Concentrate On Your Subject, Not The Process.

This is for me, but you can join in.

Process is a funny thing.

After shooting stills after thirty odd years, I don’t think much about the process, it just happens. Even if I take a decent break, there is little to no awareness of getting back in the swing, but I know I get more efficient the more I do. Process happens, it just does.

Select lens, aperture, check shutter speed and ISO, compose and shoot, re-compose-shoot and so on. Instinct and practice, not thought.

Video is new.

The processes, although coming surprisingly comfortably, are still new. This means I tend to dwell on process, spend too much time thinking about a to-do list of work methods or “shapes” to try and techniques to attempt.

“Fashion Victims”, Tokyo 2017

I need to be able to “see” things organically and be able to react. At the moment there is much planning, which is fine, but the planning is over-riding my reflexes.

There is probably not a more certain way of curtailing creativity than concentrating on process. Creativity should bloom in a garden empowered by process, but the garden needs to move out of the way to allow the blooms to take shape.

If you push through and repeat over and over, eventually you get muscle memory freeing up your productivity, but that takes a while and productivity is not necessarily creativity.

I, in an effort to grow my video “chops”, will do this;

Concentrate on the subject.

Subject is all, the rest comes.

It is what it is, you just need to see it.

I concentrate on subject first with my stills, melding my personal view with my perceptions of the thing itself. I come to it with the practiced confidence of someone who has dedicated a lifetime to wanting to then practicing over and over.

Let a little obsession in, it helps.

Ironically the first step is get your processes in order. Make them invisible, effortless.

If you keep it simple, make sure you are organised and basically get your Sh#t together, then you can concentrate on the subject.

All you have to do is make sure you have all you need to get the job done, but no so much you are paralysed by choice.

Yeah simple ;).

My advice to myself is to keep the camera and lens combinations simple and fixed.

Work with what I have with light and angles, only meddling with extra stuff when I have to and “take it as is” is exhausted. Basically let the story tell itself, let the subject control the space and work as sympathetically with it as I can. Don’t push myself on it, let it show me what it has when it wants to.

“Space Invaders”, Kyoto 2019

Over eight trips to Japan, one lens, the little 17mm f1.8 Olympus has done the Lions share of the work. Plenty of lenses have been lugged over there, cameras to, but at the end of the day, I can show a strong body of work taken with the 17mm and any one of a several cameras.

Breaking it down to more practical language, make a shopping list of what makes up the subject. Who or what are they, what are they about. Challenge yourself to summorise the story in front of you as succinctly as you can.

The other advantage of this is you tend to shun short term fashions and gimmicks, becasue these are process based.

My hope is, I will naturally develope compostions and movements just like I do with stills. Organically and fluidly, I just need to stop thinking about it.

Again, Who Cares?

The AI thing is hot at the moment and I have paid into the argument, but at the end of the day, who cares?

An image is an image, whereever it comes from.

From the makers perspective relevance and income are at peril, which is up to us to work through, but from the viewers perspective, being dished up infinite “perfect” images will grow tiresome and we will disengage.

People come in all shapes and sizes, but I wonder what “perfection” AI would make in the place of this image and would it be relevant anyway?

Like many things in our world, we perfect and perfect until anything less than perfection is unacceptable, then rediscover authenticity with all its imperfections as the “new-old” thing. Just look at the younger generation’s love of film photography and all its limitations for a prime example of searching for that missing something.

Character comes from imperfections.

Character makes things special.

A bit like Dolly the sheep, fear of the sky falling in after successful cloning came with the realisation that another life is just another life. Most of us can do it with surprisingly little effort. Your clone will not be you, just look like you and possibly have even less connection than a twin would.

Is it right?

Is it part of the universes grand plan?

Does it matter?

It, like most things comes down to what we do with it. Cloning a copy of ourselves to harvest for parts, replace an individual without their consent, falsify someone’s location or compromise their role are the stuff of science fiction and what can go wrong has been covered by Hollywood and literature multitudes of times.

Like our twisting of religion for our own purposes, it is us, not the thing itself that goes wrong.

AI is much the same. If AI makes trusting the news impossible, then we will change our habits of communication or simply not trust anymore. We reap what we sow.

If fear of things not being authentic is an issue, then being there will be the only fix (except for cloning of course…..).

AI is good and bad in equal measure, but not the real enemy.

On one hand it is a powerful tool that will save people time, money and effort, fuel inspiration, make right things that refuse to happen otherwise and empower everyone to a similar level.

On the other hand it will make many people creatively lazy, cover up a lack of imagination, make entire career paths irrelevant, possibly kill our adventurous spirit and need for genuine self expression and our awareness of that.

In the neutral corner, it will shift the creative base of many fields, leave some as they are and make much of what once made us excited, simply mundane.

It is just a step in the journey and there will be more.

Authenticity, reality, human history will matter, the background may change, but the people won’t.

My job is to document real people in real places. That role may evolve, but real people and real places will hopefully still matter. Technology is moving ahead in different ways, but overall, only at the pace of the slowest element and that is increasingly us.

What is done with the images and video I make will definitely change, the role of the graphic designer possibly evaporate as it gets easier and less specialised, which I find quite ironic as my own path to full time work has constantly been stifled by not being a graphic designer, only a content creator.

No generation has been immune to change, this one seemingly at a higher speed than previously, or is the speed of change just part of that change?

Morning Walk

I did something I have not done in a while. Take a camera with me while doing just everyday life things.

My weapon of choice was the OM10 mk2 and 12-60 Lumix kit. Both solid performers and a good match.

Arriving at our normal holiday walk destination, the local dog park, I scratched a long term itch, getting this forgotten place. Normally the graffiti in the background is in shadow, but I got lucky with some reflected morning light bouncing back onto it. A quarter of an hour thing at best.

Just along a bit and the bull-rushes are at that mid decay stage.

From there, the walk takes you through a lane surrounded by swamp on either side. With a dog dragging me, slippery footing and low light, I pushed it a little, getting about half sharp, but always got a shot.

Once in the park, views of the swamp and river are plentiful. Including the fence line shows the grasses still stuck to the wire from floods a couple of years a go. Hard to imaging the river was over my head at this point (it covered the road bridge in the top shot). We have had some weather down here over the year. About five years ago, two inches of snow fell for the first time in fifty years, breaking or bending many of the Tea trees.

Backlit mist, river, trees. All you need.

This gum has also been haunting me (joke; it’s possibly a “Ghost” Gum)

Second lap, about 650m each one and the mist was hanging on.

Then my girls going back to the car. Lucy on the left is my companion, always a bit tricky early on as the GSP half of her wants to hunt. Much calmer on the way back. Meg and Daisy walk down separately to take her “edge” off (Daisy’s that is).

Maybe the start of a good habit?

Hope so.

Shoshin, Or Beginner Mind And Honesty

David Vestal in one of his columns in “Photo Techniques” magazine talked about teaching two classes, one a first year introductory and the other a third year “advanced” class.

In his words the first year class was better in most ways other than technical proficiency. The third years had already started to fall into rigid and uninspired habits and thought they had it all sorted out.

Ok, I have been doing this for thirty plus years.

Is that thirty years of the same thing re-invented or thirty years of growth?

Probably a blend of the two, I do try to grow and experiment, but I also have a strong understanding of the “rules” of photography and video……… .

Are those rules keeping me from growing?

For example, I hate “reels” and think they are an abomination created only to suit lazy content creators and reward poor phone/camera design and a lack of awareness, much the same as their habit of holding their LAV mics.

Few images look better vertical than horizontal and video should never be subjected to it. It actually fights the reality of evolution. Our eyes are side by side not stacked, it’s a fact.

As proof, when TV and cinema screens got horizontally wider, people became more comfortable looking at recorded content, feeling it was now presented in a more “natural” way.

Am I wrong?

People want them, so they must be something I guess?

I like square images also seeing them as the other true format, so where does that fit in. Are square photos actually “half reels”?

When presented with a mental block or problem that defies solving, the Japanese have a word “Shoshin”, which means “beginner” or “initial” mind. A “child mind” is also used.

This means to literally rewind to the start, the true start and think the problem through with a fresh palette. Easier said than done. Almost instantly, pre-conceptions can taint this freshness.

How do we achieve this “child mind”?

Absolute and utter honesty, a genuine desire to let go and a thirst for clear and strong growth over all pre-conceptions.

Easy……………. :).

Something that does become apparent with this clear thinking, is that reality, clarity and honesty also apply to the subject matter and reasons for creating your art in the first place.

Who are you making it for?

Important question that and I will not supply the answer.

Subject always trumps gimmick. Often when looking at the work of a creative influencer, I subconsciously categorise them into “for trend” or “for subject” classes. I don’t mean to, but it happens.

Like all things, you can often time stamp any creative endeavour by it’s “look”, but the work that transcends these artificial classifications has a depth of honesty and integrity that cannot be pidgeon-holed. People often copy the work of the first trail blazers and are damned by the act.

If you can cut through the white noise of fashion, things like technical improvements, trends and the need to own them, these worries tend to evaporate.

Once fuelled by the need to create the perfect street image, i am now repulsed by some of my favourites. This file, probably my most intimate is an intrusion, a violation even. Did I get into the person’s life and share their world with the viewer? Possibly, but it was theft, not true sharing. Clever is often a street photography corner stone, but it is not a noble boast.

I once would have labeled the gallery below as “postcard grade dross” first to “intimate connection” last, but now it might be more like “safe and gentle” to “intrusive and selfish”.

