Since I'm the only one that ever reads this, it won't be big news, but there it is.

And the biggest pain in my ass for the last year or so was administrating a wildlife photography group on Facebook.  This used to be my baby, a baby that I lovingly tended for about the last decade.  And lately, that baby has turned into a monster that was consuming my time, energy, and enthusiasm.  I had to deal with constant complaints; I lost respect for a lot of people, and, my GAWD, the whining sometimes.

The group had over 11,000 members.  And I shut it down.  What a relief that was.  I now administrate a much smaller group (right now, under 100), and I’m actually enjoying things again.  I’m trying to get rid of all the stuff that makes me miserable, and do more stuff that brings me joy.  I’m enjoying this new chapter.

I got rid of 3 of my cameras and several lenses.  Specifically, I got rid of my A7II (with the 28-70 kit lens), A7RII, and A6300.  I also got rid of my Canon 600mm f/4 and the Metabones 4 adapter, the Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8, the Sony Zeiss 16-70, the Sigma 24mm f/1.4.

What did I get instead?  I got the A7III and the A7RIII as my only camera bodies, and I got the Sony 100-400 GM, and I’m probably going to get the Sony 28mm f/2 in the very near future.

I was very happy with the image quality on my old cameras, and waited for quite a while before I upgraded.  The thing that finally got me to upgrade was the improved autofocus.  If I only shot in the studio, I wouldn’t have upgraded, but since I do a lot of outdoor shoots, frequently shooting in near darkness or directly into the sun, the improved AF, particularly the improved Eye AF, has been a huge benefit.

Why did I trade in the Canon 600mm?  Since I don’t shoot nearly as much wildlife, it wasn’t necessary, and even then, it was just too much focal length (not to mention, it’s a BIG, heavy, awkward lens – it was just a huge pain to use).  The Sigma lenses were both great, too, but I wanted to go native E-mount instead of using adapters.

Now, I have a very light kit that really suits the photography I’m doing lately.  I can be in remote areas, sometimes in some really steep, tricky terrain, and it’s so much easier to use my current kit.

In the last part of 2017, I made a decision that I thought was ethical and designed to protect the animals that I loved.  I made a rule that folks could no longer post locations of where they made the image.  I did what I thought was right, and my life was made miserable for a while afterwards.  I wasn't expecting everyone to be thrilled with the rule, but I have to say, I was shocked by the degree of hostility that was aimed at me after initiating the rule.  I never would have guessed that a simple rule would create the conflict that it did.  I wound up booting people from the group that refused to follow the new rule, I had people that, despite being "friends" with them on Facebook and interacting on a regular basis, were now bitterly complaining about me, writing nasty, insulting things on my timeline, and sending messages filled with hate and obscenities to me privately.

The group lost around 300 people.  And I'm perfectly fine with that.

On the one hand, this has not been a picnic for me.  On the other hand, ultimately, I'm glad to be rid of these people.  If trying to do something ethical is enough to provoke hostile behavior, I'm better off without them.  I am left with a feeling of disillusionment, though.  I'm doing less wildlife photography now.  I'm disappointed that folks mob single animals with more regard for getting an image than the welfare of the animal.  I don't want to be a part of that.  I think I need a break from it.

There are a couple of different reasons for this, the first being that I'm making deliberate efforts to not do what everyone else is doing, to not photograph what everyone else is photographing.  I want to zag while everyone else is zigging.  A lot of this has to do with being a wildlife photographer - if a lot of people are trying to photograph an owl nest, for instance, it stresses the owls.  I'm motivated to do as little as possible to stress my wildlife subjects.

Second, I don't like being part of a crowd.  Making the same images everyone else is making isn't appealing.  The exception I allowed myself was photographing a badger den, and that was only because folks were supposed to shoot from their cars in order to minimize their impact on the den.  And apparently it went fairly well until someone got out of their car and approached the den.  It looks like the traffic has already started for the eclipse.  Please be careful on the road.

Third, I don't want a lot of images that look like everyone else's images.  The internet is going to be flooded with eclipse images - some are going to be really exceptional, but most are going to be mediocre.  And that's OK; without a lot of opportunities to practice taking solar eclipse images, very few folks are going to be experts.

I'm not saying any of this to discourage anyone from photographing the eclipse, or doing what everyone else is doing - follow your Muse, do what feeds your soul, find what makes you happy. 

Might as well continue the theme from my last post: moving to mirrorless.  You can check my old posts to bring you up to speed.  Here's where things stand now.

