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Best Investments in Your Photography
4.5k Plays1 year ago
With thousands of companies trying to earn your money for photography based purchases, it can get really confusing where your dollars are best spent. This week, Blake Rudis and Matt Kloskowski discuss what they think some of the best investments are, as well as some things they regret purchasing over the years.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Goals
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to another frame of mind photography podcast where we apparently can't stop laughing before we record the podcast. My name is Matt Klaskowski from mattk.com, and I am joined by Mr. Blake Rudis from F64academy.com. What's going on, Blake? Not much. What's up with you, man? What are we talking about today? I've apparently lots of things that make us laugh before we start the podcast.
00:00:33
Speaker
Uh, we should record some of those moments too. Yeah. Maybe you should put the bloopers at the end. There'd be a lot of bleeps in them, but
00:00:43
Speaker
All right, well, everybody, welcome to another episode here. We appreciate all your comments and participation on the previous episodes.
Debate: Photography as Art vs. Craft
00:00:51
Speaker
This is a podcast where we try to just adjust, solidify, change, mold your frame of mind when it comes to photography and photo editing stuff. This time, our topic is the best investments for your photography. And I kind of put hobby on the end of that.
00:01:12
Speaker
This wasn't the art versus craft podcast? No. Oh, man. I'm out of here then. I'm just kidding. I thought you were serious for a second. No, that one's coming. We're going to have to build suspense for that one.
00:01:28
Speaker
Photography is an art versus a craft. That one is coming up. Blake and I have been talking about that one, but not trying to talk about it because we really want to have
Investment Advice for Photographers
00:01:38
Speaker
our... I think what we're trying to do with the photography art versus craft
00:01:43
Speaker
is we're trying to make sure our friendship still exists when that podcast is over. We'll see how often we talk after that. We're trying to have a delicate balance. It's taken us a little bit of time.
00:01:59
Speaker
We might need a moderator. I watched a little bit of the debate last night. Anyway, so best investments for your photography. I kind of put hobby on the end of that because it's really hard.
00:02:15
Speaker
I think mostly what people that are listening to us are hobbyists and enthusiasts. I think some of this stuff could work for a professional, but it's also really hard to do a podcast for professional photographers and hobbyists. While there's a lot of overlap, I think what I would say investments for a professional photographer might be a little bit different than a hobbyist.
Choosing the Right Camera and Gear
00:02:37
Speaker
In some regards, I think I am a hobbyist.
00:02:41
Speaker
I think I'm a professional photo educator, but I don't necessarily think I'm a professional photographer, because if I was a professional, I'd be making money off of that. So I think it's suitable. Absolutely. I mean, I'm the same thing. I mean, I'm a hobbyist enthusiast. I don't make money from my photos, per se, and my needs, my needs for what I need in photography are different than what a working professional shooting every day for clients needs. But I do think there's some overlap in there, so.
00:03:11
Speaker
Our first one, so best investments when it comes to cameras. You got any thoughts on this one? You know, I think I have to think back to what life was like before I had a business around photography.
00:03:28
Speaker
because my thoughts and ideas about the camera that i used were very different than they are now because obviously i've got write-offs and i've got the disposable income to have that stuff because i have a business that's around it but for the hobbyist i would say that
00:03:43
Speaker
The camera that you need is the camera that's going to get the job done. Obviously, people say the best camera is the camera that you have with you, but it's like a cop out. Like, you know, when I was a hobbyist, a true hobbyist where I didn't have a business around photography, I wouldn't get the latest and greatest because I couldn't afford it. I would get what I needed for what I used, like.
00:04:03
Speaker
I have the Sony A1 now because I'm doing wildlife and I'm doing landscape. But if I really, truly thought about the camera that I need, it would be something that has the dynamic range that I need for landscape photography, because that's what I predominantly do. I think a lot of times it's easy to get caught up in all the latest and greatest cameras that are out there.
00:04:22
Speaker
when if you really look at the specs of those cameras, if it doesn't match your style of photography, you really don't need it. My biggest thing was, I was so frustrated with Canon when I was a Canon shooter because they never put the dynamic range in there that I needed for landscape photography.
00:04:37
Speaker
but Sony did. So I jumped ship from Canon to go to Sony because that dynamic range, especially back then I was like 2014, 15 was so much higher than it is. So I went with a camera that was suitable for my needs. Yeah. And I, so I agree on, on most of those fronts and number one, the advice, you know, the best camera is the one that you have with you.
Mirrorless and Full-Frame Camera Recommendations
00:05:01
Speaker
That's, that's like telling somebody, you know, they, Hey, what computer should I buy? You should buy the most, the biggest one you can afford.
00:05:09
Speaker
What lens should I buy? You should buy the best one you can afford. To me, that's the most horrible advice ever. I'm never a member of that. At least it's partially true, but I'm also... Give somebody some guidelines. Say, if I'm going to buy this computer, you at least want to get this, this, and this. And then if you can afford more, you won't ever regret it.
00:05:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'm with you on that one. I think I could even distill it down more to say, so if you just shot landscapes, I think innovation when it comes to landscape photography and cameras has been minimal over the last 10 years. If somebody handed me my D800,
00:05:58
Speaker
And I was thinking of this the other day, because I was looking at some files when I used to shoot Nikon and the D800. If somebody handed me the D800, and I was just shooting landscapes, I'd be like, I'm fine. There's nothing I can't do with this.
00:06:17
Speaker
I look back to my D800 and my D810 files and they are impeccable, impeccable, like just amazing file quality and the camera did what I need. I didn't need any faster frame rate. Does the electronic viewfinder help a little bit? It does, but you know, I could bracket a little bit just to make sure I'm covered because I, you know, it's a little bit harder to see what you're going to get through the viewfinder.
00:06:40
Speaker
Yeah, I'd be fine there. Now, wildlife, I'd have a hard time telling somebody that was really into wildlife. I'd have a hard time telling them, yeah, you'd be fine with a DSLR from 10 years ago. And you could be. I mean, there were amazing wildlife photos taken 10 years ago, but if you're somebody that's really going to get into it, you can't discount the autofocus changes that we have in today's mirrorless cameras.
00:07:08
Speaker
you know, portraits, again, eye autofocus, it just, to me, eye autofocus revolutionizes quite a bit when it comes to portrait photography. So again, if you're taking portraits, it'd be hard travel, it's usually a combination of all of the above. And again, I think some of the improvements that we've had over the last five years would be hard not to tell somebody. So if somebody were to come to me for, you know, what's the best investment camera, I would say, I would ask them, you know,
00:07:38
Speaker
Do you really need 30 frames a second and all that? So maybe let's pull back from the most expensive camera that Nikon can and Sony have to offer to one of the middle range. I would absolutely say to most people while I did admit, if you gave me my D800 and said you have to use this to go take landscapes, I wouldn't skip a beat. I would also advise somebody against buying a DSLR now. DSLRs are dead.
00:08:05
Speaker
there will be no innovation from them. It's not to say you still can't take good photos with them, but no new technology will ever go that route. So I would encourage a mirrorless and I would encourage full frame if you can swing it.
Importance of Megapixels and Image Quality
00:08:23
Speaker
And again, middle of the range, depending on the type of photography you're gonna be doing. Yeah, full frame for me is, that's a,
00:08:32
Speaker
Again, I agree with everything you're saying there. And, you know, I think the only reason I bought the A1, not the only reason, but I was getting into wildlife photography. And before we went on our trip to Washington, that's when I got the A1. It's also great when you go on a trip with a guy like Matt, because you just say, here's my camera, set it up for me. And then it was great. But, you know, recently,
00:08:55
Speaker
I got this little Nikon ZFC. I got this last year before the new Nikon ZF came out and it's an APS-C sensor. This is my travel like street walk around camera when I'm out with my wife and I don't want to bring all my big camera gear and it's APS-C and like even though the APS-C frame and the full frame are the same size, there's just a huge difference between a full frame camera and an APS-C when it comes to
00:09:19
Speaker
noise and how it how it handles so many different things that I would definitely agree with you on full frame, specifically if you're going to be a wildlife or
00:09:28
Speaker
landscape photographer, so. Every time Sony comes out with a new APS-C camera like the a6500, 66, 67, so I don't even, stuff changes so much, I can't even follow it. But every time they come out with a new one, and they always come out with a great lens, you know, and there's like a Sony 75 to 350, and all the other camera brands have this level of camera too, so it's not just Sony.