Phtotography is by definition a recording device. Rcords must be taken, but the process need not be cold and artificial.

Cameras are always getting better and always will be. Software is improving, viewing platforms also, but at the end of the day, the technically challenged, almost two hundred year old images of the American Civil War battlefield dead taken by Mathew Brady are as real and visceral as any taken since.

Ask yourself when taking an image, are you taking it of or for the subject. Are you taking or giving, stealing or sharing? Is the process two-way or one-way only?

If you can honestly say you are connecting and sharing the event with your subject, even an inanimate object by observation, then your images should show that.

If not, they better be “on trend” and better than most to stand even a small chance of staying around for a while.

Retrospectives And Origins

I found my stash of old photo magazines the other day.

I knew I had them, I even knew where, but had little interest in digging them up, their usefulness questioned in this period of my digital life, but their sense of preciousness still powerful up to three decades later.

Some of these came at a lull in my photographic journey between film and digital, the odd magazine being the only tentative connection.

Each month the wait would start over with Outdoor Photographer, Camera and Darkroom, Darkroom and Creative Camera Techniques (mouthful) later becoming Photo Techniques, Black and White Photographer from the U.K. and others. I have about 100 of them left over from probably 1000 total (and I had other hobbies). The price of some of these was $9.50au in 1995! That would be at least $30 now.

Needing something other than a phone to read at the local coffee shop (next door as it goes), I grabbed a couple randomly while cleaning up, more curious and keen to break the digital zombie habit than anything.

The images reproduced are selected at random, based on the half dozen mags on top of the pile.

The waitress gave me a quizzical look as I sat there, thirty year old mags before me and I may have raised an eyebrow when some articles made me chortle out loud. I am not being dismissive of the content, on the contrary.

She did comment “that’s nice”, but I am not sure if she was talking about the picture, the subject matter, the magazine, the fact I was reading an old magazine and not looking at a phone. Any will do I guess.

The articles were often very technically dated, but some, many even, were prescient in their thinking, almost uncannily so. Many accurate hints and theories were posed about things they did not even have terms for then. Nobody knew what a smart phone was, the web was young, slow and mostly innocent, the kilobyte ruled and many got pixels and pixies mixed up.

Sad I guess that sometimes the people with the foresight and smarts to see clearly into the future can only be appreciated in hindsight, but I guess that’s life (talk to any parent).

Some take aways;

A lot has happened in over twenty years. The ads alone tell a story of enlarger, film and silver paper dominance. Digital is there, but a mysterious curiosity, mostly viewed with reserved distance, even dismissed by some. There are advocates of the process, but they are the “tech geeks”, but not something I had any interest in at the time*.

The camera adds tended to promise something next level as the slow creep of technology started to enable shooters.

Rarely seen in Outddor Photographer that mostly dealt with colour slide film users, the other mags are held up by a pillar or all things darkroom. I had three of the Meopta units, one 35mm colour mostly used as a mono diffuser, a 35mm mono condenser (sharper) and a medium format diffuser (more forgiving) with Schneider or Nikon lenses. A friend and “wise old head” liked these because they were solid Czech designs and once he trued them up they would not shift. All it brings back for me is a dark, hot, smelly darkroom and the eternal enemy dust, with the occasional success.

Tripods were a mandatory tool and big was the only type, camera bags were rudimentary with limited in choice (but always sufficient), Nikon and Canon seemed unassailable, photography was hard, but always seemed worth the effort.

As you learned it just got better and easier, without a constant changing of the rules.

The one area that seems to be more accepted in digital was Photoshop re-touching and colour Printing, both mysterious art forms in their own right in wet process photography, so digital actually seemed easier. Digital printing is ironically easily accepted with a film shooters eye, as the limited quality and added control and creativity fits well into a film printers thinking.

An ad for a Minolta scanner, I seem to remember Nikon and Minolta were the brands to get. People could and did retouch prints back then, but it came under the heading of painting.

Neg scanning was seen by many as still the better digital path, but that won’t last long. One of Kodak’s many miss-steps at this time was helping develop the digital sensor at odds with their own film and paper business. Who knew……. .

One mag, Nov/Dec 2000 Photo Techniques had a “Top 25 Cameras” article. I won’t go into all of them, but a large format film camera tops the list, a Leica M6 is next, then on through the full gamut of film cameras from medium format Mamiyas, Minolta Maxxum 9 which is the highest rated “new tech” 35mm cam, the Canon EOS 1n (not D) comes in at 10, more film cams of all formats, mostly larger formats, some Contax, more Leica, a Pentax and Bronica, some Olympus one classic, one modern, the little Nikon 28Ti that I owned.

Film cameras still dominated thanks to a stubborn U.S. market and possibly the threat of the “Millennium Bug” sewing mistrust of all things computer.

Next we hit a separate sub-division for digital, which is tackled more as systems and concepts than specific cameras.

The Kodak 500 and 600 series “upgraded” Nikon and Canon cams to digital ecosphere, but the Nikon D1 and Coolpix 990, Minolta Dimage RD300 and Olympus C-3030 all make an appearance. It is sobering to think that massive amounts of money, time and energy were put into systems using tens of kilobytes of grunt, not megabytes, gigabytes or terabytes.

With often quaintly naive results, especially when compared to film work of the time it all seemed the realm of the newspaper or alternative artist. To me it was like looking at crayon drawings made by a mechanical hand and having to go oooh-aaah to suit the mood.

I was surprised how many larger format cameras made the list (over half) and that Minolta (later Sony) and Olympus had a decent presence. We wanted quality even at the cost of convenience and 35mm “full frame” was still seen as the baby of formats.

I am also amused by the two time lines I see.

All of the cameras considered old even at the time of printing like many of the Large format cameras, the Pentax LX, Nikon FM2, Olympus OM4Ti, models from Contax, Hasselblad etc seem no older to me now than then. Still valid, complete in their own way, perfectly capable of producing 100% of their promise as long as batteries (if needed) and film can be found.

Some spectacular glass and classic cameras. Still make me excited, even though I have had and relinquished some of these over the years. My wish list at the time would have been a pair of S2’s and a few primes. About the price of a new car.

It is the “front line” tech that looks dated. The Minolta Maxxum high tech wonders, the early Nikon and Canon AF cams, Olympus “bridge” cameras, anything digital. These plastic wunderkind are now ancient relics, the older cameras above are timeless classics that seem immune to times ravages. A friend uses a Nikon D1 as a door stop, in comic reference to it’s $14,000au price tag when bought.He likes to show young shooters his most expensive memory card, a 512mb CF card that cost close to $1k.

He now uses an FM2 made before it and still going strong.

I guess it is like comparing a 1960’s Mustang to a 1990’s Toyota.

The images and printing were sumptuous at the time in Camera and Darkroom, Darkroom and Creative Camera Techniques and Photo Techniques, bridging the gap between fine art and a premium technical manual. Outdoor Photographer, another favourite (I kept their annual competition issues) was less so, but still satisfying.

Film was at its height, digital looked crude, clumsy, expensive, complicated, soulless and dull, putting itself into a different, less artistic class all together. A courageous few could see the future, or thought they could anyway.

I was surprised by how dated the images look technically, much of it down to printing limits, but also feel a sense of sadness that the “quality” of the time and our appreciation of it, may be something we have lost. They did the best they could and it fell short of master work prints in a gallery, but it got you there, it transported you. Imagination is a wonderful thing, it was once the internet for most creatives.

Some images are jaw dropping on a visual level, but “soft and dreamy” on a technical one**.

What price perfection?

This is the type of image that would excite, but now seen as cute, maybe even flawed and hardly worth the effort.

The reality is, very few images in the magazines would pass the “perfection” tests we use these days, which is as much as anything the difference between print and screen viewing. Screens, even though they are ironically often small and lower resolution than we could use, do promote a feeling of back-lit clarity well beyond hard copy print. Better? No just more on trend at the moment.

Interviews with master printers like Bob Korn anda show case of their images were a favourite as they show cased the ultimate “end of the line” quality. Well printed and stored, these most likely still exist in all their true glory. The magazine could not reproduce the highlights of this image, but in the real print, they would be there.

Grain was a thing and it was beautiful.

The articles are mostly as philosophically relevant now as then, you just have to shift the technical terms. Some articles are the progenitor of our current thinking like the very first article about, with the western definition of, “Bokeh” (Photo Techniques May/June 1997), the dry wit of David Vestal, the eternal wisdom of old masters, many now gone, photographic rules that still hold true and above all life and all it’s pathways.

Should you shoot mono or colour, single frame or motor driven, large format or small, auto focus or manual? Is an image yours or does it belong to the subject, the time and place, or everyone? Harmless subjects, gentle even.

Sound wisdom, just flipped on its head now.

The problems of the past it seems are the same as now, just perceptions and the combatants change.

The images on the whole seem dated and it is easy to just dismiss them, but on further viewing two things come forward.

They were immeasurably harder to take, so even simple looking images need to be respected for what they were. A fleeting grab of a dancer in poor light with a mystical quality was not the result of saturation, but skill, preparedness, an acceptance of a high waste and cost ratio and often an intuition for what may be, not what can be shot from every angle and the results confirmed immediately.

The long exposure grab of a jetty at night was likely the result of dozens of attempts in cold and possibly dangerous conditions.

It was a time of specialists and obsessives.

Masterworks made with much love and effort, but possibly copied by an iPhone and printed on a home printer now.

