I have a little Case Logic zippered pouch that I carry in my backpack everywhere I go. It’s where I put USB thumb drives, SD cards, Micro SD cards, adapters – pretty much anything I may need while on the road. It’s gotten me out of so many jams where I’m like “I need a quick Micro SD card… where the heck were they again??”
In particular, when I’m out doing photography, having a couple spare cards at hand is a total win.
Today, I fished out a 32gig card so I could re-image my Octoprint server that drives my Creality CR10 3d printer. I’ve been running the “Python 2” version for ages, it’s time to upgrade.
I’ve been using my Olympus PEN-F Micro Four Thirds for about 8 months now, and on the whole, I’ve been super-happy with a number of aspects of it. It’s small, it’s light, the picture quality is excellent, the glass available is very good, and after a relatively busy learning curve, the menus and controls are easy to work with.
That’s not to say it doesn’t have problems. There are several, lets run them down.
No external displays
I understand this is probably a factor of the small size / mirrorless nature of the beast. But not having any external indicators showing the camera is on, or how many shots are left, or battery level is a real problem. A very small LCD screen (even on the back) would have helped. Having to power up the camera, wait for the EVF to power up, and glancing through it to see if you have a decent battery is a pain. (BTW, there’s a noticeable delay on the battery reader. It can easily say GREEN, FULL, particularly right after putting hte battery in, but 10seconds later it’s showing almost empty. Beware!
Slow Focus Speed
This has been noted elsewhere, but the focus time on the unit is quite slow. If you’re working a shot that has multiple depths of field, the camera can ‘hunt’ around trying to set AF. I tend to run my camera in AF/MF mode, which means it’ll autofocus, but then you can use the focus ring to adjust it to where you want. This is a win, but if the camera is ‘hunting’ for an AF spot, you can’t stop it until it gives up and locks onto something. THEN you can use the manual focus ring. I’d like to see the camera automatically try to stop focusing if I touch / move the focus ring.
The controls can be confusing
There’s 8 turnable dials and 5 pushbuttons on a device half the size of a paperback book. Many of these are unlabelled, because they have a ‘variable’ purpose – they can be reprogrammed to do different things, and this doesn’t include the interface controls on the back (another 10 buttons), but at least these are labelled and make sense. I like the big ‘index finger’ wheel on top which is used to twiddle whatever variable setting you’re currently tuned to (For instance, I tend to shoot in A mode, which means exposure is automatically set, but my aperture is set by the finger wheel. This allows me to change DOF on the fly to get the ‘feel’ I want. I can’t imagine if I’m running in full manual mode trying to keep track of what dial does what.
Battery Life
This is relatively minor, but I wish the camera had either better battery life, or an external power connector. The 2000mAh battery will last about half a day of heavy usage, so I carry 3 of them with me. If I want to do any long exposure work or time lapses, I’m pretty much SOL.
Poor “No Card” handling
Okay, this is the big one, and the reason I decided to write this post. Now, to set the stage, I’m running the latest firmware available (v3.0), so this problem has not been fixed (though it can be with a simple software change). Here it is.
It is TRIVIALLY easy to go out for a shoot and not have a card in the camera, and not notice it.
The camera will operate normally, triggering the shutter, showing all the information in the EVF, but obviously won’t record anything. The ONLY indication there is no card is if you’re looking through the EVF and do not have your finger on the shutter release in ‘half press’ mode. Which, honestly, you never do. If I pick up my camera to take a shot, my finger is already on the shutter setting focus for the shot. I don’t just stare through the EVF unless i’m trying to get a focus point and setting in place.
I’ve caught this problem several times, and it was just annoying. This past weekend, I went out for a long walk in the city, and didn’t realize I had left the card out. I took 20-30 shots and when I got home that night… saw my working card in the laptop.
“But wait, Dave, isn’t there an indicator in the EVF?” – yes, but it’s very easy to miss particularly in bright light, AND only if you’re not touching the shutter release. The left image is a view through the EVF touching no controls, with no card in it. The right image is with my finger on the shutter release, still with no card in the camera. If I trigger the shutter, it’ll act like it took a shot – blanks the EVF, makes a click-kerchunk sound, and goes back to that display if I leave my finger in place (which I do) :
So, after 8 months carrying the PEN-F full time, what are my thoughts? Would I recommend it?
