My Free Portrait Course has been live on Craftsy.com for two weeks and already 14,000+ people have taken it.

Victoria. From my first Craftsy.com class: Studio Portraits.

I've been having a lot of fun with the people at Craftsy.com. They are an online education platform that's making fast inroads into photography and I've been along, as on camera talent, for the ride this year. 

Right now they are offering three courses that I helped to concept and create. One of them is being offered free of charge in order to promote what is for them a new category. 

If you are interested in sampling their style of on line teaching I would encourage you to give the free course a try. It's an almost two hour program which you can come back to again and again. I don't get everything just right but I think that adds to the reality factor of being a full time, professional, working photographer. 

Here's the link/ad: http://www.craftsy.com/class/professional-family-portraits/493

The class level may be a bit "entry level" for many of our readers but you probably know a lot of folks who are just starting out in photography. The ones who call and bug you for free advice all the time.....  Please pass along the link to them and free up some time for yourself.... They'll probably thank you.

Here is a link to one of my paid classes: 

If you want to try the paid class there is no risk as Craftsy.com has a money back satisfaction guarantee. If you take one of the classes I'd like to hear your feedback. I know I'm shorter than I write and my voice is funny....but what are you going to do?

Amazed at just how good digi-cam video can be. The super power of the GH3.

Out of long habit I believe that any camera worth having as a work tool should

have an identical or nearly identical back up. Buying GH3's as a set means

only having to master on video menu at at time.

The Panasonic GH3 is a good still camera. The quality of the files is not quite as good as that which I get from the Sony a99 or, at lower ISOs, the a850 which are both full frame cameras but the Panasonics do quite well when compared to a large range of cameras I've owned in the past. But as good as their still imaging capabilities are I did not originally buy the GH3s as replacements for my full frame Sonys for still use, I bought them because I had seen some quick video work done on one by a close friend and I was impressed by how much better detailed the files looked and how clean the overall feel of the video was. 

I was busy to the point of being overwhelmed when I bought the cameras so I didn't immediately test the video. Oh, I shot some stuff in the office and made a few available light tests but I didn't really do the kind of test that would emulate the work I would normally do with the camera in the field. 

Yesterday was my first chance to do some real, on location work with the GH3 and I want to tell you that I was very, very impressed by what I saw on my monitor this morning. Very impressed. If you have no interest in video you can stop reading here because I'm going to talk more about video.

As an aside I want to mention that I purchased both GH3s from my local, "bricks and mortar" retailer for the same price as any other customer. It's the same price you would pay for the cameras at B&H or Amazon.com.

Further, no one at Panasonic offered me anything of any value to shoot, test, buy, enjoy or write about their products. I am writing this because I am impressed by what I consider to be a very inexpensive tool with a very high value to purchase price ratio. No past or future promise of consideration from Panasonic or their assigns was proffered. 

Here's the story from yesterday: I was hired by long time client, Zach Theatre, to concept, shoot and edit together a public service announcement video (commercial) for one of their holiday plays based on the movie, It's A Wonderful Life. I'm sure you know the movie, it's the one with Jimmy Stewart and it takes place in Bedford Falls. Jimmy Stewart's character, in a moment of suicidal crisis is given the divine gift of seeing what life would have been like for his family and friends if he had never been born.  One of my favorite actors, Martin Burke, does all 37 major parts from the movie in a one man play.

I wanted to shoot Martin doing some of our favorite characters' lines. I went to the theater and set up on the stage. I wanted to shoot pretty tight. Just a little looser than head and shoulders. We set up a GH3 on a Manfrotto tripod, topped with a 501HV fluid video head and established a "mark" for Martin and worked out a good camera height for the feeling we were trying to convey.

Martin was lit by a few of the white stage lights (all overhead fixtures) and four of the Fotodiox 312AS LED panels I bought last year. Two of them were used as back lights, one as a main light from camera left and the other, used much further back, as a fill light. All of them were set halfway between tungsten and daylight using the rotary color temperature control knob on the back. All four light units pack nicely into one small Pelican case, require no power source other than their own batteries and have the stamina to shine on for hours. Of all the lighting I've bought over the year these have proven themselves to be very flexible light sources and useful in a range of applications. 

