Japan Done, New Lessons Learned And Old Ones Re-learned

The Japan trip was a success overall. The places we went were known to us, but the the trip was part tour for friends and part holiday in a familiar space.

I decided to change up my usual work processes, trying to bring something new to a well known subject and on the whole and in response to different priorities, it was a mostly successful.

Switching from Olympus to Panasonic colours, timed ideally with late summer flat greens as it goes, imposing the 2:1, sometimes 1:2 format constraint* and less reliance on discreet street gear, gave me a more “general purpose” setup, with a freedom and ease of shooting close to that of my day job.

The images below are mostly taken from the first two days in the city or at Tofuku-ji temple.

The G9 handles easily and quickly, but the AF was not as sure footed as the Oly cams. It is an interesting difference in work dynamic. The great customisation and control of the G9 mk1, with a button or dial for everything, can mean some over complication and the need to feel your way to the best settings. An example of this was my early preference for the small box cluster focus grouping, until the early rain fooled it more often than not.

Lots of this and when heavy enough, the small box cluster was to be praised for it's sensitivity, but not it's choices. Changing to the dynamic box helped, lesson learned.

By the end, my see-shoot-continue one-action action was back in play, but I know I missed a few shots early on. This was in stark contrast to the many mobile phone shooters who, even with the benefit of using the best known camera they have likely ever owned, often took an age toget a shot.

The difference between a professional photographer and a snapping tourist is still there for now, much as it always has been, in focussed and efficient processes, filling raised expectations and with an awareness of comprehension and action, not the gear. I noticed a few other pro shooters, always obvious by their ready-to-go organisation and speed of operation.

The 12-60 kit Pana lens was a winner all around.

Versatile, optically solid, great range including macro and weather sealed, meant I used it for 90% of the time, only really switching out for light night/street/shopping trips, when the Pen mini and 17mm dangling off my 60” strap did the job.

The first two days were late summer wet, hot and humid. It tested us coming from a stubbornly cool spring at home (overnight temps on Kyoto often exceeding our highest daytime temp to this point), but thankfully the first two days also often bring with them a level of fresh eyed enthusiasm that helped us push through.

Our friends were seeing Japan for the first time with as the Japanese would say “child’s eyes”, so apart from some blisters, dampness and sore feet, time passed happily.

My footware choices were a stand out. Merrill Longsky 2 trail runners, mostly made of some type of hardened plastic mesh negotiated the wet days faultlessly and provided amazing (Vibram) grip on any surface. I switched to a pair of Fly Strike runners and MOAB 3’s for the other days and even with new shoes all around (some clearance specials, so not a huge spend-about the value as the MOAB’s at full price), had no blisters, pressure points or sore feet the whole trip and we usually walked ten plus KM’s a day.

From then, mild heat, very light rain and more often than not, perfect travel conditions.

We showed our friends our “top ten” Kyoto destinations, so sometimes touristy, sometimes not, but our must see’s for new travellers to Kyoto and Nara, including a walk over a small mountain and they also sent themselves off to Hiroshima for the day. We missed a few spots, but there is always the chance of another trip.

*My intent is to do 2:1 triptych or paired sets, sometimes 1:2 hanging ones as well. All the shots were taken with this compositional aide applied, but are of course RAW files, so I have options later.

Japan Kit, New Thinking

This trip to Japan will have a few differences to the usual.

I am going to use a Panasonic for the first time (G9 Mk1), with a Pen Mini as my casual street cam.

The G9 will be shot with the preview screen set to 16:9 ratio (or maybe even wider like 1.85 or 2:1), using the truly excellent preview feature (allows frame line colour and also darkening out off frame opacity selection set at different strengths). This is because I want to see the place “cinematically”.

Why?

For a change and to introduce a desired limitation. I feel that seeing as right now I am seeing things with a cinematographers eye, maybe I will slow down and compose on a deeper level, if I force that view.

I intend to shoot for maximum drama, maximum story telling intrigue and impact.

Of course the RAW files will be left intact, so it is simply an illusion of creative convenience, but one I will be using on capture, import and export.

The G9’s are probably my most liked cameras overall, but are not without their limitations, often relegating them to second camera/hybrid roles in my work kit.

I would not use one for sport if I have another (Olympus) option, especially without Pana glass, but they work well with wide angle lenses, human detect and the colour makes less than perfect light brighten and “pop”.

They are also great for video and they are feature packed if a bit menu fiddly.

Oly colours on a rare dry day on one of our early spring trips. The light this whole trip was hard, brassy and often dull thanks to cloud cover, Spring glare and city heaviness. What makes this one stand out is a lack of umbrellas.

In a lot of ways they are like EM1x’s-lite, but true hybrid cams.

Panasonic colours, tempered by mostly Olympus glass, a combination I really like**, will suit the early Autumn colours and it looks like humid and moody weather, so the weather sealing will be comforting*.

The little Pen at a pinch could be my only camera, so it is a decent backup, while it also serves as a good street cam worn cross body on a long strap (60” Gordy). Street shooting is not on my radar really any more, but street-adjacent urban landscapes are and people are a part of that, so the funny little red Mini will do it’s job discreetly, always at the ready, a known winner of a combination.

Nobody pays this camera any real attention.

Oly colours really sing in strong light, like the late afternoon city light seen here. The Pen Mini has proven itself in this light over and over.

Lenses will be the 12-60 Pana kit as my work horse in good light which is close to as sharp as the Leica version, weather sealed and light and the 9mm Pana/Leica. The rest are Olympus, the plastic fantastic 40-150 kit (a surprise packet), which weighs absolutely nothing, the tiny 17 and 45 primes, my absolute must take lenses for low light and Japan generally (the 17mm has taken probably half my favourite shots over the years).

So, 18-300mm (full frame equivalent), some fast, all versatile, the five in total weighing about the same as the G9 body alone.

All carried over in my love/hate Lower ProTactic 350 backpack (old model) and when there a little Crumpler shoulder bag (cannot remember the model, like a 5 million dollar home, but softer), which holds 1-2 cams and 2-3 lenses (the Mini and 17mm would likely be worn anyway). The PT350 is uncomfortable, always conspires to be too small and generally agravates, but it is semi-hard, so good to trust with gear in overheads, or just to put my feet on.

*Someone was horrified the other day when I spilt the remains of a coffee on my oldest G9 and 8-18 lens. Even more so when I used fresh water to wash it off and continued on un-phased.

**Mixing the brands makes a lot of sense. The organic and realistic Oly colours are lightened off with Pana lenses, while the sometimes overly light and bright looking Panas are bought slightly down to earth with Oly glass. Favourite combos are the EM1’s with the 15, the G9’s with the 75mm and 12-40 and the 12-60 Leica on the Pen F.

100 Chances To Stuff Up And Still A Surprise (Or Trust Your Eyes, Not The Tech)

I did a huge job the other day, the sort of job that requires your “A’” game for an extended period (5 hours), no slip-ups, no excuses.

100 school groups, from teams to student year and social groups, one every five minutes for two periods of about 2+ hours each, a cast of 10 or so staff, and potentially 1700 students.

I did everything I could to nail the process short of double shooting it (2 cameras).

S5 Mk2 at ISO 800 for clean ISO performance with a 50mm for distortion control at f4-5.6 (depending on group depth). M43 was the obvious option, but the space is notoriously dark, so I went with the ISO performance of the full frame.

Markings on the floor for consistent central seat placement and shooting alignment (at three locations for different sized groups).

New camera with 2 formatted cards, tons of batteries, a 5” screen on top, manual everything, tripod on wheels.

Two things still went a little wrong, one important, one just annoying.

For some reason known only to my inner ear I suspect, I shot the whole day with the tripod head tilted slightly down, so I spent way too much time later re-aligning every one of the shots to be perfectly straight. I deliberately used a simple two-way Manfrotto monopod head to reduce movements, but the only one it had, bit me.

I could not do a batch straighten when I sorted white balance etc, because I was not perfectly consistent with my setup. Next time 2 bits of tape will be used, not one to get the front wheel of the tripod lined up exactly straight with the camera.

Annoying, but only I know about all the time wasted in post.

The second one really pisses me off, is that I trusted in camera peaking in manual focus and it failed me.

Controlled space, plenty of depth of field and a wall of red peaking colour all over the subject, only taken from the camera screen for guaranteed accuracy. I did not have peaking set on the 5”, as I was only using it to compose and check faces etc, which is why after a half dozen shots, I realised, they were all just a little out of focus.

Not terminally, but noticeable in processing and eventually on the bigger screen.

That feeling, when looking at a small size preview that there is a lack of delicacy, confirmed on closer inspection.

It seems the vagueness of peaking in that specific circumstance was enough to give me too large a range of acceptance with too small a range of accuracy. It even covered people walking in front organising seating, but was actually falling slightly behind the group!

F&$k me, what is this S&@t any good for if it cannot be trusted to do the one job it is assigned?

I compounded the issue by applying ON1 Tack Sharp on auto (which sets full strength de-blur) hoping the printed size would hold up, but unfortunately when the printing proofs came back with their own applied output sharpening, it was not nice. Clown makeup might be the closest way to describe it, Groucho Marx style.

Peaking is a good tool, but it’s big down side is, depending on the target, is it may get so busy it can actually distract and mislead you and you cannot tell. I could actually see perfectly well to focus with the 5” screen alone, even without magnification, a much more accurate tool, but the wall of peaking colour actual obscured the targets.

If I had not used the bigger screen I may have checked the results, but maybe not, so not sure whether the bigger screen saved me or damned me.

I switched to face/body detect AF and no misses for the rest of the day (94 groups x4 images in 3 locations).

Lesson learned and I guess disaster avoided…..mostly.

Be there soon (Japan), a much nicer thought than a narrowly averted catastrophe.

Pulling Some Stumps.

I have started a lot of posts lately and they have all stalled.

I am tired at the moment, handling the third school term hump, new clients in their finals seasons and just sick of the tail end of winter.

They were all going to be something they are not worthy of, so I am going to quickly pull out the stumps of these dead trees.

Gimbals.

These just need to F&$k off from my thinking. Nothing personal, nothing irrational, just the idea of them needs to go away so I can focus on all the ideas I have that are as good or better.

White balance.

I am realising this is the simplest path to better quality and faster processing, probably the single most important adjustment for quality and consistency. RAW is fine, but nailing down some things are time savers, because the preview you are given can be misleading.

Unfortunately just setting it manually does not work, because Lightroom and Capture 1 will re-adjust the previews slightly, but a pre-set for batch processing a ton of time. Trying to get it right in camera does stabilise your eye for later post processing as well as helping with guesti-mating WB for video better.

About 4000k with a touch of added magenta.

Gear (this one kills off two redundant posts).

A long winded post on the virtues of all gear from any era and the false claims made by manufacturers about the need to adopt the next best thing or be damned to the pile of photographic second-ratedness is avoided.

Our maker fuelled obsession with more resolution and bigger numbers is becoming less and less relevant as the numbers are plenty big enough folks! This has always been the case and always will be, but right now, there is less and less reason to buy the newest and greatest, because basically it is all great.

Coming from a mirrorless user of over 10 years, right now I feel the very best bargains are to be found in all the recently discarded DSLR’s available. Seriously good cameras for peanuts folks.

Japan kit (again!).

I was torn between my perfect “Zen” kit of the Pen F, 9, 17, 45 and 75mm (or just 17 and 45)* and my “low stress” kit of a pair of worn EM10 mk2’s, the street expert Pen mini with the 9, 17, 45 and 12-60 and 40-150 kit zooms.

The Zen kit puts me into a limited, maybe precarious (1 camera with 1 card), but highly focussed and clean space.

The other kit adds depth, options, with low preciousness but also clutter, both mental and physical. Both suffer from worrying issues with old and under used batteries for the Pen F (I need all 6 to feel safe!), the other shows signs of reliability issues from age and heavy use of these non-pro cams.

I have decided after all that to go with a G9 mk1, the second set of lenses from above (or maybe the first) and a single EM10.2 as backup. I have never shot Japan with Panasonic, so it is maybe time for a change and the Pana colours in early Autumn may be a winner, especially if the forecast rain comes.

