EP 66 Andrew Hall | Legendary Motorsport Photographer and Fujifilm Ambassador

[00:00:01] Speaker A: And we're live. [00:00:03] Speaker B: Well, good morning everybody and welcome to the Camera Life podcast. It's. What are we at? It's the 3rd of April. I don't know, first quarter just disappeared all of a sudden. It went from being the slowest time in, in history to all of a sudden it's over and, and here we are in the start of April. I'm really keen to know too. Please comment. In the chat, were you impacted by any April Fool's gags that you actually fell for? I've got a couple of photography related ones that I've come across. A couple of brands, put out some cheeky little little things. But yeah, if you, if you fell for something, let us know. If you heard some good ones equally, let us know. But look, this is the Camera like podcast. It is 3rd April 2025. It's episode 66, brought to you proudly by the team at Lucky Straps, makers of premium leather camera straps from Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. Represent, See, represent what's going on? Yeah, we'll get something, don't you worry. Yeah, we can get rid of all that Fuji stuff, Andrew. And speaking of which, we are joined today by Andrew Hall. Andrew is the application training manager and technical projects manager for Fujifilm Australia. But Andrew is so much more than that. I've been mates with Andrew for a good number of years and Andrew is one of the best motorsports photographers I've ever seen, but he shoots lots of other stuff. He's always got a camera in his hand and he's always out and about with it and I just seem to see. Even his everyday stuff seems glorious to view. So we're going to dig into that. But Andrew, welcome to the, welcome to the Camera Life. [00:01:42] Speaker C: Thank you so much. Thank you. [00:01:44] Speaker B: I must admit, Andrew, you've been at the top of my guest list since the re. The re birth of the Camera Life podcast. So it's great to finally have you on. We will get into your, your job with Fujifilm and the huge amount of travel you do photographing motorsports in far off corners of the globe. But before we get to that, can you just give us a bit of a summary who you are, what you. [00:02:10] Speaker C: Do, who I am. Well, thank you for asking me on the podcast. It's been, yeah, it's been a long time. We've been trying to line everything up. As you said. I work for Fujifilm in Above the sunny city today. So I'm the application training manager and special projects manager. But I'm also, that's my real job. That's my day job. Very proud of that. I've been with Fuji 32 years. But aside from that, I'm also. And separate to that which involves all my travel. I'm a proud Fujifilm X series and GFX ambassador and apparently I have to do that. Every time I mention the word ambassador I have to salute. So I've been a proud ambassador for like 10 years. More than 10 years. I noticed my bio that you put up, it said 25 years experience. I think it's time to update my bio. [00:03:06] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that was from your website. [00:03:08] Speaker C: That's about it. So I haven't updated my website for 20, for 15 years. [00:03:12] Speaker B: No, you haven't. [00:03:13] Speaker C: Yeah, it's, I've done, I've been for this is my 40th, 40th year. So I'm fortunate enough to be able to travel the world taking pictures of racing cars. But as Greg touched on. I'm, I'm, I love all forms of photography. I've been involved in the camera club movement for, for many, many years. I was president of a camera club up here in Sydney for, for 10 years. All forms of photography. [00:03:43] Speaker B: I think, I think just to cut in there, mate, Donald Trump would be very jealous of your term as president. [00:03:48] Speaker C: I know it's pretending, I know he's. [00:03:49] Speaker B: Pushing for that, but you've done well. [00:03:51] Speaker C: I was, I was more sort of benevolent dictator. I think that's, that's the look I went for. [00:03:56] Speaker B: It's going around. I don't know about the benevolent bit, but the dictator bits going around. [00:04:00] Speaker C: I went, I went, I went away as what was. I was on the committee. I went away and came back and was president. So it was just like. I think that was decided for me while I was away. So 40 years, 20 years shooting film and now 20 years shooting digital. It was when I was chatting to you the other day, Greg, that I just realized that now it's the tipping point. You know, when I first started it was all film was all, you know, two frames a second, a motor winder, manual focus, no autofocus, definitely no, no image stabilizer. So, you know, back in those days everything was. Yeah, it's changed so much. But I'm, I'm an old photographer in a new era. I think I still shoot pretty much digital the way I shoot film. I don't, I don't pray and spray. I do experiment a bit more obviously with digital you can do that. But yeah, so, yeah, I've, I've been lucky enough to work for some amazing companies and manufacturers and car manufacturers and websites around the world. So I keep saying, obviously you know