separation in her hair. Who in the world thought the shadow to the right of her nose was appropriate? Etc.

And yet, it is one of my favorite portraits and, when shown as a print in my portfolio it is one of the ones clients reference as a style they'd like to pursue for their projects.

Is it a success or a failure? Would knowing which lens or camera it was taken with make any difference in your opinion? Would the original reason for us taking the image make a difference in your evaluation? Should it have been in color? Should it have been in a rectangle? Does the composition violate the "golden mean?" Have we followed or made a mockery of the rule of thirds?

Just curious to know what you think... If you have an opinion...

Camera comparisons and rational thoughts seem never to coincide. I have two cameras that both do video; are they really THAT different?

It's always strikes me as interesting to read the hyperbole that's written when new cameras are launched into the marketplace. If the camera replaces a previous model the makers and reviewers of the new camera try to "place" the performance of the two cameras in a  relative way to each other. If the new camera is less noisy than the one it replaces the writers/reviewers and advertisers stumble all over themselves to try and present the differences between the two as "enormous."

One would think that the difference in overall image quality between an Olympus EM-5 and an EM-1 was so obvious that every man off the street would be able to instantly tell the differences between the two. In fact, I would say that the two cameras are more or less equally matched at most settings and that the only time one would see any difference (and it is small) would be when using both cameras at ISO 3200 and above. But even at the extremes it's not as if one camera is noise free and smoothly sharp while the other one gives you a mess of discordant graffiti. In the real world where we work and play the difference is more like a few more speckles and a bit bigger noise profile. Seen on a typical laptop screen even an expert would be hard pressed to divine the "special magic" of one over the other.

And when we venture into the world of video work that's shot with DSLRs, or mirror-free cameras, the same relationship applies. While reviewers gush over tiny differences the reality is that most people viewing the final images flashing by on their screens won't notice, or even be able to tell, that there is a glistening drop of difference between the two.

I'm as gullible as anyone out there but on the other hand I do like to buy stuff and use it in the real world and actually test it under fire. But lately I've been wondering just how much better the "wonder cameras" are than the "detestable" slouchy cameras. For instance, if you ask a lot of people on the web about shooting 1080p video with non-dedicated video cameras (you know, the ones without balanced mic inputs, zebras, and flat profiles, etc. that were designed only to shoot video...) they'll tell you that only certain cameras have the magic joss to be able to make moving images that won't give people headaches or make them nauseated.

In the plus column are cameras like the Canon 5D mk3, the Panasonic GH4 and the Sony A7s. In the blah/crap/soft column is pretty much everything else. Not only do those first three cameras have the magic but in most cases they have bigger, beefier codecs and they are pushing more megabytes per second into the mix which logically should create images of higher quality.

I own a GH4 and I've used it for a number of video projects and I'll tell you this: It's easy to shoot, easy to set up and the files that come from it are very sharp and detailed. More so at 4K but still very sharp and detailed at 2k resolution as well.  I also recently acquired a Nikon D610 which is generally described (in regards to its video capabilities) as a "hobbled" camera. The general consensus is that the GH 4 is a "much" better video camera. The Nikon D610 is supposed to have softer files. You must exit video mode to change apertures. There is no focus peaking and certainly no zebras. The maximum information density provided by the camera to the SD card is a compressed 24 megabytes per second. Nothing compared to the 100 or even 200 megabytes per second that the GH4 is capable of providing.

So you would have to be a moron in order to prefer the Nikon D610 video over that of the GH4, right? Well, not so fast. If you only read about the cameras you can be comfortable taking the reviewer's word about the performance but if you pay the bills by doing work with your equipment then sooner or later you'll want to fire up all the cameras you have in stock and start doing some comparison tests. The wet and cold weather, and the general post holiday dormancy of clients, during the first week of the year provided the perfect opportunity for me to take a deeper look at the actual level of differences, in video performance, between four different cameras I've had sitting around. And, as in the book, "Lying with Statistics," it seems that many mountains of varying heights can be made from the substance of molehills.