00:09:54
Speaker
I try it and I think, oh, this is going to be great. I'm going to dump my big lens. I'm going to dump my big camera, my full frame camera. And I'm going to use this because it's so light and so compact and the file sizes. And then I go out and I take, I shoot some wildlife with it and I come back and I look at the files and I'm like, no. I'm personally happy with them. But I guess a lot of it depends on what the person needs too. Do you need 50 megapixels? Are you, if, if you don't own a printer,
00:10:25
Speaker
And you're not printing once a month. I mean, what's like, what's the point of 50 and 60 megapixels unless I mean, crop ability, but still for Instagram and Facebook. If that's the only place you're posting photos of social media and your website, I would say a 30 megapixel camera is plenty, even if you had to crop in pretty tight on it.
00:10:46
Speaker
It's just a full frame. I'll take a picture of my wife and zoom in on her hair. It's almost like I can reach in and just grab it and smell it. It's so detailed. I think I've got a good point to this because I think people want to measure this in very
00:11:06
Speaker
very precise terms. Well, if you're going to shoot this by this, and if you're not going to print this by this, but you just, you just nailed a great point. And I talked about this before, and that is there's a certain satisfaction.
00:11:19
Speaker
to sitting here looking at your photo, big, sharp, blown up on the screen. The rest of the world may never see it that way. But remember, this is partly for you too. And like you said, you took a picture of your wife and you see the hair and everything.
00:11:39
Speaker
There's a satisfaction to that. And if that's satisfying to you, because I think the same thing, you know, these photos I'm taking with some of the APS-C crop sensors, by the time I post them on as the Post-It stamp on Instagram, they'll probably look fine. But I know I'm not happy looking at them on my computer. And to me, there's that. That's a price. And that's a price I'm willing to pay to get that camera.
00:12:02
Speaker
And I think a lot of things with camera gear, what we're kind of pointing out is that there's the four quadrants, you know, like you don't know what you don't know. And I think sometimes there's something humbling about being in that category of.
00:12:14
Speaker
You don't know what you don't know. Like if you've never seen a full frame image, 50 megapixel image from a Sony A1 zoomed in on a computer screen, then you probably don't want to see it because it'll ruin everything for you. And then you'll want something like that. But I think that there's something to be said about the quadrants of like, you know what you know, you know what you don't know. You don't know what you don't know. You know, like those.
00:12:41
Speaker
There's a certain like humbling aspect of not knowing that stuff because then when you do, it's like, it's just ruined it for you, honestly.
00:12:50
Speaker
And in fairness to the other camera brands, I think from landscape perspective, from a travel perspective, I think they were all good. Sony, we keep talking Sony because we shoot Sony, but I don't want to make this a Sony Fest. Sony, from a wildlife perspective, I think led the charge for years. I think in the last two years, Canon definitely caught up, and the last year Nikon did.
00:13:15
Speaker
with the R-series and the Z-series? Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, when we say, if we're saying like the Sony A1, Canon has a good equivalent, Nikon has a good equivalent. So I think everybody has kind of leveled the playing field a little bit there too.
00:13:30
Speaker
And the detail that you'd see in a Sony A7R III or an A7R II is also very similar to the detail you'd see in a Sony A1. It's just that that 50 megapixels in full frame, that's what we're talking about. Not necessarily the camera brand. I know that people might get on us about being Sonyites, but whatever.
Lens Preferences: Zoom vs. Prime
00:13:51
Speaker
It is worth it. How about lenses? Go wide or go home, Matt.
00:13:59
Speaker
I think this is where we'll probably have a colorful discussion. Blake and I went to Zion and it's like we could not have been more polar opposites. Like we're sitting there at sunrise on top of this one peak shooting this big scene and I've got a 400 millimeter lens on and Blake's got a 10 millimeter lens on.
00:14:24
Speaker
I'm like, oh, dude, this is great. He's like, no, man, why? He's like, go wider. You know what they say? Go wider, go home. And I'm like, I don't think anybody's ever said that. It was like, that was our first trip that we had ever done. We was like prior at the beginning of our friendship. And the way you said it and how you said it was like, oh, crap, I just lost cool points with Matt. Because you were so matter of fact, you're like, I don't I don't think they have ever said that.
00:14:53
Speaker
Tell me who this they is. That was funny. So here's my I can give a pretty much an overall blanket opinion on lenses.
00:15:05
Speaker
I would say, again, speaking for the hobbyist enthusiasts, that still demands professional quality. I think that's important. I think that's an important add-on to that. You've got these, you know, I play hobbyist golf. I'm never gonna be a professional golfer, but I still do things to treat the game in a serious way. And so I think photography is a lot the same.
00:15:33
Speaker
I have gotten to the point where I am not going to carry around 2.8 lenses anymore. I see very, very little need for the big aperture 2.8 lens. Now, that's not to say like if, you know, so I've got a 600 f4, but
00:15:54
Speaker
I use my 200 to 600 millimeter much more, and that's at 6.3. And what I have found over time is that aperture difference is so, so minimal, especially when you're using a camera that has good ISO performance. And we have all of the great noise reduction stuff that we have on the computer now.
00:16:15
Speaker
those stops in aperture really just amount to light. They are not gonna give you the background depth that people think that they're gonna get from it.
00:16:25
Speaker
So I'm a big fan of zoom lenses. I'm a big fan of light zoom lenses. I use my Sony for landscapes. I use my Sony 24 to 105 or whatever it is. My 12 to 24, 24 to 105. And then if it's a landscape shoot only, I might bring my 100 to 400, but I'm a big zoom guy because as landscapes,
00:16:48
Speaker
Well, why would you buy an F 2.8 lens? Why would you buy a 24 to 70 F 2.8 to never ever shoot it at F 2.8? And by the way, yeah, yeah, you'd get, you'd get a few more stops of light for, for, for the Milky Way. But.
00:17:06
Speaker
Even then, again, with noise reduction and ISO performance as good as it is today, I think those reasons have kind of gone away. I'm right there with the trifecta. The trifecta of zoom lenses, for me, it's the 16 to 35 because that has a screw on filter, the 12 to 24 doesn't. And I use filters a lot. We'll talk about that. But the 16 to 35, 24 to 105, and then 100 to 400.
00:17:34
Speaker
But then I also bring my 17 millimeter tilt shift, macro wide angle lens. And seven other lenses. Lower macro or wide angle. And then my new, I found a nine millimeter mat. I found a nine millimeter wide angle lens for full frame. Okay.
00:17:57
Speaker
I bring a lot of wide angle lenses just because I'm a wide angle junkie. And I'm, I will say though, that I've started to grow out of that. Um, I am maturing a little bit and I don't just go wide or go home all the time now, Matt. Uh, but that used to be my motto, man. I don't think I ever put a telephoto lens on, but now the way I kind of, it has to do with your shooting style a lot too. But like, you know, when I coach people, when I'm out shooting with them,
00:18:21
Speaker
It's okay. You take that, that wide angle shot because that's like, Oh my gosh, this place is so massive and vast and beautiful. And I've got it all. It's almost like Ghostbusters. You know, you throw out the little trap and it's like, Oh, it's beautiful. It's all there. But then as you throw on longer, uh, focal lengths and get into like the 400 millimeter realm.
00:18:41
Speaker
can actually start to pick out what I call personality shots. Like taking the light as it hits the side of a mountain or zooming into a waterfall instead of just shooting the wide portion of it. And what I found is that, shockingly enough, I'm actually starting to like a lot more of those personality shots. What? Yeah. What? I know. That's the first I've heard of this, Flake. I know. I know. And I just packed up because I'm going to the San Juans this weekend. And I do have a lot of wide angle lenses.
00:19:11
Speaker
But this time I'm going to like keep track of how much I use them so that I don't pack out my bag as much as I have been with stupid wide angle lenses and just keep the trifecta that way I have more space for other things.
00:19:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think from an overall perspective on your investments into lenses and photography, and I think we might even differ from a lot of advice people get because I posted to my Facebook page earlier and I said, we're doing this podcast, any questions, and somebody wrote and said lenses, all about the quality of the lenses.