Positives:
On the average, yes, I would recommend it, but with some caveats, not just the ones mentioned above. But lets start with some of the positives.
It’s a beautiful camera. Really, you can’t avoid that. The styling and setup are wonderful, and adhere to the Olympus PEN styling that goes back 50 years. I’m proud to carry it and use it.
It’s very comfortable feeling. The controls, though there’s a lot of them, are easily accessible, comfortable in my hand, and easy to work with. I added the leather carrying case in the picture, which lets me sling it comfortably under my arm when not using it, and it doesn’t get in the way.
The four-thirds lens platform is quite well supported, and glass is available for reasonable prices. I have 4 lenses now and being able to get things like a 300mm equivalent zoom lens for $99 makes it a great deal.
Negatives:
No need to recap the technical issues above. None of them comes close to a deal breaker – at the most they’re irritations. Olympus has patched firmware on the camera in the past to fix issues, I hope they’ll fix the No Card issue soon.
It’s expensive. The PEN-F body-only is $999. That’s not cheap, and in an increasingly saturated compact mirrorless market, while the camera is good, this is on the expensive side.
Conclusion
I would recommend the platform and camera for people who really are into the styling and are looking for a very good compact camera that is professional and competent enough to do serious photography on. Is it the same as carrying around a full size DSLR like a 7D? No, I’d say mostly because of it’s speed, battery life, and EVF. But do you really need that much weight and bulk for most of your photography? If you want a professional camera you can carry with you full time with exchangeable lenses and excellent features, and the price doesn’t scare you off, the PEN-F is a great camera.
So, I’m sure folks have heard the news about protests in Paris today. That did happen, and in fact I was right in the middle of it for a good part of the day. How could I miss the opportunity to take my camera into a real live protest?
The very short version is, yes, I was at the protests. Yes, there was tear gas and water cannons and lots of people moving around. There were really only a handful of instigators that were egging the crowds on to do damage, but that was enough.
I primarily stayed outside of the major crowds, but I had my camera with me the whole time. Pictures are here:
And yeah, now I know what tear gas feels like. I don’t recommend it.
This month finds me in France for a few weeks, away from hearth, home, family, and all my worldly posessions. While getting ready for this trip, I spent a bunch of time reviewing what I carry in my backpack – cleaning out debris that had accumulated (A few handfuls of receipts, some cold meds, and cables that didn’t make sense anymore), and making sure I had everything I’d need while away from home for an extended trip.
Contents of my every day carry backpack.
I realized while double-checking my kit that it really doesn’t change much. And since I got here (about a week ago) I haven’t had to replace or change anything, and I haven’t gone “Dammit, I’m missing something, guess I’ll go buy it.”
Now I’m not off in the wild jungle or anything – Paris does in fact have stores – but I’m pleased to say everything I’ve needed for work, and for my various jaunts around the city, have all been pretty well covered.
Someone on Slack asked about what I’m carrying for kit gear, so I decided to quickly write it up…
OGIO Camera bag – I got this bag something like 5 years ago, and it’s been great. It’s starting to get a little worn, but nothing is broken, and it came with a rain shroud that I’ve used a few times. It has a special pouch along the bottom specifically for camera gear.
Macbook Pro 13 – this is my every day computer. I don’t have a desktop machine at home.
This is both my work and my personal machine. I’m typing on it as we speak!
Camera Flash – A small electronic flash for my Olympus
Memory cards – This bag contains about 20 memory cards – some USB3, some SD, a few microSD cards, and adapters. I used to have a specialized plastic case for cards, but there’s no reason to keep them that organized. Just toss ’em in the bag.
Earplugs – These are wax custom forming earplugs. I’ve used them on overnight plane flights, or in hotels that are just Too Damned Noisy
Macbook power supply – The smallest configuration I could get
Checkbook – Yes, there’s circumstances where I may need to use a check. I will probably just pick a few checks off this and put them in my wallet soon.
