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Spray and Pray Wildlife Photography image

Spray and Pray Wildlife Photography

The Photography Frame of Mind
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4.3k Plays8 months ago

In this episode Matt is joined by renowned wildlife photographer and photo educator expert, Steve Perry (Back Country Gallery). Steve and Matt discuss the aspects of high frame rate and continuous shooting of wildlife interactions... or as some people call it "Spray and Pray". What is enough? What is too much? When do you stop and what do you do with all of those extra photos? Steve is an absolute expert in this area so don't miss this show. 

Transcript

Introduction and Guest Introduction

00:00:04
Speaker
Well, hi, everybody. Welcome back to another Frame of Mine photography podcast, where we have discussions where we try to change, solidify, alter anything about your frame of mind on different photography topics. Really excited this week because I have Steve Perry with me from, is it Backcountry Gallery? Is that website, Steve? It is, yes.

Learning and Inspiration from Steve Perry

00:00:28
Speaker
Thank you for having me.
00:00:29
Speaker
Yeah, man. So this is cool because Steve is somebody that I, even back when I was starting to get more into wildlife photography, Steve is somebody, you're somebody that I learned from. I would go learn from you. And in fact, I always tell people, try to find a small group of people that you really trust. Right.
00:00:51
Speaker
and learn from them. Because if you're going out there and watching videos from 25 different people, you're learning 25 different ways to do things. And as a beginner, that's not always the best way to do it. It becomes overwhelming. Yeah. So you are that small group for me. So you're somebody that in the beginning I learned from. And then today I still
00:01:13
Speaker
I still look to you for information because just the stuff you put out is

Photography Community and Interconnectedness

00:01:20
Speaker
so good. So thanks for being on here, man. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for the kind words that's very nice of you.
00:01:26
Speaker
It is this is like this is like haven't like I like having one of my wildlife photography heroes It's funny how the feelings mutual because when it came when it comes to post-processing I don't know how many of your videos I've turned to and look for just because you have something new with Photoshop or later it comes out Yeah, I'm looking on YouTube. It's like oh, there's bad. He'll know what's going on So yeah feelings mutual you're in my small group for sure
00:01:49
Speaker
And that's funny because when I first emailed you, I didn't even know you knew me. I introduced myself and you wrote back, you're like, yeah, I watch your videos all the time. I think it's a fun, small community.

Capturing Unpredictable Moments in Photography

00:02:02
Speaker
I think people are surprised at how the people that maybe they absorb content from actually watch some of the other people that they absorb content from. Yeah, we all watch each other and we all learn from each other. It's a good process.
00:02:16
Speaker
So so what prompted me to have you on for this one steve was um a topic that that I That I try to talk to people about and then um about a week ago You sent out an email about about you know when the action is good Keep on shooting right and and and and my my my topic that I talk to people about is is very very similar like I I think I think people
00:02:44
Speaker
see a photo and they think that photographer looked and said, OK, the wind's coming from the northeast. That bird is going to jump from its tree. It's going to fly and catch a fish there. And then there's a high probability another bird is going to come from the west. So I'm going to point my camera this way. And when they collide, I'm going to snap one picture. Right. Click.
00:03:08
Speaker
And I think when people see that one picture, they think that photographer just knew exactly what was going to happen and captured it. And I always try to tell people, you probably don't know the chaos

Techniques and Strategies in Photography Shooting

00:03:21
Speaker
that that photographer went through before that.
00:03:26
Speaker
And what that leads to, so for me personally, I have a little bird photography course that I run an ad for on Facebook. And I showed the video to Steve, so Steve has shown it. You can go to my website, Matt Kay, if you click on podcast, you can find the podcast on Spray and Prey. It usually is just an audio podcast. If you wanted to go to that page, you could see the video that we're talking about.
00:03:51
Speaker
It's basically, I'm on a beach and nothing's happening and then I see these two birds have this little squabble and I think it's done and then it continues and it continues and it continues. And in this ad, all of the comments, so I show that in the beginning of the ad and in this ad, I get all these comments from people saying, oh, this isn't photography, this is just spray and pray.
00:04:19
Speaker
And I'm like, but it's not spray and pray. This is like, what would you have done different? Because to me, spray and pray is you're spraying around haphazardly and you have no idea.
00:04:31
Speaker
And then the praying part comes in because you're not even sure if you're hitting anything or you're getting anything. And I'm not spraying around haphazardly. My focus points grab on and I'm there. And then I know my shutter speed. I know that I see green. I know these photos are sharp. Yeah. Exactly. I looked at that video this morning and you shot it exactly
00:04:59
Speaker
the way I would have. No difference at all. I would have done the exact same thing. And I'll even go a step further and I'll say that I think that it would have been foolish if you would have stopped shooting at any time during that sequence.