I'll start with the classic comparison. It's between the GH3 and the GH4. The salivation machine that is the world wide web would have you believe (by consensus) that the GH4 is the new prince of the mirror-free camera video performance world and, amongst the Fuji's and the Olympus cameras on the marketing it's a pretty good thesis. The 1080P files from the GH4 can be very, very sharp and detailed. Much more so than the files from Fuji and Olympus. But is the new camera a "slam dunk" improvement in image quality over the previous model? Not really. Oh yes, it's got more features and more intense codecs to play with but for everyday work, shooting at the 100 mbs (all intra) versus the 72 mbs (all intra) of the GH3 there's very little discernible difference on a new 27 inch iMac screen when comparing moving images directly. Yes, you can go up to 200 mbs (all intra) on the GH4 but the chances of seeing much of a difference is minimal given that in both instances the footage is being shoehorned into basically 2000 x 1000 pixels, and all at 8 bits (maximum) of color. If you need the additional "handling" features of the GH4 or the 4K video image size the GH4 is an easy choice but when you base the differences on comparing 1080p apples to 1080p apples you're just as well off with the older model. At least when it comes to on card performance.

But the more interesting argument that is constantly made is just how bad Nikon's camera are for shooting good video. I'll agree whole heartedly about some depressing handling issues. You should be able to change apertures while shooting video. You should also be able to change sound levels during the production of the video. The Nikon D610 is hobbled in those regards. But I'm going to circle back and talk about the simplest thing: Image-to-image comparisons.

Common belief is that good video can only be produced by the Panasonic GH4 and the Canon 5D mk3. No one has really looked at the Sony DSLRs but if my experience with the a99 is representative then the codecs in those Sony consumer cameras give you a very, very soft file right out of the camera and so I have rejected them for video use ( I have not tested an a6000). Which is kinda crazy given Sony's extremely long experience in making first class, professional video gear. But soft is soft. The most recommended "hybrid" video cameras are the 5D3 ands the GH4. The assumption is that all the other players in the market suffer from some insurmountable stumbling blocks. That list of stumbling blocks includes: soft files (meaning: defocused, poorly down sampled  and lacking detail), aliasing, moire, and shadow blocking. The inference is that Pentax, Samsung, the other m4:3 cameras and, of course, Nikons all suffer from some combination of these issues. Whatever the malady in each camera line it is portrayed as being serious enough to prevent the use of these cameras in any truly professional creative video endeavor.

So, of course I dragged out the Nikon D610, the D7100 and the GH family and started rolling video. And that's when the theology of the crossover camera universe started to crumble just a bit for me.

I set the Nikon cameras at their highest quality settings: 25 mbs, 1080p @30 fps. I set the Panasonic cameras at 50 mbs (which I tend to use for most video production aimed for the web or for the desktop) 1080p @30 fps and I started playing around. Here's what I saw. At the defaults the Nikon footage looked very smooth and noise free (all cameras set to ISO 200). At the defaults the GH cameras were both too sharp and too gritty. No real issues here. I can change the presets to make the Nikon's a bit coarser and sharper and I can change the default presets on the GH cameras to be a little softer, a bit more like real life.

But when I put the work up from all the cameras on a screen after ingesting the files into ProRes 4.2.2 files in Final Cut Pro X I found one area of the Panasonic v. Nikon performance in which Nikon (either camera) was the clear winner: Noise handling. Specifically shadow noise. With the GH4, on my middle green sweatshirt, especially in the shadow areas, there was continuous noise that was clearly visible. It won't bother some people who (like me) see the noise as film grain (no big color sparkles) but there are a couple of video pros I know who cringe when they see the footage. You can kill the noise somewhat by "crushing the blacks" but the overall look of the footage changes and it may not be what you had in mind for your production. The Nikons, on the other hand, were nearly noise free, and it was a very, very obvious difference.

While my tests didn't go on for hours and hours I was quickly convinced that the Nikon footage from these two recent models didn't have any of the foibles that the common knowledge community believes are inherent parts of their designs. The Panasonics were sharper (almost too sharp) but the Nikon files were not unsharp or even on the border line. In fact, there was ample detail in the files. Much more than I ever found in footage from the Canon 5D2 I owned and filmed with for a year and a half. In fact, if I had to choose from all of these cameras, in order to do interviews of people where the skin tones were important, I would easily choose the Nikons over the other cameras.

But it appears that we video newbies have been relying on the output directly from our camera's SD and CF slots too slavishly. If you really want to see how close the camera performances actually are (and how much better most consumer video footage can look) you need to start by spending around $400 for an Atomos Ninja Star and a C-Fast memory card. This will allow you to bypass all the compression your in-camera codec is applying to your video files. And most cameras are crunching data down into small, digestible packages that don't show off their real capabilities of their modern sensors very well.