My journal – I have a journal. This was a gift from my sweetie – it’s about 3/4 full of a lot of dense writing. I find the act of writing in it cathartic. It slows me down and lets me think without all the geekery
Brainwavez Delta IEM Headphones – This is my second set of these (and I’m using them right now). They’re still fantastic sounding, and roll up into a nice light zippered case. The only reason I replaced them was the laptop fell off my lap at one point and bent the headphone connector all out of whack. Oops
Yes, I carry a rubiks cube around. It’s a great fidget toy, and a great way to relax. Also tends to start conversations. Best time right now is 1 minute 14 seconds for a full solve. But I’m out of practice, so nowadays it’s closer to 2 minutes. Also, a friend just reminded me that I sometimes use it for showing scale in a photo. Everyone knows how big a rubiks cube is.
Generic clip-on Sunglasses – these are a pair of clip on sunglasses I got off Amazon. They work remarkably well
My work ID pass
My passport – I don’t keep this with me all the time, just for this trip. I keep it in a buried pocket in the pack, very difficult to reach unless you’re trying hard Pickpocket proof as best I can do it.
Cleaning cloth for glasses – I wear glasses. I have sunglasses. Not having a good cleaning cloth at hand can be infuriating, particularly if you’re not wearing a cotton shirt or something.
KMASHI K-MP816 10000 mAh battery – This is critical. This battery has saved my ass a dozen times. It’s your typical portable battery pack. The reviews on it aren’t particularly stellar on Amazon, but for $12, I’ve totally gotten my money out of it. It’s a good balance between weight and capacity.
LKY DIGITAL Travel Adapter – This is a nifty little cube (it’s int he black zippered case) that has also been a godsend. It is a multi country adapter, able to plug into most European countries, as well as Japan and others I don’t know about. The real kicker is it has 2 USB charging ports on it also, so at night I can plug in my laptop, my cell phone, and my watch for recharging (or my travel battery), and have enough plugs for them all.
Apple Displayport to Ethernet adapter – Sometimes you’re in a place where the wifi just plain sucks or isn’t available (like a datacenter).
WMZ Multi Charger Cable – I love this thing. It’s a single USB cable with 3 ends on it. Lightning, Micro USB, and USB-C. It’s pretty rare I need more than one at a time, but I have a very good cable in case I need to charge my SO’s iPhone, or charge my KMASHI battery. My phone uses USB-C, so I’m all set no matter what I need. The cable itself is very well built, with a little velcro keeper and everything.
A spare small USB multiport charger, just in case.
Gerber Bear Grylls Compact Multitool – So, this is a bit of a problem. This is a very small (and inexpensive) multitool that I like to have with me, because having a multitool is handy. I normally carry that inside the Altoids tin with the rest of my ‘support stuff’, but out of the last 10 plane flights, two of them have been pulled out by the TSA and confiscated. Now what I do is take the multitool out of my bag and put it in my checked luggage (if I’m bringing some). If I don’t have checked luggage, I leave the multitool at home. Frustrating, because this thing is tiny, and incredibly useful.
Altoids ‘kit’ – It’s a little hard to see in this pic, but there’s 2 altoids tins there. One is full of tasty altoids goodness. The other is a sort of emergency kit I build after reading some of the more sane prepper sites. In that second tin I carry:
Bandaids
Antibiotic ointment
Advil
A small LED flashlight
Some cash
Several rubber bands
Several paper clips (these things have come in handy SO MANY TIMES, I honestly cannot tell you. Seriously, carry some.
Some anti-itch cream
Alcohol wipes
The rest of the items are specifically for my Olympus PEN-F Mirrorless Camera. A note here – this is the first long trip I’ve taken with the smaller camera, and I LOVE IT. I’m already having ideas for different lenses to carry but my current set is working quite well.
Spare lens caps
Olympus 25mm F1.8 Lens – The equivalent of the standard ‘nifty fifty’ lens so common on 35mm bodies. It’s been okay for my work, though I think I’d like faster glass.
Spare batteries and charger. I carry 3 batteries with me, because I’m almost ALWAYS having one go down, so having one to switch to that’s fresh, and one in the wings is great They charge pretty fast, so keeping them all charged isn’t much of a challenge.
Panasonic Lumix 20mm F1.7 Lens (on camera) – A great landscape lens. Flat and easy to work with, great for scenery and tourism shots!
Olympus 40-150mm Zoom Lens – This is equivalent to a 300mm lens in the 35mm body family. It’s great for doing ‘long lens’ work, and is extremely light.