00:19:45
Speaker
And I would disagree today. I would say that today are modern lenses that are coming out for your mirrorless cameras. Now, that doesn't mean you got a mirrorless and you're using an adapter to a 15-year-old lens. I mean, today's modern lenses, I don't think there's a bad one. I just don't. And I think you can get away
00:20:10
Speaker
What do people talk about? So they think I should get a 24 to 70 F2.8 because of sharpness.
00:20:18
Speaker
because the 24 to 105 is not gonna be sharp. I would argue you to look at any one of my 24 to 105 shots and tell me that they're not sharp. That's all camera technique. It has nothing or so little to do with the lens. If we compared a 24 mil shot from a 24 to 70 with the 24 to 105, you would have to zoom in to 1000% to see the difference.
00:20:43
Speaker
Again, we talked about background blur. I don't think you get your bang for the buck. I think people misunderstand what a stop or two of aperture does to background blur. And I think they misunderstand how great it is and it's not.
Budget Gear and Post-Production Techniques
00:20:58
Speaker
If it's your business,
00:21:01
Speaker
Are the 24-70s, are the 16-35s, the 70-200s, are they better built lenses? Can you bang them around a little bit more? Is the quality a little bit better? Yeah, if it's your business, I might say go for them. But I've had those lenses for too long.
00:21:25
Speaker
and not been able to see the difference that after enough time I sold them off and I started going with the lighter, more zoomed equivalents to those.
00:21:35
Speaker
Right. And so we just talked about the zooms, but what people also need to understand is that I have gas, like gear acquisition syndrome. It's a true thing. Like I do. I think this, I think this podcast, my wife probably sent you a message and said, have an intervention with my husband. Um, so I, I buy a lot of lenses. Um, you know, I do all different types of stuff. I do a lot of portrait photography that people usually don't see because I use that as composite stuff. Like when I do my family Christmas cards and all that stuff. Um,
00:22:03
Speaker
So last year I purchased a Sigma 85mm Pro Art lens for my portrait stuff. And it was kind of a splurge purchase, you know, it's a little over a grand. But I figured it's I've heard all the buzz. It's a prime lens. It goes down to, I don't know, 1.7 or something like that. It's just. But when I used it, I noticed that there was a lot of distortion in those images that I had to correct anyway in the background.
00:22:30
Speaker
Was it sharp? Absolutely. But I've even done videos on YouTube where I've bought a knockoff, um, zoom lens that was like 80 bucks, you know, like 400 millimeter, $80 lens for a Sony email. And it's like the cheapest crappiest lens you could, you could purchase. And sure. When you take that picture, it is not sharp and the quality is not the best, but I compared it next to another lens that I have that's from Sony.
00:23:00
Speaker
And I showed that if you just know enough about sharpening and detail sharpening, you can actually get a similar result in post-production, which we're gonna post-process our photos anyway. So even if you're working with budget gear, you shouldn't feel bad about that because I have never once in the history of me being an artist, been in a gallery where someone's looking at my work and they're like, oh my gosh, the edge-to-edge sharpness on this print is just gorgeous, Blake. How did you do that?
00:23:26
Speaker
They don't care. The viewer doesn't care. We get so we get so into this edge to edge sharpness stuff and like all these technical things because we're the technical nerds that are handling these technical pieces of equipment. But at the end of the day, you have to think about where is this piece going? And sure, when you have a, you know, a full frame camera, 50 megapixels with a prime lens. Yes, it's going to be sharp, sharp, sharp, sharp, sharp to the end.
00:23:49
Speaker
but is the sacrifice on your wallet, is that necessary for what you do? And I think that that becomes a personal assessment. It's not about what this person said I need to have, it's about me assessing what I do and what I truly need. And I'm a bad example of that, because I buy too much money.
00:24:08
Speaker
And I think I was there for a long time. I've gone from gas to GSS, which is gear selling syndrome. I've gone to this point where I used to take everything to this... I'm in more of a minimalist phase now. I want to... I guess I've gotten to the point where I want to start enjoying it a little bit more and having a lot of stuff I always felt was keeping me from it.
00:24:34
Speaker
And just room for all kinds of people. I mean, gear is fun. There's a reason why the moment we'll put gear into a topic post, it'll be the best performing post we do. But I think we can close the lens thing up by just saying, you mentioned prime lenses. And there is a value in prime lenses, and that is typically a very low f-stop number, which can produce a great deal of background blur if you need it.
00:25:01
Speaker
And that's the key here, is you just have to figure out if you need it. For most of your landscapes, it would be too much background blur, even if you wanted to be creative by putting some flowers in the foreground and letting the background blur out. At f1.8,
00:25:15
Speaker
that background's gonna be invisible. So it'd be too much. But if you do things, if you do a lot of travel, if you do a lot of portrait work where you like that type of a look, then yeah, you know, macro or even some night and Astro stuff, there can be an advantage to a prime lens. But I would say a really good investment for your photography, rent it. I've gotten myself to the point
00:25:44
Speaker
where I won't buy it unless I've proven a need for it. So it's like, oh, that lens looks cool. I think I might use it. And then we go out and we buy it, or we go out and we buy a new camera back, or we go out and buy a new filter, whatever it is.
Tripod Selection and Importance
00:26:01
Speaker
But I've tried to really push myself to the point of I won't buy it unless, what is that, Harry Pondwater one?
00:26:09
Speaker
So if people who are just listening to this as Matt's talking, I interrupted them by putting up a Lala probe lens and it's a macro probe lens. This is the like most ridiculous investment I've ever made on lenses. So it's a probe, but it's a macro and it's got lights on the end and everything. So like you can put this inside a water bottle. And this is, this part is all waterproof. So why did I buy it?
00:26:40
Speaker
Again. Because at least one person had to. I want to see a picture with it. It's really cool. If you're listening to the audio only, you might want to go jump into the visual. That thing was really funny as an idiot.
00:27:04
Speaker
But anyway, I think, you know, I try to prove a need for something. And when people ask me, I always tell them the same thing. Like, don't buy it until, you know, same thing with software. We're not really going to talk about software in this one, but it might be another episode. But somebody says, what do you think is such and such plugin? Download the 30 day trial, use it every day. And if
00:27:24
Speaker
Can you not live without it? If you get to that point, then yeah. Now you'll feel better about your purchase because you proved the need for it. Absolutely. And that's something that I should have rented first. That's why I put that out. Tripods. I think this one's pretty easy. This one's going to be a very personal one, I think, because everybody's a little bit different in their physical capacity for carrying something.
00:27:51
Speaker
Everybody has different needs. Like, am I just shooting a landscape or am I putting it on and am I doing a lot of wildlife with it? Cause those are two different lenses, which are two different weights, which could need two different tripods. And so, I mean, it's, to me, it's a, to me, it's a very personal one. I would say, I would say you want some combination of something that's sturdy and can hold your camera with its biggest lens. If that's what you shoot.
00:28:20
Speaker
And I'd say you want it to be semi-lightweight, but I would advise against spending $1,500 on the super, super lightweight one because I don't know that they're light enough to justify them. Not justifiable enough. You know, I'm kind of in this market right now because I had an Enduro tripod that I used for like eight years.
00:28:43
Speaker
And it just now finally got to the point where I just could not deal with the little legs not working like they should work anymore. So I actually bought a new tripod, but I bought the new version of that Enduro tripod. So I don't buy like really right stuff. I don't buy like the top of the line name brand stuff because I know enough about the manufacturing industry that, you know, especially like Alibaba and stuff like that. If you ever looked into like how things are manufactured, a lot of these companies, they end up, they have the option to
00:29:13
Speaker
When they're making something and this might not be really right stuff and all these other companies, but you have to, you go on Amazon, you type tripod, you're going to see a lot of the same tripods, like the me photo ones and like, yeah, why are they the same color? Why do they have the same or similar things? And the only thing that's really different is the logo. Well, a lot of times it's because the same manufacturer is making them and they make them generically and say, you can put your brand on it. And then they might change a knob so that it looks like that's their knob. That's their proprietary knob.