Close focus, sharpness vs grain, low light action, lens design, shutter action, long exposure, dynamic range, film limits, ongoing cost***, manual focus vs early auto focus, print processes, film type/brand/S-curve/processing all contributed to the craft, but also it’s limitations. People overcame these limitations with ingenuity, perseverance and a little luck.

Sometimes people even tried to use 35mm for “fine art” level work. The nerve.

This guy shot the White House interior as an architectural photographer with 35mm Kodachrome in 1961! The images above were later work, but basically little had changed.

The second thing is, they were the first.

These images are often either the first of their type by process or by subject matter. We were still exploring, peoples being discovered, places seen for the first time and many of the names I later purchased books of, I first became aware of here.

Most of my larger knowledge came to me through these pages. Always learning and evolving, I could have done worse as a first launchpad for my future, the technical stuff is inert, inflexible, rigid, but the philosophy I am now starting to understand better.

Lots of lessons there.

Respect.

I feel this exercise is different to someone doing the same in the 1990’s looking back at the printed matter of the 1960’s because not just technology has changed. I clearly remember at the start my photographic ambitions being much in line with those before me, the gear just a little newer (or not), but we all wanted the same things and we all had much the same tools.

I wanted to be a world travelling National Geographic photographer like Sam Abell or a landscape master like Michael Kenna or Ansel Adams, much like the generations before me.

Images like these make the world a richer place by existing. The magazines helped give them thirty more years of life in my world and in a very small way, this post is giving some 30 more.

Some are just down right haunting and I doubt could or would be taken like this now.

Since the 2000’s not only has photography changed technically at an ever faster rate, but society and how we see images has changed even more extremely if that is possible. Doing what the last generation did is pointless, even though the retro movement is keeping the old alive longer.

I struggle to define anything photographic these days, because it is all changing so fast. Like fashion, a decades worth of evolution is now a half season flash of retro driven inspiration. Definition it seems is lusted after in modern content creation, just not defining the process itself.

What is gone is gone, which is the burden of those who appreciated it and are lucky enough to be able to remember. What is to come is exciting, but always tempered with that realisation and the future is never immune from the influences of the past.

I consider myself lucky to have experienced photography at its zenith and continue to.

*

I was going to throw these out or gift them, but I think there is still some validity to occasionally perusing them, just as a reminder of things gone that were once highly appreciated and maybe should still be kept in my minds “image bank” to draw from.

*My first digital camera was a third hand EOS 10D and my first computer was bought solely to run Lightroom 2 I think, so I am dating my digital start to about 2009-ish. I had barely even sent an email at that point and I think I am only now approaching the half way point between my film and digital careers. It seems an eternity ago.

**It seems you need to shoot video to want that still.

***It used to be a long term and considered process buying gear, then ongoing running costs, now the industry has successfully trained us to update gear regularly, because actually doing it is effectively free.

AI Is A Selfish Beast

Got your attention?

I have been reading some of my favourite old Camera and Darkroom magazines lately found while cleaning out my garage. These date from the early 1990’s to mid 2000’s and were at the time the height of technical and artistic discourse in all things photographic.

There are amusing bits, like the old computer tech talking in kilobytes m=not gigabytes and some of the chrystal ball assumptions are way off, but some are surprisingly prescient.

The meat of the matter though are the articles and interviews featuring masters current at the time or passed. Many of these I did not bother with at the time unless the images grabbed me. A shallow skimmer, I tended to devour repeatedly some articles and shun others that were not “my style”. These were often European masters, often older works and sometimes confronting.

As I said, shallow.

Revisiting some of these has stimulated my thought processes, fuelled some strong ideas and opinions.

As an example, one interview of French photographer Willy Ronis revealed to me the sort of wisdom I like to spout, but his is from someone better qualified.

The first was the ownership of an image. In his words “You have to have the right”. In his view the relative machine gun-like image taking of a motor driven film camera takes away that right (I do wonder what he and others would think of modern digital with 60fps and effectively unlimited files). Your image, your timing, your perceptions, your custodianship, or you should walk away.

He never posed an image, only recognised one and all of his images were taken with instinct not overt control.

The second gave me a realiseation that is obvious to all, but one that time has dulled I guess.

When asked about colour and black and white he said he has gone back to mono because “I can master the process”. “In black and white if you make a little technical mistake you can correct it. In colour, without the use of computers it is impossible”*.

When I started in this ever changing space, you shot colour for accuracy to eye, black and white for artistry or to scratch the hobby itch. There were plenty of exceptions, but for most, nearly all practitioners, black and white provided near instant shoot > process > print to your preference any day, any time at your own pace. I remember many times testing gear and shooting a roll, processing, assessing, going again and again in the same day.

Like a RAW image, there were many steps of control you could exercise, some capable of salvaging the worst mistakes, all requiring some artistic commitment and there was a feeling of a “secret sauce” just around the corner.

Colour was more shoot > hand it over to another to process, taking an hour to a fortnight (slides) to get back > get them to print it, often to their eye unless you had a good custom printer or for slides, find a way of viewing it and very occasionally get an expensive print done. This was all about control up front, the. relinquishing control from then on.

Colour was a matter of accuracy when taking and controlled processes from then on. Slide films were the gold standard but slower to process and the end product was problematic, negative film was more flexible and forgiving, but considered amateurish. I guess colour is a little like the JPEG of today.

The point.

Controlling an image, especially a colour image is very much a computer thing. Ironically it is the once more flexible mono process that is now paying the price. Black and white is becoming the poor step child of the current regime with the natural limitations and feel of film making way for “film like” offerings, that are to be honest, often not film like.

With delusions of retaining a good film memory I process towards that, but I live also with the reality that this is not much like film at all. It does not have to be I guess, but film provided a good compass.

AI adds that last element which is to ditch the taking bit all together**.

AI is all about what the end user wants, with little if any regard for subject connection, even real subject existence. AI is the ultimate selfish beast, feeding the user seemingly what they want as they want it. It can make something, but will there be any creative point? At what point does the process become remote, basically a creative lie?

Looking at it all from the point of view of Ronis and his contemporaries, what is the point of doing it if you do not take ownership of all the process?

The commercial world will embrace the speed and ease of it all, hobbyists also, but for authenticity and to give the image some relevance, a reason for being, artistic creations will need to be more than just ideas created by a computer programme. If we cannot attribute emotional connections that go both ways, to our work then why do it at all?

These older photographers remind me of one truth that is timeless.

Anytime you involve another person in an image you make, it is a two-way transaction. This is how it should be, it makes it real and valid and human. AI makes no such connection, it dismisses any bargain or agreement, it just takes in a one way flow. Even if the human who’s image is used was real, any link to the end use of their image is cursory at best.

This is a real person in a real place attending a real event. Is any other version if this shot acceptable?

You could argue nobody actually exists at the other end to bargain with, but if a human being is in the image, who or what are they meant to represent if not a real person?

Are we educating a generation that will detach from true creativity, even deny any sort of pay-in, or connection and replace these with ever increasing quick-hit sensationalism, the effect of which will blunt down to nothing sooner rather than later?

I hope not.

*This is a 1994 C&D magazine, before serious digital cameras, so photoshop was the destination of a scanned negative process and colour did have fixes, but they were far from easy or cheap.

**AI has to draw from a source, so all the elements of the manufactured images were taken at some point to some level, but not the end user.

Full Frame, A Distraction, Waste Of Money Or A Good Move?

My full frame journey is mostly finished and looking back, I still have the unsettled feeling it was all based on mistakenly perceived real world needs, pandered a little to emotional wants and was justified by some lucky purchases. I have put a formidable two camera 7 lens cinema and still rig together for $8k new. Not bad, but well spent?

It started a couple of years ago when I rightly identified a hole in my video game. I had limited grading options and time and control limits using a pair of not-upgraded G9 Mk1’s. These are capable of everything I have actually needed up to now in quality (a non-LOG profile in 1080p/422/10bit), but the thirty minute limit was problematic.

Fixes were many, but due to the G9 being a hybrid camera recently empowered by a firmware upgrade to a limited video work horse, it was hard to spend upward of a $1000au on an off-board Video Assist or Ninja V unit with confidence and although that would upgrade both G9’s it could not run both at once.

A $2k budget set as a base, what else was there?

Cameras came down to several Panasonics and the M43 Black Magic. The BMPCC went in favour of a Panasonic compatible landscape and it felt aged. The GH5 II was the head choice, a decent filler that fixed all my needs at under $2k, the GH6 was a little dear, mainly because of it’s card needs was the heart choice, but the S5 Mk1 and kit lens at just over $2k won the day as the gut choice. Superior low light performance, although not called out as an actual need and a feeling of M43 being ignored pushed it over the top.

I bought a cheap 50mm and felt I had a decent video kit for interviews, the odd long performance recording and the possibility of going into a full LOG work flow.

So far, no harm, no foul, except the GH5 Mk2, possibly with the 10-25 f1.7 still nagged at about the same price.

The G9II dropped, surprising everyone with its capabilities. It removed all the limits of the original G9, upped the AF, stabiliser and general handling of the GH6 and added twin SD slots with SSD out recording (with Pro-Res to boot) with seemingly little lost. “Best in class” and “best in any class” statements were flying around and so far, nothing has been proven wishful hyperbole.

The GH5II and a pair of G9 Mk1’s would have been the idea backup for this camera.

