For the needs of most, I would suggest the Fujifilm X10. My coworker once asked me, after watching me suggest different cameras for different people, “Why do you suggest different cameras and why do you never suggest your own camera?” I try my best to understand the primary concerns people have, what they want out of their camera, what has been the biggest problem with their current camera, and what kind of photography they will be doing. More often than not, price is the driving concern, and the X10 provides much more for your money than any camera I know of in a similar price range.

The big difference is that lens. Sure, the zoom range is wider than all of the kit lenses which come with entry-level SLRs (starting about as wide, but stretching longer), but that is little more than a nice side benefit. The really big news is the aperture. This is where most folks who would be buying this camera tune out and dismiss what I am saying as techno-garble. Up until now, the differences between most of the lenses on entry-level cameras were all but identical, so this was not much of a point to argue. This lens, though, completely changes the practical usage of the camera and flexibility in when you will still be able to get that shot.

Almost every kit lens out there is an 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6. Those are dismal, but important numbers. The f/… numbers are the maximum aperture of the lens, or how wide it will open up, thus how much light it can take in. So, those kit lenses will be f/3.5 at 18mm (at the wide angle of the lens) and f/5.6 at the zoomed out end, 55mm. More light is good, because those low-light, indoor shots of the family will be blurred less and those sport shots in fading light might actually be crisp more often the more open that aperture can be.

And those are fractions, obviously, so f/3.5 is more open than f/5.6. Well, the lens on the Fujifilm X10 is f/2-2.8. At the wide end, that is more than twice as bright all the way through the lengths of the zoom. That is a big deal, so I will use the international language of money to explain more clearly. Lens prices are directly related to the aperture: big aperture, big money. If you had an SLR and wanted to buy a zoom lens similar to these, f/2.8 from wide to telephoto, you will spend at least $1200 for the lens alone. So, that lens is twice the price of an X10, AND the lens on the X10 is is even more bright than that, being f/2 at the wide end.

For $600, the Fujifilm X10 is a truly amazing camera. The big drawback for many out there is the fact that the lens is fixed on the camera; you cannot interchange lenses. On the other side, though, I can think of precious few photographers who have an entry-level camera and more than just a kit lens or possibly two kit lenses of equally abysmal quality.

For the folks out there who want to step up to a nicer camera and do not think they are going to branch far outside of the kit lens which comes with it, I would highly recommend the Fujifilm X10. Not only is the lens far superior to anything even far above its own price category, but it is all accomplished in a far smaller package than interchangeable lens SLRs.

Summary: it is small, cheap, and excellent quality. If you are going to spend $600 dollars on a camera, I can think of nothing which would come even close to the Fujifilm X10.

The Mysterious Will of God

I am not necessarily trying to make a statement with this photo, though it is packed full of potential to say the least. More than anything else, it was just fun to take a photo of a wreck before the police arrived. I was actually directing traffic…I do not know if that is technically illegal, but it makes a lot of sense when the entrance to our elementary school was going to be inaccessible right at the end of school. So, once the traffic was moving ok, and the drivers were talking insurance, I snapped this photo.

Knowing what the bumper sticker actually says really makes the shot:

Jesus is Doing a New Thing

The point of impact in the bumper almost seems like a divine exclamation point. Could this be the new thing Jesus is doing? His will is most certainly mysterious and sometimes hard to understand. On the surface, a wreck does not seem like something God would do, but what if the wreck prevents a deadly wreck about to happen? Or what if it is something as simple as a humbling experience for the driver? Humility is good and probably more important to God than the condition of our cars.

Oh wait, I said I was not going to try to use this to push across some point. I officially rescind any official position on the meaning of this photograph. You will just have to enjoy it on your own.

Well, the winner of our Belton photo walk, Hylas Kessler, was featured in this extra set of photos, and it well deserves such recognition. In this extra set of photos, Scott Kelby picks photos in a witty set of categories, such as “Best Shot of a Bird Crying” or “Best Shot That’s So Obviously Seattle, but Still Really Good.” Among such outlandish pseudo-categories, the category for this photo was what I would consider core to the art of photography: “Best Simple Composition (and use of color).”

I would actually consider that a high honor. Well, and being the third photo in a list of more than twenty seems to say something as well. As for Hylas’s photography, a quick look through his photostream on Flickr will prove his bent toward simplicity. Many of us struggle for years to simplify our photos, to remove unnecessary details, and to de-clutter our backgrounds, but this seems to be Hylas’s strength. I do not know him well enough to know if that is a learned skill or more innate.

Congratulations to our Hylas Kessler. (Shh. Actually, he lives in Waco, up the road, but if he came to our walk, I am going to claim him for the time being.) And thank you to Scott Kelby for showing us more of the great photos that graced your screen when judging the contest.