Technological Advancements in Photography

00:05:12
Speaker
Because there is absolutely no way that you can know for sure what you're going to have as far as bird position, as far as wing position, as far as all of this stuff.
00:05:20
Speaker
When you see good stuff happening in the viewfinder, like you said, this is both the whole point of that newsletter was if you see something great happening in your viewfinder, keep that shutter release down. And like you say, so many times it gets mistaken for spray and pray. And I would agree with your definition on spray and pray.
00:05:36
Speaker
You know, if you're just haphazardly, you see something and I've seen people spray and pray, you know, they just point and they're not looking at the background. They're not looking at the bird. They're just, they see something happening. They point their camera in that direction and they just lay on the shutter and hope that they get something that is.
00:05:53
Speaker
a lot different than what you were doing in that video and what I do routinely when I'm in the field. That's completely different. Everything in that video was controlled. Those birds were perfectly framed for what they were doing. And when the action was happening, you were shooting because there's no... Any human that says that they can time those shots just one at a time would probably lie to you about other things too. It's not possible. It's just not possible. But yeah, there's a big distinction there and I think there's...
00:06:22
Speaker
It's a shame because I think people don't leverage their technology because they are caught up in this maybe, I almost want to call it a film mentality. Exactly. Where we have 36 exposures at a time and you really did try to avoid like super long bursts because you run out of film and then you were done. So you had to be a little more conservative and it's like nowadays we have 20, 30 frames a second and
00:06:45
Speaker
You know, we can take advantage of that and we can leverage that to get wing positions and body positions and expressions that were next to impossible to get before.
00:06:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's, I think you nailed it too, you know, stuck, kind of stuck back in the film days. And I get it, you know, it was number one, film was more expensive, film was expensive. So every every click of that shutter. Yeah, every time I caught that shutter, it sounded like change falling out of my pocket. Yeah. And then and then a lot of time, too. It was just a lot more time involved in those photos. And I think one of the things that
00:07:21
Speaker
One of the things that people don't realize is wildlife photography, wildlife photography 40 years ago.
00:07:31
Speaker
It was a bird in the sky, or it was a portrait of a bird sitting on a branch. Because the technology just didn't allow you. The autofocus systems weren't as good. The technology just didn't allow you to capture the stops. Exactly. At one point, a bird in the sky that was even relatively in focus, just a bird against a blue sky, something we'd throw away today. Yeah.
00:07:58
Speaker
is what was like the pinnacle of photographic prowess, you know, prowess behind that lens, being able to focus that lens and get that bird sharp. Even if it's just against the sky, like I say, our standards have really, really changed. Things have gotten so

