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.

Shining A Light

Lots of video interviews are on the horizon.

Speed with portability, need to be balanced with quality and consistency.

To this end, I have been looking at my far too many light mods for Bowens mount, brollies and others.

I would go first to umbrellas for stills, but for video, light efficiency, direction and quality of the light with full control are more important, so soft boxes with grids are cleaner. Bowens mounts, which are the attachment point for my 5 COB lights also make sense.

The question is, are they always the best option.

For a single person interview, a large to medium soft box creates a good base often from above camera/eye height and either in front or behind depending on the look you want. You can also use a smaller one, but getting closer is the key or using some bounce or fill.

Add a “hair” or fill light (depending on where you put the key) and some background interest and you are set for this scenario.

Big and small, these are both easy to use.

Two people?

Double it basically, with the added benefit of each key light providing the edge light for the other person, assuming you are placing the key behind the subject not in front. Placing it behind has several advantages. It looks more cinematic shooting into the shadow side (more shadow, more drama), but also it cleans up the real estate in front of the subject allowing for movements and camera placement.

Another small advantage of this is the C-cam shot, light down the barrel with the subject silhouetted, which can be a strong option.

A group?

Ok, it gets harder here and probably out of my use case, but what if one light could do all of these, or add that special extra element to the above?

Lanterns have been on my radar for a while. They started innocently enough with a few popping up in top end ranges as an almost invitation only, special cinematographer secret, then the cheap rip-offs arrived in a flood and with them more awareness, but these were a little over priced and under made, so I stayed curious, but distant.

For a stills shooter also, lanterns are not a first cab off the mod ranks either.

The cinematic world has always been using this type of lighting in with all the other types it uses, but like a lot of things cinematic, it was a mystery to most of the rest of us.

Lanterns give a soft 180 degree light with the ability to control the spread using a provided curtain. Unlike soft boxes the spread allows for a natural, equally spread overhead glow, basically a replacement for a real or “practical” light, something you can drop right in over multiple subjects covering all their faces.

You could light up a card table of people evenly (or not), add fill into an existing soft box setup or push it in from the side and with even wider spread than the soft box. The curtain allows for more control, but basically it is wide and soft.

You can even use it to shift the perceived “location” of a real overhead light and change its intensity.

The lantern is the easiest way of adding soft, wide light with a relatively small footprint. It is the umbrella of the video world.

After re-viewing my options recently, the Smallrig RA-L65 appealed most. For a little more than the cheaper offerings, I will get the excellent construction values of the RA-D55 and matching light tone.

My very portable interview kit will likely consist of;

2x tripod mounted S5’s with either the matched Lumix-S or 7 Artisan 35 and 50mm lenses (they can be used in a 35/50, 50/50 or 35/75 combination with S35 format or simply shot in 4k and cropped) and the Lumix has the 85mm option.

The G9II with 24mm Sirui or Sigma 30mm are the optional third angle, mainly because this is a better movement cam and if used full throttle, it quickly outstrips the S5’s. This could and would likely also be the “floating” camera, mixing slider, static and hand held movements etc. It also has a genuine cinema wide angle lens option.

I used the G9/Sirui and S5/35mm combo recently and the Sirui was cooler than than the 7A lens, but graded easily to match.

I can mix all of these up with longer or wider lenses, but the base set is a good start.

All of this and more will fit in the Domke 217 roller.

Lighting is a mix of options and levels.

Travelling super light and without power it would be the Amaran 60d and the lantern or a small soft box and my RB9 as a hair light. I have the option of 1 or 2 Neewer LED panels, but probably not or only the 480. All this fits into the 5.11 bag.

Mods are the two Smallrigs (RA-D55 and RA-L65) or the Apurture Lightdome Se. I also carry some sheers and cloth flags in case, with clips, stands etc, but most of this is in the car in case.

If I have power, I will use my 4 wall powered COB and 2 LED lights usually with soft boxes, the lantern or sheers. This fits in a small suitcase. None of these are killer lights, but I have over 400w overall.

I would use the same mods as above and a couple of bigger ones.

The background is as found or LED augmented using a couple of Neewer short tubes.