Leather case for PEN-F – I freely admit one of the reasons I got the PEN-F was it’s retro styling. This brown leather case completes the image, and of course works really well protecting the camera. I leave the lens cover off when carrying it around on shoots, and bundle it up when it’s on it’s way any long distance (like on a plane).
Theres naturally other stuff I have that’s not in the pic, like my cell phone, but one thing I’d like to add in is I carry a Pocketmonkey Wallet Multitool. This is a super handy thin credit card sized piece of metal that has things like a bottle opener, screwdriver, wrench, etc etc on it. I’ve used it half a dozen times, and it is 100% TSA approved (I’ve only gotten nudged on it once, where an overzealous TSA agent asked about it, took it out of my wallet, went over to confer with his supervisor, and came back “Huh, these are 100% okay. Cool!” and off I went.
I’m sure there’s stuff I’m missing. Leave a comment if you think of something I should change or get. I will probably be looking to replace my Ogio pack soon, as it’s a little long in the tooth. Something a little more outdoorsey would be nice.
The photography community is going through yet another sea change driven by technology. The first big adjustment happened when digital cameras got good enough to replace film. This was primarily driven by DSLR’s becoming price and performance competitive with analog cameras, and the entire industry pivoted to digital.
The next wave is the move from DSLR to mirrorless technology. This is fairly recent – technically the earliest digital cameras were ‘mirrorless’ in that they didn’t have the internal mechanisms that SLR’s have (and thus were considered inferior in many ways). But recently mirrorless cameras with sensor and lens ecosystems as good as professional (and ‘prosumer’) cameras have been gaining popularity, and it’s become pretty apparent that the DSLR’s days are numbered.
I went whole hog into DSLR land after taking pictures for many years with ‘point and shoot’ digital cameras. My first DSLR was a Canon Digital Rebel XTi (nee ‘400D’), and later a Canon 70D. I continued using both through weddings, portrait shoots, event photography, etc, enjoying the quality and ‘feel’ of the platform.
Eventually I realized I was using my camera less because of it’s bulkiness, and the fact that I was already carrying a pretty decent camera in my pocket. My cell phone camera was, to use the well worn phrase, the best camera you can have (ie, “the one you have with you”). I was using my phone camera for snapshots, shooting subjects I was interested in in the moment, etc, but my pictures stopped being ‘art’, and started just being ‘documenting’. I’m not interested in just being another snapshot phone cam photographer. I want to make beautiful images, and while some of that is possible with a cell phone, I wanted better. It was clear I wasn’t using my Canon (though I carry it in my camera-enabling backpack a lot) because it was heavy, bulky, and unwieldy. Hauling out 2 pounds of camera to take a picture of the beautiful sky or a street at night was just becoming a hassle.
Time to look at mirrorless cameras.
Canon had already been working on a mirrorless line, with the M50 and the M6 bodies. They were relatively expensive, and the reviews were okay, if not exciting. If I was going to invest in an entire new camera platform (and lets be clear, when you replace your camera, you’re also replacing all the accessories – lenses, flashes, etc – you’ve gotten for the old platform), I wanted it to be something I was excited about, and had a good ecosystem behind it.
I was attracted to the Micro Four Thirds family of lenses (referred to as ‘m43’ or ‘m4/3’ or ‘MFT’ by the technorati – I just use m43). There seemed to be a lot of support for the platform among many manufacturers, so I started focusing on what platforms were around. My attention was drawn to the Olympus PEN series of cameras – these cameras go back to the late 1950’s, and are easily recognizable in their styling and form factor. Olympus has made digital versions of the PEN cameras for a few years, but only recently have they gone all out and made a high end digital mirrorless version that supports the M43 lens platform, all in the same form factor.
And it looks cool as hell.
After reading many reviews and details online, I took the plunge, and ordered the camera. Because I knew I’d be banging it around a lot, I also added a very nice retro looking leather case for it, as well as a few extra lenses with associated filters, including a 25mm F/1.8 (what is equivalent to the standard 50mm fixed lens on most DSLRs), since much of my style works with shallow depth of field shots.
I received the camera just before a trip to California, so I basically bundled everything into a bag and got on the plane. My first real experience using the camera was during some walkarounds in San Francisco.
