From my reply to a discussion in r/photography on Reddit.
Take less. Be a partner and a parent, and above all, be present. Less is more when traveling, especially with family.
If you’re in doubt about this, remember that artistic limitations force us to get creative. Your photography will not suffer from lack of gear. Your back will suffer from the excess.
From my reply to a discussion from r/fujifilm on Reddit.
I shoot both film and digital, and digital grain is certainly not the same thing as film grain. But that’s arguably the biggest mistake that people make: they aren’t meant to be the same. Consider that in film grain is unescapable: it is a byproduct of the film exposure and development process, inseparable from the taking of the photograph. There is no such thing as digital grain except as an effect applied in post. The way that film and digital grain are similar is that they both provide texture, albeit in different ways.
Texture is important to photography, because without it an image enters the uncanny valley of too-perfect realism. We see this especially in modern digital photographs using the best optics to create razor-sharp images with super high levels of fidelity. These images look “too real,” and that’s at odds with the fact that we know a photograph is not “the real thing.” It creates an unresolvable tension when viewing such images. Grain (both film and digital) gives us that by reducing the precision of the image. In this way the image aligns more with our own imperfect views of the world.
The other thing to keep in mind when thinking about grain is that it is like salt in food: you shouldn’t be able to tell that it’s there. If you can, then it’s too much. Now obviously some photographers lean into grain for artistic effect. For most images taken digitally, however, we want a little bit of grain to take away that aforementioned tension. How much is too much? It’s a subjective call. Some people like really salty food, and some people like really grainy images. I personally say that if you can perceive the grain when looking at the full image, it’s too much. If you’re pixel peeping (or magnifying) then of course the grain will be apparent. You’re too close! But if upon stepping back the grain disappears into the image, then that’s probably about right. Again, it’s a personal call and there’s no right or wrong answer.
I generally shoot raw with my Fuji cameras, so I don’t usually use grain. If the image needs any texturing, I apply it when editing later. When I do shoot jpg, however, I think at the weak setting, it usually gives just enough tonal variability to texture the image appropriately and get rid of the clinical “digitalness” of the image. YMMV.
I discovered that the latch on my fantastic plastic Canon EOS Elan 7E had deteriorated, and the door had sprung open, exposing that roll of film (grumble, grumble.) Repair was an easy process, after acquiring a replacement latch off eBay. There’s a full howto write up on J. David Buerk’s website. Essentially you have to remove the latch cover (2 screws) and the front faceplate (5 screws), pop the old latch out and the new one in. I had to move the electrical contacts to the new latch as well, as those weren’t included on the new latch. The metal piece was welded on to the latch, so I used a couple dots of superglue to keep the contacts in place. Reassembled, and now everything seems fine. For reference, the Elan 7E is cross marketed as the EOS Elan 7 and EOS 33.
From my reply to a discussion from r/fujifilm on Reddit.
“Magic” is the word used in photography when someone wants to defend their subjectivity. So when people say the 35mm is magic, they’re just saying they like the lens in spite of (or maybe because of) its imperfections. It doesn’t actually do some Disney-style hocus pocus when attached to your camera. The real magic comes from the photographer, not the lens.
I’ve had both the XF 35mm f1.4 and XF 33mm F1.4. They’re both good. I prefer the 33mm. I love how clearly it renders my images, I love the bokeh, and the way it renders colors. I love how solidly built it is and how it just works. It is one of my favorite lenses of all time. For some it’s too big, and others, it’s too clinical. To me, it’s magical.
Buy the lens you want. Use it to take amazing pictures. It will become your magical lens.
In Capture One 23, a number of the built-in tool tabs are no longer selectable when you try to perform an Add Tool Tab command. These include the Black and White, Composition, and Local Adjustments tabs. Although you can add and assign icons to custom tool tabs, the icons associated with the built-in tool tabs are not available for selection when creating a custom tool tab. So, if you want to utilize the icons associated with those tool tabs, then you need to re-enable them. Fortunately, this is not difficult, and simply requires some manual editing of the workspace .plist file. Once they are visible (and in the desired order) it’s just a matter of customizing the tools on each tab to your liking.
The workspace .plist file is organized into various dictionaries, defined by the <dict> key. The one which controls the visibility of tool tabs is identified by <key>com.phaseone.captureone.sessionwindow.tools</key>. Near the end of that section is an array identified as <key>tabConfiguration</key>. Adding members to this array will control their visibility within the workspace. It also controls their order.
The following procedure are the steps I took:
From my reply to a discussion in r/canon on Reddit.
I’ve had both lenses. The STM delivers good image quality, excellent IS, and is relatively compact. It also costs significantly less than the L. The real downside is the variable aperture with the relatively slow f7.1 at the long end, but that doesn’t mean it’s not capable of delivering very good images. It’ll make a decent travel lens, especially if you take along a fast prime for when you need something with a wider aperture.