00:29:43
Speaker
But for the most part, it's got the same bones in the same structure as many of the same things you find all over the place. So I'm not really looking for like the top is top of the line stuff. But at the same time, I also justify a more expensive purchase by saying, well, if I'm going to be putting a $6,500 camera,
00:30:01
Speaker
on a tripod. I'm going to make sure that tripod can is sturdy and can hold it. And I can trust it. That's the most important because I've, I've taught on workshops where people came with like a cheap tripod that they've had since 1980 with like these clunky aluminum legs and things falling apart. That's center column that goes up. Yeah, with a crane. And you can see it move. And you can see it move. And this person literally had like a $3,000 Canon setup sitting on this thing. I'm like,
00:30:32
Speaker
do you have another tripod?" And they said, no, this is all I've got. I'm like, okay, I brought a spare. Here, just use this for the rest of the week. And I just caved in my tripod for the rest of the week because you shouldn't be putting that kind of stuff on there, in my opinion. Yeah.
00:30:47
Speaker
And I think this is kind of an interesting example of how difficult this topic of tripods is. That's why, I mean, I don't think we want to spend an hour on it, but this is a Gitzo something, something, I forget the name of it. But I went to, I brought this to, where was it? The Palouse area up in Washington state.
00:31:16
Speaker
And it's very windy on a lot of the places you go to. And I couldn't get a sharp photo. And so you've got this constant tripod. This thing's light as a feather. I have it extended, but it folds up. It's basically the size, folds up to like the size of my less than, you know, my mid forearm to the tip of my hand. So it folds up really, really small.
00:31:42
Speaker
It's really, really light. And it comes in super handy in a lot of situations. It's light, it's small, and it does the trick. But then there's those times where I'm up on a hill and I spent, you know, I spent $500 on a plane ticket. I spent God knows how many hundreds of dollars in hotel rooms for a few nights, a rental car, food, all these places to go to this great place. And now I have a tripod that won't let me take a sharp photo of it. Right.
00:32:11
Speaker
And it's the constant trade off. I think it's almost, I mean, I would almost suggest to think that there's one tripod that could suit all of your needs could be.
00:32:23
Speaker
could be wrong, too. You'd have to look at maybe where you're going. And are you going to be like, if I'm going to the Great Smoky Mountains to photograph rivers and streams and things like that, you're down low. You're down on the rivers and you're down little streams. And even if it's a windy day, it's probably not blowing your camera. So maybe I'll bring my really small tripod. If I know I'm going to Utah, the canyons, I'm standing up on big, big tall hills where there's going to be wind ripping through, then maybe I'm going to bring my big boy tripod that I know is going to be sturdy.
00:32:54
Speaker
I think again, it comes into the assessment of what you do and why you need it. And I would say like, for me, I will never buy a tripod with the center column anymore, because I want to get really low. And that tripod must have a hook on it on the bottom. So like the tried the enduro tripod that I have as a huge hefty hook on the bottom of it. And that hook, even with that tank of a tripod I've had, I've been in 50 plus mile an hour winds.
00:33:20
Speaker
that hefty strong tripod won't do it. But if I put my backpack on the hook and then attach my backpack to one or two of the legs, it holds that thing down solid and I can still get a good shot. The thing you have to be careful of though is making sure that the bag doesn't move around while you're shooting. For the most part, if you hook it to one of the legs,
00:33:40
Speaker
things not going anywhere. But you have to know that like you could buy a tripod and then be in one of those situations and not have a hook on the bottom be like, well, I'm never gonna never gonna get a nice shot because it's gonna be blurry and windy. So yeah, I think to add on to, you know, ball heads. Yeah.
00:34:00
Speaker
I mean, some of the ones that come with them are good. This is one where I would say the quality of the ball head can help. I don't think you need to go out and buy a $500 one all the time, but
00:34:12
Speaker
I say this with all due respect that I've taught a lot of workshops and I've watched people fumble with their ball head and I'm not talking about it because it's happened to me twice. I'm talking about it because it happens to me multiple times on any workshop I've ever taught, where to you and I, it seems just
00:34:34
Speaker
just matter of fact, like, yeah, you've got a ball head that's stable and your camera's not gonna move on it. But how many times have you sat there and you're behind somebody and you see them fumbling with their ball head and you see something's loose and you can see it moving. Like you see them lock their ball head into position and then you see the camera droop an inch because there's play in what they have. So I'd say, you know,
00:35:04
Speaker
Well, you might not get the really right stuff tripod. I mean, their ball heads are excellent. Um, and then if I can tell a ball head that I found a couple of years ago, which it's not cheap, but it is, it has become the best ball head I've ever known. It's called the flex shooter pro and it is become my new ball head for landscape and wildlife because I can, it works.
00:35:28
Speaker
like a gimbal, you get the play where you can move it around like a gimbal, but it's not the complexity and setup and size of a gimbal. But then when you don't want to use it like a gimbal, you use it like a ball head tripod for landscapes. It's great. It's like 500 bucks, but we'll try to put together maybe a little PDF on the website. I have
00:35:48
Speaker
I'm in this world right now, like that tripod I told you about was an eight year old tripod. And eight years ago, I bought a Sarui ball head to go on there. We're talking Amazon special 120 bucks.
00:36:01
Speaker
It was like a Surui K30X and that thing lasted eight years, just as long as the tripod did. And it was stable, brick, tank. So I'm about to go on this trip and I realized I needed to replace my tripod before I go on this trip. Obviously, a week before I go out, because I wasn't thinking about it.
00:36:19
Speaker
And I found another budget ball head on Amazon. It's like whaling or something like that. It looks like a solid tank. It's a low profile ball head. And just from my experiments with it, you know, I needed something quick that Amazon could ship in two days because I'm leaving. And I was like, whatever. I guess I was going to go with the Flex Shooter Pro, but I couldn't get shipping on that fast enough. So I was like, I'm just going to go with this $120 ball head and see what happens. And I had a $20 coupon. So I'm like, whatever. And this thing is the tank and it's built very well. So putting that on there, I mean,
00:36:49
Speaker
I'm not worried about it. Maybe after this trip, I'll look at it and be like, okay, maybe that wasn't the right thing, but at a hundred bucks for a ball head, I mean, can't really meet it. And buy something you can return. Like you can, you know, try it out on your camera. I'm not saying go take a whole trip with it. Like you're going to go back and return it, but just, I think regardless of anything we're talking about here, buy it from a place you can return it so that when you get it in your house and you try it out on your camera, if you don't like it, but there can be value in buying a $80, $90 ball head.
Photography Tools: Light Meters and More
00:37:19
Speaker
knowing that maybe it's not going to last you 10 years, but if it lasts me two, I'll buy another one rather than buy a six or $700 ball head today. Oh, this thing's going to last me forever. You know, you never know what innovations come up in 10 years. You might not want that ball head anymore. Right. I was just shocked that that Siri ball that was like a hundred bucks lasted eight years as a tank. I just, I've actually put it on my secondary tripod. So, so I get questions. I get questions. Uh, do you get questions on light meters?
00:37:50
Speaker
I used to, but I mean, that kind of happens in the camera now. There is one thing that I will say to invest in and it's an app that I use called light meter. It literally is called light meter. I don't know if it's a, if it's a Mac app also or an Apple app also, but it is an Android app. And the only reason why I use that is because it can do dynamic range. Uh,
00:38:11
Speaker
assessment. So while I'm on a landscape, I can set it to like reflective setting so that I see the reflective light coming back from that onto my light meter. And then it'll tell me approximately how many stops of dynamic range is in that scene. Which that, that's the only reason why I would use this is because if I'm in a sunset, this just, I mean, I know from experience now that I'm going to need to bracket that. But if it says more than 12 EV on that light meter.
00:38:39
Speaker
then I'll bracket. If it doesn't say more than 12 EV on that light meter, that will not bracket. And we'll try and put all this stuff into a PDF for people. So it's just called light meter. It actually looks like a light meter, but yeah, that's the only, I would, but other than that, I wouldn't spend a couple hundred bucks on a light meter. I mean, we're not answering.
00:38:57
Speaker
your meter is your camera and your meter is the mirrorless camera that you take the photo, you look at it and you say, oh, looks good or nope, I need to tweak it. That's your meter. And I understand if you found somebody that's telling you you need a light meter, you just have to understand
00:39:18
Speaker
they are the fringe. I'm not saying it doesn't work for them and I'm not saying they're trying to sell you on something or they don't, they're wrong. I'm just telling you, if you find somebody today that tells you you need a light meter, they are extreme fringe and you can feel free to follow them and buy one. But just know that you're doing something you don't need that maybe that person recommended and you have a need to do whatever that is that they do.