Ed. It came today. The tube is long, about twice the length of the smaller soft box and setup it is also much bigger, but setting it up could not have been easier. You push down from the top until the internal bracket catches on the dual hooks at the top. Done. The skirt velcros on and can be rolled up on one or all of the three sides if needed. It even makes setting up the soft box look tedious.

Yes, But Can They Work As A Team?

With a small clutch of cinema lenses at hand I guess the question to be asked is “do they, or can they match each other in colour, look and style?”.

It should be a no-brainer with two as they are a “matching” set of 7 Artisan Spectrum lenses, but unfortunately, the one thing they do not match in, is colour.

The third, the IRIX, theoretically comes from a superior stable of semi-pro cinema lenses, so the question is, does the IRIX stand out, do the 7Art pair stand tall and together or is the whole thing a colour graders nightmare?

Below mostly as they were shot*, which I realised was not going to work for Bokeh etc, but colour, its all about colour, oh, and feel.

Warm, but not to an extreme level. Not ugly or even unattractive, just warm. This tends to fill in depth and is usually more attractive to most viewers, but can “muddy” up. I used the same settings for all three lenses starting with the 35mm and thanks to its warmth, the exposure for the other two looked just a hair hotter. The more pleasing Bokeh may be due to slightly stronger chromatic aberration.

Cool to magenta. To me, this is the natural look of this sensor, so the 35mm above on a warmer one like the GH6 or S5II would look. Positively “retro-organic”.

The difference between the two above is actually less than mixing a G9II with GH6 or S5 with S5II footage, so an easy adjustment away. A S5II and the cooler 50mm would probably match the S5 with the 35 almost perfectly (as would an S5 mk1 with a little WB tweak).

Neutral to cool, very close to the 50mm. Slightly contrastier, but no sharper and thanks to the extreme nature of the lens, it is usually up against it in other ways. Wide open at T3 it is sharp enough, but it hardly matters as very little is actually in focus (I had to bracket my shots to get the front half of the doll sharp as the peaking was indicating all good, but was actually getting the side and back.

T3 at minimum focus (these heads are about 1cm across). There are razor blades in there somewhere, but a lot of cotton wool to.

As shot, things are actually looking ok. The IRIX may render slightly differently, but because it is such a different lens, used for very different shots, I doubt minor differences in rendering will matter.

The 35mm basically left alone, because on this cool-ish sensor it seems pretty right. I love the background rendering of this lens, very natural.

The 50mm warmed slightly to match, looking just a hair more contrasty, or maybe it is Bokeh “snap”.

They pretty much match with a very slight bit of work and could even better with consistent practices. Bokeh seems to be in the same school of smooth-blobby, the 50 and 150 very close. As is sometimes the case, the two sharper and contrastier lenses seem to have busier Bokeh, or it might be a perspective/magnification thing.

Note; none of these are perfectly colour accurate to the scene. The book panel is clean white, the un-edited 35mm lens file coming closest in this light.

As far as other elements go, rendering, Bokeh etc, I think that used as they would be, with changing perspective, different angles etc, they are close enough to be acceptable partners.

If I had to pick a favourite overall, it would be tough, but interestingly, the IRIX is not automatically the big boss. I probably like the 50mm more for stills, the 35 for video and the IRIX for its powerful tricks and its ability to bridge the gap between my Lumix-S and 7Art lenses.

My initial fear was the 150 would stand out too much being the dearer lens (the IRIX series are roughly 250% dearer than the Spectrums), but actually the 35 is the outlier with warmer colour and smoother Bokeh.

It seems that by grabbing the Christmas sale bargains, I have accumulated a decently compatible set of cinema lenses with no standouts, no odd-balls and no real grading headaches. Not bad for about $1600au, or less than the cost of the IRIX alone at full price.

I still have to compare the 12mm 7Artisans Vision and Sirui 24 from my M43 kit, but I have time.

Ed. I did recently use the G9/Sirui and S5/35mm as a pair and they were quite different. The Sirui was cooler and contrastier.

IRIX at T5.6. Fixing that white balance issue made processing this file very natural.

*f2.8, RAW, S5 - the last two lenses had their exposure reduced by about a half of a stop in the top shots, but zeroed again for the adjusted ones.

A Couple Of Neglected Lenses And A Surprise Uncovered

The Sigma 30mm f1.4 is a great tool. I probably need to use it more.