The capable G9’s are still not as natural to me, so sole reliance on one I hope will change that. A small bonus is more pixels and weather sealing, as the weather looks patchy.

I have a basically unused one that takes 2 cards, produces great video, has good battery life, EM1x like handling, stabe and low light performance.

Working with the theme of three contrasting points, this image, with a little patience may have delivered. The muted and gentle colours of the old EM5's look to my eye close to the G9's.

All clear now, stumps pulled, field clear, time to move on.

*Shot for 16:9 cine-wide format, then processed as pairs or in triptych, just for fun (in RAW so not really, but with frame lines for composition and import).

Focussing On Focussing On Focus

A bit convoluted, but it is one of those nagging things that comes to me loud or softly on a semi regular basis. While looking at an older article I wrote a few months back I was taken by the things I said about an image “Lella, Bretagne 1947”, which I meant, but realise now, I seldom actually do.

An image is a sum of its parts. The central subject or subjects, the frame shape and scale, the out of focus elements, tones, colours, focus points and transitions. What worries me is the modern habit I have developed of tending to think in flatter forms, less aware of the whole of an image. Shifting to auto focus will tend to do this, because the relentless need to hit accurate focus means you tend to get tunnel vision.

When shooting landscapes or macro slowly and methodically on a tripod, it is natural for me to go manual focus and I realise now, my photographic mind set changes.

Street photography using zone focus also allows this partially, but shooting from the hip is more luck than perfect control.

My comment on this image was the quality of the subject behind the obvious one. Such a powerful main subject, an equally strong support.

The title above is as close to my thought processes as I could manage.

I am going to focus on the ongoing need to focus on being more wholistic, more imaginative and even a little old fashioned with my focus, my actual practical lens focus that is.

I am aware, sharply, almost painfully aware, that I have lost a whole way of seeing images. I have become linear in my image making, instead of layered.

I once chased that elusive depth n my inages, which only seems to come now when I shoot street images and that is in part down to very process of zone focus and being “in the flow”.

Truly great images come in many forms.

To me, one of the most powerful is the multi layered image, something many of the recent masters of documentary and street imaging were expert at, but in the auto focus age, the recent upsurge in “perfect” lens design that strips the character out of glass, maybe even lenses that allow ridiculously wide aperture photography with that all too soft rendering, we have lost the ability to see in multiple layers, to see smoothness and gentleness, transitions and a hierarchy of subject relevance.

Old tech forced a way of seeing and shooting, something we often cursed. If this was simply a lucky coincidence, an organic process long evolved, then the warning signs of AF and digital changes were all obvious, but also too quickly upon us and with them came all the benefits of speed and accuracy.

Speed and accuracy. Are these the enemies of empathy and connection.

I feel there may even be an argument for the “film look” partly being the different process used to capture the image in the limited frames, manual focus, less than perfect lens period. More depth came from good technique. More depth added…… more depth as it goes.

To see how we used to may mean partially winding back the technical clock.

Technology is always affecting photography, it is a technical discipline, but ways of seeing images are capable of transcending that.

It seems though, that maybe I am not anymore.

I used to see a frame using the “middle distance” style of martial arts, which is where you look at a point between you and your antagonist, feeling their movements as shapes in context to the whole space, not zeroing in on any specific move or object. To see the whole at once as a moving stage that you are part of.

I am very aware I am fixated now on focus point placement which in turn steals my attention away from the greater scene in front of me.

Like a nervous debutante actor, I am fixated on my blocking, but not the stage as a whole.

Manual focus and the right lens are part of the recovery programme, should I choose to take it.

The lens, something that needs some consideration needs to be a special combination of gentle primary rendering, with long transition out of focus rendering and strong micro contrast. The Olympus 17mm f1.8 has this, the 45mm maybe also. The old Pen F lens, the 25 f2.8 may also have these qualities. Other lenses that come to mind are the 12-40 f2.8 and maybe my cinema glass.

Wide open, the 45mm shows some promise, but wide open also misses the point. I often use this lens with multiple layers in mind, where the 30mm Sigma and 75mm Olympus tend to be main subject only lenses.

Many modern lenses do not do this. They are too sure of themselves by far, using optical perfection as an excuse to avoid character. I have always been aware that some lenses male you shoot certain ways.

I have lenses I rely on to give me startlingly sharp primary subjects only, others that make me think deeper and wider. The Canon 28 f1.8 did this, the 35 f2 (old model) also. The 17mm has the same effect, the 15mm Leica does not.

A link that may be useful is my video lens preferences. I feel that some lenses are better for video work with manual focus than others. Maybe this is also a hint that they are better suited to forgiving manual focus “by feel”, than more modern in-out lenses.

Same people reversed, so on this day, I obviously felt this was a thing and I have noticed often, that some lenses make me think this way, others do not.

Rejecting backgrounds seems to have become a sign of professionalism in photography. Layering depth in an image, seems to be off-trend.

This image was taken with the 15mm Pana-Leica, a lens that screens "sharp cut-out, soft background". A modern trend, maybe in response to pin-point accuracy and AF, hero-ing the subject, rejecting the background. I know from experience, that my Oly 17mm would not only render this differently, but it would also make me think differently while composing the image.

The 17mm allows me to see with depth. The two lens are similar in a lot of ways, but background rendering is not one of them. The 17mm often gets low mass for Bokeh, but I feel that it is miss-understood. Its rendering is not up to modern in-out super soft Bokeh standards, being better suited to "old fashioned" long draw, background inclusive rendering.

Even at wider apertures, it is capable of telling a story. I have tried to prove this out and failed, but in use it is there. I feel confident in shooting quickly and letting the lens sort it out, the 15mm above is much more about getting it right, the alternative being an obvious wrong. Neither is the right or only away, both have their uses.

This is a trend and as such it will evolve over time. Some of us though wish to be trend immune and let an image get what it needs.

So, tools for the job.

The Pen F and 17mm are probably ground zero, using manual focus, considered and immersive composing using depth and form over focus prioritising perfection.

Longer lenses are tough, being more subject orientated by definition, but the 45, maybe the 25 “F” series lens from the old Pen half frames, the 25 Oly maybe and I think some zooms may need consideration.

The main thing is though, maybe for the next rip to Japan, I am focussing on focussing on focus as a priority, but not in the obsessive way I have been.

Photography Traps, That Still Catch People

I have been around cameras and photography long enough to have seen some repeating patterns.

The patterns tend to be related to the selling of new gear, the perpetuation f the myth that you, the photographer, cannot take images as good as the new camera release with your old camera.

The speed of this repetition changes a lot at different times, sometimes it is super fast, almost a twice yearly even (Sony a few years ago released more cameras than lenses for a couple of years), sometimes it seems a long time between waves, but it is always moving.

The reality is, if you can take a decent image with a brand new super camera, then you can take one with a camera from most eras.

In my photographic life, I have usually been behind in the tech stakes. Very rarely have I had the very best around and if I had, it was usually just before it was replaced. Owning this stuff did not make me better, but it often made me aware of gear cost to productivity pressures and my stress levels regarding the quality of that gear rose. Drop $3k+ on a lens and you tend to look for problems, while a kit lens, basically free with a camera purchase often surprises.

Periods of making it work while under equipped are plentiful. I remember working for my first school with only EM5 Mk1 cameras. Great cams for my personal passions, travel, street and a little landscape, but not professional by the top DSLR standards of the day (D750 Nikon and 5D3 Canon). I managed.

My sport shooting went back to old tricks from the manual focus era, with a little AF when able (which was surprisingly often I found). I had no right to represent mysef as a professional in that space at that time, but I did and it went well enough.

When I started with my second school, I had the benefit of an Em1 mk2, a camera still serving me today, over a million frames later, but still had amateurish glass. I remeber sweating bricks shooting football in the late winter afternoon as my ISO settings hit 3200 and my aperture wide open at f5.6.

When my mother passed a few years ago, she left me a small inheritance, some of which I spend on gear, not through indulgence, but more desperation.

I bought an EM1x, 300mm Pro and 8-18 and I bught back my recently sold 40-150 f2.8, all things that I felt I needed, even if I did not personally want them. They have saved me time and time again.

Taken by a friend with a reluctantly bought small sensor compact camera after a travel mishap. Could it have been used to sell the latest and greatest mirrorless (or holidays to Scandinavia)?

The EM1x also opened up another door for me, requiring Capture 1 to open the RAW files on my aging Mac. C1 effectively updated my gear a generation, especially in the sharpening-noise ballet Lightroom was known for.

A few years later, I went to the paper and my issued kit, much the same as the other photographers, was made up of well used, but contemporary Nikon DSLR’s and lenses. D750’s, D500’s, the f2.8 holy trinity and a monster 400 f2.8 af-s should have blown my mind, but I found the smaller, nimbler gear I had, with the use of C1 processing actually gave me the same results, I worked faster and never complained about gear left behind.

Getting back to the point.

The Sony wagon was going full tilt, Nikon was releasing the seminal Z9 (later issued to the paper and I used one a few times), Canon was getting their act together, Fuji also and even Olympus and Panasonic had released new gear.

Did I need a new camera as the ads said I obviously did?

No it turns out, I did not. I have actually since bought two more EM1x’s second hand and two new but dated G9 Mk1’s, the newer G9II is for video. Technically I am now three generations behind in Olympus camera, but still find uses for EM5 Mk1’s, EM10 Mk2’s, Pen F etc.

Smaller sensors in older cameras are plenty.

I am happy that base image quality is not a relevant concern.

The traps used to snare photographers money are many, some more real than others.

Image quality;

IQ is not down to pixels, dynamic range, colour depth, new model numbers nor indicated in any way realistically by a flash image in an add. That trick has been used since day one.

I remember years ago a major name brand being caught out using a film camera image to advertise their new digital masterwork. They only got caught because they had used the same image for the actual taking camera years before and in the days of magazines, we kept all our old ones.

What "quality" does this image have and does it have anything to do with technical quality. Well flogged EM1 Mk2, equally abused 40-150 f2.8, cheap SD card. Not "cutting edge" or even the best I have. Sometimes I get sick of perfect sharpness and clarity, but if you have it in abundance, you can always reduce it.

IQ comes down to taking a good photo of an interesting subject, technically well enough for the process to be invisible to the viewer and reproduced to the needs of the viewing media. Old film cameras could do this and still can. I have had cropped images printed on billboards and nobody complained.

The incremental advances in photography are so microscopically slight in most cases, even the best trained eye cannot see them. When the 36mp D800 came out replacing the aging 12mp D750, a seriously big jump in specs, people adopted them automatically. Nikon people had denied pixel envy, but as soon as a decent option was offered they jumped in both feet.

Many that I spoke to (customers of many years), found that only on close inspection or after massive crops could they actually see a difference and they often dropped the size down to save space, because nobody but they cared how many pixels were used. One user even used theirs in crop mode for sport, switching do a D500 later.

The really big change came with super sharp mirrorless sensors with reduced or removed AA filters, often at relatively low pixel counts. I was stunned my the clarity of the EM5 Mk1 images I made with tiny little lenses compared to my 5D2 and 5D3 “oily smooth” images. Sure the Canon’s had that characteristic colour, but the clarity and realism of the Olympus files were a revelation. It mattered little in reality and in hind sight, it was should have been other factors that made me switch, but I learned then that IQ and pixel count, sensor size and dollar value had little in common.

Video.

Video is a growing concern, but that is also slowing and with similar apathy by users towards resolution. Many aspouse the virtues of 4k, then happily output at 1080p. Like still photography actual practical needs and theoretical potential have little in common.

This image perfectly usable for most uses, is a lift from a 1080 video clip.

“Achieve the best in image quality and fidelity with camera X (or be damned?)” is an illusion as is an add for a car speeding across the desert floor at impossible speed, a pill that makes you fly through your day (legally) or a beer that makes everyone like you.

All that matters is content bought to life with skill and empathy.

In Light Of.....

After my last post, I got to thinking again about lighting.

I have plenty of light, but it is a bit of a mess to apply.

I can punch 300w+ through a mod, but it takes 3-4 lights to do it and they need power.

I can be portable and wall power free, the kit is;

• Amaran 60d

• Weeylite RB9

• A couple of little tubes and panels

• A pair of Manfrotto Nano stands and some Neewer super lite ones.