At the same time that I picked up the G9 II, I got a decent tax return, which allowed me to shop for bargains over the holiday period. They were many, but they were all L-Mount. The super cheap pair of 7 Artisan Spectrum lenses which are consistently excellent (the Vision lenses for M43 are a mixed bag) and the IRIX 150mm macro was a one-off, so L-Mount or nothing.

Makes my cinematographer senses vibrate, not that I get much chance with it.

A 35, 50 and 150 macro cinema lens kit for under $2k was a genuine bargain, seemed meant to be.

For some reason I felt the need to add two more Lumix lenses with a couple of decently priced primes. It felt like doubling up, it was doubling up, tripling if you count my M43 options.

Even now I am not sure what was the better option, super cheap true cinema lenses, some of which were cheaper than any decent lenses I have bought or a very harmonious set of Lumix lenses, perfectly capable of doing the job (I do not have the 24, but would have, all with follow focus rings and they are suitably “cinematic looking” and consistent across the range).

I also added a Sirui 24 Night Walker and 7Artisan Vision 12mm for M43 to round out the set where L-Mount had holes and give the G9 something cinematic to do. The 7 Art felt forced, the Sirui is excellent, only adding seeds of doubt to the move away from m43.

Things were getting silly now.

A set of lenses split over two formats? I could have easily made a more logical cinema kit (7 Art 12 and 35 Vision-the good ones of that set, 24 and 55 Sirui to match or an IRIX 21mm) or even a full anamorphic kit (24, 35 and 50 Sirui) in M43 for less. Sure the L-Mount lenses were cheaper, but not the overall kit, nor the logic of it.

I had the best everyday video option in the G9II, could have also bought both 1.7 Panasonic zooms, even empowered the lot with a BMVA 12G.

I now had one problem I wanted to fix, which was too many full frame lenses for the single S5 to service and another one I did not want to see, the missed opportunity of the more logical M43 path. The S5 is a great video camera and I rig it as such. This makes using it as a stills camera problematic, which also makes having a whole second set of stills lenses problematic.

The solution as I saw it was a second S5 cheap and one came up at $1700au with kit lens. This had issues. The S5 II did have a few more video options, but these were mostly out of my envelope of need and its AF and stabilising performance is behind the G9 II still.

Fate intervened and a long dragged out backorder overlapped with a S5 II sale, so I switched anyway. This has put things closer to right, making my Lumix kit a capable stills kit and giving me (ironically) a G9 II lite in the S5 II.

A neat kit and probably plenty for stills and video. My big issue is the size of the lenses. Taking two excludes another M43 camera and zoom.

But this does more, does most of it more confidently (except in true darkness) and fits in a very small bag.

Where could I have been?

At this point I could have been well settled with a the GH5 II, G9 II, two G9’s one probably upgraded to V-LOGL, either a set of cinema or anamorphic cinema lenses and possibly the 10-25 Panasonic, the “problem solver”.

What would I be missing?

The very low light capability of the S5’s is limited a blessing, assuming I want lots of depth of field (the normal M43 advantage is off-set by the S5’s dual ISO settings*), or if I am shooting so dark, that the super shallow depth of a wide open full frame lens is actually needed (rare but possible). The quality, especially at my base of 1080/422/10 bit in Flat or Standard profile is excellent, but so is the G9 II’s, even the G9 I’s and all of these cameras upgrade with off-board recorders equally.

I could have gone without, I can use both.

No harm, no foul.

*In depth of field math ISO 800 at f1.7 in M43 basically matches ISO 3200 at f2.8 in full frame, but the S5’s second base ISO of 4000 gives it the edge with video. I am yet to see much value with stills as M43 is enough.

A Challenge

Ok, an exercise we all need to do every now and then is to see what the gear we have, can actually do*.

• How hard is it to exceed the maximum output of your sensor and processing?

• How fast and erratic a subject can you hit more often than not?

• How high an ISO can your camera and processing handle up to standard you consider acceptble?

• How long can you use/carry/hold your camera and basic kit until you just don’t want to any more?

• Can you manually focus/expose/white balance etc successfully and easily?

• What are your limits in storage, battery power, heat dissipation etc. What are the things that stress you most.

Basically do you need that new camera you have been lusting after?

I have a massive hide here, buying three new cams this last year (S5, S5II, G9II), but I will try to justify them with the above criteria.

From a video perspective, I was sgort of several things I needed.

• The ability to record for longer than half an hour. This is on three levels; storage, internal limits, power.

• Higher bit rates and All-i recording for better overall quality of moving or busy subjects.

• Better high ISO quality, but that was a stretch.

• Access to better quality > V-Log

• Access to better quality > RAW output.

• Workable video AF for the few times I would use it.

• Better manual controls (Wave form)

Now to be honest some or all of these were actually not too far off, but it was complicated and full of not too confidence filling pit falls.

I could upgrade either or both of my G9 Mk1 cameras for $100 each, gaining wave forms and VLog-L as well as coming across plenty of users who have Ninja V or BM 12G recorders attached (RAW recording, no limits, better storage, more power), but none of these were guaranteed and I would be spending a bit on chancy items.

The screen would also add accuracy to my manual focussing and fast cinema glass (allowing use of T1.05 to 1.2 lenses and fixing the ISO thing). I would also have saved enough to get the 10-25 f1.7 lens from Panasonic that is known to be decently capable at video AF (as are the later Olympus cameras).

I am pretty confident that if I do go for either of these, now that I have plenty of safe options, I would find everything works just fine. Possibly a pair of G9 Mk1’s upgraded with 5” BMVA 12G’s would have been more than I need, but oh well.

I will admit that the allure of better high ISO performance for stills was real, but in the field, it has proven to be more or less pointless.

Even with an older m43 camera, ISO 1600 has lately become one of my base ISO settings, ISO 3200 not far behind. Both are used with little fear of image degradation and I get a little thrill out of producing more than decent ISO 12,800 files. EM1 mk2, 40-150 f2.8, ISO 1600 1/125th.

Olympus 45mm f2.2 ISO 3200, 1/125th. Not sure why not 1.8, but still excellent quality.

ISO 1600 f1.7 Leica 15mm EM1 Mk2. This files was raised from a black background and it is clean and sharp.

*My own test results are;

• How hard is it to exceed the output of your sensor and processing?

  I have had cropped images used on bill boards and busses, huge screens and large fine art prints all from M43 files and nobody has ever complained (or noticed), I even get compliments from full frame users on the quality I produce on average, proving that it is not the camera, but the whole creation stream. If needed I have several over 80mp options, several hand held, but so far, nobody has wanted them.

• How fast and erratic a subject can you hit more often than not?

  The EM1x’s are as fast as I am, meaning if I do not miss, they do not miss. Any more speed would be wasted without telepathic capabilities. Even the older EM1 Mk2’s are more than enough and I have not even tried the G9II yet! I see a definite increase in hit rate with more practice, but the cameras capabilities still constantly surprise me. I have learned to give anything a go always with hope of some success. Sometime early last year, I stopped shooting sport in bursts, finding it rarely added more choices (I had it or I didn’t) and cut back massively on time and storage wastage. I think my timing actually got better.

This happened out of the corner of my eye as I was switching cameras (shoot one end with the 40-150, the other with the 12-40). I lifted framed and hit as one movement with little idea what I might get. The EM1x is faster than I am.

• How high an ISO can your camera and processing handle up to standard you consider acceptable?

  With the latest Capture 1 and ON1 No Noise, high ISO noise is not an issue now for “getting the image”, some more testing is needed though to see if I like all that they do when stretched. This is for M43 of course, my dual ISO full frame kit may surprise me further.

• How long can you use/carry/hold your camera and basic kit until you just don’t want to any more?

  M43 gives me plenty of options to go pro, but light, semi pro and lighter or decent enough for most used and super light. My full frame kit is limited and the Lumix lenses light also, so overall, still happy. I often pull 6-8 hour days at school sports events and can pull up tired, but try carrying a full frame 600 f4, 80-300 f3.8, 150 f1.8, 16-35 f2.8 and two bodies around all day and you will appreciate the M43 difference.

It does not always take pro level gear to get the shot.

• Can you manually focus/expose/white balance etc successfully and easily?

  For stills, this is fine as needed. For video I have several levels of this from rear to large screens, all good enough at this level. For video it is important to control white balance, often focus and exposure manually and accurately, which I can.

• What are your limits in storage, battery power, heat dissipation etc. What are the things that stress you most?

  In the S5’s and G9II I have constant power in from power banks and I have several of those now. My many Zoom devices were an issue here also, which I have fixed with power banks.

  With power sorted, storage came next. The G9II has SSD out, which unfortunately has to share a USB-C port with power in, so it is a choice between longer power or more storage, but at worst I have 1 hr or more of battery or a 128gb SD card limit (about 2hrs of 1080/10 bit/422). If I get a dummy battery, I can have both, so 1TB of memory and AC power. Cages and rails add the needed connection options.

  Heat is rarely an issue here thanks to our temperate climate, I have plenty of spare cords and cables and duplicate everything (sound, storage, power).

Getting It Right. Depth Of Field And Apertures.

This is a technical post, but hopefully it will help someone out there.

Been a bit grumpy lately.

Grumpy may be the wrong term, maybe dismayed, concerned, sad even.

Getting annoyed at people teaching people the wrong things or the right things the wrong way should not be a big issue (or really a thing at all), but it seems so common at the moment, I feel I should put my money where my mouth is.

I am talking about photo and video terminology of course, my bugbear.