my history, Greg, I have a degenerative nerve disease which will eventually stop me. But my, I think last year was my 15th annual farewell tour. So I keep, I keep pushing it this year. More than Johnny Farnham, More than John Farnham. Yeah, yeah. So I am, I. This year will be definitely my, my last full year, just purely because it's becoming more and more difficult. [00:05:37] Speaker B: Are you talking about just the motor, the motorsport circuit? [00:05:40] Speaker C: Just the motorsport stuff? I'm step, well I never, I'll never step back from photography. You know, I'll always have a camera in my hand. [00:05:45] Speaker A: So I'm sure we'll probably get into it deeper into the show, what it is that you actually do. But just, just so I know and our listeners know. What do you mean? Like what's a full year of motorsports photography for you? Like what does that look like? [00:05:59] Speaker C: Well, considering I live in the middle of like the ocean on an island, the challenge is most of my stuff is Europe or US based. So I do probably eight or ten races a year. I mostly do endurance stuff now purely because I'm old and I slow. I'm slow. So the endurance race is a minimum of six hours. So get around and things like that. [00:06:24] Speaker B: So he's got time to go home, have a nap, check his SD card, go. Oh crap, I missed the shot. I'm gonna have to go back to circuit and it's. The race is still going. [00:06:32] Speaker C: Exactly. I do, I mean the jewel in the crown for my, my racing year is always the LE 24 hour in June. So I said to my darling wife, I do do that once and that was 2001. So this is my 22nd trip back and, and, and probably my last one. But so yeah, my racing involves maybe 10 or 12 events a year spaced out through, through the year. Then there might be some races here or some festivals. I'm 10. I tend to do a lot more historic festivals which, yeah, fits in with my age group. Cars that I used to photograph as a kid, you know, are turning up now in historic festivals. So I've done a couple of those in the U.S. so yeah, I mean it's not a full year. It's, it's not so intense. Like the beginning of the year is quite busy, middle slow and then it ramps up towards the end. But it goes now from like January to early December. You know, in the old days it used to be season started in March and finished in end of October. So the problem is that you know, the off season, the gap is, is getting shorter. So not, not that I'm complaining but, but my mates are usually, usually based in the States or in Europe. You know the flights they're going. My mates from the States go to Europe. Oh, seven hour flight. Oh my goodness. You know, the jet lag and I'm going. Just don't even talk to me about that. Yeah, 22 hours to get to Europe. My shortest flight of the year is Japan and it's still 10 hours. So don't get me wrong, I'm very, very grateful to be able to do it. I enjoy my, I enjoy the travel whilst it's a little bit difficult sometimes, but I enjoy my racetrack family. They're amazing. They keep an eye on me and make sure I don't do too many stupid things. So yeah, that, that sort of gives you an idea of what I do and then in between that, you know, obviously I've got a camera in my handle. Every day I'm out doing my exercises, mandated medical, mandated by my, my doctor and my physio doing my exercises and I've always got a camera with me. [00:08:39] Speaker B: So yeah, it's interesting Andrew following and we will roll back and talk about your, you know, your early years and your inspirations and your history and those sorts of things. But it is interesting following your socials often. I'll see you, you know, there'll be a batch of a race that will go on for, you know, a few days. You'll be posting images and then it will, it'll kind of go back into, well, here's some local sea baths in Sydney. [00:09:06] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:09:07] Speaker B: And you're often capturing those first thing in the morning. Is that also part of your, your, I guess your routine to stay active and to stay relatively healthy? [00:09:20] Speaker C: It's part of my, I mean we've spoken on this before about, you know, photography is real. A big part of my mental health strategy. You know, I've been dealing with chronic pain for 30 years, you know and I know that you've experienced that as well, Greg. So I mean we've spoken on this with your blogs that we did a few years ago about shooting, shooting through adversity and stuff like that. It's more, you know, you need a distraction because as you know, I mean chronic pain will never go away. It's always with you. So I think my photography side, if I can distract myself with, with my photography, which I, which I obviously love, then that's great. And if I can combine it, those early morning rides, that's a combination of me. I don't. If I don't feel well, I'm still push myself to get out of bed, get on my bike and go down, take a picture. Because it's. It works twofold. I'm getting the exercise that will maintain my ability to do this. I'm also. It's very good for my mental health, looking at sunrise and things