As of my last post, I was primarily a wildlife photographer - that means (usually) long lenses and tripods, among other gear.  Since that time, I've branched into people photography, too.  Same cameras, different lenses and other gear (usually).

One of the things I loved about mirrorless was smaller cameras and fewer, lighter gear bags.  That's no longer particularly relevant.  For wildlife, I'm using Canon EF-mount lenses with adapters.  Big, heavy lenses.  I can (and do) put a Sony a6300 on a Canon 600mm f/4 with a Metabones adapter, but the small size of the camera is pretty irrelevant at that point.

But I'm also using native E mount lenses when I'm photographing people in and out of the studio.  Usually, either a 55mm f/1.8 Sony Zeiss or an 85mm f/1.8 Zeiss Batis, sometimes with natural light, but more frequently with Speedlights or studio strobes.  That means flash and a modifier or a flash trigger is mounted to the camera, again, negating a lot of the small size advantage, right?

So why keep using mirrorless if there's no size advantage?  In no particular order:

The Good

• The image quality is stunning.  I'm not saying better than DSLRs, I'm just saying, IQ is at least as good
• Focus is spot on.  Using native E mount lenses, I never have to worry about focus.  Even better, I can specify faces for priority focus.  Group photo , I can specify that my wife's face is going to be in focus, above all others.  Even better, the focus can nail an eye for focus.  I can shoot wide open, and no matter how shallow the DOF, the eye will be in focus.  Bangs hanging over the eyes?  Not a problem; as long as the focus can find an eyeball, the eye will be in focus.  Not the tip of the nose, not the ear - the eyeball.
• Silent shutter - great for wildlife.  How quiet?  So quiet I think there's something wrong with the camera, and I have to review images in the viewfinder to make sure the shutter fired.
• I love the EVF.  The folks that complain that an EVF will never be as good as an OVF just aren't familiar with current models.  I see exactly what the sensor sees.  I have friends ask me to look through the view finders on their DSLRs; "Look through that big, bright optical viewfinder and tell me you still like electronic viewfinders," they proudly claim.  Yeah, I'm sticking with my EVF, thanks.  I keep the camera up to my eye, and I see exactly what any settings change does, I see clipped shadows and highlights, I see everything, and I don't have to put the camera down to see the results - I can review the images in the EVF.  No worry about it being in bright sun and conditions too bright to see the rear LCD, I just look through the EVF.  DOF?  There it is, I got the snout to the tips of the ears in focus, with the focus point right in the eye ball.  I'm shooting in the studio with a model, and I never have to take the camera away from my eye to review the image.  I have a live histogram in my EVF.  I have a live  feed on how level my camera is.  I'll keep my EVF, thanks.
• Focus peaking - I freaking love focus peaking.  I do lots of macro, and the focus peaking allows me to absolutely nail the focus.  I know exactly what's in focus, exactly what's out of focus, no guessing.  I can also get automatic magnified views to make sure my focus is spot on.
• Adapted lenses.  I can use practically any lens on my bodies.  If there's an adapter, I can use the lens.  And I love the Sigma MC-11 adapter.  Yeah, yeah, you can only use it with certain Sigma lenses.  I don't care, it makes those lenses work just like native E mount glass.  I have access to all my focus options.  I don't need to beg Sony to make long, fast glass, I can just use Sigma S (and A and even C) series lenses function just like native E mount glass.  I like it so much that I'm considering selling my Canon 600mm F/4 IS so I can get the new Sigma 500mm f/4 Sports lens.

The Meh

• Battery life.  That's the complaint that I hear from DSLR users who don't shoot mirrorless, particularly Sony mirrorless.  It's really a non-issue.  I'm not going to rave about the battery life, but it's never caused any problems while shooting.  It seems to be a combination of time the camera is on plus the number of images, rather than just the number of images.  I'm shooting Momma Fox and 4 fox kits for an hour, and I walk away with 1500 images, and about 30% battery left on a single battery.  For most of my Sony cameras without a vertical grip, I take the battery door off.  And I carry extra batteries.  Switching them out takes all of 5 seconds.  It's really not a problem.  I would like to be able to buy extra battery sleds for the vertical grips, so I could slide out the expired batteries as a unit, and slide in a sled with fresh batteries.
• SC cards.  I was kinda disappointed that  the new a9 didn't use the XQD card - eveb dual slots with an XQD card and an SD card would have been better.  I'll take a single XQD card slot (my needs are modest).