Comparing M43 math to full frame, a 30mm f1.4 should theoretically provide shallower depth of field than the full frame 35 f1.8 Panasonic. The camera used is the EM10 Mk2.

The Bokeh is very nice and it is sharp wide open, even off centre. There is a “big-ness” to the files.

In cinema format it looks suitably…..cinematic. This is probably my main M43 video interview lens, or maybe the Sirui. Nice to have options.

A very busy scene, handled as well as any lens I have outside of my cinema glass. The colour out of the Sigma is a little cinematic, meaning a little muted and slightly flat. Handy for a lens used in strong and contrary light and for video.

The IRIX 150 and S5 produce interesting files. I struggled with this file, but more about that below.

The IRIX 150 macro is powerful, hard to use, probably impractical. It is a specialist lens.

This brings us to another issue and the fix.

The S5 overall seems very different to my M43 cameras. Shots taken the other day in bright sunlight with the 35mm Lumix were very blue compared to M43 images.

Flash filled and normally exposed, this is the worst, but many more were bluish and slightly over exposed. The green fence behind did effect some files, but nothing I would not normally deal with quickly.

They warm up ok, but all needed something.

This was what most looked like. I have the white balance shifted to blue/green to combat I think the 35mm T2 7Art lens which is much warmer than the 50mm, but these are RAW files, white balance settings should not affect them.

Warmed up to more what my eyes see.

Again, they process up ok, but there is a feeling of the file having a bias overall.

An Olympus version, untouched.

Ok, this is fixed but concerning. When you shoot RAW files, no camera processing settings outside of exposure should be applied. No white balance, sharpening, “pre-sets”, Luts (which are video based anyway) or any other settings not considered base-line are applied. In RAW, you apply these in processing.

This is the point of RAW.

Every brand and processing programme will apply its own core settings, but the camera should disengage the in-camera processing options for RAW. You should be able to see jpeg style settings applied to the preview, but not the RAW file.

The RAW is meant to be the ingredients, not the cooked dish.

Well, it seems that the S5 (and I am assuming other new Lumix cameras), do apply changes to white balance to RAW files. I had the AWB base dropped to more blue/green and that has been applied to a RAW file.

It never occurred to me, a RAW user since the Canon 10D and Lightroom 2, that one of the basic rules of digital photography would be changed. RAW is RAW, end of.

As set. Oddly murky-cold whites.

Back to zero and the whites are closer to normal (got to love the applied science here).

The biggest issue is the RAW files seem to have this applied like pre-processing, so getting rid of it is theoretically possible, but it seems some of the depth of the file has already been tapped. The IRIX files above and the earlier ones from the 35mm were relatively inflexible, thin seeming, almost jpeg like.

This is part of a worrying thread of thinking.

I have noticed a lot more people using Luts (Look Up Tables or video pre-sets) in stills processing. This is basically using a sub-RAW video file profile and applying a jpeg-like preset to it.

It is a video work around in response to true video RAW being so hard to access.

The idea of Luts is to apply consistent processing to very flat moving footage. You do not have to use them, I don’t*, but it means your pseudo-RAW Log, Flat or Cine-like profiles are mostly processed for you, then tweaks can be applied. I will not pretend colour grading video is easy and Luts can help, but when processing stills, a more tailored approach needs to be used.

Still files are all individuals, even jpegs, each needing their own exposure, processing etc. To blanket process means, more often than not, removing the effect of pre-sets, not embracing them. Personally I used to use an import pre-set in Lightroom, but since switching to C1, I find the imported files are pretty much on track, I then process to suit.

If you work in a studio with consistent manual settings, you could probably apply a pre-set to all your images, but you could (should) also look at one file and tailor it’s processing to the specific project and look you want and then apply those settings to all the matching files using batch settings. Only in very controlled situations should you use pre-sets for stills and never just stop there, or you may as well use jpegs in the first place.

I guess if you make some RAW pre-sets and call them Luts then no harm done, but terminology gets confusing and possibly you are ripping yourself off in processing.

We all want to work faster, but not at the expense of the much more important quality we are all after.

*I have found that so far, a Flat or contrast reduced Standard profile is enough for me to work with without too much issue. I guess I have a “Lut” in my head, but nothing formalised.