This all fits in a small 40L suit case with a Smallrig soft box and other bits.

Neat.

A little limited.

The Amaran is the 60d (for daylight), the RB9 is RGB, but not as powerful and only two real lights does limit my options. The Amaran can run off NP batts, which I have plenty of, but they are also doing other things, the RB9 has good life and decent power and it can be powered off a power bank (which it also is).

So, what if I wanted to add some decent power to the kit, not add much in the way of extra stuff and do not want to spend a ton on another light?

The Smallrig RC 60b (bi-colour), has an internal battery, is bi-colour, can run off a PB, is cheap compared to others ($210au for the lite-no frills kit) and tiny. It is about the same size as the bare Amaran, but needs nothing but itself.

It is not perfect, needing proprietary mods and there only two, a small diffuser in the box and a small and over priced soft box. It has no app, something I rarely bother with, but if stuck above the shoot on a tall stand or boom, it would be a major pain to adjust on the fly.

These concerns are probably not a big deal really, as the Amaran does everything it does not and there are ways. Because it does not ironically fit the Smallrig lantern or softbox I have, it would probably not be the overhead light anyway.

The mod thing is something I would have dealt with easily anyway, running it into a or through a brolly, reflector, diffuser or a combination. Small soft boxes are not appealing for good light quality, so I would have never likely used it.

Light colour being limited on the Amaran to daylight is something I was ok with from the get-go and it got me a cheaper, brighter light than the 60x. It meant I can shoot the whole scene with adjusted white balance based on the slightly stronger main light, then re-adjust background light with the RB9 etc.

The Smallrig light though would allow me to either replace the daylight light with a bi-colour from the start, handy if the background is massive like the outdoors, the Amaran can then be gelled to warm or cool as needed as a second source or just to mimic daylight.

Lastly, but not a small thing, if I need more punch, say 120w of punch, I have it with the two combined without having to run power to larger COB lights.

With several NP970 batts, and several power banks, it would not be unreasonable to expect 2-4 hours out of these lights.

Ordered.

Video, What Would I Prioritise?

Starting out in video is a big move. A little smart phone success may lead to a desire to “go cinematic”, leading to many paths of growth, some needed, some not.

What would I recommend, as a budding video maker?

1

Plan

Be aware of what you want to achieve, what story you want to tell..

Work out what you are trying to make and watch the right videos or talk to the right people to learn how to. If you like low light, moody films, then think low light capable and minimalist lighting. If you like commercial grade interview style, then watch these video’s and learn how to make them.

D4Darius or Epic Light Media are perfect examples of vlogs that can set you straight early on. Want to make a low budget short film, then look at how to make those, not multi million dollar Hollywood epics. D4Darius has won awards using very basic kit and ELM even has a video on making a commercial with gear bought from home depot and a phone.

Good advice is always good to get, but the right advice at the right time is even better.

I learned this the hard way. Lots of bad choices, dozens of examples of Rodger Deakin, Wes Anderson etc doing their magic with massive budgets and a crew of dozens, not enough Mark Bone, Luc Forsyth and D4Darius early on to keep me grounded.

2.

Software

Decide on your workflow and stick to it.

I went with DaVinci Resolve from the start and the learning curve was and still is steep, but I am not being held back by something light weight, forcing me to learn-unlearn a new system as I grow. Premier Pro, Resolve, Final Cut, it matters little, but stick to one until it is no longer the thing that holds you back.

I chose DaVinci because it has two main benefits and one consideration. It is free to get enough to go on with and is becoming an industry standard, but it is also deep and complicated (the last one is a sword with two edges). Pick what works for you as long as it is not a dead end in the short or long term.

3

Understand technical realities

Get your minimum and maximum quality level set, understand how that is achieved and go straight to it. No point in taking pointless steps toward an end point if they fall short.

Understanding some tech stuff is required here, but it boils down to picture profile or codec (LOG or not), colour bit depth, frame rate options (for slo-mo) and resolution. Lots to know, some a little perplexing with plenty of opinions and contradictions. Comparing camera specs can help or equally confuse, so my advice is to look to vloggers like Caleb Hoover, Markuspix, Mark Bone, D4Darius or RICH Photography, then follow the associated links from there.

The thread is basically this; most use a LOG format, some don’t or don’t always and RAW format is seldom recommended for standard video work. These voices will help sort out the mess.

This is often where money is wasted for little benefit if you buy a camera and lenses before you get this right. Everything at the moment seems to be measured in 4k/60 terms and 6k is looming.

Good quality is possible with;

• Quality 1080p or down sampled 4k.

• 422/10bit colour depth.

• A Flat colour profile for decent dynamic range and flexibility in post.

Format does not dictate this and 4k resolution is handy but not required for broadcast level quality. The rest comes down to the rest, lighting, technique and practice. I have fund with video, doing practice runs and pretend scenarios is not the same as actually making something real.

The above is plenty for almost any uses. Less can even be used successfully, but is not necessary to compromise these days and lower quality should be a choice, not a forced restriction. The reality is, like with stills, you are after the end product, the “jpeg” equivalent, which may well be achievable out of camera and not need a ridiculous dynamic or colour range, but you need options if it is not easy to get.

LOG profiles, even RAW format are pushed hard for their extra DR, but walk your own path. Start at the beginning (a Standard picture profile) and see how close that gets you. There is a lot of good work being produced without resorting to LOG profiles which have their own needs.

Torture tests for dynamic range aside, people will accept inky black shadows as “creative licence” and lighting can fix these, but badly blown-out highlight elements if they are important, are like bad sound, un-ignorable. You can avoid what you cannot control.

Good quality can be upscaled, poor quality is still poor even if it is 12k. If you are happy with 4k/60 LOG as your top end, then there are a lot of cheap options, but make sure the other elements like colour depth are there also. Even Game of Thrones was filmed in 1080, then upscaled for 4k DVD sales. A bit like engines, it is not the size, but the application that matters.

I use 10bit/422/1080p at 50fps (Pal region), in Flat profile on my Lumix cameras (M43, APS-c and full frame). Flat profile also allows me to apply idynamic DR expansion. This is easy to grade, plenty if I am careful not to shoot everything with a bright window in the background and consistent. RAW is better theoretically, even full LOG, but for my needs (see point 1), this is enough. Remember that incoming quality is only trying to give you what you want to see at the outward end, so sometimes a Standard picture mode right out of camera may actually be enough, I found this out with my G9 Mk1’s.

4

Camera choice

Buy a good enough camera to meet the above criteria, with a little up your sleeve if you can.

Overbuy and things get harder, not easier. Concentrate on what is important to you. If you intend to use a gimbal or tripod, then internal stabilising is possibly irrelevant, if you intent to go “old school” and manual focus, then AF performance is equally irrelevant, meaning you can pick up a lot of very decent recent cams cast aside for more sure footed AF performers.

Not much point in worrying about AF performance if you intend to go this way.

Look at formats large and small, all brands (be careful of bias) and be sure to check out “best buys” for recent classics still relevant in the current world. The things that really matter are your own reactions to handling, colour, legacy of the brand and their full ecosystem. Gotta like your camera.

Light levels you want to work in may also effect both camera and lens choice, the two being linked. A smaller sensor with a faster lens and depth of field considerations can equalise the playing field.

Some cameras come with the “compromise” of a Super-35 crop in some settings, but all you need to do is take that into account when buying lenses (i.e. buy a zoom with decent wide angle or even a good prime that then has effectively two focal lengths).

If you may need more than one camera, this is something to consider now. No point in putting all your money into one expensive camera if you have to do the same simply for a second angle. A Panasonic S5 can cheaply be two or three in support of an S5IIx, a Sony FX3 can be matched to an A7 or A6000 series and the new GH7 can even matches an Arri.

Brands tend to share colour science across their offerings, but mixing brands can also work, you just need to research and have the skills to adjust them.

Falling loosely under this umbrella are drones. No real opinion here. If you have one, it will undoubtably become a useful tool, but the lack of one will do no harm either.

I went M43 for stills and I am happy there. For video, the smart move for me would have been to stay there, but I messed that all up with some full frame because my timing sucks. Nothing wrong with a mixed kit and as it turned out, my G9II and S5II are almost twins with their own strengths, it is just messier than it needs to be. In a multi cam set-up, cross-compatibility really only matters for colour and codec matching, which I can and various formats have their uses.

There is a little too much hate aimed at non-full frame cams at the moment, but keep in mind that 98% of movies shot up until about 5 years ago were shot in Super-35 mode (film and digital), which is closer to APS-c/M43 in size and many of the top digital cameras still use the format.

5

Lenses

Lenses are the best place to take a breath and ponder your real needs.

If your answer to the AF or MF question in point 4 was “AF please”, at least as an option, then you will be buying a modern AF lens. Old lenses can be good for effects, but be careful not to accept any flaw as cool, because some just aren’t and all are limiting.

A good 24-70 f2.8 zoom or equivalent for your camera format is plenty to start with, especially if you embrace APS-c cropping giving you 24-105 overall range (and you can shoot 4k to crop 1080 for even more versatility).

Cine lenses add benefits for rigged setups, especially manual focus based rigs, but are often more expensive than the very same lens in stills guise (IRIX, Sony, Sigma etc), or conversely, some cheaper cine lenses are actually better value than low end stills lenses (TTArtisan, 7Artisan, Viltrox, Sirui), thanks in part to their simplicity. .

Cine lenses are also meant to be mechanically similar, which the budget ones do well and match each other in colour and rendering, but the budget ones often fail here.

A lot of top end productions use “character” filled wide field of view anamorphic glass (Shogun, anything Wes Anderson), but these lenses cost and can be limiting (once captured, you cannot reverse the look). Anamorphic effects can be copied to some extent, so maybe instead use streak filters, retro glass or letterboxing with regular lenses? In some scenes of Shogun and even some recent Marvel series, people on the edge of frame are actually lost to lens flaws, so be careful what you wish for.

Rodger Deakin prefers to shoot “straight” then add effects after and pst processing or filters can add effects as needed.

After exhaustive testing, my take-aways are most lenses are sharp especially at more useful apertures like 2-3 stops in from wide open, especially in the centre where people look, but most have very different colour, blur rendering and flare control and some just suck in the handling department.

A massive hypocrite here or an example of the pitfalls of being lens obsessed. I have a little of everything from state of the art stills lenses, to retro refugees, entry level and better cine glass over three formats. I justify my bloated lens selection by mating them to the right cameras (S5 mk1 gets MF cine lenses, the better focussing S5II gets hybrid Lumix-S AF lenses) and can also I shoot stills. If pushed, I would recommend a good 24-70 f2.8 Sigma for full frame, the Sigma 18-35 f1.8 in APS-c or 10-25 f1.7 in M43 as a good start. For me personally, a 35mm on full frame, cropped to 50mm in APS-c is plenty, but I use zooms on M43 for versatility while moving.

6

Sound

This should be higher up the list, probably in point 3, but camera choice, shooting style etc may effect your direction.

The old adage “sound is 50% of video” is kind of right. Poor sound means basically no video, simple as that. Exceptional sound on the other hand can make even poor footage look like you meant it. The kicker is, really good sound can be had for about the same a mid range lens, so you have no excuse.

Run a decent shotgun (MKE-600 or similar) or decent LAV’s (DJI/Hollyland/Rode etc) into a similarly decent field recorder (Zoom F6, H6 or similar) and you are golden. Any mic, when close enough to the subject, can record more than acceptable sound. Better gear just means more range, reliability, cleaner starting sound. Research may drive you slightly mad, but remember, everyone’s voice is different, and there are many more controls and variables available, so take advice as meant, but not too much to heart.

Some useful bits to start with.

Effects and music are available from many sources, shop around here, you cannot really go wrong or for more fun, record your own.

My main kit, a mess like much of the rest is multi layered or I should say, lacking direction, but not options. I have taken my own advice and can run a few shotgun options into a variety of Zoom recorders (always good to have backups right?), there is also a full set of music mics, some LAV’s, direct to camera or computer choices and a ton of “bits” kicking around in case. My main mic for videography is not my MKE-600, but my SSH-6 on my F1 Zoom, because for general use I have found it more flexible or alternatively the MKE-400 which is far more useable. The MKE-600 is technically a better mic for booming etc, but like most shotgun mics, it is limited in other areas. I have a Zoom H8, H5, H1n and F1 with several capsules, all different, all useful in their own way.