If you want to sign up and join us tomorrow morning, go to the Belton photo walk page. Hope to see you there.

Last year, our Temple, Belton, Killeen, Salado area photo walk was in Temple. This year, we are going to switch things up a bit and try out a new downtown, Belton. Last year was a bit difficult to organize, because initially, our location was rejected because we were too close to other walks, in Austin and (I think) Waco. They finally gave in, but we had lost a lot of time that could have been used getting the word out to interested photographers. This year, thankfully, we were up and running the day the photo walk was announced, and with three weeks to go, we already have the number of folks we had last year.

It looks like this year’s walk is going to have more diversity and energy to it. I am really looking forward to walking downtown Belton and enjoying time shooting. I hope to see you there. If you want to sign up (it is free, of course), visit the website for the Worldwide Photo Walk in Belton.

What are you using these days? I know you are very much anti-flash, which I basically agree with. But I am constantly running into the problem of not enough light. Are you mostly shooting with a 50mm f/1.8? Or are you jacking up your ISO? Or are you using a tripod? Which reminds me, my tripod recently broke, any recommendations on one (that is not in the crazy range, under $200)? Ok, so I am asking lots of questions, sorry. But one more, post production, what are you using? Lightroom? Photoshop? iPhoto?

Here is a quick summary answer to those questions: I like to have a camera and a nice bright lens. It can certainly differ with the situation, but easily more than 90% of the time, I try to keep things simple (i.e no tripod, no flash) and light, yet with a lens that provide me a lot of flexibility for low light situations.

Let’s get the little issues out of the way. Tripods. I am most certainly not a big tripod user, but sometimes you just need one. After years of looking, literally, I found the right tripod for me: light, small, simple, yet tall, quick to set up, and with a wonderfully useful ball head: the Velbon MAXi 343E. If I did more architecture or landscapes, maybe I would need a tripod more, but if my shutter speeds were so slow that I needed a tripod, the moving life of people would be blurred beyond recognition. I need a different solution to the light problem.

And as for flash, I am not anti-flash, per se, but I do tend to shoot available light most often. I have a great, though small, selection of lighting gear, but you will almost never see a flash mounted on my camera. If used, it is often mounted on that Velbon tripod, actually, shooting through an umbrella; that provides absolutely beautiful light. I also like to use a small softbox on the flash and hold the flash in one hand with a sync cord.

So, for most situations, I am not solving the problem either with a tripod or flash. Basically, as you mentioned, it does come down to ISO and lens. You have to know your camera to know what amount of noise you will have at any given ISO and also what amount of noise you are willing to endure. I tend to shoot as low an ISO as I can, though. If I had the dreamy Nikon D700 and its incredible (lack of) noise performance, this issue might be different, but I stay as close to the low end of the ISO as I can.

That only leaves lenses. From my very first camera to this day, I have shot relatively “bright” (large aperture), fixed length lenses. Sure, zooms are great and all, but I can buy a higher quality prime at a fraction of the price of the nice zooms, and have two or more precious stops of light advantage over them. In English, I pay much less for higher quality glass which can perform in way less light than even the best zoom lenses can. And on top of all that, primes are smaller and lighter. Some subjects are awkward enough around cameras, I do not want to make it worse by sticking a bazooka in their face. But again, that issue depends on your style, your subjects, and how much you have to gain by staying low key.

There are a lot of quality yet cheap options out there. Nikon, Canon, and most other camera makers have a 50mm f/1.8 lenses in their line up. That is a great lens, but on most people’s cameras (with a cropped frame sensor) that 50mm ends up being too long for general use. That would act like a 75mm on your old film camera. I love that Nikon came out with a 35mm f/1.8 for their cropped cameras, meaning there is a lens which feels like that ubiquitous 50mm of yesteryear.

If you are just starting to look into a “brighter” lens, I would go with something like the 50mm f/1.8 or (if you are lucky enough to shoot a Nikon) the 35mm f/1.8. Look around at third party dealers too, like Sigma, Tokina, and the like; I do not know what they have (I do know Sigma has some excellent but pricey primes, but I do not know about any cheaper options).

For reference, I have been shooting my 24mm f/2.8 the past few days on my cropped sensor camera. I am used to f/2 or f/1.4, and losing that stop or two really does make a difference. Moving that one stop from f/2.8 to f/2 makes a big difference. All the more if I could move another stop down to f/1.4. With that f/2.8, I have had to use (for me) uncomfortably high ISO settings or frighteningly slow shutter speeds. If I shot a professional quality zoom lens (which are f/2.8 at their widest), I would be forever stuck there. Again, with a lower noise camera, maybe you could just bump up the ISO and never feel the difference.

It all depends on your personal preference and the specific shooting situations you face the most.