like that. And also I have this whole. What's that? What are the young kids call it? Fomo. Fear of missing out on a beautiful sunrise when I'm going, oh, damn it, you know, I should have got out of bed. So there's that motivation to combine my required exercise. [00:10:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:40] Speaker C: Help. Help my mental health and. And obviously then just enjoy my photography. [00:10:45] Speaker B: I think there's something really lovely and. And crosses some many boundaries between being something that's romantic, something that's primal, something that's intrinsic to how our body clocks work, but also just something, you know, that inspires you to get up just to see the sunrise every morning. [00:11:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:11:03] Speaker B: And that you still got that motivation as a photographer to get up every morning and shoot, you know, the same old sun that goes around and be back in 24 hours. But you're still finding that motivation to be out there, despite, you know, what you may wake up feeling. I think that's really inspirational and I think there's a lot for others to. To think about with that sort of thing. It doesn't have to be that you are traveling to Le Mons to find inspiration in photography. It could just be getting up and shooting the sunrise every single morning. That's as a form of meditation almost. [00:11:32] Speaker C: You know, if that's all I was able to do, then that's what I'd be happy with. You know, it's the fact that you've got, you know, that that scene down in Narrabeen changes every morning. You know, every morning I get down there, it's something different. So, you know, to have. Have that. That opportunity and that. That I'm very, very grateful to live where I do. But, you know, it's also that form of motivation. Get out of bed, go and take a picture. But I last. I've had a recent operation on my ear, trying to address some balance issues and things like that. And I haven't been allowed on the bike and I haven't been feeling well enough to get on the bike. So in the last week was the morning, I think a whole week of amazing sunrises. And of course, I get up in the morning, look out the window and it's beautiful. And I'm just kicking myself going, maybe I should have walked. Maybe I should have driven or maybe, you know, and still get a taxi. Yeah. And then the thing is, I'm trying to get out of this, get this light beam out of it, out of my way. So then the issue is that, like, I'm going, I, I refuse to look at our local Facebook pages for that whole day because fear of seeing what I missed out on. So, yeah, it's. And it has. That hasn't changed in 40 years. I'm still, you know, still still the same photographer I was. [00:12:42] Speaker A: I love that. I love that. [00:12:44] Speaker B: Very cool. [00:12:46] Speaker A: Just quickly, Greg, that I'll just say g'day to a couple of people in the. The live chat. If you please join us live. Jump in the live chat. This is a unique format. Our show is live, which means you can actually jump in the live chat and ask Andrew questions through the interview. We may or may not pull them up, depending on how nice your question is. We'll pull them up. We've got Philip Johnson in the chat. He says, good day, gents. Good morning, Philip. Always here first. Pretty much love it. And Dennis Smith, School of Light, says Broom. Broom Was lucky enough to meet Andrew and chat cars. What a humble and sharing gentleman. Good to have you. [00:13:22] Speaker C: Ah, isn't that nice? [00:13:24] Speaker B: So, yeah, we like Dennis. [00:13:27] Speaker A: We do love Dennis. If you're listening and if you're listening later on, like YouTube later on or on Spotify or Apple podcasts, you can still comment on YouTube and we'll, we'll see if we can get Andrew to ask. Answer any questions or whatever later on. So don't be scared. But you're with us now. [00:13:43] Speaker B: Speaking of which, Justin, where are you coming from? Because it's almost like you're in some sort of cell maybe. [00:13:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I got locked up. They were nice enough to let me have my MacBook so I could still do the podcast. But I got locked up last night. No, I mean, I'm in the van. I probably can't really show you guys much, but I'm in the van. I'm in the van in dinner plane. So up on the top of Mount Hotham. Coming to you via Elon Starlink. Thank you, Elon. Send you my heart. I won't do the thing. And yeah, that's. That's me. We've been traveling around a bit. We're making our way home from the coast back over to Bendigo. So that's why I'm in a strange setting today and I Don't have my normal rodecaster and mic and headphones and stuff. I feel a little bit naked without my podcasting stuff. I need the things, but I broke my microphone. So now I'm just coming to you from the MacBook. [00:14:43] Speaker B: You know what I think is most, most impressive about this whole situation is that I actually look more tanned than you. For once I know the white balance is off and I'm using like white blue kind of. You know, it's been so. [00:14:57] Speaker