Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“I used to think that I could never lose anyone if I photographed them enough. In fact, my pictures show me how much I’ve lost.” ―
I’ve been passionate about photography since I was eight years old when my patents gave me an old Kodak box camera. That passion is one of the reason I created this and my car photography site but a year or so ago what I thought was an undying obsession was sorely tested while working on a project requiring me to shoot my full-frame and APS-C DSLRs along with a bunch of lenses.
When I went to the UPS Store to return these lense to the manufacturer, I felt a sigh of relief as if a burden had been lifted. And to me, especially these days, it was a burden. The three lenses along with shipping box and brown crunchy paper packing material weighed 25 pounds. I don’t get to keep all of the gear loaned to me by camera manufacturers although I suspect that’s not true of some bloggers, especially those that are personally sponsored by manufacturers.
While working on this project I engaged in all kinds of shoots from macro photography, studio portraiture, outdoor portraits, documentary photography, and low light imagery. These are all genres I enjoy but as the month progressed I dreaded each additional shoot. Why? For these old bones of mine, the gear was unbearably heavy and awkward to use. From time to time during these shoots, I used my Olympus and Panasonic gear for some personal photography and the comparison as to ease-of-use was striking. An EOS 5D Mark I, for example, weighs 59% more than a Lumix GH4.
Caption: This infrared image was influenced by my interest in the work of Paul Gustave Doré (1832 – 1883) who was a French artist, engraver, illustrator and sculptor. It was made in the wooded area that surrounds nearby Barr Lake using a Panasonic Lumix G5 that was converted for infrared capture by Life Pixel using their Standard IR (720nm) conversion. Lens was a a Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 Biogon lens that was mounted via a Fotodiox adapter with an Av exposure of 1/640 sec at f/11 and ISO 400.
This is not to say that my experience with Olympus and Panasonic cameras from the Micro Four-thirds system is perfect. I’ve written here before about some of the problems I’ve experienced with the GH4 that, as of today, have or maybe have not not been fully resolved. And while I own a bunch of bodies and some lenses, my personal mirrorless system lacks the depth of focal lengths I would like to have but can’t afford because for some reason Micro Four-thirds lenses seem priced high, especially when compared to DSLR lenses.
And the image quality of even some of the high-end Micro Four-thirds cameras, including the Lumix GH4 that I typically use for portraiture, have noise in the shadows that would have many pixel peepers running for their 4.7-lb 100-megapixel $32,995 Hasselblad H6D-100c’s. Me? I’ll just remove noise using the Dfine plug-in from the RAW files and enjoy the experience of shooting the photographs.
Lots of people are happy as can be shooting their DSLRs and I am genuinely glad they’re happy and would not dream of dampening their enthusiasm for their gear. Because that’s what photography is all about —excitement. It doesn’t matter what kind of camera you prefer to use—DSLR, APS-C, mirrorless or even film—what matters is that you are having fun. And to me that’s what photography is all about.
I’ve found that Life Pixel does a great job with IR conversions and they’ve done most of the conversions for some of my Canon DSLRs and all of my Panasonic Lumix G-series cameras. This is not a paid or sponsored endorsement, just my experience.
My book, The Complete Guide to Digital Infrared Photography is available from Amazon with new copies available for $14.16 and used copies starting for around three bucks as I write this. Creative Digital Monochrome Effects has a chapter on IR photography and is available from Amazon new for $12.19 with used copies starting for less than two bucks.