The tools are inevitably entwined around the art. Here are some observations about a few tools.

With the most primitive means the artist creates something which the most ingenious and efficient technology will never be able to create.

Kasimir Malevich, Cubo-Futurist, Suprematist

Somewhere in this collection of 400+ blog posts is an article testifying to my love of the 50mm focal length.  Even though I divested myself of most of my Nikon gear over a year ago there were several pieces that I just couldn't bear to part with.  Two immediately come to mind:  The 50mm 1.1.2 ais  lens and the 55mm f 2.8 Micro lens.  I have adapters that let me use either lens on my Canon bodies and on my Olympus Pen cameras, and I do so often.  I can't really tell you why I like them so much but I'm sure it has something to do with the nostalgia of manual focus and the fact that both of these lenses have proven themselves to be sharp and well corrected; no matter what body I put them on.  I have a 25mm 2.8 Olympus lens that I use on the regular 4:3rds bodies and, with an adapter, on the Pen cameras (which I still own, still shoot and still love).  And I have three Canon dedicated 50's in the drawer, as well.

But I've been working through the Canon system and I've discovered two things:  1.  I like the cropped frame cameras like the 60D and the 7D more than the 5D2 even though it has the bigger (and supposedly better) full frame sensor.  2.  I wanted a lens that was in the equivalent range of 50 to 60mm for that format.  I don't always use primes but when I do I want them to conform to the way I see and not the other way around.  I've come to understand that no matter how hard you try to make something work it's not going to work unless your brain is willing to accept it.  And my brain is really bossy.  When it wants to see things in a certain way it gets bitchy about substitutions.

I looked at everything on the market and finally settled on a Canon 35mm f2.  It corresponds to a 56mm lens on a full frame camera which puts it right into the middle of my sweet spot.  The price is good and it's usable on my full frame camera.  I hadn't had a chance to really break the lens in until today so, after doing some mandatory yard work,  I grabbed the 7D and the 35mm and went out for a Sunday walk around downtown Austin.

The lens is probably the lightest lens I own.  It has no special features.  No special glass.  No IS.  No big hood.  No bragging rights for the aperture.  And I fell in love with it the moment I looked through it.  It's sooooo neutral.  No wide angle affectations.  No "portrait-y" feel.  Just a solid, middle of the road focal length and no big anomalies to speak of.  It focuses quickly with the 60d and the 7D.  And, at 3.5 and 5.6 most test reports show it matching the performance of the 35mm 1.4 pretty handily.  Did I try the 30mm Sigma?  Yes.  I owned one back in the Nikon days and found it to be no great shakes.  I sure wasn't interested in doing it again.  It's sharp in the middle and by the time you hit 5.6 it's probably as sharp all over as this lens, but at twice the price.

So, what does this lens get me that's so special?  Absolutely nothing.  And that's it's charm.  By nature of it's middle of the road focal length and neutral imaging performance it becomes transparent on many levels.  I don't lean on an absurd focal length in order to "pull off" an image.  It's fast enough for just about anything I shoot and when I stop it down to the middle aperture range it's as sharp as I could want it to be.  Best of all, it was less than $300.

As a representative of the Visual Science Lab I'm officially declaring this lens to be the prime lens of choice for people who want a middle focal length for street shooting, general artistic stuff and for wise shoppers.  I'm thinking of hot gluing it to the front of my Canon 7D and shooting it until the next cropped frame successor hits the shelves......

I can guess why everyone loves exotic zoom lenses and exciting, extreme focal lengths but I'm finding a lot of good, cheap lenses in the Canon line up that I think are overlooked.  For example, when most people consider actual 50mm lenses the "wish" lens is the 50mm 1.1.2 L.  But why?  It's rare that you'll find subject matter that works well at the maximum aperture of that lens and it weighs a ton.  And costs even more.  The 50mm 1.4 is widely acknowledged to be soft at 1.4 and f2 but sharpens up nicely at f4. And that's a good thing?  So, people buy them only to stop them down?  I think a sloppy 1.4 made sense back in the manual focus days because the limited depth of field made it easier to see when a lens popped in and out of focus.  But with the dominant use of autofocus?  Doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense. Then there's the "nifty fifty", Canon's 50mm 1.8.  I have one.  I use it and I find that it too needs to be stopped down to at least 2.8 and really to f4 before it behaves and delivers good performance over most of the frame.

Hell, my $700 Carl Zeiss 50mm 1.4 falls into the same pit of performance as the above two lenses.  So why is it that, when we're out shopping for opinions on all the forae, no one ever gets around to mentioning the 50mm 2.5 macro lens?  I played with one, found it to be sharp at f2.8 (sharper than all the lenses mentioned above) even better at f4 and remarkably crisp at 5.6.  And it's cheaper than all but the nifty fifty.  What gives?  Is it really so declasse to use a non-USM lens?  And it too is well under $300.  I was so impressed I picked on up.  And guess what?  It's light enough to keep in the bag and take anywhere.