00:39:45
Speaker
Unless you're working with portrait lighting gear and you need to meter the lights. That's the only thing I would say but even then yeah, I mean you could even then even then most portrait photographers, I know they're just they're changing the light power clicking a shot take a photo dropping the ISO or increasing the ISO. That's really what you have to do now with lights. So yeah, and you should have practiced enough before you got to your commercial shoot that you know where to dial in your lights and that it is
00:40:10
Speaker
two or three photo tests to get there. You're not sitting there for an hour, tweaking up, tweaking down. Or a meter might help you save time in that situation, but you shouldn't be in that situation.
00:40:22
Speaker
And then I think to go along with that, sometimes I get questions on, do I need a white balance card? Do I need one of those color checker things? And again, very, very fringe stuff here. I mean, you just, white balance is so easy to change in post that to interrupt your shoot and put a white balance card, I think is, you know, in a portrait situation,
00:40:48
Speaker
Is it horrible to have the person stand there with the first shot and hold up a white balance card or a color checker? No, but then the problem to me is when you click on that gray point with the white balance tool, all it does is neutralize the photo.
Travel and Clothing for Photography
00:41:03
Speaker
And to me, to me, neutralized portraits always look cold. So I'm not even a big fan of those things for those situations, because it's neutralized color, but that doesn't mean that's the right color.
00:41:15
Speaker
Right. To me, it's neutral. And when somebody looked at your photo and yeah, yeah, Blake, you've got a very neutral photo there. I really like it. Thanks. Yeah. I'm going to play with color so much in post anyway.
00:41:30
Speaker
Yeah. Color checker things. If you're somebody that's shooting for a catalog, that's working with a printer and pre-press and an editor and somebody laying something out in InDesign and you need to have a color workflow, yeah, maybe, but that's so few of the people listening to us. Especially when we're talking hobbyist stuff. I got one. I got one that I think you're going to agree with, Blake. So years ago,
00:41:58
Speaker
Years ago I was at a, I was teaching a workshop in Moab arches and we were at the, what's the one that everybody goes to in the morning? Delicate arch. Delicate arch. A big one that you have to hike to with the bowl underneath it.
00:42:14
Speaker
Oh, turret arch, probably turret arch. Mesa arch, Mesa arch. That's the one with hundreds of people at every morning. So we're out at Mesa arch and we got there early because there were going to be hundreds of people out there. And so we wanted to grab a spot. And I looked at the weather and the weather said like 50 degrees. And I'm like, Oh, that's not so bad. So I dressed for 50 degrees, not realizing that there's a 25 mile an hour wind.
00:42:40
Speaker
And everybody that wasn't prepared for it was miserable. It was miserably, it was probably, it went down into the forties. It was a little bit lower than 50, but the wind coming through was miserable. And it was at that moment I decided, as I was huddled behind a rock, not taking photos, as at that moment I decided I'm going to invest in cold weather gear. Because same thing goes, you don't want to be in this great place
00:43:09
Speaker
And not want to shoot because it's so cold. And cold weather gear is expensive. I mean, the socks, I actually have, I have battery powered socks. So I use them mostly for skiing, but I do. They're great. They're great. Put them in. Same thing for skiing. You don't want to get to this great ski place and you don't want to ski because your feet are cold. Right.
00:43:33
Speaker
No, I learned I learned the importance of having good gear as far as clothing from going out with henry hudson Actually when we went to zion together Hudson henry Yeah, henry hudson. He's a sailor you have to cut that out or something Yeah, I always get him mixed up because when I was a kid I read every henry hudson book I could find because I loved henry hudson the sailor So I always get him backwards, but hudson henry. I know his name and he's a friend of mine. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Yeah 14 slip um, he um
00:44:03
Speaker
He was always warm when he needed to be warm and cool when he needed to be cool. And I was wearing like jeans and t-shirts and hoodies trying to like keep up with the weather. And he was like, bro, you know how hot it is.
00:44:13
Speaker
You gotta invest in some better gear, man. I'm like, well then help me out, bro. So like the whole way back to our BRBO, he was like, okay, you need to get this and this. And he's like making like a shopping list for me on the website. So when I got home, I invested in like $500 worth of gear, but you know, I used to teach survival school. So knowing how to layer is the important part. So you don't necessarily have to buy really expensive cold weather gear if you know how to layer properly.
00:44:41
Speaker
So I layer properly so that I can shed layers if I'm too cold, but you never really want to sweat either. So there's a balance because if you sweat, you could get hypothermia, but that's a survival situation. So, you know, I tend to dress in a way that I can shed layers, take off top layers so that I get down to a base layer. And if you do that, then you're good to go. And that's a whole other conversation though. So yeah.
00:45:06
Speaker
Yeah, I'd say you can't if you're somebody that likes to take trips to photograph landscapes and places outside or even wildlife. I mean, there's a lot of wildlife in cold places.
00:45:17
Speaker
If you're somebody that likes to do that, you can't get enough good gear. I was in Alaska this summer and right before I went, I didn't have a good pair of Gore-Tex pants and I went and I bought the REI pants. And REI usually has really good stuff. You can usually get good quality stuff for REI branded.
00:45:42
Speaker
And they had $300 good Gore-Tex because it was going to rain a lot. We knew we were going to be in wet situations. You can buy two and $300 pants or I got the REI ones, I think they were 90 bucks. And after kneeling and sitting in wet places, it started to soak through to my base layer.
00:46:03
Speaker
And somebody else had Tom bowl and Tom bowl was there. Somebody else had REI pants and it was soaking through to their base layer. Tom had, I forget what the brand is. I wrote it down, but Tom had these really good pants. He's like, yeah, he goes, it's, he's like, REI is hit and miss. He's like, sometimes it's really good.
00:46:21
Speaker
Sometimes it's not and he goes with these pants. He's like, you got to get this brand or this brand or this brand. He's like, you just you got to splurge on the pants. But you know, wet, wet gear, you want stuff that's not going to soak through. Like Blake said, you got to get cold gear, but you got to be able to layer it. Even even in the sun, you know, I go to the there's a great beach that I do a lot of photography on. And first time I went, I wore flip flops. I realized how bad that was because there's little tide pools you got to walk through.
00:46:48
Speaker
Then I went on to Amazon and I bought cheap water shoes. I realized how bad they were. There's no foot support, art support. They fell apart after four uses. So I went and I splurged on good, I think, keen sandaly water shoe type things that were probably like 80 bucks. You know, they were four times what the Amazon ones cost, but they last me and they're good art support. I can walk around all morning in them and my feet are happy where my feet were aching after a morning, even though it wasn't
Filters for Photography Effects
00:47:16
Speaker
in cold weather. It's the same concept there.
00:47:18
Speaker
Definitely good investments for your stuff there. Travel and workshops. I think this is one we got to talk about.
00:47:29
Speaker
We had filters on here. This could almost be the top one. What's that? Yeah, filters on here. I do want to cover that real quick. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, I wasn't necessarily going in order for markets, but... Okay. Sorry. I thought I had to be structured like Matt. So I'm just kidding. Filters, I don't really invest in filters much outside of circular polarizers. And specifically, this is one that I found recently is dark CPLs.
00:47:57
Speaker
And dark CPLs have neutral density built into the circular polarization. And this isn't a variable ND.
00:48:07
Speaker
This would be a circular polarizer that has three stops of ND built into it, or a circular polarizer with six stops of ND built into it, or nine, whatever. And those are absolutely a serious must for anybody who is a landscape photographer that wants to shoot waterfalls, fall color, blue skies. I mean,
00:48:27
Speaker
The CPL is important. UV filters, trash. Don't even worry about it. Because it's a piece of glass you're going to put on front of a really expensive piece of glass that's just going to degrade the quality more than likely. Haze filter, nothing. You're not going to remove haze with a haze filter. It's part of weather. Yep.
00:48:45
Speaker
So I go with the dark CPLs, I have a regular circular polarizer, which is going to give you like half of a stop of ND, and then the three stop ND and then the six stop ND. And then sometimes if I need to have a 10 stop one too, but I don't use that one quite as much. And those, there's two companies I know that makes some breakthrough photography makes them and PolarPro makes them.
00:49:08
Speaker
And they are phenomenal. That is not even a question. Should I get one of these filters? It's, why don't I have one yet? That's the question, I think. I have some breakthrough ND filters. And Breakthrough is a great company for filters. And I'm with you for the most part. I think, forget the haze, forget the UV filters.