I keep trying and buying various micro four thirds cameras because I have a large number of older, manual focus Olympus lenses that were originally made for their line of (film) half frame cameras in the 1960's and 1970's. The lenses are beautifully made and, in many tests, mostly hold their own with even some of the best lenses on the market today. I keep looking for the perfect cameras to use them on and I think I'll be pretty happy using them on the new Panasonics. If I get further into the m4:3 world I might pick up an Olympus em-1 just to see how the lenses work with the five axis IS... but that's a whole different story. 

I took along a range of current Panasonic lenses but I was leaning toward using several of my favorite Pen FT lenses and I did end up shooting almost all of yesterday's footage with the 40mm 1.4 Zuiko lens. In the video mode just touching the rear screen brings up a magnified window of the image and allows for very sure fine focusing. Additionally, once the magnified window appears you can use the touch screen and your finger to move the magnification window anywhere on the screen. Very convenient for situations where the important feature which needs to be in focus isn't centered.  I used the lens two stops down from wide open at f2.8. 

The camera, in movie mode, was set to manual exposure, the .MOV mode (for much easier editing) and it was working at 1080p, 1/60th of a second at 30 fps. My basic ISO was 640. I was able to do a custom white balance for the mildly mixed lighting and achieve perfect flesh tones and a perfect over all exposure as confirmed by the onscreen histogram. That part being set we moved on to designing the audio.

I used a custom microphone stand to hold the Rode NTG2 shotgun microphone in position about eight inches above Martin's head and about eighteen inches in front of him. The microphone (with foam windscreen) was aimed just slightly below Martin's mouth. I used a transforming cable to match impedance and connector types for the camera's standard 3.5mm mic input and I set the levels so that Martin's voice, in character, caused the meters to get close to pegging red but not quite. Additionally, I was able to monitor the levels and change them on the touch screen, even while recording. If something was a bit hot I could see it, adjust and then have Martin run the line again.

We were able to monitor the audio that was being written to the camera's SDHC card via headphones. There's a software switch that allows you to monitor the live sound or the recorded sound. I suggest that you'll want the second option so you can really hear whether or not hum or other noise is being added in your recording.

Since the camera position was outside the circle the lights were illuminating and no stray light was hitting the rear LCD screen the art director and I thought we could see very clearly that we were getting really good quality video..... but you never really know until you get the footage up onto a large monitor and you can really pixel peep it. We shot what we needed in our allotted time yesterday and then I came home for a dinner and movie date. It was only this morning that I first saw the raw footage on a big, calibrated monitor for the first time.

I was so impressed I came back into the house to get my son and have him look. Ben is an accomplished film maker, has logged a lot of hours shooting and editing in FCPx and I value his opinion (and his younger eyes). He too was impressed by the look of the video. Even with the standard color setting on the camera the image wasn't too saturated and the colors were right on the money. Equally impressive was the level of detail and the sharpness of the files. And all of this was without any post processing whatsoever.

I have perhaps two or three days of post production to do on this project over the course of the next week and I am looking forward to it. These .MOV files go straight into Final Cut Pro X without the need to transcode. With a few very minor color tweaks this footage will look fantastic. And the bonus in this project is just how good the audio is. It's clean, natural and coming through at appropriate levels to make sound sweetening pretty simple.  In my book that's pretty darn cool for a camera that cost me less than $1,000.  Happily.....or sadly (depending on how you look at it) this camera, as a video production tool, blows the Sony a99 AVCHD format footage right out of the water.

One more check on the plus side of the column for the GH3 is that fact that it's still imaging performance is really good too.

The Panasonic GH3 with the 40mm 1.4 Olympus Pen FT lens.

Below are a couple shots from the side show part of the Formula Une weekend we lived through earlier in the month. The cycle riders where there to promote the "X Games" which are coming to Austin in 2014. The air brush painting commemorating the F1 GP was just a nod to Kitsch...

As soon as we have the "Wonderful Life" video cut together and approved we'll toss it up onto the VSL site.

In the meantime remember that Craftsy.com is offering one of my classes for free. Head to the site and take a look around....

Shop Amazon - Countdown to Black Friday in Camera, Photo and Video

Social Photography: Old School.