Here's my new, small kit for walking around the streets shooting:  The Canon 7D (the small professional, cropped frame version of the 1Dmk4, really) the 20mm f2.8, the 35mm f2.0, the 50mm 2.5 macro.  When I want something a little longer I pack my 100 f2.0 as well.  With these three or four focal lengths I feel like I can do just about anything photographic in my style.  And all four lenses run less than the new 70-200 2.8 or even a single 85mm 1.1.2 lens.  Guarantee you'll have more fun with these than any group of zooms that cover the same lengths and you'll be doing it with lenses that let you shoot at wider apertures than even the L zooms will with very, very good results.

I shot a function, an event, with the 7D last week.  It does a better job with flash than the 5D2.  The focus locks on quicker in subdued light and the finder is just as beautiful.  I've learned how to lock in a flash pre-flash spot reading and get the same kind of results with flash that I used to get with the Nikon gear.  I understand the general fascination with full frame equipment but I'll readily admit that you could do endless amounts of very professional work with the cropped frame cameras.  At least that's my recent experience.  I'm glad I have both.  I'll save the 5 for picky clients.  For myself?  The 60D and 7D are mostly interchangeable and great.  I'm happy to have them as tools.  The lack of inference makes them invisible to me when I shoot.  I like that.

The next thing up falls into the category of Best Lighting Thing I've Bought for Next to No Money.

It didn't seem like much of a risk when I ponied up $64 for the 160 LED panel I bought from Amazon recently.  I think one plant in China makes all of the 160 bulb panels and then five or ten distributors buy them up and brand them.  At least they all look identical.....  I call this.....my 160 LED panel.

And I've used it on a full day of corporate location photography with especially good results.  The light is pretty powerful, runs for an hour and a half on a rechargeable camcorder battery and has a dimmer control.  I'm working on a video right now and find that two of these panels take care of about 50% of my lighting needs on location.  When more light is called for I can lean on all the "plug in the wall" big panels I've accumulated.  I even stuck one in the camera bag when I went to shoot event stills the other night at the Four Seasons but I didn't have the experience with fast moving events to use continuous light on an important shoot for a client.  But I've been reading a blog from Neil van Niekirk and he's doing just that.  He's using the small panels for quick fill and accent lights on wedding shoots and so far the results look really great.

Once I've shot a few projects that way I'll post some more details.  Until then you might want to check out Neil's blog here.


   

Stumbling around downtown I discovered one thing about portraits. I like to photograph people who look smart.

 s.

Hanging out downtown with Selena.  We shot on Second Street and Third street.  Love the glasses.  Love the serious/smart look.  We stuck with open shade and shot with the Canon 7D.  My lens of choice (for the whole day, it seems) was the 70-200 f4 L (the non IS version which actually uses cooler glass...).  I brought along my tripod and used it just like my seat belt.......all the time.

It was the perfect counterpoint to a day of meetings, photo shoots at law offices and medical practices.  No lights anywhere.  Not even LEDs.

Portrait of the day.

This is a classic one light portrait in a style I've done for a long time.  I was happy to be able to photography Selena.  She's a musician and an actor.  Very professional and patient.  I used a 4 foot by 4 foot Chimera Panel with a diffusion cloth as close to her as I could get it.  The light comes from a 1,000 bulb, ePhotoInc., LED panel used at full power.

I used a Canon 7D with the 70-200mm L f4.0 zoom lens.  ISO 200.  We went on to shoot other set ups but this was one of my favorites.  Hope everyone is happy and busy.  KT

  

Getting the white balance right.

Several regular readers have taken me to task regarding the spectral inconsistencies of the LED lights I've been using in the studio for a few months now.  I've been working on getting the colors right.  I think the secret of getting the best color out of every situation is to do a custom white balance.  When I process stuff in Lightroom 3 there's enough control to get the color palette I like without big slider moves.

I'm happy with the image of Meredith, above.  I'm looking at a big file on a calibrated monitor but I'm sure when it hits the web and it's been filtered thru blogger's compression it will be different.  And I guess that's the unknown in this whole "evaluate color on the web" imbroglio.  While we all may be using tightly calibrated monitors it may be that the compression of the initial file and the re-compression of the jpeg file to store on web servers, makes changes that can't really be controlled by the initial creator.

I wish we could sit around and show each other prints.

Stuff I've learned from goofing around. And practicing goofing around.