A: It's been so peaceful here. I decided to do the podcast with the, the door of the van open. The sun's coming up and it's been dead quiet. And now like garbage trucks and lawnmowers and stuff are all starting reality. [00:15:10] Speaker B: It's just like being at home when your staff show up to do the garden. Andrew Justin has a crew of staff. He doesn't. I'm one of them. [00:15:19] Speaker A: His name's Al and he mows my lawns. He's a really nice guy. Yeah, cool. [00:15:27] Speaker B: Last. [00:15:28] Speaker A: Last person in the chat before we get back to, back to Andrew, Dave from Tassie Digifrog is in the chat. He says so many gems after just 10 minutes. Photography truly is so much bigger than just pressing a shutter. It becomes that friend that's always there. This podcast is fantastic for highlighting this. [00:15:45] Speaker B: Thanks. [00:15:47] Speaker C: Cool. [00:15:47] Speaker B: Thanks, Dave. That's awesome. Now, Andrew, you mentioned earlier that you've been with Fujifilm for 32 years. For the kids listening along at home, for the young folk, that's what we call a career. Pretty much staying in the one job for more than 12 months. [00:16:11] Speaker C: The job hasn't changed. Has changed. I mean, the position may have said the same what the equipment and stuff I'm working with and you know, that was, you know, to, you know, keep it. I'll explain it a little bit better. I mean my, my role at Fuji was always in the printing side machines and all our photo labs. So if you've got your, your photos printed in the 90s to 2000s, it's probably on a machine that, that I installed. So yeah, that side of it was always thing. But I always dovetailed my photography in. In that I, I shot sort of shot film with the, with a, with Canon for, for many, many years, but always in that camera was always Fujifilm. So even while I was doing my, my racing stuff early in the, in the 90s, I used to. We were fortunate enough to get supplied with some Fujifilm for some big projects. So I was always walking out of work with a box of film under my arm and taking up my. All the butter compartments in my fridge with all the film ready to go. So that's where film live. [00:17:21] Speaker B: It's universal. [00:17:22] Speaker C: It was always. And you know, when you get your slides processed back in the little boxes, if you took the actual film out of the canister, six rolls of film fitted in one of those slide boxes, and they fitted in your. In your butter compartments in your fridge. So when I went digital, when I went digital, we all suddenly had all this extra space in my fridge. So. But yeah, and then. So with my, with my racing and all my other ambassadorship, you know, that's obviously a completely separate role, but there are some awesome overlaps where people at work asked me to assist with things and I'm obviously more than happy to do that. Yeah, when I do my racing and stuff like that, it's always. I just take, I take annual leave from my, my, my career and then go and do my racing and then, then come back and, yeah, continue on with whatever projects I had on my plate before I left. So. [00:18:14] Speaker B: So let's roll back a little because I want to also cover off your early days as a photographer and obviously your introduction to working with a brand like Fuji. But even just, I want to get to what the industry was like back then because we all kind of fall into this now where everything is so accessible. Everything is online, we can order things, you know, in our sleep. I love my partner, Sasha, but sometimes I wake up and my phone with the afterpay is this close to my face. I don't know what's going on, but everything is very accessible and easy to get to. And it wasn't always that way. And sometimes you just had to make solutions yourself. Yourself. We will get to that. Let's roll back a little further and I want to talk to you about your earlier inspirations into photography. You know, what was your, what was your background like? Was, Was it an artistic family? Was there something that someone special like a teacher or a mentor or even a parent, who inspired you to be a creative person? [00:19:12] Speaker C: I think it came from my, my grandmother and my father. They always had a camera. My first early memories was using my grandmother's Voigtlander 35 mil. So I think it came from there. But essentially I just wanted to record moments, I wanted to record memories. I wanted to, you know, not. Yeah, look back and go, oh, geez, I wish I'd taken a photograph of that. I can't draw, I can't sculpt, I can't paint, I can't write so you know I, I didn't have much left. So photography was, was always very close to my heart. I, I shot yeah on that voit lander for quite a while. My dad was. Always had a camera so it sort of progressed from there but, but totally self taught. I didn't do any courses back back then. It was you know when I started it was you know chisel. Chisel and stone tablet, you know so I, it was. No, I didn't do any courses. I just read a lot of books, made a lot of notes. Well before the days of you know now, now the young kids go I'll just look what