Sony a850 with HVL 58 flash and Rogue FlashBender.

Every year I volunteer to cover a banquet at our local Four Seasons Hotel that is a fund raiser for the Appleseed Foundation. Appleseed is a non-profit that gathers up attorneys and convinces them to donate time and money to address inconsistencies in the law that effect segments of our citizenry who cannot afford to fight back. They've gone toe to toe with the Texas Department of Corrections over kids detained with adults, they've battled discrimination and they've fought for equal access under the law. The attorneys come from both sides of the political spectrum because what unites them is a respect for the Constitution and a belief that all people in the U.S. are entitled to equal protection under the law. Here's the website for the Texas organization: http://www.texasappleseed.net

I have photographed this event as a volunteer for 12 years now and every year what the organization wants is the same. They need good, candid images of couples and small groups socializing at a pre-dinner cocktail party.  Each year we have more people to photograph.  This year we had nearly 400 people in attendance! Once people sit down for dinner (really nice crab cakes and beef filets) and the speakers start in earnest I am up and own photographing the program, making images of the speakers, award winners and honorees. This year also featured a live auction with three items and a call for cash challenge. The organization was able to raise an additional (over regular contributions and table sales) $105,000 in about ten minutes.

But none of this is probably of much interest to photographers. What interested me was the gear I used to capture the function, as well as the evolution of my equipment choosing process....

Over the years I have used every sort of camera, from rangefinder, film Leicas to Nikon and Canon DSLRs to Sonys and even a few years with Fujis. The venue is dark and the light is almost all from ceiling cans so it's harsh, downward facing and very directional. The ultimate camera is not one with the best ISO performance or even the fastest focusing but the one with the best flash performance. Shooting four or five hundred shots in the space of three and a half hours, all with flash, means that one really gets to see just how that automation is working for us.

The contrast detect AF in the micro four thirds cameras is an issue for me. It can work if I enable the auto focus assist in the GH3's or comparable Olympus cameras but I am loathe to have the green or white light shining in people's faces as part of my "candid" photography practice. I want my cameras to do a decent job focusing under this kind of marginal light without any extra help and without creating their own pyrotechnic side show.

Last year I did the job with the Sony a77 and I wasn't happy with the variable performance of the a77 and the HVL-60 flash. I spent my evening overriding the "hot" flash and I finally gave up on the automation altogether and started shooting via guide number. The a99 is a little better.....but not anywhere near perfect. Over the last few years I found myself longing (just on this one event) for the solid flash performance I used to get with the Nikon system....

Yesterday morning I tested two cameras that I thought had potential. The GH3 and the Sony a850. With the GH3 I used the most practical of lenses, the 14-42mm kits lens. It was okay but not fast and sure under subterranean lighting conditions. The next camera I pulled out ended up being, hands down, the best digital camera I've ever used for interior, after sunset, event shooting to date. It was the old Sony a850. As old school and traditional as a digital camera can get and still be of this century.

I set up the camera to shoot medium sized (13m) fine quality Jpegs which gave me the potential of shooting thousands of files on a 16gb memory card. I set the preset to Standard with no custom nudges. I used the central focusing zone.  I set the camera on Manual exposure, f5.6 and 1/30th of a second at ISO 320. I used the flash on TTL with no compensation. My lens of choice for all of the candids and small groups was the 50mm Sigma 1.4 which I had just calibrated to that particular body the week before. I set the white balance at 5600. The flash was the HVL-58---the one just previous to the current top of the line. The big difference is that my flash of the a850 is one of those with the funky Sony shoe.

Since the camera's AF sensor was working with a calibrated, wide open f1.4 lens the AF was quick to lock on and gave me very sharp images. f5.6 would have covered any small discrepancies and, in the particular lens, is so sharp it's amazing. The huge finder does nudge out my current EVFs in the kind of low light in which I was working and every single exposure was perfectly exposed by the flash. Everyone. It certainly made me re-think my approach to event shooting that revolves around the necessity of flash for main illumination. I can replicate all of this exposure perfection with manual flash but it takes brain power and sometimes I've run through my quota by the time I get to an evening event. My boss has really laid down the law about excessive napping in the afternoons.....