Camera Settings and Shooting Techniques

00:08:14
Speaker
much better. I think a lot of what's happened is that
00:08:19
Speaker
Not only has the technology gotten better, not only has the autofocus gotten better to where we can follow all these things and really do things that we couldn't do. And I want to get into because we talked about the spray and pray. And I think a lot of people listening are going to agree with us. I think it'd be interesting to start talking a little bit about some of the autofocus systems and how to best use them for those situations. But to dovetail into that,
00:08:49
Speaker
we, you know, again, 34 years ago, you didn't have necessarily that, that tracking that we have today. Oh, no. So you basically, you had to be a skeet shooter, you know, you, you had your, you had your focus point, and you had to follow something and you had to be good enough at following it.
00:09:08
Speaker
And part of that meant that you were also zoomed out or far enough away that you could follow it reliably. Right. Because sometimes it was only the center point that you had. You only had one point. Yeah. And we all know the closer it gets, the faster it's moving. Again, go to the skeet shooting analogy. If that clay, if that's right in front of you, nobody's going to hit it. Right. So now,
00:09:37
Speaker
You might get that shot, but it's going to be so far away. It's not going to be any good. And now today we've got a couple of things working. We've got a lot of the auto tracking, which will help follow it for us. And then we've also got resolution on our side. So, you know, you probably, you know, you've seen, I used Mark Smith as a great example. You ever see, you ever, you've seen Mark Smith stuff, right? Oh, sure. Sure. Yeah. So Mark Smith's a good example where he, he posts a lot of really tightly cropped
00:10:06
Speaker
bird photos, and you see the facial, I don't know if you call it expressions, but you can see the determination on the face, you can see the... Right, all the detail there and that, yeah. Yeah. And you can see that where, again, 30 years ago, we didn't see that. We didn't see it because it was hard to capture, and we also didn't see it because we didn't have the resolution to be able to crop into it.
00:10:29
Speaker
Not like that, no. Yeah. So photos. You have to use like an eight by 10 camera for bird and flight photography.
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah, so I think it's interesting, you know, one, I have I have a friend, this friend's going to remain nameless, but he's pretty funny because we'll we'll be out shooting with him. And sometimes he'll take my camera. And and I don't always use the I don't always use the zone. You know, my thought process is is use the smallest focus point that you can. Right. That's always been mine as well.
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah, and then and then grow as as the need grows and as the as the situation allows for like the the video that we're talking about There was nothing where I was on the beach in Fort DeSoto. You've been to Fort DeSoto It's only the beach and for the soda. There's nothing that I know nothing's going to grab my focus If i'm a little bit wider
00:11:22
Speaker
Right, right, yeah. So, but I've got a buddy, whenever he grabs my camera, he's like, I can't do anything, all this fandangled dots falling around here and all this stuff, you know, and, and, and I'm like, but you have a Sony A1. And he's like, yeah, but I just use the center point and I just don't move. And I'm like, so basically you bought a $6,500 camera to use it like a camera from 10 years ago. Yeah.
00:11:48
Speaker
I don't even think he uses the 30 frames a second. I think he shoots more, you know, more close to the 10 frames a second. So he shoots center point, doesn't ever move it. And I'm like, so why did you buy one of the best auto focus systems in the world?
00:12:04
Speaker
Cripple it and never use it, you know, it's just if you can keep and he's good He's really good at keeping everything in this a birds in flight I'm not that good like this guy this guy he probably like you like he'll follow and I'll be amazed sometimes at The how lack of like I know he didn't crop in right?
00:12:24
Speaker
And I'll look and I'll be like, you followed that because I know I was all over the place trying to follow it. It takes practice. It takes a lot of practice. But yeah, so yeah, that's a shame when people are because I see that too, man. I see that all the time with people out there. You know, I run workshops and that. And you know, when I'm out there, it's like, you know, so many times we have people that are just they are either really throttled back. We've had people only shoot a single frame at a time.
00:12:52
Speaker
And then it's like you're just not taking it. Like you say, you're shooting this like it's a 10 or 20 year old camera, you know, leverage what you have here, you know, take advantage of it. You know, I shoot usually at any given time. I'm at 20 frames a second, sometimes 30, depending on which system I happen to be as a shoot Nikon and Sony.
00:13:11
Speaker
So depending on what I'm using, I'm at 20, sometimes 30 frames a second. And there are still times I wish I had those in-between shots when I'm looking at an action sequence. And that's what that higher frame rate gets you. And sometimes it's nice to have that granularity when you're sorting your photos and to pick that one that is absolutely just perfect. So walk me through
00:13:37
Speaker
a little bit of when would you keep shooting? What grabs your eye to number one, get to that point where you're gonna lay down on the shutter and hold it down. And then what keeps you shooting and then what are your cues to maybe stop shooting? Yeah. Well, it depends on the situation. Mostly it's, to put it very basically, I see something I like in the viewfinder.
00:14:06
Speaker
And depending on what that is, if it's a static subject, for instance, if it's a bird turns and he gives me just that perfect look, that's a short burst. Shoot, you know, maybe for half a second, just get a short burst. I'm going to leave autofocus on the entire time. I'm going to make sure it's on the eye. And I'm just going to I'm going to fire away for, you know, just a quick burst just to get that shot. Because in that circumstance, I'm pretty confident that if I get, you know, five, six shots of it, I have it. You know, the cameras are, you know, especially if it's in decent conditions.
00:14:35
Speaker
Now, if the conditions aren't so decent and it's still a static subject, then I'm going to maybe go for a little bit longer burst. I might even defocus and refocus because sometimes you don't get a perfect AF lock if the situation is tricky. So I'll play some games there, make sure I'm getting the shot that I want. And I'm not shooting an excessive number of photos. And in fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and say I'm never shooting an excessive number of photos because I'm only shooting it
00:15:00
Speaker
when I'm shooting what I need to shoot to get the shot that I'm after, you know, and I'm going to do what it takes to make that happen if it's one shot or if it's 30 or 40 or 50. Now, when we start moving to action, though, this is where a lot of times people are a little bit quicker to let off the shutter release when they should. And that's when you start getting accused of spraying and praying sometimes. But basically, I say I hope your your listeners will go to your website and look at that because that is a perfect example about what we're talking about.
00:15:30
Speaker
And you saw, just to interrupt you, but in that example, you could even see, I stopped at certain times and I wished I didn't. Yeah, I wondered about that. I wasn't going to give you a hard time about it though. Yeah, because there's a couple of moments where when I scroll through the video of it, there's a couple of moments where I'm like, oh man, that would have been the shot and I stopped.
00:15:54
Speaker
Right, right. I see that a lot. Basically, my rule is, especially with action, if there's something I like happening in the viewfinder, if those birds, in your case, they're fighting and they're going up and down and they're playing around, keep shooting. If it's a flight sequence, if maybe they're not fighting, maybe you just have a bird coming in and it's taking its time and it's really spreading its wings out as it's coming in for that beautiful landing,
00:16:18
Speaker
Keep shooting because you're not there's no way to know which of those shots is going to be kind of the absolute perfect moment out of that series and you don't want to miss it because you let off and I see this happen a lot with people. They'll be in the same situation. That's a good example that you mentioned there that there was a couple of times where you kind of let off for a second.
00:16:39
Speaker
And I see people do that. I was filling my card. I knew it in the back of my head, by the way. Yeah. See? See? But yeah, there's a lot of time. If I see something good, I don't care what anybody around me thinks.
00:16:53
Speaker
I don't, it doesn't bother me. I'm just going to lay on that chair. I have been in workshops where I've done this. And even when I say with a flight shot, a bird's coming down, it's taking its time and I'm just laying on it. And you know, some of the other participants will stop and they'll be like, wow, you must have really liked that. It's like, well, I'm trying to make sure that I get every single one of those things you don't want to let off because you don't know which one of those is going to be perfect. And.
00:17:17
Speaker
For me, I'm just gonna lay on that shutter. Now there is a little bit of buffer management sometimes. If you are anticipating that it's gonna be a long sequence and you don't wanna hit that buffer, sometimes if you kinda feel like you have an initial part of a sequence, maybe you have a bird swooping and he's just kinda gliding in.
00:17:33
Speaker
And it's, he's getting bigger in the frame, but he's not getting any better in the frame. You know, sometimes I'll just lay off with the buffer, you know, because with our cameras, the cards are so fast, half a second, a second off that you're back to full buffer, you know, hiring cameras.

Photoshop Course Promotion and Shooting Strategy

00:17:48
Speaker
And then I'll resume. So sometimes, you know, I'm thinking about buffer management as I'm doing this too. But when stuff is really happening really good, that's what I'm going to shoot. But
00:17:59
Speaker
The flip side of this is you gotta know when to stop. And again, it's for that same reason for buffer management as much as I can. I can't tell you the number of times I've watched people, and unfortunately I do it too sometimes. I'll have a bird coming by and I'm firing, firing, firing. As soon as that bird or that animal, if I have an animal running, as soon as it's starting to turn its back to me, I'm done, I'm off, I'm out. And I see a lot of people continue to shoot as the bird's flying away. It's like that,
00:18:29
Speaker
Rear end shot is not going to get any better if you take more photos of it. But what you're doing is you're filling your buffer. And if something else suddenly comes up on to the left again, I'm shooting maybe left to right, and another bird comes in, now you're swinging around with a full buffer because you didn't stop soon enough. So to me, it's like you want to stop as soon as it's done, as soon as the action's over, stop it. Make sure it's over, but then bring your finger up, give it a break.
00:18:56
Speaker
And that's my approach. They could call it spraying and praying, but it's very controlled. I'm only shooting when I'm seeing something that I like, basically. I say it all comes back to that.
00:19:08
Speaker
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00:19:29
Speaker
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00:19:55
Speaker
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00:20:22
Speaker
Yeah. And I once in a while challenge the people that'll send in the comments and I'll say, you know, tell me what you would have done different. And most of the time, most of the time, they don't even reply because it's right.
00:20:36
Speaker
And then sometimes I had one gentleman reply and said, well, I would have gone to manual focus mode. I would have gone to aperture priority. I would have been using a set of film camera. And you wouldn't have gotten any of these photos. No, it's about leveraging the technology. And I think the other thing too is for anybody listening,
00:21:03
Speaker
You have to have a little bit of self-awareness and a little bit of situational awareness because I'm exactly with you. If that bird swoops in, if it's an eagle coming in and grabbing a fish from the water, and then once that eagle turns its back and starts flying away, I'll usually stop shooting now.
00:21:22
Speaker
On the flip side of that, you have to have a little bit of situational awareness. There's been times where I've seen that eagle hit the water, grab the fish, fly away, and then all of a sudden another eagle just flies right into it and tries to steal the fish.
00:21:41
Speaker
You know, pants down scenario. Yeah. So it's, you know, you've got to look at your situation. But I would say I see more of what what you described.