The Not So Good

• Buffer size.  When I'm shooting people or macro, I'm in single shot mode, I take an image, I review it, and it's time for another shot.  Buffer size isn't an issue then.  When I'm shooting wildlife at maximum frame-rate, I hit the buffer limit pretty regularly, and when I do, it takes a painfully long time for the buffer to clear.  A. Painfully.  Long.  Time.  It does make me more mindful of waiting for the peak action, hitting the shutter for a few frames, and backing off.  I might miss a few things, but I also don't have a dozen identical frames, either.
• Adapters with long glass.  If I photographed small birds moving really quickly, I don't think I'd use my current set up.  The AF struggles a little to keep up.  But I don't photograph small, fast birds, I photograph cute, furry mammals.

If you have questions about mirrorless, particularly Sony mirrorless, let me know.  I'm happy to answer questions.

I'm a photographer, primarily wildlife and nature.  That means I have some fairly specific needs, with gear I tend to use a lot (longer focal length lenses sometimes, tripods, sometimes flashes and flash extenders), and less need for some other gear (reflectors, big soft boxes, laptop for tethered shooting, for instance).  I'm fairly used to carrying some heavy gear long distances to make just a few images sometimes.  There can be a lot of stuff to cart around, and I'm not getting any younger.

My first DSLR (after a series of bridge cameras) was the Sony a100.  I used an old Canon film SLR decades ago and had no modern lenses, so I wasn’t married to any lens system.  And I like to support the underdog, and I've never been a traditionalist, so I did the Sony system.  I’ve never regretted it.  I upgraded from the a100 to the a700 as soon as it was released, and was using that as my primary camera for a while.  I got the a580 as a back up; it’s barely been used and almost new.  I got the a77 as soon as it was released, too.

I still love the a77; it does everything I want it to do (except maybe high ISO).  Before the a77ii was released, there were a lot of rumors about the specs, the most prominent being it would have a 32mp sensor and be mirrorless.  I don’t really need 32mp, but it sounded interesting, and I planned to upgrade.  But then it turns out that the a77ii would still have a 24mp sensor (yeah, a generation or two improved from the a77), and maybe a better AF system, but the new a6000 already had all that, and at a quarter of the size and weight of the a77 (with the vertical grip, which lives on the a77).  I decided to get the a6000 mostly as an experiment until the a77ii came out – I figured I could return it to Amazon after I played with it.

After I played with it, I really enjoyed it.  Light, compact, and image quality at least as good as the a77.  I just used both cameras with the barking Mamma Marmot, and the files might (might) be slightly better from the a6000, but for all practical purposes, the IQ from the a6000 leaves nothing to be desired.

The a77 still has some advantages: The controls are easier to use (I have big hands, and wear gloves most of the time at altitude and in the winter, and the a77 is easier to operate).  Accessing the controls on the a6000 (a smaller body, obviously, with smaller buttons and controls) is more difficult at baseline, and I have to set it and leave it if I have gloves on.  I don’t change settings that much, so not a big problem.  It’s also more difficult to set a specific focus point.  On the a77, I use the toggle on the back and quickly put it where I want it (usually the critter’s eyeball).  Focus is ALWAYS spot on with the a77.  It’s taken me a little while to fiddle with the a6000’s focus system, and I can do most things I want, but it isn’t as easy or precise as with the a77.  The max shutter speed on the a6000 is only 1/4000, compared to 1/8000 on the a77.  Usually not a big deal.  The other disadvantage of the a6000 is a limited buffer size – shooting 11fps burns it up pretty quickly; I can still shoot brief bursts while it’s clearing the buffer, but I have to pace myself.  The a77 can rattle off frames and I usually don’t hit the buffer too often.  One thing I do like, that I initially thought was a disadvantage, was no external battery charger; lots of folks complained about that, but I use the same charger for the a6000 that I use for my phone.  I charge it while driving to locations, I charge it beside me on the desk, and when traveling I just have one tiny cable.  Much more convenient.

The a77 is still a great camera, but the a6000 is light, compact, and a lot of fun.  I'm immediately noticing that rather than carrying two or even three camera bags along with my Think Tank camera harness and modular mount system (frequently crammed into a giant plastic storage bin for convenience and to keep everything together in the car and in the basement), I'm down to one  small Think Tank bag for both a6000's, one with the SE 70-200mm f/4 G, and the other with the the 70-400 with the adapter.  I can keep everything in the front seat of the car and have easy access to it, and only have to make one trip from the car.

The first image is from the a6000 with the Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G

Mamma Marmot BarkingSony a77 with the 70-400mm