More specifically depth of field because it is (1) the most commonly abused, (2) the one that does the most harm when it is miss-used, because (3) it is important to get right technically and creatively and (4) the hardest one to get your head around anyway, so why screw it up early?

This image has depth of field rules at work, but how would you describe them?

Speed is speed which makes shutter speeds easy to learn and ISO to noise ratios also make sense, but apertures and depth of field are the tricky one.

It is far too easy to confuse others by getting this wrong, or right even, after someone else got it wrong before you.

Depth of field (DoF) is a term used to describe the amount of an image that is sharply in focus in front of and behind the point of best focus (where you focussed). By the rules that govern it, more depth is rendered behind the focus point regardless of other elements, because as you get further away from anything the depth of field increases as the relative distance increases.

Unless you are photographing a flat surface like a brick wall, depth of field will always play a part in an image. An image only needs a definable front, middle and back for depth of field to play a part.

The focus point for this image was about at the broken-up bit of the top of the rock. This guaranteed that depth of field in the foreground was covered, the back would take care of itself. Even if your depth of field does not keep everything in focus, it is far more natural to have it taper off to soft blur in the background. This image is “landscape” sharp to about the second rock, then depth of field drops off.

It follows that if you get closer to your focus point DoF decreases to the point where macro photographers (tiny insect and flower chasers etc) have depth of field front and centre of their thinking, all the time.

Apertures, magnification, subject distance, subject to background distance, lens rendering and capture format size all play a role to some extent, so learning only one term or control does not conquer it, it is just a start.

Like a lot of things in photography, things seem to work counter intuitively, but that is just the way it is.

Some terminology.

Apertures are also called “F” stops in photography and “T” stops in cinema. These are similar in use, but cinema T-stops are more accurate to the actual light transmission of the lens rather than a theoretical mathematical value.

Apertures are usually measured in full “stops” of f1.4, 1.8, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 32, 64, each letting in half as much light as the one to their left or twice as much as the one to their right. If you want to see this in action, look down the lens barrel when taking an image at a wide and small aperture. This is easiest with a “fast” prime lens (see below).

There are also half, third and quarter values, but generally the full values are used to describe lens maximums and the valid steps.

A lens has a “speed” value which usually determines it size, weight and cost. This is the maximum aperture or maximum light gathering value at the widest aperture settings. It is called a speed value because it determines the fastest shutter speed and/or ISO the photographer can use.

A fast lens lets in more light > allows a faster shutter to freeze motion, avoid camera shake and/or > allows a lower ISO setting for better image quality.

Cheaper zoom lenses often have slow and variable maximum apertures, especially on their longer end when the barrel extends (like f3.5 to 5.6). Better zooms and fixed focal length lenses (prime lenses) usually have faster and more consistent ones like f2.8 or wider. Apertures wider than f2.8 are usually reserved for prime or non-zoom lenses.

Super fast lenses are always prime lenses with apertures as fast as f1.2 or even f0.95, which means they are actually sometimes wider at those apertures than their lens barrel is long, but these are rare, expensive and sometimes poor quality at that setting.

My fastest lens is a Sirui cinema lens that has a T1.2 (f1.1) maximum aperture. It is a decent performer at that setting.

A wide aperture;

• Is a smaller aperture number*. It is a small number because it is a measure of “calibres” or how many times the aperture hole can be divided into the physical lens barrel length. F2.8 means 2.8 times etc.

• Focus on the main element of the image like an eye.

• This renders shallow depth of field (not “a depth of field”, just depth of field**), which means the sharp plane of best focus drops away quickly to softer, out of focus areas, often called Bokeh, but that is another story.

• You open a lens up to it’s wider apertures, or “open it up”.

• Using the lens at its widest aperture means it is set “wide open”, regardless of what maximum aperture that is. My slowest lens has a maximum aperture of f6.7 at 300mm, which is still “wide open” for that lens.

• Using a lens at its widest aperture may mean it is not at its optical best. The common issue with using wide aperture settings used to be colour fringing, where the different colours of light changed speed as they passed through glass and failed to agree on the focus point at the same time with very shallow depth of field, but this is mostly fixed now with highly corrected glass. This is known as Chromatic Aberration or purple fringing. If in doubt, lenses tend to get near their best one to three apertures in from wide open.

A small aperture;

• Is a large number*, because again the small hole divides more times into the lens length. An aperture of F22 for example is a tiny opening dividing 22 times into the lens length.

• You close a lens down to smaller apertures, or “stop it down”.

• Using a lens at it’s smaller aperture would mean “fully stopping it down”.

• Smaller apertures render more depth of field than wider ones. Very small apertures render the deepest depth of field possible.

• At very small apertures, usually f16 to 64, but also depending on the camera format used, diffraction* of the light making the image on the aperture edges can reduce quality, but this is subtle and often less of a problem than being out of focus or too little depth of field.

*An easy way to remember this counter intuitive scale is to pretend that aperture vales are measurements of depth. Pretend that f22 means 22 metres as opposed to f2.8 being less than 3m and it makes some sense.

There are other factors at work also.

Lens magnification.

Wider lenses expand perspective and make depth of field look, while longer lenses compress things together so they seem to make depth of field look shallower.

This is another reason why landscape photographers are drawn to wide lenses, because using long lenses often makes it difficult to get everything sharp, while portraitists love longer lenses, because they want to hero their subject and blur out the rest.

Format or sensor size.

The above image was taken with a 35mm lens on a full frame camera. The two below are (left) a true 50mm on the same camera and (right) the above image cropped to match (like it would be on an APS-C format camera).

The same aperture was used (f5.6) and focus was made manually for consistency. The left hand image has less depth of field (look at the mat on the right and the chair behind) because a 50mm lens will magnify more than a 35mm, even though the crop of the right hand image seems to be the same otherwise. Both effects have their uses, neither is “better”.

Basically, the smaller the format the greater the effective depth of field all else being the same.

This is why people often accuse smaller format cameras of lacking the ability to render relatively shallow depth of field and why Go-Pro’s, phones and small compacts need special effect modes to achieve blurry background portraits because they have very short focal length lenses on very small sensors. It is also why they are very capable closeup or landscape cameras, showing the benefits of smaller sensors and lenses.

Large format cameras often use lens tilting to add dept of field by shifting the angle of the plane of focus and smaller sensor cameras are more susceptible to diffraction because of the relatively short lenses needed (remember these are a ratio, not a fixed size). In full frame the ideal is about f8 to f11, but in M43 it drops to about f5.6.

This is very important to understand as the actual characteristics of any lens is meaningless without knowing the film format or sensor size of the camera it is mounted on and the rules that govern its use.

A 40mm for example is a super wide lens on a large format camera, a wide angle on a medium format, standard-wide on a full frame or 35mm camera, a short telephoto on an APS-C or Super-35 format, a true portrait lens on M43 format or a long telephoto on a small format compact, so just saying “I use a 40mm” without qualification is no real help.

Except……..

The 40mm above will render the same depth of field at the same aperture on any format at the same lens to subject distance and the same focussing point.

The rules are the same, the lenses just need to be used differently on different formats. Personally I am drawn to the versatility and flexibility of M43 depth of field/magnification rendering, something I am reminded of when I use the less forgiving full frame format.

This image was taken with a 75mm lens at f1.8 on a M43 camera. Depth of field is basically the length of the phone, the subject about ten feet away. The background is the other side of the street, so relatively distant. Any less depth and the image could loose its meaning. This is the same depth of field as a full frame 75mm, but at double the distance.

The tiny little 45mm f1.8 has reach (90mm equivalent on full frame) and speed at f1.8, while still providing shallow enough depth to show a clearly cut out the main subject and retain enough depth for some context. A 90mm full frame lens would more dramatically drop the background out, but to what purpose? From a practical point of view, a clients point of view, there is such a thing as depth of field that is too shallow for their needs.

The advantage of smaller formats, this image was taken on a 9mm lens near wide open (f2.8) and manually focussed at about one foot. The riders were only a few inches away. The bleachers in the background are almost sharp, but so is the foreground, which is harder to achieve! This is the same depth of field as a full frame 9mm, but acting as a less extreme full frame 18mm.

Confused yet?

Ok, it gets worse.

Focus points and Distance to subject and subject to background.

Depth of field also decreases as you get closer to the subject or increases as you get further away. With your own eyes, focus on a mountain in the distance and everything seems equally sharp. Focus on the hand in front of your face and it is very hard to get anything else sharp.

It is always best to focus forward in a scene, like the front row of a group of people rather than to the back, because as distance increases so does depth of field so there is more depth of field behind the focus point than in front.

This gets more exaggerated as distances increase or decrease. Looking into the night sky, all the stars may look similarly sharp, but they may be billions of miles apart. The relevant factor here is the nearest one is a long, long way away, so they are all relatively distant. Conversely, focus on the eye of an insect or tip of a stamen and nothing much else will be in focus, no matter what aperture you use.

Above, a lucky grab of a little bit of a 1cm long fly at T3 (f2.8) on a long full frame macro lens (150mm), shot lengthways. Artistically pleasant, this is a waste of pixels to a scientist.

Another macro image deliberately taken to push shallow depth and focus accuracy to it’s limits.

This image was taken with a relatively long lens (300mm on a M43 camera) at f4. Because the subject was quite close and the shot was taken low, the background is quite blurred, but even the shoulder is a little soft. The aperture of f4 would normally be considered a semi-wide aperture, but the long lens and close subject have exaggerated it’s effect.