First impressions
San Francisco, March, 2018,
It’s small. In some ways, the camera feels a bit like a toy, but only because I’m so used to handling a large bulky device. Once I got past the size issues, the camera is pleasant to use. Fast on the shutter, good autofocus and it makes nice decisions about auto settings. I’m avoiding fiddling the manual modes for a while, because the manual is ENORMOUS, and there’s a lot to get through. I did change the autofocus setting to be a sort of hybrid manual mode. You can set it to autofocus for you, then you can manually adjust the focus off the initial setting via the lens ring. Handy.
I immediately ran into a problem where the camera would lock up after several shots. No amount of on/off, button pushing, closing / opening the display or anything would cause it to come back to life – and it would get HOT, draining the battery very quickly. It was obviously stuck in some software loop. Popping the battery out and back in cause it to reboot, and I could continue shooting, but having to do this every 3-4 shots was frustrating. Turns out it was a known firmware bug that was fixed in version 2.0. Olympus provides a (remarkably well written) download / update tool to upgrade the camera via a USB cable. Once the firmware was updated, no more lockups. Hooray!
The next thing I had to overcome was the viewfinder. Because this camera is not an SLR, which shows you, via the viewfinder, exactly what the camera sensor will see when it takes the picture, The PEN-F has a secondary digital display within the viewfinder that shows you what the sensor will see, but obviously at a much lower resolution. It has the advantage of showing you all the details you’ll need to know about the shot (ISO, aperture, exposure, battery life, storage information, etc), and has a neat presentation style after you take the shot (you half press the shutter button to set focus, then full press to shoot, just like most cameras… On the next press, you get a very fast preview of the last shot taken – about 1/4 second, but it lets you know what the last shot looked like. I found this extremely useful when taking multiple shots in a row, to understand if the last shot was focused right, got what i needed, etc). The digital viewfinder has drawbacks though. It doesn’t come on until the camera senses your face is near the display, so there’s a noticeable delay before the image comes on. This can be disconcerting. The display is a low resolution version of the actual photo you’ll be taking, and because it’s a luminous version of the shot, the colors and values can feel ‘off’ – this isn’t a reflective version of what your lens would see, it’s a replayed version of reality using glowing pixels. It has a very different feel, and takes some getting used to.
The back of the camera has a flip out high resolution touch sensitive display that is great for replays, working through the (VAST) menu system, or doing maintenance on the camera. The display can be folded out, flipped over, and hidden, which is how I prefer to shoot – I don’t like having a sensitive glass display open to being banged about in my bag. The menus and environment were snappy and easy to navigate, but the menu system is quite deep and detailed. I’ve had to refer to the manual and to online forums several times to find things buried in the multilevel menu system.
The PEN-F does have wifi support, and it looks to be much better than the Canon configurations (which I found all but useless). For now I’m using SD cards to move content from the camera to my Mac running Lightroom. I’ll try the wifi process at some point, but or now it’s something that’s not on my hot list.
So, how does it perform?
So far, I’m exceptionally pleased with the quality of shots coming off it. First, working with the fixed 25mm lens has been an experience pretty much dead on with my work with the standard ‘nifty fifty’s. The lens is fast and responsive, and handles light just fine. The focal depth is about what I’d expect for a fixed lens of this size, and the form factor is just right. In my bag, the entire assembly is hardly noticeable compared to my bulky 70D.
Olympus also offers a 150mm (300mm equivelent) ‘long lens’ for an extremely reasonable price (I got mine for $99). I recognized I wanted to do long lens shots, so picked up the 150mm, and let me tell you, I was not disappointed. Motion on the lens is excellent, and I was able to ‘snipe’ profile shots at a big social gathering beautifully. I also took this lens to a soccer practice, and was very pleased with the quality of shots coming out of the system.
925 grams
650 grams
So, lets talk physical comparisons for a bit.
The obvious part is – the Olympus is small. Roughly half the size of the Canon equipment. This makes it much easier to carry around and not have it be a burden. Batteries, camera body, lenses, associated gear, all half the weight, for roughly the same performance.
Weight wise, I compared the Canon 70D with a 1.8mm 50mm lens against the Olympus PEN-F with a 25mm 1.8 lens. The Canon weighed in at 925 grams, and the Olympus was 650 grams, putting the Canon setup about 50% heavier than the Olympus. That’s a pretty significant change.