Post-Processing Workflow and Photo Selection

00:21:50
Speaker
I see because let's face it, most people aren't shooting eagles grabbing fish from water where another eagle is grabbing. Like that's you got to be. It doesn't happen. Yeah. So most people are shooting birds that might be having action or jumping around or doing something. And like you said, you know, once it turns, it's back to you. And
00:22:10
Speaker
And be aware of what else is around you. That's a good point. Yeah. And I hate to keep talking about the video because it's an audio podcast, but I can describe it for you. In the beginning of the video, there was a mini squabble and I swung the camera over and kind of got off a few frames.
00:22:29
Speaker
But then it ended, and I kind of swung the camera back. So it took me a second again to get back to it, where once that little mini squab will happen, I should have stayed on it the entire time. Yeah, it's tough. And honestly, every mistake you're talking about, I've made numerous times. I'm a slow learner. Stuff happens.
00:22:51
Speaker
And then would you say, you know, a benefit to also kind of getting a feel for when to stop is just, there's too many photos to go through. Do you have, do you have a, so when you get back, how do you, like, how do you look at those hundreds of photos? My new approach.
00:23:10
Speaker
I'm going to give you my old approach and I'll tell you why I'm not doing it anymore. But the way I used to do it when I was shooting at far slower frame rates is I would really go through and I would look at every photo, I would examine it, I'd zoom in, I'd check each one of them. But that doesn't work when you're shooting 20, 30 frames a second. You'll spend the rest of your life sorting and calling images and it's not fun. So what I do now is when I get back to the computer,
00:23:32
Speaker
And you may even have a better system than I do with this because this is kind of your wheelhouse here. But for me, what I do is when I get back to the computer, I jump in and I'm starting to look for the winners. I'm looking for the keepers. You know, I don't care if I have a tack sharp photo of something that isn't very interesting. I know I have no desire to zoom in on it. I have no desire to chuck whether it's sharp or not. You know, if I'm looking basically in the thumbnails,
00:24:01
Speaker
and I'm going through those thumbnails, and if there's something there that catches my eye, that's when I'm gonna start looking. Or if I have a series that catches my eye, that's when I'm gonna start looking. And then what I do is, I think one of the biggest tricks that has helped me a lot is just learning what sharp looks like.
00:24:18
Speaker
And I did a video recently about this, but I'd even go farther with this and say, you need to learn what sharp looks like for your lens. So then once you see it, once you see that perfect pose, that perfect spot, you maybe have 10 photos that are pretty much identical.
00:24:35
Speaker
and you're looking at it, you're in one, you're on number three now. Number three, you know that it's perfect because you know what that lens looks like when it's completely sharp. You know what that sharp looks like for that lens. You know it's not going to get any better than that. And I think that's a big secret because a lot of times people will have maybe 10 or 20 of the same photo and they'll look through every single one of them and try to determine
00:24:58
Speaker
which one of those 20 has just that slight, slight bit of sharpness edge over the other ones. And honestly, when it start, when you start to get down to that level of granularity, it starts to not matter that much because, you know, when you're post-processing it, you're going to make those guys, you know, the, the, the one that's close enough and the one that's, you know, maybe has that 1% edge, you're not going to see a difference in, you know, all said and done.
00:25:22
Speaker
But you do waste a lot of time looking at it. So I think a big trick is look for the, I think the way to do it is to look for the, look for the poses that you like, skip the rest, don't even worry about them, delete them if you need to, whatever. And then once you find those winners, then you go in and check sharpness. And once you find one that looks sharp, stop. You don't have to look at every single identical pose.
00:25:43
Speaker
They're not going to get better. And you know what sharp looks like. But again, it does take a little bit of practice to learn what sharp looks like for your particular lens.