Big Water, Big Lens

I am off to the rowing on Saturday.

Lake Barrington is a spectacular place, but it is big.

Time to use my much neglected 1.4x Teleconverter. I bought this when I up-geared a few years ago along with the EM1x, 8-18 and 300mm. These were the sentence finishers, the bits that quietened the nagging voice, but I must admit, the tc was the last thing on the list.

Every bit of that kit has been used regularly, with the exception of the teleconverter (tc).

To be honest, it is probably more use to me on the 40-150 f2.8 giving me roughly a 100-400 f4 full frame equivalent, but I use it sparingly, not as sure of the AF or optical qualities. The AF thing is down to me, using gear with original firmware mixed with latest and greatest, but it has worked for me and been stable, with the exception of the tc.

This is also possibly due to neglect. Olympus contacts tend to go quiet if left alone or sometimes even when brand new. Regular use makes for good conversations between devices, absence, not so much.

Below are a set of hand held, 860mm equivalent shots with shutter speeds ranging from 1/4000th to 1/60th of a second. No processing apart from some colour and a little highlight recovery and no focus misses!

The AF was a little odd at first, but I do think that is twitchy contacts, because it came right after a quick dismount-remount. The thing is already 6-7 years old and I have used it probably five times.

Adding to my previous post comparing the IRIX 150 macro to the 9mm Leica, the Oly “super macro” is a powerful beast bringing 860mm equivalent focal length to 1.4m range.

With sharpness intact, I know that this lens will happily get me down to about 2000mm equivalent after cropping (which is roughly above). I just hope the air is clear.

Ed. Some samples of the actual event.

The top two are actually the 40-150 f4, showing its stuff as a serviceable 5-800mm (ff equiv), the rest are the 300mm straight, which I ended up using most of the time anyway, except the very bottom pair with the converter. In the second set down, the woman in front is slightly out of focus as I focussed on the background. I have no hesitation submitting any of these crops as full sized images for social media or even decent size prints.

Clutter, Casualties and Other Catastrophes

I have too much gear, something I am aware of, but the thing that keeps me hanging on to things is the practical realities of professional longevity.

Once, when all of this was an exercise in “theoretical mind travel”, my goal was kit perfection, whatever that was.

I did not need perfect gear, just a perfect kit. This of course never came to pass or if it did, even briefly, I tended to move on, frustrated that I did not feel “perfected”.

These days, I am more about need mixed with organisation and depth.

Every job now, not at the paper where my gear needs were focussed, maybe even funnelled, I will decide what I need and pack appropriately. No longer hindered by weight and handling issues, I tend to over sometimes under pack, but either way, I get the job done.

The big issue seems to be that having flexible bag needs and fillings, sometimes I make ergonomic blunders and stuff happens. Bad stuff.

Looking at the gear I have and the last few years, I feel it is time to look at my list of casualties, the causes and basically, how well does M43 gear stand up to professional abuse and constant use.

Cameras.

Two of my four EM5 Mk1’s have been retired as they are too bothersome for even personal work. One was bought second hand of an old work colleague and it turned out it was near terminal status, but it cost me a pittance and the battery was good.

Both of these are from the same day, same Domke bag clip many years ago and from then on, I tape the clips.

EM5 Mk1’s tend to slow up when not used often. First they lose the ability to expose high shutter speed images, then they fail to fire up, later working fine. Oddly, the most reliable is the oldest one, my original foray into “serious” Olympus cameras after a couple of Pens.

All four have the fine pressure crack in the base of the rear screen, so weather proofing is suspect, all are a little battle scarred and one, the newest one, lost a strap lug and fell to the floor, but survived.

Bit of a shock. I had also forgotten this until using the camera for the above shots.

Both of my EM10 Mk2’s have their moments. The less used one (black) has occasional card lock-in issues, so I have tended to put in a card and if it stays there happily, I download via a cable (when I remember).

The other, my silver one, has recently refused to activate the rear tilt screen when extended back. All good when used flat to the camera back, it is a no-go when pulled back beyond 45 degrees. The way I use both of these makes neither issue a non-starter, I just have to adapt. This one was dropped badly a few years ago, but to be honest, until remembering my poor abused 8-18’s torrid life, I had forgotten all about that.