I took, what settings I took that on. I had to go to my notebook. [00:20:26] Speaker B: Yep yep I kept a notebook too. [00:20:28] Speaker C: Yeah. You shot a roll. Shot a roll of 36 and you go frame seven was this one. And then when you get it all back and you have to go through and analyze what worked and what. What didn't work. [00:20:37] Speaker B: Y. [00:20:38] Speaker C: You know that was. Yeah. And it's so funny when my daughter goes but why did you do it that way? He said because there was no other, there was no other option. Yeah that's the way we had to do it. And it's so funny to watch things come full circle now where people are still going back to shooting film. Yeah. So yeah I mean that was the early days and I used to race motocross as a youth was never very good and I've motorcycle club I was in. I fell off one one early one season was sitting out a few races and just picked up my camera and started taking pictures. [00:21:15] Speaker B: And that's, that's how you got into motorsport. [00:21:18] Speaker C: Yeah. Of my friends falling off and I realized that photography hurt a lot less than. Than falling over and getting run over. So I just continued to do that and I became their, their official official photographer. So you know you'd go to the club meeting with a big board of six by four photos that you had printed up down at the local lab and sold them to the. Sold them to the writers. So from there it just went. I kept hassling the. It was out of Oren park which doesn't exist anymore unfortunately. But I knew all the, the media managers and things out there And I think 1988 before, before either of you were born. Sure the world superbike. [00:22:04] Speaker B: Just a guess. Yes. Justin. [00:22:07] Speaker C: He's got a foot. [00:22:08] Speaker B: He's got a full grown beard right now. [00:22:10] Speaker C: Yeah it's so. Yeah so I did. That was 88 and I asked them if I could do If I could get a media pass. And it was a. I went from club level motocross racing to being accredited at a World Superbike Championship. And I think they said yes, because I'd obviously been doing, you know, the hard yards with the club level. They knew I wouldn't do anything stupid and they obviously wanted more promotion for this event. So my first accredited event as a official photographer was a World Superbike Championship round in Ode on Park in 1988. So went from there published, got a few things published, went to a. Went to the Grand Prix, I think, in 89, as a spectator and got a few shots from the crowd that no one else got of a crash. [00:22:57] Speaker B: 89. So that would have been in Adelaide Still. [00:23:00] Speaker C: Adelaide Still. And I submitted, I submitted a bunch of pictures to a company called Chevron Publishing who did racing car news and a whole bunch of really cool titles back in the day. So they liked my pictures. And then of course I had, you know, being a incredibly published photographer of maybe like two photos now, I went, well, can you give. Can you give me a season pass for the next year and I'll. I'll shoot for you. And they said yes, the fools. So that was 19, 1990, and I shot with them as a preferred freelancer for 20 years. More than 20 years. Yeah. Shot Adelaide Grand Prix for the last three years. It was there, which was amazing for the organizers. And then they took me to Melbourne and I shot F1 in Melbourne till 2016. [00:23:51] Speaker B: Can I just jump in there, Andrew? Just before we move any further along, I just want to roll back a little bit. So you used to ride, used to race motorbikes. That's where your initial love of motorsport, or is race a bit of a strong term? [00:24:04] Speaker C: Race was a bit of a strong term. Rode around trying not to get in everybody's way, I think was probably a better way to describe it. Yeah. But I'd always followed motorsport as a kid. I remember sitting on the hill at Oren park as a kid in the. In the early mid-70s with my uncle, you know, watching the touring cars there. So, yeah, I've always been. I was always interested in motorsport, but it was motorcycles that started it. Yep. And photographing the motorcycles, that was my first couple of years. I did some work for Two Wheels magazine and a few other bits and pieces. So I think I remember Two Wheels, the cars. [00:24:38] Speaker B: I used to do a paper around and deliver magazines to all the local factories. So I used to get all the car magazine, a lot of Playboy and Penthouse. A couple of those might have slipped into the gap under my mattress. But mostly motorsport. And yeah, those sort of magazines were huge. [00:24:55] Speaker C: It was really cool. I mean, and obviously shooting film, you know, you were also then looking through the viewfinder trying to remember, okay, where's the fold of the page going to be? You know, so if you were shooting something, shooting something, you'd go, well, I can't put the car there because it will disappear in the fold. Or I, you know, if I'm doing. I'm a, as I said before, I'm. I'm a motorsport photographer, but I'm, I love landscapes, I love portraits. So I combined my love of those genres into my