And quickly, to answer all the questions, though it is a bit off topic: software. I hate that topic. The majority of folks I know have hundreds of dollars of photo editing software and use features that I have in free software. Sometimes, the nicer software is about saving time, making editing quicker, which really makes a difference for working professionals with a heavy workflow. That is where Lightroom and Aperture shine. For most folks I know, they could use Google’s free Picasa software, or maybe that iPhoto already loaded on your Mac, and get along without the need of any other software. Photoshop Elements, I hear, is also a cheaper way to solve your editing needs without breaking the bank or breaking the conscience (by buying that ripped off copy used by more people than I want to know).

Those are my solutions. They do not fit everybody. You will have to think about what solution works best for the shooting situations you face…though it is hard to go wrong with a cheap f/1.8 50 or 35mm.

Now, I try to play it safe with my camera batteries. Having two batteries is a must for me, and with my shooting style and load, I have never even gone through one battery in one day of heavy shooting, so I figure two is twice as much as I have ever needed. The bigger problem is knowing which day my battery is finally going to die. That day was today.

First, a little history: the last time my battery died was four years ago on this very day, at my son’s birth. I took both batteries to the hospital, one in camera and one back up. When the time came for my wife to go down for surgery, knowing my battery was low-ish, I played it safe and switched batteries (because I knew I always charge a battery as soon as it is drained, so I my back up is fully charged). When I made it to surgery, I found out my battery was dead. It defies all the laws of how I function, but it did happen.

That time, all I did was switch the focus to manual and camera mode to manual. Doing a little manual focus and watching the meter helped me squeeze out about five shots before it died again. That was enough to capture my son’s birth. Job well done, though I sure would have preferred to have had a fully charged battery with me.

This time was different. I have a Nikon lens on a Canon body, so the camera is not even thinking about focusing for me anyway. So, conserving what I would guess is the largest drain of energy in the actual taking of a photo is already not an option. I usually shoot in manual mode these days too, so saving what trickle of energy is used to compute camera settings is also not an option. And on top of all that, shooting all-manual will probably have drained that battery to the very edge already.

Here was my multi-method plan. One, I figure there is a possibility the camera thinks it is totally drained, but if “reset” somehow, could find the power for a couple clicks. For this, I plan on switching the camera off and on, in addition to removing the battery and replacing it. Two, I know batteries drain faster when cold, so it only makes sense that warming it up might give me a little more oomph. And three, assuming one of the above two works and the camera will turn on, I will switch my camera to the first click on the ON switch, and not the second (a Canon thing), which I think turns on the wheel on the back of the camera, which for this situation just seemed like a good idea because I want the camera thinking and doing a little as possible.

So, there I sat, at the end of the table in the ice cream shop, breathing into my hands to everyone’s bewilderment. I did all of the above, and the camera turned back on. I always focused first before touching the shutter button telling the meter to turn on, and after I set everything for that first shot, I did not adjust anything. That might make the camera think a little less, but really, I think it felt like, “if I am thinking less, the meter must be using less battery, right?” Regardless, it worked.

And this time, I did not squeeze out five photos. I count thirty-four. That’s 34, if you prefer the numerals. The battery ran for so long, I just stopped worrying. I even switched my settings around once! Extravagant? I know, right! Ok, extravagant would be using the LCD screen. Oh, I have not said so, but if you have battery issues, do not under any circumstances turn on that screen: the LCD is a convicted drained-battery murderer. Look it up.

Now, which of the above measures made the difference? Unfortunately, I did all three at the same time, so I cannot say for sure. I honestly do not think the breathing thing made any difference, though I would not be surprised if it would make a difference if the weather was cold or even if the room was air-conditioned and the camera was cold to the touch. Rather…

I would guess the biggest contributor to my thirty-four post-resurrection photos was turning the camera off, then removing and replacing the battery. That gives the camera a chance to throw out its prejudices against that low-life battery and to meet it again, fresh, as if it were a new face with no history. That makes sense, right?

Of course, maybe that is all a bunch of hogwash, and I actually did breathe a little breath of life into it.

What is the problem? Photographers following the couple down the aisle. Walking right up to the couple during the ceremony, not only blocking everybody’s view, but going where only the two being married and the one doing the marrying should go. Walking back and forth behind the couple, providing a distracting backdrop for the whole ceremony.

Now, having seen such behavior, new couples preparing for their weddings are afraid of the photographer, especially those who want that special day to be special…and actually about them instead of the photographer. The minister may say something, but often it is ignored, much like the teacher nobody respects yelling commands as the children run wild. What is at the root of this problem?