7

Stability

Get……a……tripod.

Get a good tripod, not one of those “handy”, overcomplicated, undersized travel things. A simple, reasonably solid, fluid head (not ball) is where you will end up if you stick with this, so go there sooner rather than later. An exception might be if you are a travel vlogger who may use a gimbal most often, but for everyone else, get a tripod first.

Weight equals stability, recent in-built stabilisers are amazing and specialist gimbal-cams like the OSMO Pocket are also an option, but think on the style you are chasing, your actual needs compared to possible capabilities and applications. I see a lot of “like new” gimbals on ebay and that is for a reason. They need skill to use, tend to be a required, sometimes dominant kit consideration and do not fix everything.

I am not a gimbal guy, using the G9II and S5II’s with their excellent in-body stabe with a variety of old school tools to help with movement and hand held work, otherwise a mechanical slider and decent tripod (Manfrotto 190 with Neewer fluid head) are all I need..

This is me, able to do moving shots steadier than many top flight cinematographers use when shooting “steadycam” mode, but not as “perfect” as gimbal footage.

8

Filtering

In video, this is in partly unavoidable, but also partly optional. The unavoidable bit is a Neutral Density filter of some type, because the 180 degree rule requires fixed shutter speeds, fairly slow ones and that means your exposure triangle tends to be limited. The most popular types are the monstrously expensive variable ND’s bought in the biggest filter size you may need and cheap stepping rings used to fit other lenses.

An 82mm VND from a major brand may cost as much as a decent prime lens. You can use fixed value filters and some cameras have built in ND’s, but if you have those, you are probably not reading this.

Other filters are purely for creative effect, but some seem almost mandatory at the moment. Mist/Black Mist/Cine-bloom filters offer a deliberate softening and highlight blooming effect that seems to be very in at the moment (huh…Moment is a filter brand also). The irony of people spending multi thousands of dollars on top tier cameras and lenses and then softening them down to look like older film cameras is not lost on the industry, but it is not reducing their use either.

Other filters, like light streak, star or colour change filters are also used sparingly, but may be of more actual use.

the reality is, you may not need many or even any filters, but it is funny how quickly you can accumulate them without a plan.

My kit is a mess, because several times I drew a line under my biggest filter size then shifted it (62, then 67, then 82), but it is useable and I can use multiples of the same filter at once, which comes in handy. I use fixed ND’s (Hoya Pro 8/32/100 strength which is 3/5/7 stops) in preference to variable (which I also have) because they allow me to mount the lens hood back on (unwanted flare being……. unwanted) and I can calculate my exposure rather than the seamless VND roll, or for my very large cine lenses, I realised too late that a matt box and slide in filters were actually cheaper in big sizes.

I also use polarisers, weak 1/8 strength mist filters, differing brands giving me slightly different strengths and looks and blue and gold streak filters for a faux anamorphic look.

9

Lighting

This is last, because it is the most important thing!

Ok, what I mean is, light is everything, but it is also free to start with. Use natural light as long as you can, work angles, experiment and remember that all lighting in movies etc is trying to mimic natural light!

Then move to cheap, even free modifiers like reflective surfaces, diffusion cloth (shower curtains), “motivated” or available light, then add what you cannot find. Work into this. Visit the local hardware store or haberdasher to get ideas, buy single decent lights, then good supports until you feel bullet-proof for your style. The camera and lenses you choose may determine what and how much you need and your style surely will, so don’t rush this. Do it right, do it once.

My lighting is a you guessed it, a mess. I went cheap in quantity with the sound logic that I would have depth and versatility, until I pack it all that is. Several 60w COB lights and mid range LED panels can give me lots of options in small cases, but I have to set up a wall of lights if I want that 300w blast through a window. My interview kit is simple, an AMARAN 60d and a RB9 Weelite, but that is a one trick pony. I am lucky my stills kit has a lot of mods, so some money was saved there.

10

Rigs

What can I really here that I have not said, contradicted and said again?

Rig as you grow, change as you need, don’t do it just because it looks cool, don’t avoid it because it looks complicated. each of my three dedicated video cameras has their own application, their role to play, so they get their own rigging options.

Probably the most useful tip I can offer is try to go universal for tripod plates. I use cheap Neewer plate adapters for all my heads to make sense of my mix of Manfrotto, Arca Swiss, Neewer and non quick release heads. One button pushed and I can switch from ball head on a rail, to fluid head on a tripod, to gimbal, hand held rig or nothing.

My G9II gets a hand held monster rig (see above), the S5 is setup for extended recording on a tripod with cine lenses, the S5II one is left as is, with only a top handle to fill what ever role is needed.

11.

Well there is no eleven, just use it and make stuff.

To sum up;

• Get an idea of what you want to do (assuming you have a story to tell).

• Learn a programme enough to get started, it will come as you use it, but simple cutting and shaping is a start. DaVinci has a whole free learning module with included footage.

• Set your expectations to reach your intended idea and your editing “chops”, which may require learning the “jargon” of video formats etc.

• Buy a camera and lenses to reach the intended quality with a little to spare if you can.

• Buy some filters if you need based on camera and lens selection.

• Get your sound sorted as a priority, not an after thought.

• Get your stability sorted and work out your “moves”.

• Decide on lighting and how you want to control it, then control it. Less is more until it isn’t.

• Make videos, learn, repeat.

If it were me starting now again with what I know, the G9II, G9I, 10-25 f1.7 Lumix, 45 Olympus, a Zoom F1 with SSH-6, H1n and some decent LAV’s, would be enough.

Contradictions, Because It Seems I Can

I am on record as not liking AF in video, for de-rigging, rejecting gimbals and other trivialities.

Time to contradict myself, or in a few cases not.

AF may actually be preferred, even enabling for some rig options. .

My video set-ups as they stand are;

The Panasonic S5 with cine lenses, follow focus and big 7” screen for tripod work. It looks the biz, it is the biz and for interviews, pans etc, this is my “A” cam. The S5 mk1 has better rolling shutter for pans than the S5II, especially in Super-35 mode and the video quality as I use it is the same as the S5II.

As an added bonus, this ungainly looking rig even works well on a slider with the centre of balance being middle of the handle.

This rig makes logical allowances for average AF performance, playing to the cameras strengths, which is my theme here.

My main general purpose “money maker” is the S5II with my set of Lumix-S lenses, crossing easily into most shooting forms, stills or video. This acts as my “B” cam to the cams above or below, or my main camera if I only have one. With little effort it can be either of the cameras above or below.

The G9II is the movement camera.

It has the best stabiliser and AF performing by a hair over the S5II, has the best rolling shutter, slo-mo and All-i as an option to cope with background changes with more and smaller lenses to choose from. On paper this is my best video cam, but I have concentrated on it’s main features, the ability to be handled successfully.

This kind of made itself. At over 2kg, the base rig is well balanced, tight and substantial with camera, mimicking true cine camera heft. If needed, a 5" monitor and/or mic can be added to the front cross-bar or the top handle and a body strap to take some weight. The 8-18 allows me to apply the best stabilising and still have decently wide angle as well as being better balanced than the 12-60. Results from the combination of G9 stabe and weight of the rig looking for all the world like a real gimbal, without any of the B.S. that entails.

I can adjust the shoulder pad at back for better balance or replace it with a chest pad, then extend the lot, switch the weights under the hand grips to the back and use it as a shoulder rig. I do not use the hand grips otherwise, normally using them as counter weight arms and the same with the shoulder pad, which is usually a stabilising point, top handle, hand under with thumb touch AF on the screen..

Unlike a normal gimbal rig, I can use or ignore it, I don’t need special skills or thinking, it is not fragile or restrictive, in need of balance or of rigging up especially. In seconds I can have the camera or lens swapped out, or remove the camera for tripod or slider use, no issue. It also folds flat and goes into a flat pocket in my sound bag, backpack or rolling case.

The long shoulder mount is comfortable and allows me to see either a 5” monitor or the camera’s own screen.

These, including my actual mechanical gimbal, previously all needed manual “zone” focussing thanks to less than trustworthy AF, that was before the G9II. Now I can use reliable AF as needed.

Another option is to add a central handle under the camera and focus the lens by hand, like a big cine cam and I would shorten the shoulder rig for that.

The big change is AF, which has made some early, less than wise purchases come into fruition.

Touch AF is the norm for hand held, or face/body detect AF with screen monitoring for my shoulder rig. M43 is also ideally suited to manual zone focus, giving me all I need on a wide angle at f4 or 5.6 to move around a subject, or shallower if I want that deliberate in-out thing.

Micro Four Thirds Is Amateur, Full Frame Is Pro? Let's Flip That.

I realised after I starting watching a video from RICH Photography about M43 being a better format in video than full frame, that my kit is a mixed full frame/M43 one, but the roles are reversed to the usual expectations.

Why do I have full frame in my otherwise M43 kit and why is it the “backup” format?

Basically, to put into a single sentence, M43 does everything I need and more, but full frame has a couple of specific use-cases where it adds something M43 is less good at.

• High ISO natural light video, because shutter speeds are locked in, leaving aperture and ISO only for adjustment.

• Super low light, with shallow depth of field assumed, action shooting.

Firstly some history.

I bought full frame for video when there was a thin choice in M43 for the same price to fix a few genuine needs. I wanted longer than half hour recording, some more codec choices with higher bit rates (all-i) and some small benefits like shutter angle and wave forms. The G9 Mk1’s had been amazing with their 10 bit/422, but were limited in some of the ways mentioned above without an upgrade key, an off-board recorder or a new camera.

I had about $2k au to spend (a bit of a stretch as I had nothing really, but 2k seemed possible or at least do-able) and the M43 options were either dearer than that or old models. The GH5II was the gut choice at the time for only $1600au offering All-i recording and V-Log-light. The new GH6 was the heart choice, but out of my range and it needed expensive cards and the BMPCC4k was a whole other thing and quite long in the tooth, so I went with the S5 and kit lens, which was the head choice and I must admit to a little full frame lust.

It simply offered all I needed with some added benefits. Soon afterwards a flood of cheap L-mount cine glass reassured me I had made a good move.

This led to a S5II (a better buy at the time than a second S5), some more lenses and suddenly I have a second eco-system.

The lure of better low light performance in video was actually an illusion as bought, because I needed lens equivalency to make it real. More money spent on primes and that nagging thought I had worked at crossed purposes with myself.

I am faced with the reality that if I had waited, A pair of G9II’s or a G9II and GH7, the twin f1.7 zooms and some Sirui anamorphic lenses would have been plenty and actually cheaper over all seeing as I bought a G9II anyway. The raw specs of the G9II actually exceed the S5IIx, the GH7’s are even better.

The only three benefits I get from full frame are;

Better low light for video, but probably more than I need if I use fast primes on my M43 cams. A M43 lens at f1.7 is basically f2.8 on a full frame, which is about perfect. If this equivalence is achieved, the full frame (S5/S5II) with dual ISO capability can really push things in video, an area I am not as confident processing in.

Wider than f2.8 on a full frame makes me twitchy, both creatively and practically. The real difference then is not huge and the extra two stops of depth in M43 mean I can effectively use the full aperture range, something I would not do with my f1.8 full frame primes (in video). In hind sight (which is always a bitch), a single 24-70 Sigma or Leica zoom would have actually covered my full frame video needs.

A little more retrievability of bad files in poor or mixed lighting, but this also seems to be generational as the new G9II and even the EM1x’s also show some of this capability. The easy answer here is avoid bad files, but realistically they do happen and on sparingly few occasions so far, a full frame has helped make them work.

The ability to render really shallow depth of field with wider lenses, which is not a thing for me really and becomes effectively irrelevant with longer lenses that render plenty shallow for my needs. I often wonder when this one comes up, “how shallow is too shallow to be practical”? I shot full frame and film for years and never used wide open primes for important work.

Ok, reasons for using M43 in preference.

It more than does the job image quality wise.