Managing Photo Storage and Deletion Decisions

00:25:51
Speaker
But once you do, it saves you a ton of time because as soon as you hit it, you're done. You're like, OK, I don't need to look at these other 15 photos. This one's one is as good as it's going to get. Got it. Do you do you delete or do you just get the get the pics, you know, process them, do whatever you're going to do and move on? Or do you actually delete the bad stuff?
00:26:12
Speaker
I should delete the bad stuff, but I have about 60 terabytes worth of storage, so I don't because I'm lazy. Although I'm starting to fill it up, I'm going to have to get another 60 terabytes, so that's fine. But it's just, yeah, I should delete the stuff. And sometimes if I'm on a workshop or if I'm on a target rich location, like if I'm in Africa or something, and I'm a little bit worried about storage, if I'm like
00:26:37
Speaker
I've been to Africa sometimes for a month at a time. And at that point, it's getting tough to bring enough storage. So then I'm starting to think, okay, well, I'm never going to use these photos. Let me delete these out. Let me just keep the winners. So sometimes, you know, it does come to that, but most of the time I don't just because for me, I need some of this stuff sometimes for educational purposes. I was just going to ask about that. Yeah. Sometimes like when I'm doing a video, I need a shot where I messed up and it's too far. Like for example, in a recent,
00:27:04
Speaker
In a recent video, I had a bird or something in a make believe viewfinder, a photo that I used. But in order to make that work, because I want to show it like moving around, it had to be like farther out than I would normally shoot. So I'm looking through all my stuff like, okay, where's one of the times that I should have stopped shooting. It was a little too far away, or I shouldn't have bothered with this one, but I did anyway, because I was bored. Okay, here's one of them. I was never going to use that for a real photo, for a portfolio shot.
00:27:32
Speaker
but it saved the day for the education. I think that that was trying to do. So that's why I keep them. I don't encourage people to do what I do when it comes to that. I struggle with that too. And I'm glad you said it because I think it's worth bringing up. Sometimes it's one of those like, do as I say, don't do as I do, because I'm the same as you. I want to get rid of more.
00:27:58
Speaker
But there's times where I'm looking through, and I know that my career is teaching this stuff. And in order to teach, sometimes you have to show that bad photo. You've got to show what went wrong in that bad photo or what's an example of a bad photo. And there's a lot of times I have terabytes of stuff that I want to go away. Oh, yeah. Same here. Same here. I'm hoping no one gets ahold of this drive and says, oh, my gosh, this guy was he was full of it. These are all terrible.
00:28:25
Speaker
I you know, and I think the I asked the question primarily to probe what your thought process is because there's I get a lot of people when because I do a lot of tutorials where I'm like, listen, I, I if I went out in the morning to the beach and I was photographing some shorebirds and I took 500 photos, I pop them in. I won't even load them up in Lightroom. Sometimes I'll just load them up in a photo browser. And I know what the you know what the magic moments were like, you know, you know what you were excited about.
00:28:55
Speaker
Right so I go straight to those moments I pull out four or five raw files and You drop them into a folder and I just mass delete the rest of the card because no There's nothing on it that that was gonna be better than this There's no reason people people often criticize and say well, why would you delete storage space is so cheap? you know what you never know what you're gonna get and I always I kind of go back at it and I was curious what your opinion was is I
00:29:24
Speaker
is, number one, I actually don't think storage space is cheap anymore. Is archival storage space cheap? Yeah. If I want a spinning 5,400, 7,200 drive and something like this, is that pretty cheap? It is. But it's slow. It's bulky. I don't know if you can see them here, but I recently switched to these 8 terabyte Samsung drives. They're SSD.
00:29:52
Speaker
I just have them attached in the back of my computer. They're quiet. They're small. And when I go somewhere, you know what the beauty of it is? When I go somewhere, they're they fit in the palm of my hand, I can throw them into my backpack and take them with me and I have my whole photo library with me. They're not cheap. You know, that kind of stuff is not Yeah, it gets it gets painful. Yeah, I use SSDs for backup on the road. And it's just, yeah.
00:30:17
Speaker
It gets, it gets pricey. It gets pricey in a hurry. Like you say, the spinning stuff is that's what I have. That's a 60 terabyte is just all, you know, spinning drives. And like you say, they're, they're loud, they're slow, they're bulky. Yeah. And I call that archival. That's like perfect. Yeah. But so, so you're okay if people delete like just, you know, yeah, I think they should remember everything. Yeah. If it were, if I were just doing this as a hobby and I would do exactly what you described, I'd go through, I'd find my,
00:30:46
Speaker
winners from whatever outing it was, and I just trashed the rest. Now, in some cases, you might be in a situation where you're on a once in a lifetime trip and you might maybe not want to do that. Maybe this is your one trip to Africa, for instance. And it's like, okay, these aren't great, but I want them for memories. I want to keep all of this because this was my big trip. I'm only going to do this once. This was a bucket list trip.
00:31:11
Speaker
You know, in that case, yeah, I could see people keeping the whole thing, but like you say, for just every day around the, around the house, around the neighborhood type of stuff, around your local area. It's hard for me. I have a couple of local parks I go to and it's the same thing. It's like, I have all these photos of these little tiny birds that just, I'm never going to do anything with.
00:31:34
Speaker
But sometimes I'm trying to come up with something for a book or a video and it's like, okay, I need kind of a mediocre shot here that's a little far away so I could put it in the viewfinder and do my thing. Or if I need to show a shot where I made a mistake here to demonstrate how not to do it. What are you gonna do?
00:31:50
Speaker
And I think that's a good point. I'm glad you said that about, you know, you went on the trip and it was your one and only trip to Africa and, you know, you want, you're not, you're not good with, with mass deleting things. And I think that's fine. Again, it goes back to, goes back to a little self-awareness, a little bit of situational awareness that not every situation is, is going to be the same. I would even say.
00:32:12
Speaker
you know, you and I, we kind of talked about like, you know, it's a bird in blue sky. And I think it's important for people to recognize in that photo library that at some point, when you're starting out that bird in the blue sky, that's the that's the icon, iconic shot of what you've been trying to get. But over time,
00:32:32
Speaker
those things change. What was what was amazing to you three years ago is no longer amazing to you. So yeah, that is very true. That is very a little bit more picky about, you know, what you're shooting and and what you're keeping to that. That was something I think I mentioned in today's newsletter when I sent it out is that over time, as your portfolio gets better, your standards change. And, you know, sometimes people will go out and maybe you don't shoot quite as much. Oh, you know, that's the other thing. You know, when you the first time
00:33:02
Speaker
I went to Costa Rica, first time I went to Africa, first time I went to any, any of these firsts for me, it always had way more photos that are a way lower quality than my subsequent trips.