Plug any recent Nikon or Panasonic GH series camera into the Atomos and you can get clean, uncompressed, 10 bit 4.2.2 video recorded directly into a professional editing codec like ProRes HQ. At that point you'll have files that can be banged around, edited, sharpened, saturated and twisted by colorists to make really great looking final footage. And that's because there's no compression and reams and reams of data to play with and change.

I've seen the files Panasonic files from the Atomos Ninja Star right in front of my face on my own monitor and they are packed with information and color that doesn't look like it will fall apart in post processing. The noise though is even stronger than what I was seeing in the compressed footage directly from the camera ( a result of the camera taking a "hands off" approach to the uncompressed files). I have not seen the D7100 or D610 footage from my own camera but I've looked all over the web for uncompressed Nikon footage and have seen some breathtaking stuff.

But getting all the way back to my original premise. If camera "A" is operating at 96.5 percent and camera "B" is operating at 96.8 percent what is the real difference between the two? Yes, it might be a measurable difference but is it a perceptual difference? And more importantly, is it an important difference?

If the efficacy in heart attack prevention with baby aspirin is +2% and the efficacy of another drug is +3% then the difference between the two drugs could be stated as being 33% difference in efficacy. But what of the other side effects?

If the Panasonic is sharper but noisier is that better than a file with less noise but not the same level of bite? If they can both be run through a digital video recorder and both can be profiled to imitate the other what will be the compelling reason to buy or not buy between the two models? What new differentiators will come to the fore?

At a certain point the choices start to narrow down to fixed parameters that can't be changed or modified. Do you need more depth of field in order to keep more of the image in focus at the same angle of view?  Then the Panasonics with their smaller sensor geometry and very, very good lenses will be a smarter choice compared with a D610. Conversely, if you need to drop some annoying stuff out of a background and still need your frame just a bit wide you might have more luck with the Nikon.

There are other parameters that seem to be hardwired into the cameras by dint of their sensor designs. The Panasonic is more prone to shadow noise while the bigger Nikon chip (which is a hair away from the absolute state of the art for 35mm sized sensors) is almost noise proof at normal settings (up to 3200, at least).  But that doesn't make the choice any bit of a slam-dunk. The handling characteristics of the GH4 are much better for video....and the overall look and color of a file is still subjective.

But how does a cheap camera like the D7100 compare? You can pick up a new one for about $1,000 and what you get is a different array of compromises. A bit more depth of field than the D610 but a bit more noise as well. Clumsier video handling than a GH4 or a GH3 and a fixed screen on the back to boot. But if you look at it in a vacuum you'd be hard pressed to find anything that's an ultimate production killer, beyond the inability to change audio levels and apertures during recording.

Again, put the clean D7100  HDMI signal into an outboard digital audio recorder and you're at par with a Canon 5D mk3, and with a nicer dynamic range into the bargain. And that seems to be the baseline everywhere. Most current DSLR and mirror-free cameras that do video these days seem to have their differences somewhat erased or leveled out when you remove the effects of the in-body compression and the tie to a particular codec. I'm presuming that the Olympus EM-1 can be configured (or will be updated to supply) uncompressed video via its HDMI port as well and we may find that the sensor is perfectly capable of matching the GH4 and coming close to the noise performance of the Nikon D7100 as well.

In fact, just about every camera capable of outputting clean, uncompressed video via an HDMI might all be closer to each other in terms of performance at 1080p video than most would admit. And that would certainly be an eye-opener and a game changer for people who presumed that what they were getting on their in-camera cards represented the best performance capabilities of their cameras.

All of this conjecture brings me right back to my seminal point: That the differences between the cameras is much smaller, generation by generation, than we are led to believe or than we are leading ourselves to believe. When we are in the heat of work we tend to put our heads down and just get our jobs done. Sometimes it is only later when we realize what great tools we had in those past moments. For example (and to answer the question of a VSL reader) let me talk for just a minute about the differences between the full frame D610 and the D7100 APS-C camera.

I am no different from everyone else and I read too much on the web. While I was vaguely happy and somewhat satisfied with the performance of the D7100 for two different jobs I used it for exclusively, I felt compelled, because of the desire construct created by advertising and the echo chamber effect of the web, to grab a full frame, Nikon D610 when the price dropped before Christmas. I was certain that clients would see the difference in quality between the two cameras and that I would certainly see the difference. But the reality is much different. For my commercial work it is very unusual to shoot anything so wide open that DOF is measured in single digit inches. We need some "focus safety" just in case people move around after I've focused on them. That quickly ameliorates one of the key differences.