It fits in a bag.

I cannot tell you how many times I have wanted to throw a full frame in my bag “just in case”, but the sheer size of the lenses has prevented it. The S5II and 85mm are bigger than the near identical G9II and a 40-150 f4. A Domke F2 can take a two camera, five lens M43 kit covering 16-300 (ff equiv), all ready to go.

I can take what I think I will need, then what I may need if I am wrong. Two catch-all zooms, three fast primes and I am safe in any situation. Often the heaviest thing in my bag is a flash, which I use less and less these days.

I do not trust the full frame format DOF in professional situations.

Odd?

Read on.

The added depth of field and the rendering in M43 is safe to use, even wide open, so basically any aperture is useable. The unique look of the 17mm f1.8 for example is safe to use for fluid small groups socially. Focussing accurately, then giving me f3.4 full frame depth at f1.8 and with the Bokeh transitioning slowly and coherently, I rarely miss.

My habit is to shoot wide open with M43, which ever lens I am using, but match the lens to job. Primes with f1.8 are ideal for low light and hero subjects, f2.8 zooms for most else, f4 on my 300mm or in good light is a perfect balance for accuracy and separation.

At f1.8 and ISO 800, I can fire a basic flash (Godox 860 or 685) into a high ceiling with a bounce card and still light a group easily at 1/8th-1/16th power all night. With modern software, near misses are hits, so I get the benefit of f1.8 speed, no catches. I have even used my 75mm f1.8 wide open for rows of three in large groups for perfect background rendering and three sharp rows of faces.

The smaller sensor is easier to design stuff for, which is one reason they chose it in the first place.

Lenses are usually sharp corner to corner even wide open and often faster than their full frame equivalents, have better close focus like for like (9mm f1.7 has 3cm focus).

Thanks to the smaller real estate, camera stabilisers more efficient, the depth of field thing and sensor size mean, all else being equal, that video AF is more reliable (G9II vs S5II). Features like focus stacking, hand held high resolution etc are ahead (maybe format, maybe the innovative companies involved addressing the need for more in M43), overall things are smaller (12-45 f4, 8-18, 45 f1.8), or sometimes as big but they push the envelope of possibility (10-25 f1.7) and the sensor seems to be physically cleaner (never needed to clean one).

Taken in very gloomy light on the dark side of my old mate, the local swimming complex, hand held at f2.8 with the 40-150 at ISO 6400 and 1/500th. Enough?

Looks like I ditched the original of above after processing it in ON1 No Noise, but here is the file after, lens fog and gloomy light complete.

It is better value.

I can get stuff that I cannot afford in full frame lenses like a (300) 600mm f4 and owning that lens beats the possible quality advantage in full frame (in extreme cases) for ten times the price and three times the size. Show me a 16x20 print from M43 and full frame and I doubt I could tell the difference, then find me someone who still prints that size anyway?

Same pool, same day at f4 300mm (600). Poster print quality image from a less than ideal situation.

There are also outlier cases such as the “to big” EM1x which is a perfect fit for my hand and I feel nearly the perfect stills camera, but not well loved in M43 land and available on the second hand market, hardly used, for about $1k au. My three EM1x’s cost a total butchers bill of less than $4500 au. A lot of camera(s) for relatively little. The second hand market generally seems very generous, likely the full frame jitters afflicting many.

So, when walking out the door to any number of situations, yes I do like my M43 options more, the full frames are a little like medium format was for me in the film era. Worth the extra effort occasionally, but often not and far more limiting over all.

An Old Friend.....

The local swimming baths, always a tricky spot and today, I only had the sort of time the paper usually allowed, i.e. not much, but at least I did not have to chase names!

A rare decent backstroke image, the least giving of strokes.

A warm up shot for both of us. At this point I was competing with lens fogging and very poor light, but the files cleaned up well.

The usual combination of crowded spaces, fogged lenses (really bad today with foul weather outside straight to high humidity-about a 15 degree and 70% humidity change), limited angles due to sharing the pool with several school not in my remit and poor light.

A 600mm between the officials.

On top of that, I only had a half hour.

Luckily, there were medley relays first up, so all age groups, genders and strokes, which is good because only breast stroke and butterfly are reliable for good images.

Back stroke and free style are less giving photo wise, but can be interesting if you are lucky.

I guess I have the measure of this tricky location now, but it still gives me the jitters before hand.

More Video Realities, Workflow And Myth Busting.

Might rock a few boats here, but here goes.

Video is not that hard, but it can sure look like it is.

Shooting and grading.

There is a lot of mystique here, but also a lot of contradiction and even worse, some odd trends that get picked up, even if they fly in the face of logic.

If you watch a bunch of videos on what profile to use, to apply a LUT or not, dynamic range etc, you can get quite depressed. I have found, more often than not, that the processes many pundits recommend give us results that fall squarely in the “artsy, on-trend” camp.

What if, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, there are a lot of variables you cannot control and a lot of opinions at work here. What is right? To me, if it looks good it is right. If it can be improved, it is better.

If you look at it backwards, just wanting to simply get clear, smooth, colourful and natural looking footage, the sort of footage a client wants, the sort you see on TV or when streaming, then the pathway is likely a lot easier.

The amber/teal with full strength Blackmist or Cinebloom filter look is in at the moment, so give it a go if you want, but remember, nothing lasts forever and the standouts in any creative space tend to be those who do it better and they are often the ones who grow from it best.

Because most video is shot in a form of JPEG style compression, because true RAW is locked up by RED, processing is mostly additive, so shooting needs to be reductive. This results in a flat profile, something with room to push colour and contrast into from a very soft base.

The ladder of choice looks like this;

• Standard profile. A normal shooting profile like Standard, Natural, Portrait or Landscape

• Standard profile heavily reduced in contrast, colour and sharpness. The above modified.

• A video specific profile. Cine-V, Like 709 or similar, designed to look like graded footage.

• A semi-LOG video profile. Cine-D, Flat, V-LOG lite. These are flat, but still fall just inside “normal” profiles. These also tend to limit the other in-camera settings available.

• A full LOG video profile. Very flat, usually requiring a LUT to be applied or 709 conversion before they look close to useable, but often providing the cameras best out of cam dynamic range.

• A faux RAW profile. BRaw, Apple ProRes etc, that are as close to real RAW as you can get out side of real RAW.

• RAW. RED cameras patented this, so few can use it.

You need to work out where in that range of choices you need to settle to get the end product you need (more than one is fine). This needs to be flexible enough to handle reasonably tough lighting, be graded to preference, to be useable by others in their time lines. For me, it needs to do all these without excessive work.

My poison of choice is Panasonic’s Flat profile found in their later cameras. I also apply idynamic set to Standard to increase the dynamic range on offer, but otherwise leave it alone.

I have no numbers to quote, but assuming Flat is 1-2 stops behind V-Log in DR (so 11-12-ish stops), and that idynamic mode adds at least a stop, it may be I have plenty. You cannot apply idynamic to V-Log as far as I can tell.

This has the characteristic flatness of a video profile, but is not too far from useable as is (some would even say it is "on trend", if it was maybe softer). This shot was a regular slightly tricky lighting situation, but a nice enough one to get decent results. The reflected light from the left is brilliant, the shadows reasonably open. If pushed, I will expose for the highlights as much as needed.

This was my very quick grade (reduced Lift slider in DaVinci for more punch) and what my minds eye sees as correct. No LUT, no weird colour work, no feeling of fighting the clip for what I ultimately want, which is anything from crisp and bitingly sharp to soft and smooth. I can repeat it, match it in-timeline, even make some pre-sets (i.e. LUT's) as I go, because the "fixes" are not complicated. White balance should be as close as possible, but there is plenty of room to adjust if I miss.

An equally simple amber/teal grade using just the colour wheels. There may be very mild mist filters applied if needed, but basically that is it.

I almost let video beat me, like that pesky gimbal balance that never seems to be right. I then did what I had done once before and simplified my processes based on my real needs, not my imagined needs, which do tend to go into fanciful “what if” scenarios.

I need to take the footage, get sound and lighting right, grade it and cut it usually same day. This is enough for me.

You cannot create content without a thought for its use, but also, the complication of the post processing stream should not limit your skill growth across the board. It was with me, so I cut it back to what I need now.

White Balance.

This is part of above, but actually important enough to be tackled on it’s own. White balance is a funny thing. If you need a white sheet of paper to be white no matter what you shoot, then probably best to meter off that.

I eyeball it (never using auto, because it will actually change mid clip), based on a rudimentary knowledge of colour temp and a realistic awareness of what I want the footage to look like. The reality is, under red light, a sheet of white paper will. to look white, so unless you need your footage to always be equalised, there is no need to chase perfect white.

It is important to remember I think that white balance tends to be seen as a right or wrong thing, which is partly true, but not always. Warm light coming from a late afternoon sun, cold blue light reflecting off concrete or water? If that is what it is, then that is what it is. Don’t let WB control you. You control it.

Sound.

This one is important, relatively easy to get right, but as I found also very easy to over do. Any mic, from a $20 Neewer mini shotgun to a $2000 studio condenser, can give you good sound if used well. Equally each will fail if not.

The above clips were shot either with a Sennheiser MKE-600 on a small stand in front fed to a Zoom H5 through XLRs (could have used a 3.5 directly to cam, but why when you don’t need to and the Zoom adds better real time control) or the little Lark M1 LAVs to camera if moving.

Mic comparisons usually create a good, better, best dynamic, but the funny thing is, for the average videographer, decent gain, good depth, enough rejection and/or width of coverage will be plenty. If you cannot compare one to another, you will tend to normalise what you hear anyway. If properly recorded, it has to be quite poor quality before it cannot be salvaged, changed and enhanced.

Camera amps are generally poor, but are getting better and camera mics are by design limited. Like on camera flash, it is not the fault of device, just limited design.

I went too far here for a videographer, with several Zoom interfaces and too many music mics, but I have depth and problem solving options.

If I had my time again, my basic Zoom kit would have sufficed. The H5 and F1 with the extra XLR, X/Y and SSH-6 shotgun/mid-side capsules, my AMS-24, some Lewitt music grade condensers and dynamics can do most of my work and have proven to be quite versatile.

Self noise (which in the real world is overrated as an issue), is higher than say an F6 or H8, but it has never been an issue for my work and my very best combo (Lewitt or MKE-600 via XLR capsule to F1) is actually very good.

Sound is often said to be half of video, but the reality is, if you need it and fail, it is 100% of that failure. Take the straightest path and keep it simple, have backups, but also keep an open mind to options other than just another shotgun on camera or LAV. Most things are better off camera. I also found sound to be relatively inexpensive in proportion to the return compared to cameras and lenses in particular. My entire sound kit, which fills two cases, probably tops out at about $3k au. That is less than my G9II.

Lighting.

With modern cameras and super fast lenses making “available gloom” workable, artificial lighting is less necessary just to get the job done, but it is no exaggeration to say, lighting is the secret to elevating your footage.

Natural light used well, some artificial/reflected to enhance it when needed and manipulation of colour are the true trades of top cinematographers, not just cameras or lenses. Start with natural then enhance what you can see and fix what you cannot see. That window light good, but not showing on your footage? Add a little more or change it’s colour.

If you have the ability to have two lights with you, a key, maybe a 60-100w panel or COB light and a hair light. I currently use an Amaran 60D and a Weeylite RB9 RGB panel. These make a huge difference and can be carried in a small suit case with a Manfrotto nano stand, brolly and super light Neewer stand. Add a reflector/diffuser/negative fill panel and you have options.

Like my sound kit, my lighting kit is badly under funded. $2000au can fix most issues, the price of a decent standard zoom. It is amazing how often it is under done, when it has so much benefit.

More is more of course, but some is exponentially more when compared to nothing.

Edit. Stabilising.

Hard to be a voice of reason as I am still in a funny place here. I guess this comes down to looking at what the pro’s do. Most cinematographers will use tripods, shoulder rigs or harnesses (often part of a super gimbal rig), but many just hand hold.

Lighter cameras make it tougher. With the inertia a large camera offers lacking, small hand held gimbals have become a thing, but follow your gut. Learn good technique and when it is not enough, add the next toy.