 One of the things I've learned in years of trial and error is that "short" light generally (always) looks better than broad light.  I also have come to understand that, while it might be a stylistic preference, nothing makes a beautiful face look quite so beautiful as a big, soft main light.  That's why I love blasting light into a 6x6 foot diffusion scrim and watching it come undulating sensually out of the other side.  Works best when your subject is already quite beautiful.  Above portrait from our Summer workshop on lighting at Zachary Scott Theatre.  I had fun.  I should do another one........

 One of the things I learned, after being disappointed by fate time and time again, is that having a camera with you is a much more certain way to come out of a situation with good photographs than traipsing around without.  And the camera really doesn't matter much at all.  I was in Marfa, Texas when I met this gentleman.  I had the Olympus EPL camera and kit lens with me.  Look how it handles the direct sun on the guy's jaw while looking omnisciently into the shadows.  Who needs HDR?  I've seen people paralyzed and overwhelmed by their gear and I know too many people who only take cameras along if they have something already in mind or have made "strategic" plans to photograph.  Screw that.  Take a camera with you all the time and whip it out when it seems like the right time.  Just like your credit cards, you don't have to use it all the time but when you see something you'd like to have it's nice to know your capable of reaching out and taking it.......

 Over the years I've learned that having a talented person in front of your camera is/ can be just as important (or more so) that having a talented person behind the camera.  This is my friend, Martin Burke.  He's the funniest man I know, after Mike Hicks.  And he has an incredibly expressive face.  If I point my camera at him and let him do his stuff I generally get much better photographs than I would if I tried to hammer down my point of view.  Even though I'm pretty much of a lone operator I am smart enough to understand that sometimes the other guy is right.  Martin was awarded "top actor" in Austin last year by the Austin Chronicle.  He deserves it, and just like those photographers whose fame rests on their celebrity subjects or the availability of a helicopter, a good harness and a pretty city, he makes me look like a better photographer.

 One thing I've learned the hard way is not to over think your toys in the pursuit of a photograph.  The image just above of Jana was taken with a Canon 5dmk2 and an 85mm 1.8 lens.  I could have lit the photo but it wouldn't have been as nice.  I could have waited until I could justify the price of an 85mm 1.2 and had a bit less DOF but I wouldn't have been there to take the photo.  I could have had an entourage of assistants standing behind and beside me but it would have messed up the rapport we both wanted to establish. And they would have drunk all the Gatorade while we worked. (They get thirsty texting on their iPhones.....)  We could have waited for cooler weather (it was 100+ in the shade) but would we have gotten the nice glow on Jana's skin?  I could have brought "one light" but then I'd have to carry it.  I could have been all "strobist" but then I would have made someone else's photo.  Not mine.  I've learned that sometimes less is less and it's better.

 I've learned over the years that there will always be someone doing an assignment that you might think is more fun than the job you're doing as a photographer but every job comes with its own set of compromises.  The grass on the other side of the fence might be greener but it may not taste any better than the grass at your feet.  Embrace the happiness that being in the job in front of you brings.  If you let go of the need to compare what you do with what everyone else is doing you'll be happier.  And you'll probably make better photos. (Can we stop calling them images?).  Fun is in the process.

 I've learned that the true value of the portfolio is its role as a reservoir for all the frames that editors and art directors were too dull or slow or locked in to use.  Many times an art director will go for an inferior image just because the client has already signed off on a comp that matches and they are afraid to go back and substitute something better because they already have "buy off" on something that will work.  I used to get upset if they passed over a photo like the one above to use a photo of a fruit tart.  But not any more.  Now I take the overlooked overachieving, under-appreciated photos and put them into my portfolio and show them off.  Sometimes they boomerang and get used for something much better than the job we originally shot them for.  And we got the pleasure of creating the light and the look and then sharing them.....happily.

Finally,  I've learned that even the projects that sound boring can be incredibly fun challenging when they involve craft and problem solving.  As most of you know I'd rather make portraits than just about anything else photographic.  But every once in a while one of my good clients (who assume I can do anything with a camera) will give me a project with a brief that says,  "we need a totally sharp shot of a home theater receiver with the front panel lit up, on white.  We also need to be able to "see" thru the top cover and "reveal our product, perfectly lit, inside.  Can you do this?  We need it tomorrow for a big pitch that will make or break the company...."  And then the clock starts ticking and your brain makes it into a game.

Nine times out of ten you'll dust off the brain cells that interlink with different techniques and be able to bring together a working strategy.  On the tenth time you'll wake up one of your friends in the middle of the night because she's a much better product shooter than you are and they'll give you the "magic formula" that saves the job and you deliver on time and the client thinks you're a hero.  Only they just expected that you'd deliver on time and on the money.  Because that's what you do.  Because you are a professional photographer.

And no matter how weird this industry gets it still beats the heck out of digging ditches or being president.  With ditch digging you'll always get mud on your shoes.  And when you are president at least half the people think you're always wrong.  Good night.