Understanding Subjects and Gear Confidence

00:33:15
Speaker
As the more you get used to a place, the more you, you know, when you first get to a place, you would just want to shoot everything. And then as time goes on, you're shooting, you're being more selective and you're shooting less. And so you're not, you don't have as many photos to call because you're not banging away. You know, every time you see.
00:33:31
Speaker
any random animal out there. And so the amount of photos you have to call in store and all that, it kind of lessens over time when you're in familiar places, just because I don't know, I go to Florida all the time, as you know. And I get to the point where it's like, okay, yeah, I don't really need that. I'm driving by stuff people are getting really excited about, because it's like, I have better stuff back home on my computer. So I'm still looking for you. So you're out there, you become more particular.
00:34:01
Speaker
You and I talked with some of the storage. Yeah. You and I you and I chatted about Silver Salmon Creek in Alaska with the bear. And I think that's that's a good example. You know, day one, I'd never even photographed a bear before. Probably the only time I'd ever even seen a bear out of captivity was in the Smokies. And that was like a shadow running across the road. So
00:34:27
Speaker
day one, yeah, I'm taking a lot of bear photos. Day two, I'm being more selective. And I think it goes, that's another little side point for the spray and pray, which is know the subject. If the bear is sitting there eating grass, again, day one, everybody, all yours.
00:34:54
Speaker
And it's just a bear munching on grass and munching. There's no other bears around it. So it's not going to all of a sudden get in a fight or wrestle or anything, you know, and, and it's just, you know, there, there's no reason to lay down on the shutter. Right. Right. Exactly. You know, when you just get a burst and you're done, it's like, okay, I got, I got it. I'm comfortable with that.
00:35:17
Speaker
But then there were times where there were two baby cubs and they would start wrestling. And I mean, I have 2,000 pictures of it.
00:35:26
Speaker
I would do. They didn't stop. They just didn't like I took video of my phone while I'm shooting. And they just didn't stop. I mean, they went on for like five minutes to dive in on each other and everything. And it's like, how do you stop shooting? You know, it's it's one better than the next, you know, right, right. And that's the thing. And I say, we see that mistake all the time. When we're in the field, people just stop there. They feel like, you know, they feel like they're shooting too much. And it's like,
00:35:55
Speaker
this is, you know, especially if it's a rare opportunity, you know, two bear cups fighting, you know, yeah, it's like, keep going, just get what you get. And it's like, you see, sometimes the best shot happens when you're chipping, you know, they stop, they want to see what they have. It's like, whenever
00:36:13
Speaker
whenever something good's happening, keep your eye on that viewfinder, keep firing, don't chimp, don't let up, keep going. And get to know, I think, and you teach this a lot, get to know your gear, get to know while you're shooting and call it spray and pray, call it what we call it, just educated, high volume shooting.
00:36:36
Speaker
call it whatever you want. Get to know, you know, whenever those people talk about the spray and pray and even people that aren't saying it's spray and praying, but they'll chimp.
00:36:46
Speaker
with the mirrorless, the way we have it today, number one, you should know, you know, get to know your shutter speeds, get to know what shutter speed freezes that action and then get to know your gear so that when you see those green boxes on that thing, you don't have to worry about it. You're not guessing, you don't want to go chimp because you know they're sharp. You just know. Yeah,

Editing Techniques and Noise Reduction

00:37:08
Speaker
you have the confidence. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I see, I don't know how many shots I've seen
00:37:13
Speaker
people miss because they took a series and let's go back to those bear cubs. I wasn't there, so I'm just making up a scenario with them though. So maybe they're fighting and then maybe there's a pause in the action. Invariably, everybody goes, they flip their camera and they're starting to look at those pictures. And then as they're looking, those bear cubs say, wait a minute, I want to beat you up a little bit more. And honestly,
00:37:38
Speaker
can speak with a lot of experience here, because I've done nonsense like that. I've done stuff like that, where I've like, oh my gosh, what was I doing? Why was I looking at the camera? You get so excited about what you just captured. You just can't wait. You want to see it. Yeah. And it's like, it's really hard sometimes to fight that urge to look at that camera. But it's like, wait. I encourage people to chimp.
00:37:59
Speaker
because I think it's a good idea to look at the shots, see what you're getting, make sure there's no problems with the camera, make sure everything's working the way you expect. But I encourage them to do it when there is nothing happening and there is no chance that you're going to miss something. That's the key. That's a good point.
00:38:11
Speaker
Um, so we're, we're kind of wrapping it up. I'm, I'm curious cause you, you talked about, you know, we're, you know, the, the photo's a sharp and we're going to do some computer work after. So curious, what do, uh, what do you, what do you primarily use for your editing tools? Oh, pretty much Lightroom across the board, Lightroom and Photoshop. Yeah. Uh, what do you do with your noise reduction? What's that? Where do you do your, uh, your noise reduction?
00:38:36
Speaker
Oh, info, and I'm, oh my gosh, I almost said it wrong. In Lightroom. In Lightroom. I use Lightroom's denoise. Actually, I just put a video out a couple weeks ago that I showed the technique that I use with it. Because I use, I denoise for the photo itself. Or I'm sorry, I denoise for the subject. And I kind of don't worry about the background or the rest of it. Then I put it
00:38:56
Speaker
put the photo into the, I use masking then to further take out noise. And that way I don't have to denoise too much of my subject, make him too soft. And then I can go back in and I can kind of eliminate the rest of the noise areas like in the background and that without taking too much detail from the subject. It's like about a 45 minute video. It's a deep dive. I know it's been helping a lot of people out.
00:39:20
Speaker
But I'll find it and I'll post a link on the page where we put the podcast on there. But yeah, it's amazing how noise reduction just in the last four or five years. Yeah, it's made a huge difference. I mean, the example I use in that video is a ISO 12,800 shot. And when I'm done with it, I think it looks like ISO 400.
00:39:43
Speaker
and there's lots of detail. I mean, you gotta have a frame filling subject and it needs to be sharp and all the, you know, there's all these criteria to make it come together, but it's just, it's really mind blowing how good denoise software has. Like you say, just last four or five years, you know, I don't hesitate. If I have to be at 6,400 or 12,800, as long as I'm reasonably filling the frame, it's not too far away because, you know, there's a limit.