Most importantly, learn your craft. There are so many ways of making a video, angles, moves, compositions, but at the moment there are some very strong trends that are hard to ignore. Look to the classics, learn what you can, take what fits and evolve it into your voice.

So, my advice?

Find your acceptable level in each of these areas as quickly as you can. Do not settle, do not allow the industry and its pundits confuse you and keep going. The more you do yourself the more confident you will become, so try to avoid lazy or quick fixes and don’t follow every trend if it does not sit well with you.

The journey is not as hard as it looks unless you let it be and you can always grow as you go, just as long as you keep going. I will possibly become a serious colourist or sound engineer in the future, but probably not, because what I want to be is a capable jack of all trades, a one stop option for basic, good quality video content and most importantly to keep having fun.

:)

The Gimbal Thing Put to Bed.....For Now.

A decent Gimbal for me, probably a Ronin R3 mini or Crane 3R would cost me a s little as a cheap lens. $3-400 au and I am done.

I had a recent horror experience and it gave me the gimbal jitters, but looking into it with a solution in mind, even relenting and reviewing gimbals themselves as the only real option, I have come full circle (yet again).

I was asked to do two walk-and-talks, probably the hardest moves to pull of for a relatively inexperienced videographer.

You have backwards movement over about 40 meters of mixed surface (with no help-no guide, no soul or light assist), keeping two subjects in frame as steadily as possible, while matching their speed (none of the talent were practiced at this), while watching sound levels etc and in both cases, the subjects fluffing their lines most times (they only saw the script that day).

I did ok.

I felt I needed to do better.

I used the G9II, arguably the best self stabilised hybrid mirrorless camera available today with a stabilised lens (12-60), on a rail rig with side and rear weights, a top handle and stabe on maximum. I used a wide angle lens, I walked out the move several times and had some success, usually when the lines went wrong, and unfortunately the two complete takes were not the best footage overall.

The reality is, gimbal or not, this is a hard move to pull off if you have all done it before, much tougher if not.

I could have used my mechanical gimbal or reduced the duration of the move, slowed it down or even changed the shot to something else (if I had creative input), but I did not, so it was what it was.

When my little voice is talking, I have learned to listen and I have been trying as hard as I can to come up with another solution.

Why fight it, why be so anti-gimbal?

• I don’t like the “do as everyone else does” mentality of the gimbal community. They are a handy tool if used wisely, but if over used, they tend to create the same movements, the same techniques as everyone else is using in the “on trend”world, but what about the other 99.9% of cinema history. What they then tend to do is become the one answer most need and a rigid corral is formed.

• They are big and often clumsy to use, a bit like an Albatross, graceful in flight, less than impressive when not. I already have one man lighting, sound and camera gear stress, adding a gimbal is effectively another bag of gear, time to set up, something else to charge and something to fail. You could argue it is the one man band solution, but see above.

• I have a natural aversion to over automation. I will use automatic features, even auto focus and exposure if relevant, but anything else is perilous and lazy. I also need to know I can do the very same thing without, have full control, which takes practice and commitment. Intuition takes a back seat or adapts to over-used tech. The more we rely on tech, the more it seems the tech dominates creative thinking.

• Perfection is sometimes overrated and not appropriate. Some movement is accepted, perfection is like a lot of things, ideal sometimes, too much for others. It seems like it is a specialist bit of kit, with specialist, limited application. They create a very serious space, a look that suits slick music vids, they have big budget looking moves, when they are maybe not needed. The more “docco” style smooth but not perfect look is often more relevant to the space.

• The big movement gimbals are still not perfect at fixing is the up-down walking roll, something that the “ninja” walk fixes, but I am so close to sorting that anyway. Is the complicated and expensive gimbal only going to offer a slight improvement in a hedge case? Most gimbal footage is reproduced in slo-mo, because it is still imperfect and needs to be smoothed or because the shot needs that look anyway. The walk-and-talk is a rare exception with real time movement and sound. It is the exception that has forced this thinking. A pain really. In stills, I would simply avoid what is not possible and come up with something else.

• There are so many other options in both movements and ways of getting these movements to happen. Big cinema and broadcast cameras have been hand held for years without stabilising, they rely on their weight alone. Mechanical steady-cam stabilisers, shoulder rigs, counter weights, in camera and/or ens stabilising, tripods, sliders, practice, boom poles, straps etc have also been used in the past and the present.

• Some prefer non-gimbal perfection, something smooth, but more organic, Guess the difference between micro jitters and perfect glides. Something that reminds us of human movement or the sort of semi-smooth look most movies use for action sequences (the rest is done with tripods etc). This also ties in with Panasonic and Olympus hand-held stabe.

• I have the OSMO pocket with a mic jack etc. For the very rare times I need it, is this enough, better even in some situations. I did not get it set up on the day, but probably should have.

• Setup and balancing is no easier than my mechanical gimbal and 100% harder than my hand held rig. My hand held rig takes literally less than a minute t set up and once mounted can be used all day, even on a tripod.

I have access to all or most of these now.

So, if I got one it would be used to accomplish the toughest of movements you can attempt, may still not nail it, may hold things up when needed, may fail, will become out dated and will improve my skills only in the context of their use.

Other options will not be limited to gear size or weight, will be applicable to any camera, are more controllable and intuitive and I feel often more natural.

This last is contentious. Is an obvious organic movement more natural than a smooth, near perfect one, or is that near, but not quite perfect movement even worse than more “organic” intentionally imperfect movement?

I have managed some very smooth footage with a basic steady-cam style gimbal, a home made rig, just the camera, a top handle and some body movements. There are some I cannot yet do, some I would never do.

As a test, I used my new rig (a work in progress), some good relaxed technique, which is so much easier when you are concentrating on a subject (Meg), not just walking around. Her response to the footage was “it looks natural and professional looking, like we often see on TV etc”. I had to agree, it was surprisingly fine.

Frankensteins monster works quite well. Coming in at 1900g, it is actually not heavy enough. If I add more weight, which I intend to, I have a shoulder strap for support, but the heavier, the steadier. Funny how stuff works out.

I have found the shoulder pad, mostly useless for a light weight rig is a brilliant hand cradle and seat for some weights, the side handles are not used as such, just balancing arms and the middle handle is probably not a real thing. Sometimes I struggle to balance a rig like this when changing camera settings, but this may not be needed. Usually the camera had a top handle, but I have experimented with a long straight handle for more “drop” weight.

Would a gimbal only add moves I don’t even use?

I will carry on as before. I have found in life, reacting to a single situation is often too much. Wait and see if it happens again and be prepared to fix it as you can. If that does not work, then maybe yes, I do need a fix that cannot be faked, replaced or ignored.

Relevance And Repetition (or It's Not The Camera Folks)

Cruising the internet for one of those elusive answers (video frame rates- mixing different rates with input/processing/output can be confusing), I came across a sample gallery for a new camera (Canon R something, which as you will see below, I find mostly irrelevant).

Boy, do we delude ourselves into thinking this stuff matters.

If a top photographer shoots anything, they will do a good job. I have seen amazing sample images taken on manual focus film cameras in the 80’s that look hauntingly similar to the samples offered from the latest super cams. This will make the cam look like the next big thing, but has that photographer never shot anything that good before?*

If an amateur or someone not trying that hard takes a bunch of images, if they are a poor or worse, irrelevant for what they are trying to do, they will be mediocre or misleading.

This is because, apart from extremes in ISO performance and decade long generational differences in AF performance, basically the camera does not matter.

If a 2000’s Canon 10D is compared to a 2020’s Z9 for AF, ISO and resolution differences, there will be a noticeable difference, but we are talking abut cameras 20 years apart, one coming from the first generation of usable digital cameras, the other a camera we could not have even wished for back then.

Comparing two images taken by skilled users and printed to a realistic size (12x16”, there may be little real difference. Most images are judged by normal viewers using non technical parameters.

Oddly, the “limelight” period for new gear is getting shorter and shorter, but the actual shortcomings of new cameras are becoming fewer and less relevant. Personally I mix old EM10.2’s in with EM1x’s, G9.2’s and others with little thought as long as each cam does the job it is delegated.

I have coincidentally also seen a few “nothing is changing” videos regarding camera tech and its seeming lack of advancement, Canon, Sony and Nikon copping the biggest slams.

Coincidence, or the new normal?

This is for three main reasons.

The industry is slowing and shrinking, becoming much more like it used to be in the 1980’s, a more them-and-us dynamic of real cameras being sold to professionals for the few reasons they need them and “compact” cams (now phones), being used by the rest. Even back in the day, we knew that our top of the line EOS # was overkill for many shoots, a decent compact doing a good enough job. The difference was the person, their skills and motivations.

Around 2005, everyone wanted a DSLR. This was the second big blip in SLR history, the first being the first “automatic” camera, the AE-1. I know because I was selling them, thousands of dollars worth a day. That is no longer the case. The improvement of phones, their ease, the shift to mirrorless, the similar shift to video have all diluted the pool and distanced “real” cameras from the average buyer. They are now a specialist tool again, as they always were, but more so.

*

Secondly the tension between protecting the top tier of gear while selling enough of the good stuff to the average buyer is becoming harder to do and to justify. That buyer wants more, is better educated and more curious, but they also want it for less. This is something Canon and Sony in particular have been known for, sometimes to their peril.

Why give up everything the $20k plus broadcast camera offers in a $5k hybrid, just because that is what we, the customers want?

The consumer grade FX3 could film “The Creator”, so why buy more? Soon after the S5IIx comes out at half the price matching or exceeding many of the FX3’s features, so could a Hollywood block buster have been shot with an even cheaper cam and so on?

*

Lastly, the cams we have are getting so close to perfect, that the amount of R&D required to gain even a 1% improvement (that we hardly notice, so we then whinge about) would have once doubled performance, because there was much more to improve and it was probably relatively easier to do.

Each generation could add sensor cleaning, stabilising, add 50% to pixel counts, face detection AF, stacking, mic or headphone ports, vastly improve video features etc. Once most of those have been accounted for, what next?

For many brands, repackaging the same tech in different forms is easier and actually makes sense some time, such as splitting a stills hybrid from a video hybrid with just a couple of top end features reserved for each to make sense of it.

Many of these improvements come incrementally in firmware updates anyway, so the actual camera we buy is really only the foundation of the future camera to be and the real limitations of it’s hardware are often a long way in the future.

In my world the G9 Mk1’s 2.0 firmware update released a beast of a video hybrid rather than just a stills cam that could shoot decent video, which enabled me to actually give it a go and that was a huge shift. Long after the cam seemed to hit its tech wall, the inbuilt processor showed it had more to give.

The original Canon R, Fuji X100 and X Pro mk1’s, Z6/8 Mk1’s, even the Magic Lantern 50D hack that revealed real video buried inside a non-hybrid camera, and many more showed us there is often more to be found with a little patience or curiosity.

So, back to the relevance of sample galleries? They are something to fill reviews and pages, very occasionally show the use of a very real feature and if used specifically to compare image “A” to image “B”, then I guess they can be handy, but otherwise, what are you seeing? A bunch of images of flowers or a reviews family with little context or point.

*95% of my entire photographic life was shot with less than 20mp, 50% on film, yet many of my favourite images are older, even dating back to last century.

Video Breakthrough, Video Setback

Possibly too late to matter, but I have finally started doing video projects for both schools.

One had a set of interviews for a giving day launch and one is hosting the Relic of the blessed Carlo Acutis exhibition, soon to be sainted.

The first job could not have been easier.

My brief was simple and to the point, all direction left to me and I had a decent amount of time (about an hour). Gear was minimal as I knew the location was capable of producing good light, asa long as I had some freedom to setup.

I asked one principal to talk to me for a minute or two, using interview style and it went perfectly. I expecting to have to interview two, but after a simple prompt question, he gave me almost two minutes of unbroken and on point audio, then some stills and b-roll and I was done. I did nothing to the base clip apart from some light grading, then added some other elements and all was done in twenty minutes.

ed. turns out this has gone right to the head of Catholic Education thinking in the state.