motorsport. So I would do things like, yeah, you'd see a double page spread and you'd go, right, I can put a small car, big, big sky. And then they can type over, type over that. So yeah, you know, it'll form the whole background of the page rather than have white, white on the page. So, but the problem is when you, you're imagining that you're going, okay, where's the fold? Where's the staples? You know, when you're shooting and, and the kids today, they wouldn't understand that like, you know, when you're shooting stuff that's actually being in print, all the things you had to think about where the gutters, where the gutter of the page was going to be, how, how. Where the masthead was going to, to be like you're shooting a cover, you're shooting vertical, you know, through looking through the viewfinder. You've got to imagine where the, where the actual header of racing car news or motor, Motor Racing Australia later in the day where that was going to go. So you couldn't, you couldn't fill the frame. You had to allow room. [00:26:10] Speaker B: Imagine also. Sorry, Andrew. Imagine also having all of those elements in mind, plus working with film and you know, I'd be fascinating to hear from you. How do you. Keeping those things in mind over. The staples are going to go here, the gutters here, you know, type the, the text is going to go here. Whilst trying to shoot something moving that fast with a film camera. [00:26:35] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:26:36] Speaker B: So it's not like you said, it's not necessarily a spray and pray. You know, Justin shoots a lot of mountain bike stuff and he's often shooting at a high burst rate to capture that, you know, because they're coming around a hill so like a corner or burn so fast and you would have felt the same. But you know, shooting with film, tell us a little that process, like how did You. How did you work limitations that you. [00:26:59] Speaker C: Had at the time? Well, three frames a second, that was. That was the motor winder back in the day. Three frames a second. Or you had. And you had manual focus lenses, so you'd have to pre focus on the track and wait for them to come into frame and push the button when it was in focus because you couldn't track it. There was no af, you know, shooting a roll. Yeah. Making sure when you're walking down to the start looking at your camera going, I've only got 12 shots left. Do I. Do I take a gamble and shoot the start with 12 frames or do I sacrifice those 12 frames and put a new roll of 36 in? Yeah, now, now I put a. Now I put a card in my camera and I've got, you know, 500 frames or 600 frames. So. Yeah. [00:27:45] Speaker A: The other thing with film is you. I mean, I'd love to. It's probably moral. So with, with motorsport, you're probably always shooting at a higher film speed, ISO, asa, whatever it was called before I was born. So you probably often, I assume was it like sort of 400 or 800 most of the time, but. But you also had that variability of say, whether, like if it clouded over, you know, things change. You just throw away half a roll so that you can put in a higher film speed for the darker conditions or something. [00:28:19] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:28:20] Speaker A: How did that work? [00:28:21] Speaker C: Pretty much say I was shooting. We used to call Velvia film, which I love using on, on my Fujis now. I mean, as a film simulation. I mean, I shot it as. As a film, as a roll of film. So it was 50 velveer 50. And it was basically brave man's. We called it brave man's film because as soon as you put a lot of film in the camera, there'd be. Yeah. Perfect blue sky and then a three by three foot piece of cloud to come over and sit over the sun for that whole race. So as soon as you put. And you'd pull the roll of Elvia out of the bag and look around, is there any cloud coming? No. And put it in. Because you're right, if you, if you had that role of velvet in and you're halfway through the roll and the cloud came over, the only option you had was to go arty, like do slow shutter speed stuff. [00:29:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:10] Speaker C: Because. Because, you know. And then for those 15 shots. Yeah. And I hope you got some good ones and then change the role. [00:29:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:17] Speaker C: But even now, like shooting like I shoot, I have. Yeah. My fabulous Fujifilm XO2s, like the sponsors. Honestly, this thing, this thing I shoot it at, I shot some stuff the other, other month in, in Qatar. Look at two and a half thousand ISO, you know, and, and it was brilliant. Like in, in my day in the film, you know, and it's still difficult because as a, as a film photographer and an old photographer, I go, you know, there's a little voice in my head going, don't go over 400. Whatever you do, don't go over 400. And now, you know, I'm getting, I'm getting better at it to go to shoot higher ISOs. But it's, you know, there's that mentality of when we were shooting and when you looked at the 400 ISO film on the light box, it was, it, it was like golf ball size