In short, the Olympus is smaller, lighter, and easier to work with than the Canon, with comparable performance.
What about picture quality?
Easter Egg Hunt
I’m not the worlds greatest photographer. In fact, I’d argue I’m somewhere in the ‘meh’ to ‘okay’ department. Sometimes I luck out, and sometimes something I’m really trying to capture happens as I envisioned it. I love the work I create, and want to get better, but I know I have a lot to learn. Having said that, I don’t think i’ve come anywhere close to pushing the 70D or the PEN-F to their capability limits, so while some may argue the PEN-F has this or that deficiency or advantage over the 70D, that’s not really what is going to impact my work. I got the camera because I felt I needed something more portable, lighter, and easier to work with, which would encourage me to get out and shoot more. I believe in that I’ve succeeded.
San Francisco, March, 2018
I’ve done some street photography (which I enjoy), and have been super happy with the results. I’ve taken it out for your typical day of touristy fun, and I’ve shot portraits. I’ve used it at a soccer game for sports photography. In all these settings, it’s performed well and I’ve been happy with the results.
Wrapping it up – Conclusions and thoughts
After a month with the new camera, I have to say I’m pretty satisfied. The form factor, the picture quality, and the performance has been great. I won’t lie, part of my attraction to the camera was how it looks and feels. It’s got a retro affect that I find attractive and interesting. Very little of the styling is ‘there just for show’ – it’s all functional and useful (okay, maybe the on-camera post-effects set via a dial on the front of the body are a little strange), but overall, the controls are effective, well placed, and functinal.
I’m fully committed to using the PEN-F as my primary shooter. There’s no reason I’d need to bring my 70D with me for 98% of my photowalks or other events. Am I getting rid of my 70D? Probably not – having a second body is very handy for events and paid gigs. I’ll probably work with both cameras for weddings where having two cameras set up with different lenses is needed.
There’s a wonderful post over on Petapixel (What? You’re not following them already? Get on that… seriously, they’re awesome, whether you’re a photographer or not)..
Wait, what i was saying? Oh, right, the post. The post is about how internet addiction is destroying creativity. The author talks specifically about how it relates to photography, but the general case is true…
What I’m getting at in the headline is that the Internet is most likely the cause of your impotence when it comes to productivity. How many people pick up their smartphones and check something online or in an app in the morning, instead of picking up a camera and capturing a sunrise?
I bet 99% of us look at a smartphone before anything else in the morning. If only your first thought out of bed was “What photo will I capture today?” think about how much more you would achieve.
And he’s absolutely right.
Over the last couple weeks (and through being sick with a head cold the last 5 days), I’ve found myself almost breathlessly refreshing news.google.com and my Feedly page or whatever just to keep up the constant stream of input. And when I felt like doing something, it would have to compete with the information overload I was getting off the net. How can creativity thrive under this kind of mental onslaught?
I’m going to try and change things up. Move politics out of my “must check once an hour” need. Stop refreshing feedly to get the latest DailyWTF. I’m not a big social media wank, so Facebook, Twitter, etc are not my main distractions, so I can’t really put this under “i’m quitting social media for a while”. It’s more “I need to set priorities a little. This is not healthy for me.”
In the past I’ve done little life adjustments like this, and whether they stick long term or not, they do shift the balance a little, and nudging yourself out of a well worn groove isn’t a bad thing, even if it means things are a little shaky until a new smoother path is found.
Petapixel is rapidly becoming my favorite blog for articles about photography, both the business and the tech. A recent post entitled ‘You Sure You Want to be a Wedding Photographer?’ hit pretty close to home, as I’ve been shooting more weddings lately, and yes, I’ll admit it, I’ve done the mental exercise of “Can I do this full time?”
If you want to be a wedding photographer, you need to stop and think about your life.
So you want to be a wedding photographer? Want to go pro, go full-time, ditch that desk and take the industry by storm? Stop and think about your life. Do you LOVE to work? Like, truly LOVE working? Not the recognition, not the money and the fame, and least of all the internal accomplishment feedback that comes from achieving small successes that only you can see. Nope, you pretty much need to love doing the work.