00:49:32
Speaker
Forget any color filters, because you should be doing that in post. You shouldn't be getting it in camera, because then you're stuck with it. But ND filters, I think that's something we can't recreate in post, at least effectively, longer exposures. I know there's some tricks and things that cameras and things. Cut the reflection on leaves, man. You just can't do that. Yeah. So I think ND filters look great, is when you cut that reflection off of the leaf. Yeah.
00:50:02
Speaker
I've started to not become a fan of circular polarizers just because I found they do more harm than good sometimes. They can really screw up a sky. And when you only have that small thing on the back of your camera, sometimes you don't see that you've turned it too much and it's messing up your sky.
00:50:25
Speaker
And so it's tough because I'm really in the middle on it. Because like you said, for waterfalls and certain reflective things and lakes, they can really help take some glare out. But that's really the only time I think you should use them is to take glare out. I don't think you should use it to make a sky better. I think if you wanted to improve the sky and make it more blue, then do that in post. But you can get into a lot of trouble turning it the wrong way on the camera.
00:50:52
Speaker
And if you can get the circular polarizer with the ND even better, I would say, I actually like some of the magnetic systems that are out there. They make it nice and easy to change filters. I would say avoid your variable ND filters. In certain light, you can get an odd pattern. And again, you won't see it happening in your camera.
00:51:18
Speaker
Right. But you don't see it happening until you come home and you realize you've ruined every photo, which has happened to me. Um, so I would, I would avoid the variable and these as attractive as they sound. Right. And I don't go with square filters anymore. Cause I, I used to break those things so much cause they're so delicate, man. I end up going with just your, what I do is I get my 82 millimeter, all of them are 82 millimeter. And then every lens that I want to use it on has a step down ring to whatever size that is.
00:51:45
Speaker
Which, in fact, all you have to do is usually get one of those step-down rings, and it usually works for all the lenses, depending on... Very, very good advice there. Yeah, definitely.
00:51:58
Speaker
I think that if somebody made me pick, as much as I like the magnetic systems, I'm with you, I'm done with the square filters.
Investing in Travel and Workshops
00:52:05
Speaker
As much as I like the magnetic systems, there are drawbacks when you've got a lens hood on and different things. They can be great, but they can also be a pain sometimes. But really, if somebody made me pick,
00:52:18
Speaker
I'm going to do exactly what you said. I'm going to buy the 82 millimeter and I'm going to buy step down rings for everything else. Or the highest millimeter you have because some people might have like an 85 millimeter lens. Whatever your highest millimeter is, that's what you buy and you buy step down rings that go down to your other lenses. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk travel workshops because I believe this could actually be one of the biggest investments.
00:52:41
Speaker
that you can invest into your photography hobby is going places to take photos. I think every single hobby out there, it's not just photography, every single hobby out there has an element to it of we can watch and read things about it and we think we're getting better. But until you actually go out and do it,
00:53:10
Speaker
You're only getting fractionally better. You're only improving your knowledge. You're not actually improving your skill. And I think that the knowledge is important. The knowledge has got to be put together with action and practice. And now you've really developed the skill. So I think it could be one of the most important things is rather than buying that new lens, rather than buying that new camera, book yourself a trip somewhere. Yeah.
00:53:37
Speaker
I got an email the other day where someone was like, it's really nice that you have this image in here of this beautiful mountain, but I live in like rural Missouri and I don't have mountains. How can this tutorial help me? I think that's such a limiting belief in, in, in general that because someone's using a certain type of image that you can't do that because you don't live there. But I do think that, you know, even when I was a hobbyist without doing this as a business and traveling and doing this as a business, I still made it a point.
00:54:07
Speaker
to try to get somewhere that I could drive within eight hours and just get a hotel. And for me, I'm in Missouri, so I could go up to the Badlands, eight-hour drive to the Badlands. That's not that much. Hotel.
00:54:19
Speaker
you know, maybe 600 bucks for three days. And I'm only out a thousand bucks to be in a place that's not Missouri. So I think that it's really important to do that. It's important to get out of the place where you are and, you know, make a make a family thing out of it, if you can, where you're going to shoot some, but maybe hang out with your wife, your spouse and or your kids or whatever that might be. But you have to make time when you're in those types of places to do that for your travel. You know, workshops in general, I think workshops are great. They get from the main
00:54:48
Speaker
in one hundred percent all honesty i'm going on a workshop as an attendee this weekend of all things you know you know josh snow i know josh snow i have never seen in the history of me being a photo educator somebody like josh snow who hasn't been shooting that long and is a phenomenal photographer both post-production and i want to know what he does and you know i'm investing in that
00:55:14
Speaker
And I am a photo educator. And some people might think, why would you go on a workshop? Well, because there's always more that I could learn. And he's someone I trust that I can learn it from. So I'm going to do that.
00:55:24
Speaker
And I think, I know there's all different variations of incomes watching or listening to us here. So I wanna respect that. I know $1,000 to one person to go somewhere is going to impact their life differently than $1,000 to somebody else. So I think it's important to recognize that. But I also do think it's important to recognize that photography, if it's your hobby,
00:55:53
Speaker
and you're really passionate about it, you've got to feed it. Unless you live somewhere wonderful, you're going to lose interest if you're not feeding it by trying to just stay around your house, again, unless you live somewhere wonderful. If big mountainous landscapes were what I like,
00:56:17
Speaker
and I live where I live, I live in a really bad place for that, and I'm gonna get frustrated, because from a landscape perspective, I have exhausted most of what my area has. There's a couple areas in Florida I could still go to for some decent, they're not gonna be award-winning, and nobody's, you know, I'm not gonna get these amazing landscapes that make people go wow, but there's a couple of cool spots I could still get to.
00:56:41
Speaker
But for the most part, you are going to hurt your passion for it if you're not feeding that. And you need to understand that. Again, I know not everybody can go to these places, but that is a factor. You can't discount it. You can't say, show me how to take an amazing photo right here in Florida. Now, from a wildlife perspective, bird photography, I hit the jackpot.
00:57:04
Speaker
I had a jackpot that six or seven years ago, I started getting really into wildlife and I live in the mecca of bird and wildlife photography. I had the jackpot there. I can drive within a half hour to go to just world-class birding locations. But landscapes, if that's all I was into and when that was all I was into, I was very, very frustrated living where I live because there was nothing to shoot. And that did affect my love for photography. You see where I live.
00:57:34
Speaker
During December, no less. In December, no less. There wasn't a leaf on a tree. It was flat and gray. And brown. Yep. And brown. I did say though, I think that I became a better photographer when I moved to Kansas City, Missouri area, because it forced me to get better with the camera to make a better image and get better with my post-production to make a better image than to just show up in front of a gorgeous mountain and click a button.
00:58:02
Speaker
Um, so now when I do show up in front of a mountain and click a button and with what I've learned, because I've had to force myself to be really good at what I do in the post-production side, it just makes those images that much better. So there's the other side of that too, is that even if you live in a place where you don't have all this grand landscape, then challenge yourself, really challenge yourself. Okay. I'm going to be the best photographer of this.
00:58:25
Speaker
you know, crap landscape that I live in and make it awesome. You know, and you can, you can do that with camera angles. You can do that with post-production, but that when you take that knowledge then to one of those places that is grand, you are going to have a leg up on everybody that's there. That's just
00:58:45
Speaker
I think, and to finish up the travel one, one tip that I would give that I might sneak by some people is if you do travel for work or for family or for friends to visit somewhere, but you're going to a pretty cool place. So years ago, in fact, we were both teaching out of Chicago.
00:59:07
Speaker
I paid, so we were in a hotel and they said it's an extra $50 a night and they can get me a top level room that overlooks like the river and everything like that. And I paid the extra $50 a night because when I shut all the lights off in the hotel room, I had a fantastic city view. Yes, you did. Just shooting through the glass.
00:59:30
Speaker
And it was, you know, and I still use those photos today. I still show those photos today because I just had such a good view from there. So, so don't always think of your photography in terms of, okay, I'm going to go here and do this. Like think about where you're going. Are you going to a cool place? Are you visiting a city or wherever it is? And can you get a different hotel room? That's maybe a little bit more money, but it gives you a photo shoot built into it.