grain. Yeah. Even back then. So, yeah, so the tech, the tech is obviously. And that's why I think, you know, there's so many people now saying, oh, the AF is needs to be improved, this needs to be improved. And I'm going, yeah, but I shot with no af, I shot with motor, wind, no nothing. Yeah. So I'm grateful for any sort of autofocus, to be honest. So yeah, I think it's, it's. People can get hung up on the tech and especially if you, especially new photographers, if they've only ever shot digital, I don't think they can relate, you know, whereas someone who's shot film for so long can relate to how good we've got it now. [00:30:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it's true. [00:30:48] Speaker C: But it is a double edged sword that, because like back in the day I would shoot a race, I'd shoot 20 rolls of film. Maybe on a weekend, which is not much, I'd be given a shot list from my editor. Okay, we're doing features on this, you know, say Craig Lounge. So we need a headshot, we need a, we need one of them in the car, we need some stuff on track, we need, you know, atmosphere. So you'd go and shoot that. And that helped me a great deal to minimize how much film I was shooting because I knew that every shot that I was taking was going to get going to get used. And as a freelancer that was, that was key. So. But you know, you shot all that, you shot 20 rolls of film. You'd fly home from wherever you'd go to Vision Graphics and Crow's Nest in Sydney, drop, drop the film in the night box. They would actually process the film and cut and sleeve it the next day, send it to My. My. My office. I would go home that night, sit on a light box, cut the individual frames out, mount them, label them. Then the next morning I go to work and send them by DHL to an agency in England as well. As well as my. My magazine here to be scanned, to be sent over. I send the originals. [00:32:04] Speaker B: Right? Okay. [00:32:06] Speaker C: So, yeah. And the only way you could really. Do you know, any way to have a duplicate back in those days, was to take another frame. So if you're taking a portrait you take. You take extra frames. So you'd have three or four of the same one. [00:32:19] Speaker B: Interesting. Kind of. Sorry, I was just gonna say it just reminds me, I don't know if you guys have seen. Is it the Secret Life of Walter Mitty? Yeah, I watched film. Elena hadn't seen it. [00:32:31] Speaker A: We watched it night before last. I was like, yeah, it's a. [00:32:36] Speaker B: Fascinating. For those of you that haven't seen it, just a quick synopsis. Basically, it stars Ben Stiller and what's his name? He's in Severance. Anyway, Ben still is the lead character. He plays Walter Midi, and he works for Time magazine, which is shutting down Negative Asset Manager. And he's working with this renowned film photographer who still only shoots film. He won't shoot digital. And, and he. And he tells Walter, I'm sending you a frame that will save the magazine or that should go on the final cover at least of Time magazine. And the frame is missing and he can't find it. And the whole movie is about this journey, about finding this elusive frame. But it's really wonderful because it's. It kind of. It harkens back to the day where you had to be really careful about what you did with your negatives. You know, you didn't have dual SD cards. You didn't have instant on the field hard drive backup or SSD backup, which you can get now where you can just drop your SD card into an SSD drive and it will copy everything within, you know, a minute. You never had any of that. It was, you know, it either worked or you screwed up. [00:33:42] Speaker C: We shot, you know, you shot. And obviously you didn't know what you. What you had, you know, before until you had a process. So you could be going to the publisher. Yeah, yeah, editor. Yeah, I nailed that. I got it. Great. You know, and then you get back and it's like, oh, no, maybe not. And you're trying to salvage something out of, you know, what. What you ended up shooting. So. But yeah, back in those days, between practice sessions, the only thing you could do was charge your batteries and have a cup of coffee. Because the work really started after the, after the race. Yeah. Unless you were shooting. I did some stuff for newspapers occasionally. And so you'd have to go down to the medical center and process your film by hand in the dark. Yeah. And make a dark room process by hand, look at it on the light box, find the frame of the, of the checkered flag shot, scan it on a 56k modem to the newspaper. One frame and that whole process took. Took two hours. I know, I know what I say to people. I'm like one of the old, I'm like one of the old guys from the Muppets, you know, in the front row, Waldorf and Statler when I go back. [00:34:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:50] Speaker C: Back in my day. And they go, here we go. [00:34:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it is interesting, but it is also, I think what's great is, is. And one of the things I love about celebrating these stories on the podcast is that we get to add a