Interview style which puts most subjects at ease, was a good lesson I learned from the paper. S5II, 35mm Lumix with APS-C crop (tend to crop this lens rather than change to my 50 to keep colour identical, the 50/75 is used for more controlled interviews), 1080/422/10 bit/Flat with the MKE-600 low in front into a Zoom H5.

After a frustratingly long Dropbox upload, then a spelling mistake fixed and a re-load, it was done same day. Uploading took longer than total production.

I find stills, the thing I have the most experience in, come easily as video fillers and are a perfect in this context.

The other job, in stark contrast was a multi person, multi location, multi day, stylistically mixed and very last minute moveable feast. It was a good example of being overthought, over controlled and then, with rigid time constraints, under produced. I feel a minute of planning is work three in the field.

Some great footage thanks to solid people and lucky locations, but very mixed and some clangers unfortunately. Control in video production is paramount, something I had very little of. The original concept was to show this subject with the flags and mural the space is known for (high above left in the shot), but the realities of lens science and geometry won and the shoot through teleprompter requires a certain dynamic. The compromise was a walk through wide shot, when we could have used a low pan around the subject (the "Michael Bey") to a smooth head turn to camera and had both.

The one big take away from it was the use of “walk and talks”, which something I feel are used simply because gimbals allow them (basically vlogging backwards), not because they are actually any good.

Professional talent and crews can pull them off, but rarely do anyway, amateurs have little chance but try more often. I was even shown a sample and it was wooden and fragile at best.

They were the two shoots that took ages and in one case had 14 takes with the poorest results of the day! The kids had no rehearsal time, they were not practiced at it, neither was I and the whole thing became just a mess of semi-useful bits, which looked stilted and amateurish.

Unfortunately in both cases they were the first shoots, so held up all the rest.

The students were given the small but wordy script on the same day, the day they were also in house debating comps, so brains were full I am sure, then they were asked to walk in pairs, often after meeting for the first time (older and younger campus students) at a measured pace, while interweaving their presentation.

To my mind, if the movement is to include both camera and subject, it needs to be non-distracting or the message is lost. In a nutshell, only action movies or art films can get away with the camera being busier than the subject. A movement owning the shot is counterproductive.

Creative interaction was three degrees away, time was limited in the extreme, so we made the most of what we had, but it could have been better with some creative license.

I must admit, the whole thing got me a little “gimbal jittery”, but I have worked through that.

What if.....?

What if you needed to take stock, to account for your work to this point and decide within yourself if you are proud to call it quits now and leave what ever legacy you have?

This can come to us all and I am writing this probably precipitously as I am expecting some bad medical news and it has given me pause to look at my past and my situation now.

Being reminded that some people can smile and share even when they don’t have much themselves, humbles me.

My best moves were to go to a school from retail five years ago. Luck played a huge part, so I feel it was meant to be, then ironically the move to the paper gave me a lot of contacts and broadened my perspective and skill set, but I am very glad I then came back to the schools again.

Love and community can take any form, but the results are the same.

My legacy, if that matters will be the effect I have had on the people at the Migrant Resource Centre (now Welcome Disability), New Horizons Tas, Scotch Oakburn College, St Patricks College and Neighbourhood House Ravenswood.

These are things that matter to me, because they matter to others.

That then, is all that matters.

Getting My Video Act Together

My video act is coming together.

This comes on the heels of a horror week, something that forced me to look hard at options.

My profile of choice is Flat, with idynamic on Standard. Flat gives me Cine-D/V-Log lite-ish contrast and range, with iD to hold shadow detail. I can expose well into highlight territory, just within the wave form/histogram maximums, with tons of shadow detail.

S5II, 35mm Lumix-S (APS-C crop), f4 1080p 10bit/422 Flat profile, idynamic standard, exposure pushed to the right.

A very mild grade……..basically reduced Lift slider to add some contrast and depth. That is all. I usually work right to left with this system. Push gain for desired brilliance, then Gamma for shadow detail, finally Lift is usually backed off to add depth and contrast.

Crisp (without an optional 1/8 mist), warm, smooth and brilliant.

I have felt often that my grading was a matter of salvaging files, only hitting on a satisfying look with a reasonably fragile Standard profile on the G9 Mk1. I found Natural to be too muddy and white balance twitchy, so in desperation one day I tried Standard, untouched and hit gold.

With the G9II and both S5’s, adopting V-Log was assumed I guess, because it was one of the upgrades I gained with these cams, but I just did not need the processing headaches. Just shoot, process to a decent, reliable and tolerant “normal” and move on.

My processing is now exciting, easy and forgiving.

But there is more.

A little teal/amber semi polaroid easily enough done.

… and some cool-smooth.

Flat seems neutral, with a little Magenta kick, but responds well to most recoveries, be they colour balance, or exposure.

My aperture of choice for full frame is f4 which gives me a safe amount of depth, some context and a very well behaved lens. This correlates to f2.8, the Super-35 standard or f2 for M43.

Video is humming at the moment.

Not wanting to jinx it, but it seems like I have found a workable “enough”.

Henry The Explorer.

This is an old post I found when cleaning up.

Always looking at something. Older brother Rolly in the background sometimes struggles with Henry, but he is there always, something "head in the clouds" Henry will need.

The second youngest of our nephews is Henry. An odd place to start when introducing the kids, but I guess I have a soft spot for his place in the family, which most agree is closest to my own.

Aquaman in waiting?

Henry is the sensitive explorer. He is very sensitive at the moment, a phase he will likely out grow, but it has to be taken in context as well.

Younger brother Finn is also a very different creature, probably a future enabler for Henry's plans. Not his strength planning.

You see, henry does not cry about the bug crawling on him, nor even the one biting him. Henry gets upset about the ones he missed.

The personification of FOMO when dealing with the natural world, Henry will often be found wandering away from the group, even a group discovering a giant wooden Troll, to see what may be under a rock or in a pond.

You can rest assured that when he asks “can I tell you something”, two things will happen. Firstly, he will tell you anyway and secondly, the pearl of knowledge he is sharing is likely well beyond his years.

Second only to his love of nature which includes very extinct nature, Dinosaurs, is his Lego making.

Notice though, nature is also in the Lego world.

Most of his Lego builds tend to play to theme, coming in the form of submarines or aircraft, often with an exploration and animal theme, except when Harry Potter looms.

Even lunch does not get in the way.

It's All Only Possible Because Of A Choice Made A While Back.

About fifteen years ago, I made a choice that effectively decided my future pathways.

I was a Canon user, since the F1 (old), F1n, T90, into autofocus EOS 50’s, 5’s, several others, then into digital via the 10D, 50D, 5DII/III, 1DsII’s and again many others (I liked the 100 series for their weight). In that time a few other brands were around, but nothing stuck.

One brand though, did leave a residue, a feeling of unfinished business.

During the manual focus period “OM” cameras were a minefield of sometimes dodgy electronics, clever design and innovation and often quirkiness, but the lenses were astounding, ground breaking.

Before sensor size could change lens design expectations, they made a superior 250 f2, 350 f2.8, tiny 50 and 90 f2 macros, several very special wide angles and more. I had the 90 macro, 28 f2, 35 f2, 180 f2.8, 21 f3.5 and 35-70 f3.4. All excellent, some beyond that.

I was sharing my camera space, with an ever changing Canon kit, but for me, there was something other worldly about this gear. Often called the “Japanese Leica”, Olympus was one of those off-beat brands, bent on doing things their way.

When they finally joined the digital and AF world with the Four Thirds consortium, again their lens making chops were front and centre. More impossible lenses, now helped by the format, a format in part chosen to aid with lens design.

A 35-100 f2 (ff 200 f2!), 90-300 f2.8 (ff 600mm 2.8!) and more, they just kept upping the stakes, resolving far more detail than their 10mp sensor had a hope of rendering. Some are so good, only latest model high-res mirrorless cams can push them.

Smaller does not mean less capable.

Four Thirds was short lived when Olympus again became an early pioneer of the mirrorless movement.

We need to look at this early landscape now.

The EM5 Mk1 was released along with the later NEX Sony (few lenses, odd cameras) and early Fuji models (lousy AF) and their video-centric Panasonic stablemates as competition, so if like me you wanted to make a shift away from DSLR’s and embrace the new way (maybe a little early), Oly was really the only option, even if it also lacked tracking focus*.

Reach, sharpness, more depth of field to allow story telling at a price a serious amateur could afford.

You would not switch if long lenses and AF tracking speed mattered to you, but otherwise, small, sharp, high performance gear with real time viewing was a reality.

They were picked up by users that they fit, travel, journalism and street shooters.

I bought my first EM5 Mk1 the same weekend I bought a 5DIII, then bought the Canon back after a weekend of comparison and got another EM5. Some said I was mad, some said I would regret it, some of those same people followed me later.

Travel, including 8 trips to Japan have all been far more comfortable with smaller, smarter gear.

I had lenses already, as the Pana/Oly pairing, unlike the other brands in early mirrorless, actually prioritised lenses. This was a lesson Sony took too long to learn.

Things came together fully with the release of the EM1 then EM1 MkII, the latter cameras that gave me SLR-like AF performance, actually allowing me to finally trust AF. Then came the EM1x (the “double EM1.2”), 300, 40-150 and Pana 8-18, all bought with a small bequeathment (a well timed silver lining I guess) rounded out the kit to fully “pro” level.

Some shots were only possible because I could react quickly with lighter gear. Most of the other togs were grounded to a chair with a monster telephoto, their second camera and lens at their feet, reserved for half time to end of game. I could switch between my 300 f2.8 and 600 f4 (ff equivalents) in the blink of an eye and walk around the ground as I shot. This image was taken at the end I just left as I chased a penalty box shot down the other end. I still had a third cam with a standard lens in a small bag at my hip.

When I joined the paper, I went the same again, but even lighter, but that is another story.

Why is this format so important?

Quite simply, because it enabled me to be the photographer I needed to be at a cost I could afford.

As it turned out, my pragmatic choice may also have been a smart creative choice.

A bit like where I come from, a small place with tons of power.

Getting started can be tough, especially when the cost of gear may very well exceed your first year of earnings. I cover a lot of different disciplines at schools and the paper, so across the board specialisation was needed, no excuses, no second chances.

Long and fast, short and super fast, zooms, primes, super wide angles, multiple cameras, lights, stability, processing and computer power, all cost money, but sometimes less than others.

Being lite and portable enough to insinuate yourself into most situations with good, but ignorable gear.

True specialists tend to have it easier, only needing to buy select gear, but for me I can have a single day with studio lighting, some video, low light drama, long fast sport, landscape and general journalistic needs.

If I were to go pro with most brands, the assumption at the time would have been to get a top end APS-C minimum or more likely full frame, with APS-C as a backup. The 5DIII/IV, 7DII, or D500 and D750 were all good options, but the lenses, especially the top end telephoto and wide angle lenses would quickly push the entry point into a prohibitive space for me.

A really big advantage to this dynamic is handling weather. I can move to keep warm, avoid the rain and chase shade. This (badly timed watering) actually happened at the above soccer match. One of the togs had to juggle a tethered laptop, 500 f4, two cams and a seat. I was in a position to help him after tucking my own gear under my coat. I realised at the time also, I could have used a tethered phone with my Oly.

The main consideration here is no major brand offered a truly professional APS-C offer. You had to buy full frame even if you did not intend to use it all. Olympus and Panasonic put their best foot forward in M43, so you got 100% of their attention and value.

Lets look at a shopping list dated about 5 years ago when I made my last big commitment, that carried me through to now and beyond.

Canon option;

• 5DIV

• 7DII

• 16-35 f2.8

• 70-200 f2.8

• 50 macro

• 85 f1.8

• 300 f2.8 (= 480 on the 7D)

• 1.4 and 2x teleconverter

Cost is in the +30K vicinity, weight also in a bad place. I had most of this minus the 300mm, then tended to replace most of the zoom lenses with small(ish) primes anyway.

Olympus/Pana option;

• EM1x

• G9

• 8-18 (16-35)

• 17

• 45

• 75 (= 150 f1.8)

• 40-150 f2.8 (= 300 f2.8)

• 300 f4 (= 600mm)

About 12k, all can be carried at once, but no real need to.