This year I used a large FlashBender as a modifier to the flash. It added a bit more roundness to the light, especially when I used it up close. My experience last night (and in post processing this morning) leads me to consider rounding up another a850 as a back up to be used for years to come just for "old school" events like this one. I can't imagine a better matched event and tool.

No, this doesn't mean I'm suggesting that you go right out and buy the same system. Nor have I abandoned my other cameras to use this one exclusively. It's just that sometimes, in a narrowly defined application, one tool proves itself to be exemplary.

offer: Watch me make a fool of myself and watch as we go through the process of making fun family images.

The class is free and I would love to see some strong support from the VSL crowd. Take a minute to go and watch. Then let the comments fly!

www.craftsy.com/ext/familyportraits

Shop Amazon - Countdown to Black Friday in Camera, Photo and Video

Knowing when to say "NO" and get out of a project before it starts.

All projects look beautiful at first. But look at the details before you say "yes."

Sometimes I get it right and sometimes I get it wrong. Balancing a happy and productive working  experience with the siren-like lure of money attached to a bad project is the tricky part of being in a creative business. But one of the things that helps people to be successful over the long term is developing a sense of smell for "stinky" projects and developing the proactive ability (willingness) to remove yourself quickly and with finality.

I recently got invited into a project by a good client. They were working with a large vendor of theirs who needed to make a video in my client's facilities and with my client's staff and customers. The vendor brought along their own video production company to "supervise" the project.  They needed resources here in Austin as both the client and the production company are located in another part of the country.  I would be working under their direction.

In the course of several phone conferences it became clear to me that the production company saw my company as a very generic cog, not the "creative partner" that my client values. They were more interested in asserting their control and ownership over the project than in collaborating to create a great product for the client. The producer also felt like "good enough" was good enough. No need for fancy lighting and no need for interesting camera work.  To top it off the producer sounded bored and reticent to listen to any input. In his mind my role would be to assemble a crew and operate a camera.

When I got off the call I knew that the hierarchy and the producer's lack of enthusiasm would make this entire project an endless pain in the butt. And I've learned that working for people who are more than happy to settle for good enough create projects that are never good enough to go on one's reel. I also understand that being the new guy in the mix makes one the target of blame for anything that might go wrong along the way. The stink of a failed project, your fault or not, follows you forever with the client. None for me, thanks.

I declined to be involved. The producer will have to find a different resource. I'll have to find something more fun to do with those few days in January.

You get to choose. If a proffered project sucks then it's smart to walk. The universe isn't in the habit of replacing miserable days with fresh ones...

Kirk's Krazy Kameras of the Year. What I like. What I want and what I used.

From "Janis" at Zach Theatre. Newly Antiquated Sony FF Camera.

If you've read the blog for any length of time you'll know that I love to try out new cameras but I have strong prejudices about what constitutes a "good" camera and the metrics I use to determine what "good" means don't always have direct connections to a camera's technical specs or DXO-type ratings. I also value a camera with personality, simplicity and understandable design----inside and out. I buy them and test them. I sell the ones I don't like. I borrow cameras from friends and from camera makers and I test them and give them back. Turn offs? Crappy sounding shutters, Impenetrable menus, Stuff that gets in the way of taking pictures. Turn ons? Eccentric design and great usability. Total turn offs: GPS as a lauded feature. NFC in cameras.....as in: "let's just bang this sh*t together and maybe they'll share."

Learning how to use new cameras and their sometimes insanely designed menus and buttons can keep your brain fresh and quick---just like doing tough crossword puzzles. One of my friends took me to task for learning new camera stuff and insisted I would be better off just mastering one solid camera for a long time. But that seems to me like doing the same crossword puzzle over and over again. Where's the challenge there? (Yes, dear literal reader, I know the challenge is really in taking the images....).

As we're in the fourth quarter of what seems to be a fast moving year I thought I'd take a moment to talk briefly about the cameras that hit my radar this year. The wacky ones, the solid ones and the one's I want to buy.  The ones I'm very tired of hearing about, etc. First up is a camera I spent a lot of time with over the last three months...