00:59:57
Speaker
Right. And you stay at a hotel that's got a rooftop bar that again, gives you a photo shoot built into it. There's a lot of places in New York that, you know, have these places, you know, great little places that you can take a picture of the skyline. So I think that's another one to just consider, try to be creative with it. Yeah. Here I was climbing scaffolding and jeopardizing my safety and Matt sends me a text, yo, check this view out. I wasn't jeopardizing my safety on scaffolding.
Camera Bags and Accessories
01:00:26
Speaker
I don't want to spend a whole lot of time on camera bags. I mean, I don't feel like it's a big investment in your photography. It's not going to improve your photography. I would say the biggest thing about a camera bag is get something that's easy to walk with. Get something with good hip straps around it that you can really tie in around your hips, that center, that chest strap.
01:00:52
Speaker
That kind of takes some, you know, I'm pointing like not everybody's watching this, but that, you know, it's got that strap that goes across your chest that takes some stress off of your shoulders and back. I don't think there's any one camera bag. I think that's going to be a personal one. Buy it from an online store that you can return it. I think that's the biggest one. The Shimoda Adventure. So just for background, I used to be an FAA certified master parachute rigger.
01:01:25
Speaker
Like I fabricated harnesses. I fabricated everything you can possibly think of when it came to material in a sewing machine. I did it. That's what I did for the air force for a while. And the Shimoda adventure bag from both the functionality perspective and a craftsmanship perspective to me is the best camera bag I've ever put my hands on. And the last time I was in the Columbia river gorge, I was hiking with, I usually hike with my camera bag weighs about 50 pounds with all the gear that happened.
01:01:40
Speaker
brush my shoulder off a little bit. I'm just kidding.
01:01:54
Speaker
So with that 40 to 50 pounds that I've got on my back. Yeah. But what I'm telling you, you talk about the hip straps, you put those hip straps on and you set the shoulder straps the right way. You don't feel an ounce of that weight. I was hiking eight miles a day and did not, my shoulders and my back were never tired. And you know, for a fact about my back, how much of a problem my back is, I had to get back surgery last year for probably stuff that happened in the military. So even after back surgery.
01:02:22
Speaker
that pack with 40 to 50 pounds, it was light as a feather. And that's phenomenal. There's no other backpack that I've used that is like that. So if you're in the landscape world and you're like, I really want the best landscape backpack I can find.
01:02:35
Speaker
I haven't found one that that's better than that, my opinion. This is not a, I mean, just so everyone knows, we aren't affiliates for any of these companies. We're just telling you what works for us and what's good for us so that you get something similar or as good. It's not like I'm not giving Shimoda a push here because they're paying us money to do that. I'm saying that because I truly believe that that is the best camera bag that's ever been on my shoulders. Yeah.
01:03:00
Speaker
And, and big takeaway from that one is, is I think it's going to be a personal choice too. It's not going to make your photography better, but it can help you enjoy photography more. So you've got, you've got to buy one from a place that you can return it and you've got to fill it up with your camera gear. And it sounds silly. You got to walk around your house, walk around. If you care about it, if it's important to you, then, then do it and walk around with it.
01:03:25
Speaker
You know, don't just throw it on your back. Yeah, it feels good and put it down. Actually walk around your house, walk down the stairs with it a couple of times. Like I said, you might look silly, but, um, if it's important to you and that can make a big, big difference in your comfort for photography, which will in turn make your photography at that location better. Absolutely. Because it's just like the cold weather gear. If you're miserable, you are not what you want to take pictures. So your, your disposition is just as important as your, as your talent and your skill.
Memory Cards: Speed vs. Cost
01:03:55
Speaker
Another one I get asked about a lot is memory cards. Is it a good investment? Especially you've got the Sony A1 and there's those compact CF Express Type A cards that are $300 and $400 and even go up to $800 for them. Is it worth the investment for a good memory card?
01:04:20
Speaker
My personal view on it is, here's where you get your bang for the buck from expensive memory cards. The speed, because my Sony A1 can take a regular SD card too. I don't need to buy the CF Express card. Where I need to buy the CF Express Type-A card that costs $400 for what is it, 128? I got one laying around somewhere here, I don't know. It's like, yeah, for like 128 gigabytes, it's like $400.
01:04:48
Speaker
where I get the advantage from it from is,
01:04:53
Speaker
the buffer, so now if I want to shoot 30 frames a second, I need a camera. The buffer is as big as it's going to be. I need a card that can offload the photos from that buffer fast. The right speed for that card is fast. So it offloads those photos so the buffer doesn't fill up quite as fast. And then transferring those photos once you're on your computer, the transfer times can be faster. So that's where you get it. I wouldn't buy an expensive memory card for quality.
01:05:23
Speaker
I wouldn't think, oh, it's going to keep my photos safer. You can get cheap, cheap memory cards. So you just have to figure out, do you need that speed? If you're a landscape photographer, you do not. If you're a travel photographer, you do not. You don't need the expensive memory cards if you're not shooting high frame rate sports photography, whatever it happens to be. Something in a very high frame rate, I don't think you really need those expensive memory cards.
01:05:51
Speaker
On another note, I found the perfect balance memory card for my wildlife and landscape and it's this pro grade. Pro grade. Have you heard of them? But it's 128 gigs, 300 megabytes a second, uh, right speed or read speed and 250 megabytes a second, right speed. And this is what I used when we were in Washington together and I never had a buffer problem.
01:06:14
Speaker
So yeah, that is a very good memory card for a, a lower cost. I'm not going to say that they're cheap. I ain't stretched the imagination. 128 gigs was like 120 bucks, but it's not your 300 or $400 one. And it's a good. Hey, I want reliability. I'm not going to buy some like knockoff brand memory card that I can't trust because I want the pictures and I want them to be good and not have to be, you know, memory card errors, but that program one's a good one.
01:06:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Again, I think, uh, I don't, I don't think memory cards are a great investment in your photography to spend a lot of time and money on unless you need it. So you just have to look at whether or not you need it. And you know, what's interesting about buying that, you know, super expensive Sony one is I barely shoot at 30 frames a second.
01:07:04
Speaker
I did it because I could when I first got the camera and then I knocked it down to 20 frames a second and now I've knocked it down to 10 frames a second because 30, unless I have something exceptionally amazing in front of me, moving around at exceptionally amazing speeds, it's not worth it. It's not worth the amount of photos I get. It's not worth how much I fill up the buffer, all that stuff. What's culling you have to do? Oh, yeah. When we went out there, I think
01:07:32
Speaker
You know, the, the shot that you made the topaz. Yeah. You were at 30 frames a second. I was at 10 and I missed that shot and we were both showing it the same thing. And that's one of those times when I said something exceptional in front of me, moving at an exceptional speed. We knew are, you know, we, I knew.
01:07:55
Speaker
I knew that we're photographing eagles and these eagles are sporadically doing amazing things. And so that's when I upped it to 30, is I knew something good can happen here. Somebody would say, well, how do you ever know that that's going to happen and maybe you miss it? That's the chance I'll take for not filling up my memory cards and hard drives ridiculously fast.
01:08:17
Speaker
Well, it's so fast on the A1, you just switch it with the little dial that you could literally be looking through your camera and switch it while you see these two Eagles fighting. And that's what it was. It was an Eagle fight. And I didn't have it set up for the 30 seconds at that time. I had 30 frames a second. I had it for like 20 or 10. Yeah. And I remember, I remember going through that shot though, when we got back to the room, you were like, dude, look at this shot. And I was like, I have the same sequence. Why don't I have that one? And then we looked at our cameras and you were in 30 frames a second. I was in 10. I was like, well, that's why. Oh, man.
01:08:49
Speaker
See, you two could have been on the cover of the Topaz thing. Probably not. They don't really like me anymore. Most of those companies don't. I think we're coming close to wrap it up. Look at our list. I think we might have to merge into another episode one day on kind of after photography stuff. I think that's how we could classify. I think we can still talk about printers and software a bit.
01:09:16
Speaker
You know, cleaning stuff. Um, I think a Giotto's blower is, is a godsend. You know, you get that dust inside your camera and I don't know that I don't totally feel comfortable taking a cleaning kit with me on the road, although I have done it before, but the Giotto's blower is
Essential Cleaning and Rain Gear
01:09:34
Speaker
great. That's that at least get any big things out of there. So Giotto's G I G I O T T O S it's a.