High Frame Rate Use Cases

00:40:09
Speaker
Eventually noise does overwhelm detail, but
00:40:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's just amazing what we could do now that we didn't have, again, more leveraging technology. Yeah. I saw one, or not I saw, ASA 1000 remember 1000 speed film. That was awful. And it was like, wow, that's really something to 1000. I remember shooting my first roll of ISO 1000 or ASA 1000 film. That's just ridiculous.
00:40:40
Speaker
Let me just go back. My first camera, my first digital was a Canon, but then I switched to Nikon and I had a Nikon D100 or D200. Yeah. And it was ISO 200 was just a Christmas tree. Yeah. It was like just anything above, anything above 100 was just a Christmas tree of noise in the photo. Right.
00:41:08
Speaker
So I gotta ask you this, we talk about frame rate, we talk about shooting a lot and everything. What do you think of that? I don't know if you got to use it, but I'm sure you've heard the Sony A93 with 120 frames a second. Is that overkill to you? I've not gotten to use it, so this is just me guessing. I am tempted to get one, but it's like more,
00:41:38
Speaker
It's just a little bit too much money for what I would use it for. Almost as much as an A1. Yeah. Yeah. And I have to have like a business reason to own something like that. And, you know, that business reason would be to write a guide or something, but I just don't, I don't think there's enough wildlife photographers to justify it.
00:41:55
Speaker
that would buy that guy from me. But anyway, the... Theoretically, if you had 120, would you use it a lot, you think? I don't know if I would use it a lot, but one of the things I love about that camera is it has a boost option, where you can hold down the little button there and shoot at 120. So I would take advantage of that from time to time, like really in like a situation where you were with those birds. I hate to get such a good example, man. Yeah.
00:42:21
Speaker
You know, there's just wings and feathers going every which direction. The truth is, you know, 20 and 30 frames a second are going to get you a lot of really good shots in that scenario. But the truth is, when you looked at those photos, there were in-betweens you were missing, I guarantee it.
00:42:40
Speaker
You know, you start getting into, you know, 30, 60, 120, and you have a lot less or none of those, you know, you have every, every, you know, position that you could want. You could really pick and choose exactly which photo would be the one to, one to use. But for me, I would use that boost button, I think option with it. And I would use it sparingly. It would only be like, if there was like, if a bird flying in for a landing, probably not, especially a larger bird, you know, I'm very happy at 20 or 30 for that.
00:43:09
Speaker
But, you know, you have like something like, you know, some action where a couple of animals are fighting or something where things are really happening very, very fast. Yeah, I could. Yeah, I could be talked into using it for sure. I could be talked into it. I got to use it. I got to use it for a day when they when they. Yeah, they they.
00:43:31
Speaker
they brought a bunch of people up to New York when they released it. And they took us to a really fancy gym on Chelsea Pier in New York. And so they rented out the gym for the day, and they had all these different setups of people doing activities. So they let us take a camera and a lens throughout. And it was a lot. You fill a card really fast. I love that. Yeah, because that's how you draw, right?
00:43:59
Speaker
Yeah, you fill a card really fast with it. So I'm with you. I could be talked into it. To be honest with you, I shoot my camera at 10 to 20 frames per second more than anything. But I could see some uses for it. I'm with you on the speed boost button. I just wrote an article on it. And I'm with you. And so there's two things. Number one, the price of the camera tips its hand to I'm scared of whenever the A1 Mark II gets released.
00:44:29
Speaker
I'm scared. I don't worry about that, too. So it tilts its hand in a bad way to that. But that button that they put on the front, that's the first time Sony's done that. I'm hoping that that makes its way into other cameras. Even if the A1 Mark II only has 40 frames a second,
00:44:49
Speaker
give, let me shoot at my 10 and then let me do that speed boost button when I want 40 frames a second those. Yeah, that would be fantastic. I think that would be great because there are a lot of times, most of the time I have it set at 20. And I say sometimes 30 depends on what I'm doing, but most times the Sony or the Nikon, they're both around 20.
00:45:08
Speaker
And I'm just using very controlled bursts when it's, you know, a static subject. I'm not laying on it very long and just, you know, but that's still getting you six, seven, eight shots. But yeah, it would be nice to be able to go like 10 or 15 for just normal calmer situations. And then have that boost when you needed it for, you know, it's like, oh, there's action. I can just press that.
00:45:29
Speaker
And then it would definitely help. That would be great. I'm sure they'll add it, right? Yeah, I can't see them not including it in an A1 Mark II, eventually, whenever that