I shot with both cameras but when I reviewed jobs from the quarter before I got the D610 (reviewed at my leisure during the holidays) I found the images from the 7100 to be exquisite. Some that I shot for a local school may be the best hand held work I have ever done. And that job was done mostly with two inexpensive lenses, the 18-140mm zoom and the 85mm f1.8 (not the more expensive 85mm f1.4!). The skin tones were perfect, the sharpness high and the colors perfect. Would the images have been better from the D610? No. They would have been different-- but not better. The trade off, used the way I would have used both cameras, would have been small, incremental changes in depth of field and nothing else. And there was no fixed metric of better or worse for what is almost entirely an aesthetic choice.

That led me to compare still images I'd done with the D7100 to another job I impulsively did entirely with two D7000 cameras. (This is the model that came out before the D7100, back in 2010. It has a three year older sensor and fewer pixels). In this comparison there was no real, discernible difference in image quality at any size in which I would use the the photographs. None. But on paper the D7100 should be a highly superior camera, technically. But if every job requires a "goodness threshold" of 85% and all your cameras are operating and creating images at over 90% you would logically never see a difference in the final use of the images. If you have a bucket that only holds a gallon does it really matter if you have million gallon tank from which to fill it?

Given how close these three cameras are to each other in making photographs that will be used at 13x19 inches and smaller I am now interested in hooking up the D7000 to an external video recorder and seeing how that sensor would do when freed from the constraints of the slower processing chips of the time and the need, back then, to write data out to slower cards on a slower bus. Of course they needed a higher level of compression then but how would the direct, uncompressed output of the same sensor look today? It would be interesting to find out but I'm not sure if the camera can output clean, uncompressed video via HDMI because that modality really wasn't on people's radar at the time the camera was launched.

That line of thought brings me around to something I've discussed here before and that is the role of raw software and its evolution. Many times I've taken a raw file from an older, six megapixel Kodak DCS 760 camera and reprocessed it in newer and newer raw converters and in every instance the file was improved. Sometimes a lot and sometimes a tiny bit, but in every test there was an improvement. Early on digital camera engineers were battling the speed of the pipeline. There was a need to get the files off the sensor and onto memory in something approaching a short amount of time. One of the things that made the Kodak DCS 760 notable in its time was the ability to shoot 20 or more raw images at a frame rate of 2 fps, continuously. Until then cameras had single digit raw buffers. Files were left uncompressed because compression would have added to the processing time which was more valuable and vulnerable than writing to the memory card. Since we have these totally uncompressed raw files at hand today we're able to see that progress of physical sensors was not nearly as rapid as the development of firmware, and related software functions for image processing, in cameras.

At the end of the test the real parameters that determine whether we pass or fail have to do with how well the video camera or still camera fills the required bucket. All the extras are window dressing without a results advantage. My belief is that all sensors in top flight cameras today can do wonderful things with still photography if the engineers leave the files in as uncompressed a form as possible. Especially important since the uncompressed files give us valuable content that can be reconstructed in better, future software with hardware the performance of which would seem miraculous to current or past camera makers. With the ability to address every pixel in the future raw converters, and associated predictive algorithms of the software, should be able to pull amazing things from our old work.

In the same logic the ability to give us uncompressed video files will give us the same ability to, in the future, bring these legacy files into ever more advanced software and will allow us to create motion pictures of increasingly amazing technical capability. But even more importantly the ability to capture uncompressed files give us a way to level the playing field between a large number of cameras with a wide range of prices and performance characteristics. That allows us to pick the right camera for the art not just the right camera for the best compromise of the day.

Finally, what if it's a given that a $1500 Nikon D610 sensor is able to record files that, when taken uncompressed, are delivering at a level of 95% of the quality of today's best video cameras in the world? And what if the king of the hill, the Arriflex Alexa, is operating at 99.9% of what is technically possible today. For the majority of projects done by the majority of people interested and engaged in video, is that difference of 4.9% worth an extra $50,000??? Will we see the difference when we watch the final product on our phones? On our laptops? On our desktops?  Or, in the end will both cameras be equally good enough to fill the bucket?

And when we understand that point, as the best film makers do, we'll be able to move past the silly arguments about how much better one camera is over another and get on with the much harder work of using our imaginations to tell stories we don't know the endings to yet, and in ways that are created by the same imaginations to do things differently than ever before.

Someone will always make a better steak knife. But the steak knife is never as important as the steak.

Dammit. I forgot the advertising again. Oh well.