I arrived at “Heck no”, long before before I read the article, but Levi’s point by point breakdown of “You really have to love photography – not be in it for the money, fame, glory, or any of that BS…” is, IMHO, spot on. I love taking pictures, I love doing post-processing, and I love hearing customers tell me they’re happy with my work. Is it frustrating sometimes? Sure… it’s a lot of work, and there are aspects that ain’t great. A good example is in Levi’s article:
And somebody’s gray uncle strapped with two DSLRs worth more than your car will waltz in and bogart all your shots while insinuating that you probably shouldn’t have even come. (You’re a real jerk, Uncle Bob.)
Boy ain’t that the truth. I’ve had this happen twice, though not quite with the snooty commentary from Uncle Bob.
So, no, not a full time career for me. In the meantime, I’ll happily take the work as it comes along, throwing myself into each job with all the professionalism, skill, and excitement I can bring. At the end, I’m happy with the product I give my clients, and I can go to sleep knowing I did my best, made someone happy, and be ready for the next days challenges.
A recent article appeared on Petapixel regarding a Montreal photojournalist having all his photos stolen by burglars:
A photographer’s worst nightmare just happened to a well-known photographer: on Monday, Montreal-based photojournalist Jacques Nadeau returned home to find that burglars had stolen all the photos he has taken during his life and career.
CBC News reports that Nadeau, a photojournalist for the newspaper Le Devoir, walked into his home find that five of his hard drives had been stolen.
They contained an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 photos captured over the course of his 35 year photography career.
This is a terrible story, and absolutely devastating to the photographer. My heart goes out to him. But we can take a lesson from this…
Embrace the Paranoia. Always ask “What if….”
Take a look around you. At your life, at your belongings, at things you hold dear. Ask yourself “What would happen if this were lost or destroyed?” If the answer is “This is irreplaceable”, then move on to the next question “How can I protect these things in a way that makes sure they’re never lost?”
For anyone in the digital world, the answer is simple. Backups. There are myriad sites singing the song “Always do your backups!” and “Here’s how to back up your things!” I won’t go into detail here. But people should extend that idea to other things of value. Important documents. Printed photos. Artwork. That doll from your youth. Look at these things of value and be a little paranoid. “How could this be destroyed?” Some china inherited from a relative – is it on a shelf that can be knocked over easily? A doll you once cuddled as a child, perhaps putting it out of reach of the dog would be a good idea?
Yea yeah, okay. So how do YOU do it?
I’m glad you asked! This article happened to appear while I was in the middle of backing up my photo library!
Currently, I do all my photo work in Aperture. Apple has announced that this product is being end of lifed, so no matter what, I’ll need to do a bunch of work migrating photos. I keep my photo library on an external 1TB USB3 drive, and I’m acutely aware of how fragile that is. Hard drives fail constantly, and having all my eggs in one basket is never a good idea. The challenge is, photo libraries are BIG. Hundreds of gigabytes of data. If I were to try to back up my Aperture library onto DVD+R DS (the largest ‘consumer level’ long term storage medium available at 17G per disc), I’d need 31 some odd discs. That’s too many, and cumbersome as heck to work with.
I considered Dropbox, Box.net, Google drive, and Amazon Drive, but I feel these are targeted at a desktop user who just wants a drive out in the cloud. While I use Dropbox extensively for making photos available to customers, it’s sync mechanism is quite tricky if what you’re storing on Dropbox is much larger than what you can store locally. I’m also not confident these systems will last, unchanged and accessible, for the long term. Google, in particular, has a dreadful record for keeping products and offerings available for the long run.
In the end I decided to use a pretty technical solution: Amazon S3 storage.
Backing up to S3 and Glacier
Amazon has a bulk storage system called S3, coupled with a ‘long term storage’ system called Glacier. S3 is in essence a big storage bucket where you can drop files and retrieve them at will. Glacier allows you to take S3 elements and put them in, as you might guess from the name, ‘Cold storage’. The costs for S3 storage is extremely low ($0.0240 per GB per month, or for my 600G of photo data, about $14/mo). If I move those files into Glacier, it drops to $6/mo. The difference is that restoring data from Glacier may not be immediate – it may take a few hours for your files to be available. For this sort of long term storage, that’s fine by me!
This is not as cheap as current offerings from Amazon Prime (Unlimited storage free with Prime and Amazon Drive). But I’m still very skeptical of the ‘drive’ offerings from the big players. Everyone is trying to get into the “cloud drive” market with custom clients and apps. My storage needs are exceedingly simple. About 300 very large files (copies of each of my photo projects). S3 is extremely well established, and used widely in the industry.