The big church in our town (in the US) does not allow any movement of photographer (or I think to even have the photographer visible) during the ceremony itself. That is made quite clear to the photographer, who even has to sign a contract. Not only is that a clear, direct solution for photographer problems, but it is an unspoken example to the audience: this is reverent, and you are not allowed to get up and take a snapshot.

Now, I think that is probably overkill. That church’s guideline is clearly in reaction to many photographers taking too many liberties. Of course, shame on such photographers. It is unprofessional and irreverent and just plain arrogant. It says, “I have been hired to take great photos and I have a license to kill if needs be.”

It is also a sign of a weak photographer. Any photographer who moves back and forth, in front and behind a couple the whole ceremony most certainly does not understand the essence of photography, which is capturing one or a few photos which tell all that story. They will not be saved in their multitude of photos. I assure you, all those dozens or hundreds of photos are of equal quality (though we all get lucky from time to time and snap something accidentally beyond our skill), so they might as well shoot a couple and get out of the way.

Not only do they not know how to capture the right moment, but they quite obviously lack the skill of blending in and remaining unnoticed. Granted, weddings are tough in this respect: nobody is moving and everybody is facing in the direction where the photographer needs to be unnoticed. Choice of clothing matters…notice lots of photographers/videographers wear black. The noise of the camera matters…a stealthy quiet camera (and not fired like a machine gun) is sure handy for those quiet moments. Turn off that flash! More than those, though, is the movement of the photographer.

Necessity is the mother of invention, right? Well, if photographers made is a necessity to remain unnoticed, plenty of great ideas would come and the quality of the photos would likely improve too:

• If you cannot shoot a lot, spend more time making the few shots really count.
• If you cannot move around, think ahead where the couple will be moving and find the best single place.
• Use different angles and lens lengths from that one location for variety.
• Hide a camera and remote release the shutter.
• Use prayer times or when all attention shifts away for a moment to make a quick location move.

And as for the audience/congregation going too far, much of that is the understood rules of the game. They are unspoken, yet clearly seen in the behavior of the photographer. If the photographer has blocked everybody’s view the whole time without any reproach, it will also be fine for me in the audience to walk up front or step out in the aisle for my token shot.

Photographers, just because you have been hired to take good photos, you need to remember your photos are not the most important result of the day. The wedding is chief. You are secondary. Get used to working within certain constraints. It is good for you: your photography will be better, you will get more references (because you did not irritate everybody in the audience and did not steal the bride’s show), and you will provide a better service (not just product) to the customer.

Questions for you all:

Have you had a similar experience? Do you wish you had found a different photographer for your own wedding?

My thoughts were not just about wedding photography, as in the professional hired to photograph the event, but also all the photography which takes place in a wedding. Really, I took a couple snapshots which could say quite a bit in and of themselves.

Choice of Clothing

Ok, this is the actual paid photographer. As you can see, he has his own staff drummer and follows that drummer’s beat quite religiously. Summing up my thoughts, so that I do not judge him too harshly with my detailed thoughts, I think the shirt is probably outside the lines of “professionally safe” clothing choices. During the ceremony, he wore a black jacket, to his credit. I just wish people thought a bit more these days about blending in.

And speaking of not drawing attention to yourself, the cameras themselves say much. Even if the photographer was not all over the stage and blocking the view of the couple, I still ponder the potential need for a more quiet camera. Things are different with all that clickety racket going on: there is a loss of reverence, maybe a loss of concentration, and the attention can move to the photographer instead of the couple. For that very reason, I am thinking more and more of slinging an old film rangefinder around my neck for weddings instead of some disquietous SLR.

Here is another thought:

Cameras Gone Wild

And there are plenty of cameras you cannot see in this photo. None of those are the official photographer. My thoughts are so abundant, I think I need a bullet list.

• “Who invited all these machines to our wedding? I want to see my friends’ faces.”
• “There are so many people jumping into the isle for their own shot, I have to walk at a snail’s pace.”
• “Great, I paid a photographer, but all these bozos are blocking his shots.”
• Can we not just experience a moment any more without feeling a need to post it online?
• Maybe photographers need to provide downloadable, quality, 4×6-sized shots online and give the address to the folks at the wedding…and let them know before hand so they will just stay out of the way!

It has really gone too far, I feel, when the photography and video recorded at the wedding takes importance over the actual moments of our lives we spend at the wedding. I would much prefer the wedding be a wedding and I skulk around catching those memories. The wedding is not about the photography, but the photographer should know how to document the feel of that day.

Deep in the Heart of Thailand

How about a wallpaper for your computer desktop background? I switch my own regularly, just to keep things interesting, and since this one was actually one of my own photos, I thought I would share it with all of you. In honor of our summer visit here in my wife’s native Thailand—have to let the kids see the grandparents, you know—I am sporting the Thai flag and a beautiful tree in bloom this time of year. Enjoy.