The final factor is subject distance to their background. Standing someone up against a wall and hoping to blur out the background is often a waste of effort. A good guide is to place a subject at least as close to you as they are from their background if you want some portrait blur.

This image was taken with the same lens and aperture, but because all the boats are relatively close to each other and far from me, they look similarly in focus at first glance. There is focus plane separation (shallow depth of field), but it is not exaggerated making the front crew blend with the ones behind. The official in the background is probably 50 meters behind the front boat, but still closer to it than I am.

This image was shot wide open at f1.8 with a 25mm on a M43 camera. The lens is relatively wide compared to a full frame 50mm, the sensor increasing its magnification to match, but all the other elements (nearness of the subject’s nose, relative to her eyes) are enough for obvious shallow depth of field. If all else was the same with the full frame 50mm, the very front of the nose would be sharp but not much else.

Ok, lets look at all of these elements together.

If you wanted the very shallowest depth of field possible you would;

• Use the widest aperture you have (smallest number = biggest aperture hole).

• Use the longest lens you can (probably on the largest sensor available for practicality).

• Place the subject closer to you and further away from its background.

• Shoot lengthways down the subject, exaggerating the near-far effect.

A long lens, wide aperture, relatively close shooting distance and relatively greater distance to the background have all the elements needed to “cut out” the subject. Notice that even the relatively close foreground flower is soft, but the one further away behind (bottom right) is less so.

If on the other hand you want the most or deepest depth of field you can achieve;

• Use a small aperture (big number), but balance that with the limits of the format. Smaller format short lenses suffer from diffraction sooner than larger ones.

• Use a wider lens.

• Find out the hyper-local distance of the lens and camera you are using (there are apps available). Remember to focus forward of the middle of your desired depth of field, which the hyper-focus calculation will determine.

• Compose the image with all the elements at a similar distance and make that distance further away. The main trick is to avoid near-far challenges

• If you can, change the focal plane angle by tilting the angle of view (camera), effectively turning front-to-back into top-to-bottom.

I forget the specifics, but I know this was a M43 camera, so a smaller sensor, a 12-60 kit lens, probably at about 14-17mm and f5.6. Focus was likely on the greyish bush or fence post in the middle distance or maybe a little further back. In full frame this would need a 35mm at f11 for a similar result as the longer lens (with same angle of view) would reduce real depth of field.

*Diffraction is always present, but as the aperture becomes smaller, the edges tend to dominate the image area, so its effect increases. Been a bit grumpy lately.

**Calling using a fast lens aperture with shallow depth “a depth of field” is like calling a bright bulb “a brightness”.

Torture Test

I have recently upgrades Capture 1 Pro, Da Vinci and ON1 No Noise to the latest versions.

C1 and NoNoise today. I had to go out of my way to create a crappy enough space to create this file.

The file. Pen F at ISO 12,800, slightly under exposed with an ancient F series Olympus 25mm half frame at f8. The camera is a good test as it is not my best low light performer, but still gets use. The lens was on it and I know it is sharp enough.

Bit grim.

Capture 1 on its own did ok. This is amazing compared to wrestling with Lightroom a few years ago (probably the base file is actually).

ON1 2022. I used to send a semi processed TIFF over, but for fairness, I went for a DNG. Good as expected, especially in sharpness.

ON1 2024. A little fake looking but clean and sharp. I could add some saturation etc, but looking at it is slightly duller than the original, where the other two are a little more saturated. Keep in mind also, this is a bad file and cropped heavily. I get the feeling the new version will “make it so” regardless of the original, making up lost detail (using AI?), if needed.

I will hang on to ON1 2022 for a while until I have seen more examples, but if I am dealing with those files I need, but have mightily mucked up, 2024 is the way to go. Also, there is much that can be changed in programme, the base settings likely set to impress.

Just a Moment, A Better Anamorphic Test

I am really annoyed about this anamorphic ear worm at the moment (huh, Moment….you will get this in a mo….ment).

I am mostly interested in anamorphic for the extreme wide view without wide angle looks, i.e. wide angle with natural perspective. I can do it to some extent by shooting in 4k and letterbox cropping, but it is not the same (or is it basically*).

Ideally I would like an anamorphic lens without tell tale effects, just wide….and tall.

The streak thing is to be honest vexing me more because I cannot work out if I get excited by it because I like and sometimes it adds that something that makes a dull clip look good and that because we have come to accept the look or just because I know it means an anamorphic lens was used?

I first responded to it on the Enterprise bridge scenes in the newer Trek movies, positively as well, but a little knowledge goes a long way. Since then I have had mixed feelings.

Streaks are done sorta with filters that cost half as much as a lens.

My lame test the other day only proved one thing, that if you do not do it with controlled light, it is just rubbish. I have deleted that flawed and lazy post.

Oh yuck. What a mess of distracting and contrast robbing flare streaks.

This time more light control, better point sources, more filters and the Sirui 24mm Nightwalker at a wide aperture (T1.4).

A better test, using two small torches, one a stronger than the other, both cold white in light.

Same no name filter (previously miss-identified as a Neewer), camera and lens, better light control. The streaks are strong, the other flares quite well behaved. The tapering off of the flares is nice. The light point is odd.

The '“dirty” version with a Neewer 1/8 mist, about a 1/4 compared to the K&F I have. Kinda like this one more, kinda.

The Moment blue (there, told you) cine streak. Natural colour seems better, the streak more elegant, the effect less distracting. Cool purplish blue and subtle enough that I would use this filter for more. I feel the right balance for me is an occasional response to a strong point light, nothing more.

The gold cine streak. Interesting how the cold light has created a mixed effect. When I tried this with a warm light, it was true gold, but the blue above basically failed to fire.

The gold, but “dirty” with the milder 1/8 K&F mist filter. I am going to guess that consistent flare blob is the lens. The mist filters take away the hardness of the light blob and make the streaks smoother.

The advantage of filters is they can also be angled, or even rotated while filming. It is even possible to mount both the gold and blue and make a miss-matched cross effect. Flare blob moved.

I really want this anamorphic thing to go away. the Sirui 24 f2.8 would be the one (MFT mount), but only for wide coverage on a “normal” looking lens and it is well behaved. Do I need it or more to the point, would my clients know the difference?

There is a small thread of local adds being made with anamorphic lenses, likely full frame Saturn Sirui lenses, but I will keep an eye on that. Habits form, expectations lift, even if people sometimes do not know why.

*Anamorphic lenses stretch the area covered by a lens length ways so you end up, for example, with a 50mm in height but 35 in width if using a 1.33 squeeze. The important thing is the perspective and magnification of the 50mm is kept, the 35mm coverage is a bonus. Cropping a 35mm down to 2 or 2.3:1 is not the same, but does it really matter?

S5II Success.

So I did what you should never do and took an untried camera oiut to a job.

I was covered to an extent shooting an EM1.2, EM10.2 and the S5II, but still, I had not even tested to see if C1 would open the RAW files!

Setting the camera to area focus (large central box, easily expanded), with human detaction activated and the 20-60 on, I got about a 90% hit rate capturing early learning children on an outdoor orientation day. This is basically a free for all of a dozen different activities spread around the school parkland, the kids allowed to wander and experiment as they choose.

It is fast, frantic and fantastic.

See-shoot is how I work in these situations and this combination felt natural, definitely more sure footed than the G9.1 I would usually use. I bought the S5II for stills and video, knowing it would do both a little better than the S5 Mk1, but not sure by how much. Looks good.

I shoot most of these images with a longer lens, then move in close and wide. In the past the 17, 15 or 8-18 have been my chosen lenses for this, but the S5II and 20-60 were excellent.

Eat Your Fill

What is the difference between an older, experienced content creator and a younger fresher eye?

More importantly, what is the difference in their work and processes?

We all draw from a visual diary, a bank or memory library of images that float around in our heads. This is called “inspiration” by some of us, “plagiarism” by others.

This image, taken on a trip to Melbourne just after COVID, came on a day where the light, possibly the freedom, but definately the easy load of a single camera and 17mm lens, put me in a zone. As I shot, as we all do, images pre-formed in my mind, images that are a now interpretation of a past influence, translated and made my own.

The colours of this Harry Gruyaert shot and the one below with the detachment of both might have contributed, maybe others, maybe none, but either way, these are the seminal images that helped define my eye.

Nobody can work in a void, because I guess we need some idea of what we are shooting and why, so there is always an element of others work in our own. We did not invent cameras, photography or light, it is all borrowed.

The difference I guess is the age and breadth of that library, both good and bad. I feel very lucky that my journey started in the high tide mark of film, through the emergence of digital to now. I learned lessons lost on younger generations, had to overcome barriers that simply do not exist now, but conversely I avoided some of the truly limiting realities that faced earlier shooters.

Even shots taken for record keeping will have echoes of past successes or favourites.

Smelly and lonely darkrooms were a tough thing to love for me, lots of time and money spent getting nowhere it seemed, but lessons learned did translate well enough and it is funny, but years later, a lifetime ago it seems, I can still remember developer ratios, the feel of tank agitation, the smell of fixer and the routine of loading a spool.

Sending away a roll of slide film was closer to Nirvana, until it returned and hard reality of failure and success in various levels hit home, but we kept trying.

Probably the best thing I ever did was collect a ridiculous amount of books and magazines, all adding fuel to the fire. Inspiration comes in two forms it seems. It adds the fuel the fire of imagination and the memory of the fire keeps you warm and inspired when you are on your own, making your own art.