Comparing Camera Brands for Wildlife Photography

00:45:41
Speaker
comes out. Yeah. Which I hope is soon. It's been three years with the A1, so it's got to be. It's got to be getting close. It's got to be getting close, because although that A1 is still at the top of its game. Yeah. That's still a great camera.
00:45:56
Speaker
Nikon, I kind of feel like Nikon's caught up with it at this point with their focus. But as far as like customization and things like that, I still think Sony has the edge.
00:46:07
Speaker
I used to be a Nikon shooter before I switched over to Sony and I love Nikon. I mean, I loved it. And so I was sad to see for that time period where they kind of lagged behind in the wildlife game. I think their landscape cameras, they were always fine. But nobody's more excited to see Nikon really not only catch up, but in some ways, I think even pull ahead in the wildlife game. And I think
00:46:34
Speaker
Yeah, their lens selection is just phenomenal. Any wildlife shooter, I tell people if you're just getting into wildlife, look really hard at Nikon because the lens selection is just so good. They have stuff for entry level, for mid-range, and for high-end, no matter what you need, what combination you need. They have a built-in health converter.
00:46:55
Speaker
Oh yeah, that built-in TC. We were talking about that at the BCG forums the other day. Someone was asking about the 600 and they were trying to decide between Sony and Nikon. And I told them, I said, you know, I like Sony's bodies better. That's not a secret. I say that all the time. And I like Sony's bodies better, but I use Nikon most of the time now because that teleconverter is such a game changer for the way I shoot. It doesn't apply to everybody. And for the way I shoot, honestly, I'm taking
00:47:25
Speaker
the teleconverter on and off all the time. And to be able to just flip a lever and have it in, that's great. That saves me a lot of time. And it prevents me from missing shots. Because it seems like invariably, if I'm trying to decide whether I want the TC on or not, I'm in a situation where it's like, well, I think I can do it. I think I can do it. And then the second that camera is loose from that lens, the animal does whatever I was hoping it was going to do. So with this one, it's just like, should I do it? I just do a quick little flip and it's like, yeah.
00:47:55
Speaker
It's a huge difference, but I'm hoping Sony does the same thing because it'd be great to see a 600 and 400 to eight, both of them with a teleconverter on the Sony side too. And that new 300 to eight looks fantastic. Jeff heard great things about that. It's a good time to be a merely shooter in general. That's a wonderful lens. I got a, I actually got a pre-release copy of it to test it.
00:48:24
Speaker
And I did a little write-up on the website about it. Wonderful lens. I mean, it's balanced perfectly and it's small. It's smaller, it's lighter than the two to 600. Probably feels more like the one to 400. Small, light, beautiful, beautifully sharp, beautiful background, beautiful everything. It's just, for me, I always want more.
00:48:49
Speaker
It's just, you know, there's just so few times where I'm going to put a 300 on because there's so few times. That's the conclusion I came to as well. Yeah. Yeah, it is 100%. Yeah. And as far as the TCs go, so it was interesting at this event, there was a lot of people from Japan there walking around asking us what we thought of that, the camera and everything like that, and asking us what we, you know, what we'd like to see. And every person that asked me, I'm like, lens with a teleconverter.
00:49:18
Speaker
lens with the helicopter. I'm like, this, you have to do it. Like this is, this has to be the next step. Yeah. Yeah. I would hope so. I was, I was kind of hoping that they would do with the three hundred two eight, but they, it's not what happened. I was surprised.

Creative Preferences and Conclusion

00:49:30
Speaker
Um, where, uh, where, where can people find out more about you and all the stuff that you do? You can find me on, uh, on the web, just back country, gallery.com.
00:49:41
Speaker
And if you go to YouTube, it's at Backcountry Gallery, it's Instagram, it's at Backcountry Gallery, everything's at Backcountry Gallery. And I'm a frequent poster over at the BCG forums over there too. So if you have question, anytime people have like camera questions, photography questions, especially wildlife oriented, nature oriented, make sure you stop over there. There are just so many knowledgeable people over there. It's like somebody will post something and
00:50:08
Speaker
it'll be answered in just a couple of minutes. Like, hey, I'm having a hard time figuring out why my Nikon or why my Sony is doing this or how to do this. And like, boom, just like that, they get answers. So that's a great resource too. I think people would probably get more out of that even than some of the other stuff.
00:50:22
Speaker
I can attest to your products out there, and especially your books, your e-books. Thank you so much. Because I've purchased some of them too. But yeah, I can attest to just your knowledge. And it's funny, because you and I are in some ways opposites. Because when we exchange emails, you're like, yeah, I think about doing videos. But I really like writing so much. And I really dislike writing so much. That's funny.
00:50:51
Speaker
But you're you're such a good writer, you know, it's just like just reading the email that you sent out about the the spray and pray concept, you know, your way you wrote like, like show no mercy on your your shutter your buffer. It's just you really good time with doing that stuff. It just it just
00:51:10
Speaker
I like doing creative things. And for me, writing and photography are those two that go together. I do videos, obviously, everybody knows, most people know me from YouTube, which it's kind of a weird thing. It's like videos are like my least favorite thing to do out of all the stuff that I do creatively. And it's the one that has the most people watching.
00:51:28
Speaker
And a lot of people ask me because I do video courses and they say, do you have anything written? And I don't, but I always point them, I always point people to you. I appreciate that. Those e-books are really, really good. And everybody out there, if you haven't followed me, you can find me over at mattk.com. And I've got all courses and presets and all that fun stuff. But Steve, thanks so much for being on and chatting with me. We'll definitely have to have you on again in the future. I'm sure there's some more topics we can talk about.
00:51:54
Speaker
Absolutely. And thank you so much for having me. This has been a lot of fun. In fact, I'll tilt the hand to another topic. And as you were chatting, I realized I've had it floating around in my head and I realized you'd be great for it. How to take a workshop.
00:52:11
Speaker
because you've done enough, I've done enough. That would be a good topic. You know, how to take all the way from picking the right workshop to prepping for the workshop, to being at the workshop. That's a great idea. I think I hear a future podcast.
00:52:26
Speaker
Yeah, I think that'd be a good one, so we'll have to get it. But thanks again. And everybody out there, thank you for watching. You can always swing by the website, and there's a little podcast link at the top if you ever wanted to watch it. But as far as audio goes, there's, of course, all the audio sources, because why am I even saying it? You're already listening or watching to it. I don't know why I feel I have to tell you how to get there. So thanks again, Steve. Thank you, Matt. Bye.