I consider the Samsung Galaxy NX camera to fall into the "wacky" camp. I've been using a pre-production (tester) model which I sent back a week ago but I'm waiting for a finished, selling version to hit my doorstep this week or next. If you haven't read about it yet it's a product that is soooooo aimed at people who are intrigued/consumed by the idea of being connected that it's unreal. As a camera-only the interface is so foreign to me. All touch screen and very few buttons. While it's nice to have a huge screen on the back for some stuff I'd much prefer that the EVF be the primary viewing portal and I wish that the Samsungers had put more resources into the EVF.  Here's my quick take on the camera as it existed for me. The sensor is very nice, generates very good files and it's pretty much like the one in the NX 300 which is a camera I like. The lenses are very competitive and some, like the 60mm macro (which I have also returned) are exemplary. But I actually don't enjoy being connected all the time and I'll confess that I used the camera as a camera a lot in the "airplane" mode. I did use some of the connectivity features such as the wi-fi capability to send a few images out and to test on locations but really, I kept the camera in the "airplane" mode for most of the time I used it. Probably says more about my age and work experience than anything else but I want the camera to pay attention while we're photographing and not be absentmindedly downloading some new update for the copy of Angry Birds I loaded in a moment of weakness which I am now unable to trash.

I'm not in the target market for endless connection. I can imagine some people find the ability to shoot, connect and do just about everything on the go enchanting. This camera may be their dream machine. I dread sitting behind them in the darkened theater as they surreptitiously attempt to check their e-mails and surf the web during a live performance.....on a super bright, five inch screen. What's a five inch screen really good for? It's a hell of a lot of fun in the studio.

The Samsung Ultra-Connected Camera has Launched at Amazon.com

If you think GPS, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr are as valuable as oxygen you might want to consider this camera. If you are into pure photography and want a Samsung......I'd get an NX 300. Put the left over cash into a 60mm macro.... and the 30mm.

What is my current crush? My unrequited infatuation?

The Panasonic G6 is perfectly priced and insanely full featured

To be honest, while I've looked longingly at the Leica Vario X and thought about the Sony RX1, the smaller camera that has my finger hovering over the "buy with one click" key for the past week and one half has been the Panasonic G6. I wasn't the least bit interested until I handled one first hand at the show in New York last month. The camera is small, light, perfectly grippable and darling. While we all have different ideas about what constitutes good camera design I come down on the design side that calls for haptic nirvana---even at the cost of retro trendiness. The basic design reminds me of the Leica S2 and all the controls seem to be where I want them to be. According to several video websites the camera just flat out kicks the butts of most (much more expensive) DSLR implementations out there.

The 16 megapixel sensor is the same one as on the GH2 but the processing electronics are much faster. There's a wickedly good (almost as good as the Sonys) EVF and the camera has focus peaking, microphone input with manual sound controls, all for a whopping $598.  And that includes a new version of their kit lens which is (according to the lens testers) vastly improved.

If I were smart I'd go click that link now because every time I write something like this (hello Pentax K-01.....) the prices jump back up to wherever they were when I couldn't afford the product. And when I pause I lose.

Speaking of the Pentax K-01....

The Pentax K-01 is the coolest Clown Camera with the highest performance

I bought a Pentax K-01 this year on a lark. The camera shop had a used yellow one sitting on a shelf and I made them an offer they decided not to refuse. I walked out of the store with the whole package for less than the price of a lens. And now I'm really glad I took the leap. The camera is as slow and loud to focus as anyone has ever described it. And I still don't like having to do all my framing on an LCD screen.... But generally all is forgiven when I look at the images that come out of the camera. They are great. Thick and rich files that have colors which seem to go on forever and ever.

And I've gotten past both the raucous focus noise and the lack of an EVF. I use the lenses in MF to take advantage of Pentax's focus peaking feature (yes. it's silent and works perfectly). I use a Hoodman Loupe of my new Darth Vadar loupe for viewing.

Darth Vadar Loupe Attached. 

I've enjoyed shooting the camera so much that I bought a brand new black and silver version to go with the yellow one. It's for those times when we're going formal....

My continuing work fascination with Panasonic. The country cousin of the Olympus clan...

Let's just be frank. The little cameras are good picture takers but the full frame cameras do straight forward work in the still rodeo very, very well. I love the a99 and think it's better than a GH3 right up until I switch work modes from still-o-graphy to video. Then the GH3, for almost a third the price, comes along and just kicks the Sony camera's butt in an embarrassing and thorough way. I know. I have both.