Having the ability to roll out a decent 300 f4 at short notice was a real bonus. However with the paper I often found myself in a genuine sport shooting situation during the week, so I got by with just my everyday bag kit, the 40-150 f4 for above.

The same thing is true for lighting.

The M43 advantage in depth of field at play here also. For both still and video lighting, I only need to light for f1.8-2.8, as the extra depth M43 gives me (f2.8-5.6 equivalent) is plenty.

Beautiful warm bounce from a decently high ceiling, time after time.

I can buy a standard flash rather than a heavier strobe like a Godox AD200, then the AD200 instead of a mono block and get exceptional battery life out of each. A single Godox 860 can supply several thousand blips a night on one rechargeable batt, because I can comfortably use ISO 800 at f1.8-2 at about 1/8th power for socials and small groups, even if bouncing the flash.

Smaller lighter gear also means carrying more at the ready.

The ability to jump from the kicker with a 600mm, to the mark of the same kick with an 80mm right in front of me is something I take for granted.

The trade off?

M43 has always been considered to be inferior at handling high ISO noise, something that sensor size will always effect, so it stands to reason, but how much?

In my experience and this goes back to my early choices and even now, the ISO performance when balanced with the depth of field, stabilising/motion blur and magnification bonus of M43**, used with better than run of the mill processing (i.e. not Adobe), is in real terms negligible.

Zero light, no room, little to work with, the 9mm f1.7, wide open using the depth of field advantage of M43 allowed this image while leaning over a bit of the machine.

M43 cannot render shallow depth of field.

Yes and no. The same lens on any format renders the same DOF all else being equal (distance to subject, aperture), but the magnification increases on smaller formats, pushing you back and reducing the perceived shallowness.

This is not really a bad thing, it is just something you need to be aware of. I can use lenses wide open more often than not, I get more depth for story telling, I can get shallow depth when needed and adding blur is more realistic than adding sharpness to an unsharp area.

I guess the question is, how shallow is shallow enough?

Other features pioneered by the M43 consortium like hand held high resolution, focus stacking and post capture are fully developed in the later models, but have been available for over half a decade already, meaning the format can actually be the smarter choice, not just the small option in many fields.

Have I even been let down by M43?

In the early days, the AF tracking thing meant I had to fall back on some older techniques, although I found the AF so quick it could still do sport, it just needed timing and some faith.

The low light thing was a more of an issue until I switched to Capture 1 and then added ON1 No Noise to the family. I now treat ISO 6400 as a normal ISO (usually no added processing) and 12,800 as a more than useable one for what I would call, “printable quality”, and that is with older M43 cameras (The EM1x is now three generations old).

A pre-dawn service, lit only by a few weak red spot lights and the odd mobile phone. I got these images and thought little of it. They were called out as “better zero light images than most other ACM togs managed that day” by our national digital editor and they were using full frames as a rule. I also shot silently, something the occasion demanded, but the tog next to me, while complaining about the light, only contributed the odd “clack, clack, clack.

Taking into consideration I can field 150 f1.8, 300 f2.8 and 600 f4 full frame equivalents from my shoulder bag, I am ahead of similarly funded full frame shooters with second tier lenses or I am running at about 20% of the cost of the top tier full frame shooters (also often sitting next to me).

I have handled winter night soccer and football on crappy, poorly lit ovals, the same at national level (with sliiightly better light), indoor sports with “gloomy” light at best, then nationals, drama on busy stages and for these I actually see the format as my secret weapons.

This file was cropped to about half for the paper.

But this is possible and processed before the latest C1 and ON1 updates.

I have more reach and speed and still enough quality to crop heavily.

A 150mm f1.8 for your full frame? Good luck there. I do have full frame again now, but stopped using it for stills when a saw no real benefit.

Down to the stitching on the ball or name on the helmet resolution.

When I started at the paper, they gave me the option of full frame (D750 and 400 f2.8), but I took one look and thought, “if I can get away with my gear, my back will love me”. Who was to know that after a few tests, I found I was actually getting better results and more importantly, shooting faster, more fluidly and using different angles.

Not for me the “concrete feet” of full frame land. Light, nimble and adaptable.

ISO 12,800 with a little room to crop and cleanly brighten up? No problem. To say this was shot in gloomy conditions would be kind. The ground was gloomy in the “hot spots”, almost un-lit in the darker pockets (see the fence line) and this shot above was about half and half.

Overall quality?

I had the chance to use the Z9 with latest gen pro Nikon SLR lenses*** and regulalry compare my work with the three other togs using the same. The sports dept at the paper actually requested me if available for indoor Netball and Basketball, because my images were in their words “brighter” than the others, better for news paper reproduction.

Smooth sharp and from a fair way away (off-court opposite end) in a venue notorious for its mirky light. Nobody ever accused me of having technically inferior image, the opposite in fact.

Sure the newer Nikon glass mated to a Z9 would have more than evened the field, but for $25k the 300 f2.8 is not that good and I could buy my whole kit over again with change.

If I were to kit out a newspaper’s tog pool I would go M43 for sure, the kit choices possibly too many for the users to deal with. The editor would love the cost efficiency (justifying another tog or togs at all most likely), the togs would appreciate the weight reduction and the rest would become irrelevant.

Some days the heaviest bit of kit in my bag was a flash, but when you can light a room bouncing it off a far wall at f2.8 and ISO 800, it is worth the extra heft (with a little LED in behind).

Fast zooms, long or wide fast primes, versatile and powerful zooms, small but long lenses? Take your time to take your pick.

• 9 f1.7, 12-40 f2.8, 45, 40-150 f4, (this was more than I carried most days covering 18-300 with a portrait lens).

• 10-25 f1.7, 40-150 f2.8, 300. The super 20-600 kit, very capable, but quite heavy….for M43 ;).

• 8-25 f4, 40-150 f4, 17, 45, 75 f1.8’s. Handy range of f4 zooms, and fast primes.

• 9, 12-45 f4, 35-100 f2.8, 15, 200, matched 1.4x tc. Super light 18-560.

• 10-25 and 25-50 f1.7’s, 200 f2.8, matched 1.4x tc. Max speed and minimal (20-560).

• 9, 12, 20, 45, 75, 200, 300 for the prime lovers.

• 8-18 Leica, 25 f1.8, 40-150 f2.8, 300, another good range.

So many more combinations, all affordable, all excellent, all able to fit into a standard bag.

Last thoughts?

Ironically, the ability to shoot wide apertures for shallow depth in daylight with fill flash or video are harder with this format, something a neutral density filter can fix.

That’s it.

**The smaller sensor doubles focal length reach, adds two stops of depth of field, reduces movement issues and improves stabilising, not to mention allowing for better video performance specs camera to camera (G9II vs S5IIx).

***last model 70-200, 24-70, 14-24 and older 400 f2.8’s.

Amateur Concerns, Professional Needs.

This may resonate with many, it did with me when a friend mentioned in passing a preference for internal zoom lenses or primes. I realised I do to, but have several lenses that break that self enforced limitation.

When I shot only for myself, I had lines drawn, preferences that I had the luxury of indulging, because the gear, the process and the results were all even partners in the hobby, no matter how seriously I took it.

I used to dislike zooms that extended (the very thing my friend mentioned avoiding), I liked gear to “match” both cosmetically and mechanically. I disliked illogical holes in my lens range and equally having too much gear.

I hated a ding on a camera, a worn bag, a scratched filter, a lens with a slightly less than perfect mount fit. I was fussy, because a lot of the hobby revolved around collecting the perfect kit, enjoying the process and building kits I liked.

An example of this was my very unfortunate quick sale of the 12-100 on the eve of my photographic fortunes changing. I was never a huge fan of zoom lens barrel extension, really disliked the slight (very slight) wobble in the barrel and felt I had too many lenses at the time.

The only reason I even bought extending barrel lenses, often a mechanical imperative for best optical performance, was because I worked in a camera shop and could try out several copies to find the most mechanically “tight” example, so after testing one and being impressed by it’s performance, even for an M43 lens with lots of good ones to compete with, I went for it.

When I turned professional, (well I guess that is what happened, by degrees until I can honestly say I do this more than anything else for money), my needs and perceptions changed.

Now it is clearly all about “as long as it works” and nothing else.

Case in point.

I once had a 12-40 f2.8 and it was great, but thanks to not having a filter on, another metal lens hood in my bag put the smallest of scratches on the lens. I sold it…. cheap. I also learned a lesson about the ability of small M43 lenses to float around in some bags.

I bought another one on special a couple of years later, a last minute impulse thing before a holiday. Another great lens, tight, but still the same pop-out design and it developed a very slight “lump” in the zoom, so it fell into occasional use.

After I started working with my gear, I managed to get sand in the barrel at a beach shoot. Being weather sealed it is external only, between the outer and inner barrels, but the “lump” got very noticeable, with added grinding sounds, so I put the lens into the “imminent replacement likely” category.

I bought the 12-60 Leica with a G9 and felt better, I had a backup and a good one.

When I started at the paper, deciding to use my own gear, I decided to first kill-off my oldest and sickest equipment hoping the paper might fix what was needed (I was saving them kit) or I would just replace it as I went.

Nothing broke or wore out, but I did start to treat things differently.

The older G9 (dropped twice) and EM1.2, the light weight 40-150 f4 and the 12-40 were pressed into service in my every day bag, EM1x’s and faster glass were reserved for sport, other cameras or the Pen F for personal stuff.

Funny thing, the more I used the 12-40, the more the zoom tightness eased and the less I cared about any of it’s ailments that concerned me so much before. The 40-150 f4, a lock-back style lens also became relatively loose over a year, but the key was, I was comparing heavy use and a lot of image wins with some light mechanical wear and tear.

I am always humbled by the work the mechanically ill 12-40 produces. It is my go to for events, studio shoots, sports and video. Sometimes I notice the grinding sensation or it gets a little sticky, I even hear it occasionally, but I just get on with it.

The lens became a favourite again performing flawlessly, especially for video, especially on the G9. My only complaint then was one of weight, but that was on the box.

How things had changed.

When packing now, I hardly ever think about the gear’s condition beyond “will it work on the day”, only the level of gear needed* and its relevance to the job at hand.

Both of my EM10.2’s, my last two reliable EM5.1’s, my oldest G9 and EM1.2 and my 75-300 are all a little “twitchy” with things to be aware of, but at the right time and in the right place, they all work well enough. I might well get another half million frames out of them, which is effectively the working life of a new EM1x.

Dings and scratches?

They have become a badge of my professional history. The 40-150 f2.8 has plenty of marks, the older cams are all showing wear (with a variety of internal textures showing through). The 8-18 has been dropped twice with only the hood showing any sign, the 300 has some mild scratches etc. Nothing I use regularly is “mint” anymore and nor should it be.

Important basketball match? Yep, the less than perfect 12-40, matched with the worn 40-150 were automatic. Two of my most time tested lenses.

All good, because I did that. I used them and they have the scars to prove it. They also have the images and generated income also as justification.

I think what happens is your mental measure of a bit of kit changes.

I used to think about how it felt in the hand, cosmetics, tested sharpness, kit perfection, AF speed and occasional results as my gauge.

I now only use the measure of results achieved.

If AF lets me down constantly, I relegate the lens to less stressful situations. If the lens is sharp, renders well, hits focus and has the needed aperture speed and range, but has a little wobble of stiffness, then it is still a winner by any measure.

If a lens literally falls apart in my hand, then I will let it rest, having served me well, then grab what ever I bought as backup and get on with it. If I know I will miss it, I will replace it, maybe with a different option as there are so many**, get it fixed or evolve into the next thing.

*For junior school shoots, in. studio situation or a simple portrait shot, I will use the oldest and cheapest gear, partly because it can still do it, partly because it often looks less intimidating. For sport, I will go with light, using slower lenses if I can, then go into the “full noise” gear when needed.

**The definition of professional is not necessarily the gear you turn up with, but the ability to keep going if you loose it, i.e. backups. The 12-40 was technically replaced by the 12-60 Leica, but to be honest, that lens is now my G9II’s mate for video, so maybe a tiny 12-45 f4, amazing 8-25 f4, versatile 12-100 f4, the near perfect Pana 10-25 f1.7 or neat 12-35 f2.8. Maybe I will just get another one.