I consider all the cameras above the be “shutter savers” for dearer cameras below. The more I use them, the more life they add to other bodies.

One of my original G9 Mk1’s has recently had a tough drop, a real “bouncer” on hard ground, but with the exception of some nasty scratches, a slightly wobbly strap lug and an odd moment the other day where the rear screen went “stripey” (after a few hours of heavy use on a hot day), it has been fine. This one has also done probably 90% of my video to this point.

Nasty, but not terminal.

My second G9.1 is basically pristine and hardly used, being reserved for video and now well down the cue, so likely a basic stills camera in waiting.

The two EM1.2’s have had a hell of a time. My workhorse cameras, no others apart from the original two EM5’s, have done as much work. I don’t love their layout, being the last of the pro cameras to be made without the handy “nubbin”, but I owe them my career basically.

The oldest one is cosmetically a little rough, but “touch-wood” still going and the newer one, although sporting a set of scratches on one shoulder from a single day of poorly thought out kitting, is probably one third younger. I will run them until they drop and thank them for their wonderful service.

Not sure when these happened, but they all came at the same time.

Both of these and the most used G9 have had lifting rubber issues, but I have just glued and glued until fixed.

The EM1x’s are reserved for sport, so do not need to be looked at too closely. They are rated at 400k shutter cycles, but I don’t think that counts for electronic fires, so likely they are at about 5-10% use limit.

The S5 I have got a mild drop the other day and a scar for identification, but seems happy enough. After the G9’s abuse recently, I have little need to stress over that one and its partner is on the way soon.

The Pen F and Pen Mini are also under used, so cosmetically they are fine, mechanically, they need more work to keep them happy.

Lenses.

My poor Pana 8-18 has had two serious drops on two different cameras, but apart from lots of hood scratches, shows no signs of distress. Learning to really love that lens.

The hood tells the story, but respect little one, respect.

The little 15mm’s metal hood is also shiny on the end, so the paint is thin there I guess as my cheap Ebay metal hoods have not scuffed.

The plastic hood on the relatively new 9mm is also a bit scratched, a trend forming there.

The 12-40 Olympus Pro lens is my most “damaged” glass. Sand in the zoom mechanism a few years ago made it “lumpy” and repair costs seemed out of proportion at the time. It also shared the G9’s heavy hit.

The reality is I would likely replace it with the 8-25 f4 or 12-45 f4 if it does die, but the more I use it, the less it bothers me. This lens is also now showing normal signs of wear, like the 40-150 below.

My 75, 17 and 45’s are dis-coloured in their white etchings and the metal lenses have some wear marks, but are otherwise they are fine. It occurs to me, many have had over ten years of heavy use, the 17mm carrying the bulk of the strain when travelling.

My heavily used 75mm is grubby and this recent chip is saddening, but metal takes pain (and paint) gracefully.

The 40-150 f2.8 has a lot of wear marks on its zoom ring from rubbing against things. I use a metal screw-in hood, so its clever but fragile one is still good.

Not sure which bag it was (possibly a stray lens floating around in my large Neewer backpack), but some serious rubbing wear happened to this lens over a short period.

The 75-300, a kit level lens and one I do not use enough has started to refuse the focus order when freshly zoomed over 250mm. It comes right several ways (focussing first, zooming back a little, turning the camera on and off), but I noticed this at the swimming the other day.

The rest of my lenses are either new or have had relatively little use.

Oh, and I have lost a half dozen filters, but better that than lenses!

Some cameras and lenses have minor and very occassional moments of disobedience, likely down to lack of use, dirty contacts or tired and slow cards writing. This happens with electronics, it is accepted.

Otherwise, all good.

*

So to sum up;

After over ten years of almost exclusively using M43 gear, sometimes as a professional, but always as at least a serious amateur user with over 10 trips overseas, I have two worn out cameras, two to seven are due to quit soon-ish after their working lives have been exceeded, with one physically a little worse for wear and a couple with twitchy little issues.

Most real issues are from user abuse.

I can field two near new EM1x’s, two new S5’s, a new G9II, a mostly unused G9 and Pen F, old but lightly used Pen Mini and any of the above that keep trundling along.

I am probably good for another million frames, maybe two :).