Panasonic take the title as best video production camera under $1,000. (And it's a really good photography tool as well!).  It's a GH3

I've now used the GH3 on remote locations as the primary camera in an annual report shoot and also in makeshift portrait studios in corporate offices and its still photography chops are really good. The files take direction well in Photoshop and the camera shoots under most lighting conditions with grace. But when we switch modes to motion and do an interview it just sits up and shines. I bought two last month, brand new, from a bricks and mortar retail camera store for $998 a piece. Will they make it past client snobbishness? They already passed muster with a big, east coast production company....

The files are big, less compressed than most of their competitors and the camera just flat out works for video. I'm hooked. I'm using it as a primary system and using the Sonys when I need narrow DOF or very high ISO work.  And that big frame in the Sonys still knocks it out of the park for most AD's.

I try to pay attention to cameras with moving mirrors but it's hard to maintain focus. Bazinga.

I played with a Canon 6D and think it may be one of the nicest full frame cameras out now at a decent price. And it focuses rings around the new Sony a7's....

So. I'm not a big fan anymore of cameras that don't have EVFs but if I had to make an exception or, if I wanted a full frame DSLR that focused faster than anything in the mirror less space with moving targets I'd probably go with the 6D. The image quality is pretty much on par with all the more expensive FF cameras with the possible exception of a tripod mounted Nikon D800. The camera is small enough, light enough and unencumbered with a bunch of extraneous stuff.  But I've used one several times and everything is where it should be. I owned that 24-105 lens and that, coupled with a longer lens is all most people would need for a dandy career of shooting social stuff and general commercial work.  It's the camera and lens combination I'd probably be using if I wanted high quality and I was a confirmed minimalist. Don't know why I like this body so much but it's cheap and one of the better feeling cameras in the full frame pantheon. And the shutter sounds so much better than the Sony A7r's....

Sometimes it is all about the lens. This is the first one I re-bought when I stumbled back into the Panasonic world. It's sharp and flaw free. It's also fast. I wish it had image stabilization but you can't always get (exactly) what you want...

Here's a lens I've bought twice now. It may be the best of the m4:3 lenses. At least at the most usable focal length....

The focal length is a 50mm equivalent and that resonates for me since I was brought up shooting normal lenses on 35mm cameras. If I want to go a little wider and keep that amazingly sharp look I'd be looking into the 15mm as soon as it hits the market...

Lofty Dream Cameras? There's one on my list...

The  camera I wish I owned for portrait work, the Leica S2...

My friend, Paul, recently sold both his Hasselblad HD-4  and HD-3 cameras and most of his Hblad lenses in order to buy what he considers to be the best of the medium format cameras, the 37 megapixel Leica S2. I'm pretty much in agreement with him although we differ over preferred lens sets. He's an architectural shooter so he's rounding up wide angles and having amazing glass adapted to the S mount. I'd be happy with a 70mm, the 120mm and the 180mm. And I'd also like to drive a small Bentley....But it's always good to have an aspirational tool in the back of your mind. Maybe after I put the kid through college I'll move something like this to the front of my mind. And yes, it's a different look than that which you would get from a D800. But I would swallow hard before I dropped the $ 27K on a new one.

Many of us are in pause mode now with cameras. If you own one of the newer ones you are probably coming to grips with the idea that there's not much more improvement to be had. That said, there's always room for lens improvement. These are the two lenses that are on my radar right now.....

Heart Throb lenses for regular cameras. The Sigma Art Series 35mm and 85mm...

Cameras I am tired of hearing about no matter how good they may be. Everyone loves them. Everyone has them. They are like the Kardashians of cameras.... The D800. Yes, we know. Awesome, awesome sharpness...especially on a tripod. Kinda like the Brooks Bros. suit of 35mm style cameras. The Olympus OMDs....will everyone end up driving the same Mini Cooper? Do they have a Berlitz guide out for the menu yet? The Nikon Df.  I'm sure it will make great images....if anyone uses it for something besides photo vest bling. Price to value ratio?  I'd give it a D or an f...

More to follow as I remember more and more of the stuff I used this year and went.....sigh.