With S3, to back up my library, I go through these (for me) straightforward steps:
In Aperture, I select a project, and say “Export to library”. I locate that library on my external drive. This is an exact copy of my original masters / RAW images, as well as all the ‘versions’ I may have created (all in JPG form). It’s also including metadata and Aperture edit notes. While I know Aperture is not long for the world, I at least have things backed up. This results in a directory that contains a mini ‘apilibrary’ containing all my files.
From the command line, I make a ‘tgz’ of that directory. This compresses the directory down into a single file. If I were so inclined, I could do this on the Mac just by selecting the directory and choosing ‘Compress’ – that will create a .zip file containing the entire library.
Next, I copy the file up to S3. Because I’m a super-geek, I do this right on the command line using my Amazon credentials I created a while back. If you’re a GUI person, you can use any number of S3 clients for the mac or PC. For me, I do:
aws s3 cp 2014-09-23\ CA\ Over\ 15k.aplibrary.tgz s3://daveshevettphotos/ --profile personal
After some time (some of the libraries are quite large. A 25gig wedding archive took 85 minutes to upload) I have an offsite backup of that photo library! Hurray! At any point I can go to the Amazon S3 console and put these files into Glacier for long term storage, or download them as needed.
I realize this process is not for everyone. I share here to simply raise awareness that in the modern age, many of our most important things are stored in an ephemeral, easily lost way. Take the time to look around and see what you could lose if something were to happen. Something as simple as your laptop being stolen, a broken water pipe, or even a home fire. Always ask.. “What if…”
Another lovely weekend hiking in the white mountains. This time we went up to Lonesome Lake Hut, which is located just south and west of Cannon Mountain. The hike up Cascade Brook Trail on Saturday was magnificent – some of the most beautiful waterfalls I’ve seen in ages (If you hike this, don’t forget to visit the Basin at the beginning of the trail!).
I also decided to take along a small point and shoot camera I had – a GE A1050. It’s a 10MP, 5x optical zoom, lightweight camera, about 6 years old, but had the win of never needing to be recharged, was small enough to fit in my backpack waist pocket, and was very light. The shots I got were pretty good. I wasn’t worried about it getting wet or having to make a huge effort to haul it out to take some pics. This one’ll stay with me.
(I did have the sticker-shock moment this morning of going “Hmm, what are new modern point and shoots going for?”. Short answer? OMG TOO MUCH. $800-ish. Think I’ll stick with this little guy for a while.)
Not too long ago an acquaintance of mine asked if I would do them a favor and come photograph their event. No problem, I enjoy shooting, and any chance to work is an opportunity to improve my skill. I went to the event, spent a few hours taking pictures, and had a great interaction with everyone. Later on I sat down and did all my post processing, tuning, and polishing – a process that can take hours, depending on the size of the shoot and the complexity of the imagery. Zach at ArisiaThis particular event wasn’t that difficult, and I ended up with several dozen shots I was pretty happy with. I published the pictures and sent the link out. Over the next day or two, I got good feedback from the event coordinator and several attendees.
One message I got was simply this…
“These pictures are beautiful! That sure is a great camera!”
Needless to say, this pushed my buttons.
If you’re a photographer, and understand why this statement could be irritating, feel free to skip the following rant.
In the modern age of high pixel count cell phones, cheap high resolution point and shoot cameras, and “entry level” DSLRs, even the simplest, auto-everything, “shoot and post” pictures can come out looking great. But whether you get a good picture or not with these tools alone is, frankly, luck. Sure, you could get a great picture – but that’s mostly the result of chance. Please don’t assume that’s what I do.
I am a photographer (among other things). I spend a lot of time thinking about framing, light, setting, angles, subjects, and timing. When I take pictures, sure, I take zillions (a typical hour or two shoot can result in 500+ exposures). But to me a photographers’ art consists of an end to end process that may take days. The camera is one of the tools in that process, but saying things like “that sure is a great camera!” while it may be true, really diminishes the work that goes into creating really good imagery.
So folks, next time you see a picture by someone you know is a photographer, compliment them on the picture, or better yet, on their skill, not on the camera.