An old favourite and reminder of gentler times, this William Eggleston image haunts me (although this version pails in comparison to the print I have.

As does this by Sam Abell. Funny how recurring themes emerge in retrospect.

The process is still going with modern shooters like James Popsys, Kate Kirkwood, Jan Meissner, Sam Abell and revisited favourites (early American colourists are my passion*) reminding me that there is still much to learn.

Where ever your inspiration comes from, your work is yours, because even is you wanted to directly copy others, it is nearly impossible visually and pointless philosophically.

Devour all you can. Eat your fill.

*Saul Leiter, Ernst Haas, William Eggleston and others of their ilk.

Some More Software Examples

The EM5 Mk1 cameras were for me a special case in my photographic life.

Never before have I actually worn cameras out from new, but with the EM5’s the original OMD’s, I am close to running three into the ground.

The oldest two are 2012 original versions. Seems an age ago and they have earned their rest, but I still use them as alternates or for personal projects.

Would I trust them for important jobs or big trips? Probably not and last trip to Japan I rejected nostalgic thoughts and used two newer EM10 Mk2’s also well loved, but considerably newer.

I did however start a project when I came home using the older Japan trips and discovered to my delight that these older images lost nothing to my newer ones, in fact I was reminded just how good the files were and heartened by their response to newer processing.

The EM5 sensor had a special look in strong light. Almost film-like it held highlights gently.

Looking at the one camera I had retired (there are two, but the other is a well used one I bought off a friend that has died completely), I found it is still capable of producing files, but only at shutter speeds consistently below 1/1000th. Above that it often gives me black frames, which was the first sign of the other one dying.

There are other issues like occassional pink banding and refusal to fire up, but undaunted and under no pressure I grabbed a 45 at f1.8 set ISO to 800 and fired away.

Matching the files with ON1 NoNoise (2022), produced some interesting results.

I must admit, I still prefer the older non-phase detect sensors.

Below left is the ON1 processed crop, the straight C1 on the right.

As I wrote before, software, AI or not, is the future, so there is hope for your older images.

Another Frustrating Video, More Push Back

I just watched a really fun video on using miniatures in movie making.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj65jTCq1Rs

All was going swimmingly until the presenter, a nice enough guy and well presented failed to use the right terminology when describing perspective and depth of field.

He said there were three things that effect depth of field (did not use the term, falling back on “how much is in focus” and similar).

1. The length of lens you use.

2. The distance to the subject.

These are part of the story, but magnification, perspective and distance to subject are intertwined. Other related elements were not explained like the distance of the subject to its background and the lenses used in the example were a long tele and a standard, but were called a “long” and “wide” lens. The example used a long lens for the model and wide lens for the real car, so apples and oranges.

3. How much light you let in.

Wrong, wrong, wrong! Aperture selection does affect focus depth (depth of field), but its relationship to light transmission is coincidental, not at all directly connected. Less light does not automatically mean more depth of field, it is just a probable by-product. Aperture is also connected to format, which changes magnification and perspective (see above).

This was shot with a 9mm lens on a M43 camera at about f4. It has shallow depth of field due to its closeness to the subject (about 2”), but deeper depth than a longer lens because of stretched perspective and less magnification (super wide lens).

Looking at the examples shown in the video, I got where he was going thanks mostly to being able to fill in the blanks, but I was worried again that misleading terminology used by well watched presenters (12m followers), is breaking the reality of, well..… reality.

Little things, like the extreme nature of the examples used railroad the viewer into thinking there are no other options.

For example in most of the Wes Anderson examples, they actually use longer lenses, but they are anamorphic formats, so they are also wide looking**.

Compression, a small aperture (which is a big number) with resulting deep depth of field and careful focus, slightly forward of middle, caught this image of 80 odd feet of skate park jumps and walls, all with a long lens.

Perspective and depth of field cover all of the above, but at no point were these two terms used correctly or in context. Ok, that is fine and you can get the job done without, but it is a little like talking car performance without using terms like revs, torque or acceleration and replacing them with words like “vroom-vroom” and “grunt”.

It seemed to indicate a lack of technical understanding on the presenters part although they did seem to get the ideas behind their misleading statements, just not the math. Ironically, if they did use the correct terms, the whole thing would have been quicker and cleaner.

This is not just a terminology thing like “Bokeh”, it is science, with rules.

The science is in terms like shallow depth, wide aperture, compression, close focus, thin plane of focus. Bokeh is a subjective term for the “prettiness” of the blurring.

The big problem is of course, that even if the terminology does change over time to suit the ever flexible English language, it needs to be consistent otherwise the real terminology is lost and replaced by a chaos of substitutes.

Try going into a math class and convincing the lecturer you are using the “new” term for logarithmic algorithms “lalgies” and see how far you get.

One thing that is a common thread is the gap in technical awareness I am seeing between emerging stills shooters and videographers and this is something I have eluded to before.

Stills shooters are following in the steps of an unbroken line of immediate predecessors. Many working professionals are in their forties and fifties, but are staying up with current trends, blending seamlessly in with the younger crew, even adapting to video as they go.

I cannot think of many main stream videographers, apart from the cinema masters, who are over forty. Videographers have a thinner thread to follow so tend to be younger and largely self taught, so are parroting similar experts. They are staying within their known sphere of interest and that has its own problems.

I have several times watched “best lens for X” videos and had no luck determining what format the expert reviewer is referencing. One video, so bad I did not even bother bookmarking it, switched between formats freely without any qualification which made the whole video effectively pointless.

Using another car analogy, it is like talking about engine cylinders as a measure of power without qualifying what size the engine is or what it is used for. A twelve cylinder model plane engine will not have the grunt of a Harley two stroke, but it may go faster.

So what if cinematographer “A” uses a 40mm most of the time. If you do not tell us what format of camera they use*, you do not know if that is effectively a super wide (IMax), standard wide (Full Frame), standard long (Super-35) or short telephoto (M43) and that is before anamorphic formats (various) come into play.

The reality is most older cinematographers used Super-35 format (35mm film, but turned sideways), most modern content creators use M43, APS-C or Full Frame and it makes a difference.

Go in to any camera store and the chances are the senior photographic or video/photo sales expert will be older, male or female and probably not shooting Sony.

Ask to talk to the video expert and in all likelihood you will meet a sub-thirty male Sony shooter. Not generalising here, just going with what I know to be true based on personal experience and what I see online over and over.

There are exceptions, but they run against the flow.

*Super 35 it turned out, so a long standard, but it took some tracking down.

**In anamorphic formats, the lens determines the magnification of the height of the image, like any other lens, but the width is determined by the “squeeze” factor which may be anything from 25% to 300% wider. For example a 50mm lens on a 1.33x squeeze full frame format is a 50mm from bottom to top, but covers an area similar to a 35mm lens (33% more) in width or from side to side.

And The Winner Is............ Software.

Everything in the image making industry is improving all the time and it seems lately ever faster.

Arguments about formats, brands and tech abound, but at the end of the day, my most exciting upgrades and we are talking about someone who has the ultimate M43 and two recent generations of full frame hybrids, is in software.

Capture 1’s upgrade has lifted my processing just a bit. A bit may not seem like much, but the reality is, my cameras have been taking the images I need for years, lenses are getting more reliable and computers faster and more stable, but nothing makes a real difference like better processing software.

Want better noise control, logic says get a newer camera or a bigger sensor, but what about older files that have already been taken?

ON1 No Noise 2022 is my current ride, but the programme has gone ahead twice since and it seems is about two stops better. Camera noise on the other hand has probably gained one stop over the last generation.

The programme I use before ON1, Capture 1, is also getting cleaner at higher ISO settings each iteration, so better in, better out.

A few years ago I would have felt a little ill if shooting required living in high ISO land for a whole day, especially in the mixed light soup the local public baths throw at me.

The reality is, no matter what camera you use, the speed that software is moving ahead and the ease with which it can be accessed ($100 to $300 compared to $3-8000+ for a top end camera), means that quality issues are easily dealt with now or in the near future as well as from the past.

Stretching the friendship by wielding a 600mm equivalent hand held at close quarters, as well as being forced to use ISO 3200 to 6400 with a small sensor camera for hand held movement would have been pointless a short while ago and sure the lens is super sharp and the sensor punches well above its size, but software made the rendered fingerprint on the goggle probably hold up in court.

This was a snapshot in the purest sense even showing some movement blur, but good enough for most uses.

The point is I guess, all other factors aside, software is where it is at.

AI is the currently over used term, but what ever you call it, the power of processing is going to make all other considerations and limitations melt away.

The Jumpin' JackJumpers.

Our state team has only been in the national league for three years.

Year one we made the finals, but as new teams often do, they failed to complete being new to every aspect of the comp. Nobody was dissapointed, because they had far exceeded all expectations.

This time they have made the finals again, and this time, there is a belief that may take them all the way.

I covered three games in my time with the paper, all a blast and easy on the difficulty scale. Good light, good action and high skills make for easy shots.

Playing a best of five, they lost the first, won the second (away), then by way of a miraculous last second, and from the half way line, three pointer managed to win the third.

Home now, so the fairytale is coming close to fruition.

This is a tricky time for the state.

Our cricket team also made the national finals, but lost to a strong opponent on their home ground. We have won here regularly and fielded more than a few national Cricket captains. We are comfortable in that space.