I am yet to replace a battery and all my EM5 Mk1 batteries are still going, some are over 13 years old!

Lenses are in two camps. Those that show signs of heavy use and those that do not, although some wear is better hidden. The 40-150 f4 and 75-300 are showing some signs of internal conniptions, so not sure there.

Still The Three Legged Friend?

No, not about to reveal one of my dogs has lost a limb, but something that was once my religion, my creed and my obsession needs revisiting.

Tripods precede photography, as literally the mandatory support for early cameras and have stayed relevant right up to now.

If I wrote this fifteen years ago, my advice would be “get one, get a big one, always use it” then, drop the mic……. .

The reality is, when I shot full frame Canon SLR’s I needed every trick I could think up for absolute clarity when shooting slow shutter speed landscapes. I would lock up the mirror using the self timer or live view (they lacked mirror-lock otherwise and this helped with accurate focus also), place a finger on a leg to feel for vibration, use the heaviest tripod I could carry (and often curse it all the way there and back) and weigh down the legs or use a “stamper” which is an elastic strap attached the centre column run under my foot for extra down force.

I learned the hard way all the traps and tricks, such as buying lens tripod collars or support plates, watching for strong vibrations on rocks near powerful waterfalls, creeping heads, shifting sands, poor leg locks and slippery carbon fibre legs, quick release plates with their own agenda, heads with limited movements, poor leg shapes (round and solid wins-always), the benefits and limitations of different leg materials and on and on.

These days it would probably go something like “get one, make sure it is heavy enough for your kit but not too heavy, one that won’t fall apart, has the right head for your use and use it when common sense dictates” and…… probably not drop the mic as I have a better appreciation of microphones now.

My history with tripods, like my photography and now videography has had several phases with plenty of wins, some lost opportunities and lamented sheddings. Currently I have moved on and settled on some basic but acceptable remains.

A solid, entry level Manfrotto 190 with basic three way head was my first tripod, because I actually took the advice of those who knew best. If I had known what I know now, I would probably still have it.

You could do worse as a thirty year investment.

I upgraded to the 055* for extra sturdiness through weight and more height and I think the flip-out clamps appealed over the slower twist knobs of the 190. The funny thing is, I think I paid the same for it then as I could have a few years ago, about $350au, but they have gone up a lot lately.

I then rotated through other brands from Berlebach sport ash* (332 or similar), Manfrotto 055 carbon fibre*, various smaller ones from Slik and others, then ended up decades later with…… a Manfrotto 190, saved from the throw-out bin at the camera shop I worked at.

It had been stripped of parts like a straggling wildebeest meeting a helpful pack of Hyena, but like all Manfrotto’s, most parts were easily sourced if not a perfect cosmetic fit.

Heads are a thing.

Video only needs two smooth actions (up down and side to side) although a levelling plate is handy for heavy cameras. Stills need three (for going vertical), but they do not need to be smooth.

Ball heads are popular and ok, but non ball heads are pound for pound and dollar for dollar more stable, so only go ball if you can do it well (if the neck is thinner than a pen or the ball smaller than a decent sized grape, avoid them).

Ball heads are also poor choices for video as they lack smooth panning.

The little Gitzo in front, the only bit of Gitzo I am springing for, was a bargain clearance. The Promaster, a generic head found in a dozen different ranges, is a decent size and mechanically sound (the dual tension knobs are annoying).

Quick releases are personally a pet hate, although I do use them for video (Neewer universal) as I have several different rigs and heads and multiple cameras, as well as the less fluid nature of video means I am less likely to have a handling accident. I am even putting a Neewer QR adapter on the existing QR plate I have for my ball head, meaning I have a QR plate on a QR plate, but consistency rules.

I have found a simple screw-in head is often as practical as a quick release that needs secure locking and you are still unsure of. It will not magically release on you and they are never rendered useless by a lost QR plate***.

The classic Manfrotto three-way head made way for the monster pro version (029), then I moved to ball heads, back to geared and lower profile three-ways (460 MG*), then hydraulic ball (Manfrotto MG 468*), then back to the simplest two directional (#234) and now I have a little of each, scrounged from sales, left overs, forgotten ideas etc. I think at one point I had a dozen of those ubiquitous Manfrotto hexagonal plates, now not one is to be found.