01:09:43
Speaker
Most common blower out there, everybody's got one. Lens wipes, I think, you know, just any kind of lens wipes. I think, uh, what's it, Zeiss sells big packages of them on B and H or Amazon even. So any kind of lens wipe, I don't think you can go wrong with. What do you think about rain gear? Is that a good investment for, would you buy it? Like rain gear for your camera, not you.
01:10:06
Speaker
I don't really think so because I have it in my bag. I have one of those little things you can strap onto and hang down all the straps. You can still see through it and shoot. But typically if it's getting rainy, the best times I find to shoot rain are before it rains or after it rains.
01:10:26
Speaker
Very rarely during it raining, is it really that great, especially around here, you get these torrential downpours and you can't see crap. So why am I going to sit out there with my camera and still shoot? Obviously, if you're shooting wildlife and that tends to bring out the wildlife because it is moodier weather, maybe I don't know. But I mean, for the most part, for me, I have rain gear for myself, but rain gear for my my camera, I'm not too concerned with because I'm not going to take I'm not going to take a $6,500 camera out.
01:10:56
Speaker
in a storm just doesn't sound appealing to me. Speaking of rain gear for yourself when you do but we talked about bags too. While you might not be out photographing in the rain, you'll want to get a waterproof bag you'll want to get our bag that's got a pullover
01:11:12
Speaker
waterproof shell to and a lot of them haven't built in there but that'd be something I would look for if you're somebody likes to be out in the elements and hike around and stuff if you're not you know a lot of people don't a lot of people just you know get out of their car go to the go to the point which is fine everybody's at a different spot but if you're somebody likes to be outside and hike around a lot get get a rain cover get a bag with a rain cover on it as far as rain gear you know so I'll just the best way I can say it is a story back in 2015 when I first started going to Costa Rica and
01:11:42
Speaker
I bought these Optech rain sleeves off Amazon, and they're like five bucks. It's basically just a plastic bag with some strings on it so it can, the strings will collapse around your lens so it's not, the plastic bag's not floating everywhere. They do sell, when I was in, I'm going to get to my Alaska story in a second here, they do sell 80, 90, $100 rain sleeves, which a lot of people had and fumbled around with. But I bought these back in 2015,
01:12:09
Speaker
And I never used them until the summer of 2023. So what I found is going to Costa Rica, all of the wildlife we were photographing was up in the trees.
01:12:21
Speaker
And all of the rain gear for your camera in the world won't help because your lens is getting wet. And it's too much rain to keep wiping off. You know, the moment you would wipe off the lens, it was wet again as you pointed it up. So I realized I never needed rain gear for situations like that.
01:12:42
Speaker
I realized from my personal use, like when I go out around here, I'm just, I don't want to be out in the rain. I'm just a fair weather photographer. I just have no desire to be out in the rain. From my landscape, same thing. I just have no desire to stand out there in the rain. So I'll go in the car or back in the room before I get rain gear and stand there.
01:13:02
Speaker
Now, I went to Alaska this summer, and you're out in these big fields, and you plop yourself down, and we're down for an hour at times in one location photographing the bears. And it rained almost the entire trip. A constant drizzle, it wasn't like a downpour, it was a constant drizzle. That was the first time I brought my OpTech rain sleeves out. And threw it over the camera, OpTech, O-P-T-E-C-H, you get them on Amazon.
01:13:33
Speaker
Threw them over the camera, cinched the little strings on it, worked flawlessly, watched about five people in the group with those big expensive raincoat covers for the thing. Watched them fumble around for 20 minutes while I sat there and just kept taking photos. If you do buy one of those expensive sleeves, they look cool. They've got a lot of little features in them, but practice with it before you need it, because that was the problem.
01:14:00
Speaker
is people hadn't ever used it because it's not something we use a lot. And then they were fumbling around with it trying to get it. And when it's raining and your gear getting wet and you're getting wet and you're a little bit cold, trust me, all those things factor into you not being able to use what would seem like a pretty simple apparatus. Right. Yeah. And, you know, living out here every once in a while, I'll go into Kansas because that's where a lot of storm chasers go. And what you notice is that you want to be on the outside of the storm because that's when you get the good cloud formations.
01:14:29
Speaker
And that's as the storm is coming in or as the storm is going away. And very rarely unless you're out hiking, you know, like you said, do you find yourself just standing in the rain taking a picture? Unless of course you're doing wildlife and that's the only time that they're out and it's constantly drizzling. Um, so yeah, I'm, I'm right there with you. I mean, and I have, I think I have those same OpTech ones in there and I've had them in my bag for probably 10 years and I have not used it.
01:14:54
Speaker
I told you, eight years, 2015 and 2023, had them, never used them. Even in waterfalls and stuff, what I've noticed is that it's too clunky. Actually, for waterfall photography, I get big microfiber claws. If people can not see this, I'm basically talking about a microfiber cloth that's like
01:15:11
Speaker
you know, 12 inches by six inches or 12 inches by eight inches. I buy them in bulk on Amazon. And I use that to cover my camera and just drape it over the top while I'm doing waterfall photography. And then I'll use another one that's dry. And I'll wipe my lens off in between shots. But that's my version of like rain gear for waterfalls is I don't even pull out my rain gear for that. I use a draped cloth, even a t shirt, maybe even like a hoodie. It doesn't really matter. But something draped over there so that the camera doesn't get wet.
01:15:39
Speaker
If I were to go to a waterfall now, because I've been in the same situation as you, where there's a mist and it's constantly making everything wet, if I were to go to a waterfall now after having used those Optech sleeves, I would actually, when I got out of the car, I would put the Optech on my camera now, because it was so easy to use. And it just took all care away. I even put it on the tripod, like it went over the foot of my lens foot, and then I locked it into the tripod with the ring sleeve on.
01:16:07
Speaker
Nice. And that's what I would do. I would do it when I got out of the car, put that on, but then like you still take some cloths because you're going to constantly have to cover the lens and then you're going to want a cloth to wipe the lens off. You should have multiple cloths because the one's going to get wet. You want to have your dry, dry cloth to keep wiping it. So that's what I would do today having been in that situation before.
01:16:30
Speaker
All right, man, we probably went a little bit over what we usually do.
Understanding Photography Needs vs. Wants
01:16:34
Speaker
I think we're probably definitely going to have to have a fall over episode of best investments for your photography part to maybe go into some post photography stuff. Anything else you want to make sure we talk about here? I think the final say, though, kind of goes back to what we said in the beginning is you have to do a personal assessment on what you need.
01:16:58
Speaker
And really truly think about that object. Do I need this or do I want this? Because I think a lot of times we get into the want category when the need category is actually more important. So you have to assess, I think at the end of the day, regardless of any tips I give you, Matt gives you or anybody else gives you online, you have to assess what type of photography you do and what is important to you. And if you don't know the answer to that, then you probably shouldn't be buying what it is that you're about to buy. Yeah.
01:17:23
Speaker
And when you realize you need it, you'll feel better about getting it. Absolutely. It takes away any buyers remorse that you might have over buying something because you're like, I need it. You know, I've shown that I needed it and now I feel better about it.
Resources and Feedback Encouragement
01:17:39
Speaker
Blake, how can people find out more about you?
01:17:42
Speaker
F64academy.com. That's kind of like my main hub for everything or YouTube F64 Academy. Those are my two. You've got courses on there and then you've also got an elite membership as well. Yep. So F64 elite.com is my subscription website that has 40 plus courses. I do critique sessions of member images and we have round table events where we kind of meet and zoom and just talk and hang out, do that kind of stuff too.
01:18:08
Speaker
Cool. And you can find me over at mattk.com. I've got courses, presets, all that other fun stuff. So we both do free tutorials just about every week or every other week. So swing by either of those websites, find out a little bit more. Blake, thanks for joining me in this one. I knew you'd be a good one for this because we're similar in a lot of ways, but we're also different. And I think it's important to show
01:18:31
Speaker
differing people because it's obviously neither one of our opinions is the only way of, you know, investing in our photography. And I think that helped out a lot. For sure. Thanks for having me, man. It's always fun. All right, guys. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for everything. So we buy our websites, leave comments, send us messages. That's how we know what to do next and how we get ideas for the show. So we appreciate you listening and we'll talk to you again soon.