We are in the middle of an election crisis, with a hung parliament looming, mainly in response to the government pushing for a 1 billion dollar AFL (Australian football) stadium that will not only take money from much needed and more important areas such as health and public services, but may indeed make them even worse.

The lesson here is the state’s spirit can win on the national stage, but the AFL seems to need something more, something we cannot afford and have appended that to the team.

To make things worse (for the AFL), after the state team launch last week, which I attended as a photographer, has resulted in one quarter of the state signing up as members, which may be hard to ignore if the stadium does not go ahead and the team is pulled!

Update, Update

I just got around to updating Capture 1 and DaVinci. C1 mainly to use the G9II in RAW and DV because, well why not?

I have this odd dynamic at the moment. I updated one laptop to Sonoma and now it refuses to play nice with Dropbox (keeps loosing internet with three bars showing). My other is still to be updated to Sonoma, but has the new C1 and DaVinci. Until I am sure they are settled, I will not update laptop 2 with these, nor laptop 1 to Sonoma.

DaVinci has not been used yet, but I have been trying out C1 and it is interesting.

First up, it is a bit twitchy, but that will settle.

Overall I feel the sliders are more even now, by which I mean, the De-haze slider which I loved compared to the Contrast slider, which I treated with some reservation, now seem to be more balanced and most are seemingly more linear.

The colour shifts I regularly noticed when pushing some (with Oly and Pana processing), seem to be reduced.

Good days ahead.

The main culprit was the De-haze slider that tended to enhance colour as well as other elements, often into blue or magenta, which seems to now be more neutral.

The noise floor may be slightly better from the get-go.

Shot at ISO 1600 in low light. This is really now my ISO 400 equivalent of a few years ago.

Closeup reveals a slight focus miss, but little noise and good sharpness. No noise reduction or sharpening applied to this EM1x file.

The layers and masks are more involved, the subject/background layers reminicent of the Lightroom system I used fleetingly at the paper, but I am expecting that like most things in C1, this will be more refined, less aggressive and generally smarter.

The layers mask chose the front wheel and leg as the subject.

Shadows lifted, highlights gently recovered from pure white, but no colour shift. My usual process here would be to lift exposure, recover highlights, then add a little Dehaze if needed. Colour would then be dealt with if it shifted. Two less steps in this file.

Early days, but so far I do like the subtle changes and the potential of the bigger ones.

Ed. exporting seems slower, the brush tool is more sure footed, the sharpening is better and the programme does stall occasionally, but I still like the results. I will upgrade ON1 No Noise to the new “AI” version soon, but already feel like I have taken a half step up.

Nikon And Red, Super Power Or Too Late

Nikon + Red

Industry powerhouse or missed opportunity?

Red created quite a wave when it first broke on to the scene, even apparently holding up the making of Avatar until the first camera was available. The company history is as bizarre as it is interesting.

Cemented in the cinema world as a player, but probably not the player the company felt they deserved, it is still respected. Arri and Sony Venice cameras are more commonly used for movie making and with the shift to “lesser” cameras, there is a feeling Red never reached its potential and never will, possibly becoming a smaller player in a shrinking segment of the market.

The fact RED owns a patent that controls RAW compression in higher end video formats means they would always wield some power in this space, but that has made them few friends. Nikon among others have challenged this in court, I guess wanting quite reasonably a similar playing field to fully open stills RAW compression, so buying the company means I guess, they win.

Filler image, because I have nothing else relevant.

It will be interesting to see if they choose to share as they argued, should happen, or pick up the reins of this selfish horse and ride on. We will get either a big or a small change either way.

Nikon, until recently was doing a really good job of taking their once unassailed dominance of the stills market and slowly let other brands eat their lunch. Slow to adapt to auto focus, they lost ground to Canon when they stubbornly stuck to their legacy mechanical mount.

This led to a similar languidness with digital and in video, their lack of prior credentials in this space along with being one of the slowest to transition to workable mirrorless put them behind well……. basically everyone (oh except Pentax/Ricoh). Even Olympus, with an even less video history at least got the mirrorless AF and stabiliser thing sorted.

Nikon acquiring Red means that the mild under achiever in video gets a bigger name in photography to add a large, if maybe aging and video apathetic supporter base. Nikon on the other hand, after finally showing much promise with the Z9, may now have the video chops to mix it with the other brands, who mostly have their own video depth already*. This is the crucial bit, as “prosumer” cameras become more desirable than unaffordable options.

A sub 10k video-centric Zx super camera to take on the A9 mk3 or pending SH1 mk2 and the only one with true RAW internal?

Market changing, if it happens.

The trick now will be converting a generation of Sony loyal young creators back to the fold, which maybe the Red label will help them do. Maybe not.

Personally, I feel it may be the jolt Panasonic, Fuji, Canon and even Sony need to expand their consumer level offerings, if Nikon and Red work hard in this growing space. I hope the usual Nikon lethargy is not going to achieve the opposite and take all the wind out of this otherwise innovative companies sails.

Canon needs to grant the key to the pro-grade room cheaper (ditch the “cripple hammer”), Fuji needs to build on their recent wins, Sony need to stop feature swapping and just put all the good in their newer cameras, Panasonic needs to release their new models and push forward and Sony need to do a little of all of these.

Can Nikon and Red magic-up something that will beat them all?

Might be an interesting next few years.

*Fuji, Panasonic, Sony and Canon all have proven pro-end video divisions, Nikon, Olympus and Pentax, not so much.

LUTs, Creative Conformity And Going Rogue

Ok, a bit over the top, but this is a serious topic, something that I think needs a bit of a roll-back for the good of the generation coming through.

First, what is a LUT?

A LUT is a saved “Look Up Table” of processed settings saved as a pre-set and applied to video footage to balance low contrast and often de-saturated Log or Flat footage to better suit the needs of the creator. Add a cool name and they can seem like a gateway to something otherwise out of reach, which is the world of the professional colourist.

Using the standard profiles already in the camera are technically a LUT also, just more limiting ones.

In stills parlance, a LUT is simply a pre-set, something that has never really been a thing (otherwise known as a jpeg), because every still image is basically its own precious little snow-flake.

If you shoot in locked-down all-manual mode, which requires a controlled space and identical end requirements, then a pre-set could be applied to a batch (called, you guessed it, batch processing), but it is likely each file will still need it’s own little tweak to lift it from the others. Even jpegs are only the base-line colour and contrast settings, responding to changing situations as they go.

An ideal location to shoot in manual and batch process, but only as a start. Every image needed its own issues corrected, depending on subject angle, lighting and cropping.

This is because we look at stills as individual stills. Each has its own presence, none are identical unless they actually are. Video is similar in a clip equals frame sense, but needs more consistency across clips to some extent, because unlike stills, which even if presented in a series do not have to match, video is interconnected, so applying a LUT is often a decent starting place. It is not however, the end point.

The lesson starting videographers can take from stills shooters is important here.

The temptation is to apply a LUT, usually one made by someone else, to your footage as a good base line, often even the only grade applied, but it can be a lazy trap. The LUT is not the whole story, it is not the one answer and it is not necessarily your answer.

Personally I rarely see one that is close to my own interpretation of my work. If I want to look “on trend” or faux cinematic, then yeah, there are plenty. but I guess the stills photographer in me needs to start from scratch each project, to feel the growth of a project as I go and let what I see tell me what it wants.

Anything else, just seems like I give creative input to a process, and not a completely creative one.

So why and how hard do I make things for my self?

Well it turns out, there are several tools we can use that make the whole LUT thing go away painlessly.

The first (in Da Vinci) is the ability to apply the same setting to your clip as the previous one or two. This is effectively a short term memory LUT. Ideal for two camera interviews, this means you get your first two angles right, then just jump back one or two every time you want to grade the next clip.

The second is to create your own LUT, which is to say, you get your look right, then save it as a short or long term recall. The advantage here of course is, you can make a custom LUT for any project, modify it, return to it and go again, evolve it, contrast with it, but you are always working with your LUT, not one that have been piped in from another source.

These are what I will call mini or situational LUTs. You could even make one just for interviews with a certain camera, lens and lighting format.

The benefits, apart from above are the control you exert on your work and what you will learn. It is not easy, nor automatically programmed to grow evenly for all, but that is life. In a nut-shell, if it is worth doing, it is worth doing from scratch and learning the mechanics of the process.

This is apparently “correct” according to Capture 1. For my taste, I like it a little brighter and warmer, but who is to say, other than you for your work, what is right.

I am a stills shooter of over thirty years, so colour science, colour reactions and “grading” in many forms are something I am familiar with, but I will be the first to admit, I fail as often as any one else, but the more you practice……… .

Something I have noticed and I feel it is part of the process forming perceptions is the huge difference between the indie film maker and more regular Hollywood looks.

Stark, perfect reality with rich, vibrant colour is available to us, but for many, taking all this perfection and deliberately softening it is the desired outcome. Ironically, it is often film that looks cleaner than digital indie video.

Neither path is ascendant, both are relevant, only time will tell where they end up in our historical memory.

Why not go for crisp, rich and contrasty?

Like a lot of people who lived through the actual retro period and remembering we were always chasing better, cleaner and stronger results, I lean towards the richer, crisper end of rendering, something I rarely find a LUT for.

So, to sum up, LUT’s are sometimes handy, often efficient, but before you get depressed and feel the whole thing is getting too hard, maybe pulling back and looking at the problem in its simplest form holds the answer.

What do you want and how do you get there.

For me, Flat profile on my newer cameras with a mild grade “by eye” is plenty.