The L, on the other hand, has higher build quality, including weather sealing. The image quality is sharper across the frame and throughout the focal range, but the STM is pretty good in that regard. There’s also less chromatic aberration with the L. The constant F4 aperture is it’s biggest strength, though this comes at the cost of more weight and of course more cost. The wider, constant aperture gives the L lens an advantage with portraiture and in some lower light situations, or when capturing action. That being said, f4 doesn’t make it a very fast lens, and low light will quickly force a higher ISO or longer shutter speeds.
I got the STM as part of the R6 kit, and I already had the L that I had been using with my RP and R. I liked the STM a lot on the RP because the size matched it well. Both the R and R6 have a more substantial grip, so the heavier L wasn’t an issue. I ended up selling both the STM and the RP.
Look up Gordon Laing’s review of the STM lens, with comparisons to the L. Without knowing more about how you intend to use the lens and your budget, it’s hard to recommend one over the other. The L is certainly the better lens, but if you’re on a budget, the cost can be a limiting factor. In that case, the STM might just be good enough.
From my reply to a discussion in r/canon on Reddit.
Get rid of the idea of a “holy trinity” of lenses. It’s a stupid marketing gimmick (I’ll probably trigger a lot of people with that statement). It makes sense for professional event photographers, who need maximal flexibility from their kit. And for a lot of amateur photographers who shoot a bit of this, that, and everything, a do-all set of relatively fast zooms seems attractive. The problem is that they’re big, heavy, and expensive. And in some ways, they offer too much choice.
Instead, build your own “trinity.” You shoot portraits, animals, and flowers. Ok, so get a kick-butt portrait lens, a decent telephoto with a bit of reach, and a macro. You’d do well with a 50mm, 100mm macro, and a 135mm, for example. It’s a smaller kit that would allow you to focus (ba-dum-dum) in on the things you love.
But what if you’re on a trip and you want to take a landscape? Use the 50. Or learn to do landscapes with the 135. Sure, you won’t get wide sweeping vistas, but that’s ok. Learning to use limited tools to capture the images you want is what will define your art and images.
Now don’t get me wrong, zooms aren’t a bad idea for a lot of people. Maybe you’re one. Maybe your 24-70 is your defining lens. If that’s the case, then accept and even embrace its limitations. You’ve got one of the best normal zooms of all time, so you don’t need a 50 at all. Instead, maybe add reach with a 70-200. Or again, compliment it with a prime like the 100mm macro L or 135mm f2 (both of which are absolutely amazing and versatile lenses).
I just deleted over 1200 photos from my recent trip to Japan, which is the most aggressive culling of photographs I have ever done. This is in addition to the initial elimination of some 300 or so photographs which were outrightly out of focus or poorly exposed. Clicking “Empty Trash” is not an easy decision, and I’m glad that I’m not a professional photographer. That would be like being the guy who has to put puppies down at the animal shelter.
Of course, some might argue that deleting photos isn’t necessary, given the ginormous size and relative cheapness of digital storage these days. I can get a terabyte hard drive for under $100, which is just ridiculous. Back when I was a kid, my father bought our first external hard drive for our overflowing Macintosh LC II. We got a LaCie 320 MB (yes, that’s megabytes, folks) for $350, which was a good deal at the time. “A dollar per megabyte, that’s a good deal,” I remember Dad saying. Yep. It was. In 1994.
Anyway, if data storage is so cheap, why bother getting rid of photos? For one, cheap is not the same thing as free. Secondly, if I just dump everything onto a bunch of hard drives, I’ve got to then manage those drives. I’d be stuck moving physical things around instead of more liquid data, so the problem isn’t really solved at all, but in fact exacerbated.
Ultimately, though, the problem is that it’s all just stuff. Granted, it’s stuff that I created, but that doesn’t change the fact that I do not need or want more things in my life. Certainly not things that are of little value, and the photos that I culled were all low-value. Many didn’t have high artistic or technical quality. Others were duplicates of ones I decided to keep. I think that if you’re going to to surround yourself with stuff (and let’s face it, we’re going to do just that) it should be stuff worth having around.
Having decided to keep a few things around, the task of managing those things arises. Even 500 photos is too many for a coherent story, so organizing them becomes necessary. Using Aperture, I’ve geotagged and added faces to all the photographs as per usual. Additionally, I finally devised a keyword (what Aperture calls a tag) system that I think I can use and more importantly, sustain. I borrowed from Scott Davenport who borrows from William Beem, and they offer decent examples of their own keyword systems. The point is to decide what is important and then make appropriate keywords for those things. Then, organize those keywords. Finally, apply the keywords. Voila! Organized photos. It takes a bit of forethought to set things up the right way, but the results are fantastic.
In the end, the extra work allows me to do things with the stuff, like tell stories.