For stills, I use the lightest sturdy and decently tall tripod (4 1/2 to 5’) I can get away with like an old set of Velbon Sherpa legs, with a tiny Gitzo ball or Manfrotto 234 tilt head, maybe a Promaster (generic) large ball head I picked up cheap at the shop, but only if the rig is bigger (300mm lens). If the lot comes in anywhere near a full kg, I am doing something wrong.

This is all you need for most things and hard to find a more sturdy, or simpler head design. It only takes about five turns to secure the camera. Even the vertical orientation for stills is a matter of turning the camera on the head. If I know I am only doing stills, the little Gitzo ball works also.

With M43 mirrorless cameras, electronic shutters, touch activation and often higher shutter speeds thanks to the depth of field benefit of M43, anything else is overkill and that is if I even need it with the stabilisers available**. The ability to weigh it down with your bag using a handy carabiner fixes strong wind issues. Strong is good, but not heavy.

Video is a little different. For that I use the now relatively monstrous Manfrotto 190 legs, a Neewer fluid video head or the Promaster heavy ball head often with a set of bracketed wheels on the bottom, more for stability than movement.

I also use the heavy ball head on a video slider.

Even then, this whole setup is pretty light compared to many past ones.

“Big Bertha” is in reality what I would call a medium-light weight in the old days. At the base of the centre column is a carabiner strong enough to take most bags. 5kg tripod anyone?

My ifootage Cobra monopod came with a small tripod option, which is surprisingly handy for low angle or heavy lens use. This is good, because it has not been a win otherwise.

Super short and heavy for it, but hard to find anything more steady.

The things you want to avoid if you can are tripods so short you need to constantly crank up the centre column or smallest leg sections for sufficient height (which are the least steady bits), are fiddly and annoying, cheaply made-especially odd shaped legs, have an unsafe or quirky quick release system (if you must at all) and a non standard QR plate in case you lose one. This is the single biggest reason cheap tripods get retired.

Good features are the ability to go low, which also means independently adjustable legs, go high without extending the neck and leg clamps that are easy to apply and time tested, especially if you need to wear gloves or work near water. No more than three leg sections are best**** and buy the right head for the job.

At the shop, we used to sell several quite expensive “full of cool (stupid) ideas” generic brand tripods with angle-flexible centre columns, removable legs, reversible columns, legs with pencil thin end sections and fiddly leg locks. They just sent shivers down my common sense spine.

They were too complicated, especially for a new user, too short and when used at full height, you were extending anything up to five leg sections and the neck, which took ages and was poor form!

On top of that they were quite heavy for their size, which was “easily fixed” by buying the carbon fibre version for triple the price, but only dropping a couple of hundred grams because the over complicated joints and head were still all metal and to top that off, they were often unreliable.

The best we had I felt, the “Scout” I think it was called, was a tall three section unit, solid and simple, reliable leg clamps, was cheap, made of aluminium with a simple three way head. The boss hated me selling them over his “cash cow”, but I could not pretend it was ok.

Finally, watch the odd video on best use practices for your and other tripods. The very best tripod will fail you if you fail to face a leg down a hill, don’t secure it’s legs or use the quick release properly.

*All things I regret selling, especially the wooden one. The original 055, sold a few years ago is still going with bits from a friends own thirty year old one and with my original Domke F2 were the only two things remaining from my very first kit in the 80’s.

**Sometimes a tripod, no matter how solid is less stable than a good in camera stabiliser, especially if ground vibration is an issue.

***When I held classes at the shop, the last task was always chasing up the lost QR plates forgotten about on students cameras and I often see them at schools, not on tripods, but on cameras. It is not a coincidence that most cheaper brands have little or no consistency in plate sizes. It sells them tripods.

****Really compact tripods need more (shorter) leg sections, but that does not necessarily mean they are lighter and definitely not sturdier.

International Women, Universal Language

MRC North celebrated International Women’s Day with a uniquely Australian feel.

People from a dozen very different cultures learning Bollywood dancing on an Aussie lawn bowls green.

Followed by some Eritrean dance with a similar feel.

Lots of fun had by all, Nepalese, Afghan or Thai, dance is dance, community is all.

Only one rule….

….shoes off on the bowling green (all religions have their rules).

Namaste.