little bit of perspective from time to time around the privileges that we have as current day photographers. You know, I mean, yes, gear is expensive and you know, it's, it can be just as technically challenging, but there is a lot of privilege involved in today's photography. You know, when I learned film photography in the dark room, like, that was the greatest experience of my life. Like, I still recall those days of dodging and burning and printing my own stuff and just seeing it appear like, basically learning chemistry as part of a visual creative field was, you know, we kind of took it for, like, looking back, I know I took it for granted. I was a, like, I was, I was 18, running around, bumping into things like. But you know, we were taught chemistry. [00:35:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:48] Speaker B: To create, to create something which was really magical. So there is a lot of privilege. And it's not to say that it's, it's, it's not deserved and that, you know, kids these days don't understand photography. [00:36:00] Speaker C: But that's, that's, that's me. Yeah, but no, you're saying before it was, it's more. You think you used the right word. It was, It's a more romantic era back in the day. Like, you know, I, I trashed my poor mum and dad's outdoor laundry by turning into a dark room and putting chemistry stains all over the washing machine and stuff. But you know, the, the, the fact that you could, you go out there, spend a couple of hours, make it, make a print for the camera club, whatever competition that night. But the, the joy you get when you see it in the, in the tray and you see, yeah, and you watch it, watch it develop and you go, that's, you know, that's really cool that whole manual process. Now kids don't, oh, I'll just add a filter to it or I'll do this and you know, well, and yeah, I think times move on and I'm, I'm getting better at social media and stuff like that thanks to my, my darling daughter. But yeah, I still, sometimes, sometimes I miss those days where, you know, you, you never know what you shot until you know, you get it, get it back from the farm, get it back from the chemist or get it back. [00:36:59] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:37:01] Speaker C: So it is interesting. [00:37:03] Speaker B: Although I do, I do adopt some of those practices in my street photography. So I try to stick with very minimal on my. As you know, we've talked about this, we both have x 70s, possibly arguably the greatest camera ever made digital camera. And you know, I have access to my, I have aperture on the, on the lens, I've got my shutter speed and, and I've set my ISO to, to the rear, little toggle dial and you know, and I rarely look at the back of the screen when I'm doing street because I feel as a street photographer that also draws attention to me that yes, I'm purposely taking photos of you. I'd rather just walk and, and shoot and have a look that night or the next day. In fact, when I do street walks with camera clubs now, I tell them if you can turn your LCD off, yeah, you know, I'll let you guys use your evf. But no, what do they call it? Chimping? Is that the term, chimping? [00:37:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:00] Speaker C: I don't know what that is. [00:38:01] Speaker B: What is it, Justin? [00:38:02] Speaker A: So, yeah, it was, it was a big talk when I sort of got into photography which is, which is quite late even, you know, like I didn't get into photography until my late 20s. So that was well into the digital era. My first camera was a Canon 60D digital. So they were already like super capable digital cameras when I started. And the big sort of buzzword around that time, there's two things. There was like, there was people that were shooting and burning. So if you just took photos and didn't edit them and didn't look through them, you just gave everyone all the JPEGs you were, you're a bad photographer. And if you, yeah, if you sprayed and prayed, if you just took way too many photos than needed to do the job rather than taking your time, you're a bad photographer and if you chimped, you were a bad photographer. And that was essentially, you know, we were sort of learning the ropes of wedding photography at the time and it was basically, and I, I definitely get what, what these more experienced photographers, probably people like yourself that had grown up through film and learned to be far more confident in their abilities in the moment, were saying to younger photographers like us or newer photographers in the middle of a wedding ceremony, don't be looking at the back of your camera to fit to, to see what the photo looks like or whether your settings or whatever. Watch what's happening, look at the action, don't be looking down and chimping through your photos. Oh, did I get it? Oh, did I get it? When something beautiful is happening right in front of you and it was a, it was a good message, but it kind of got pushed into this kind of basically, if you looked at the back of the camera, you were a bad photographer, which, which is, it's just another tool that you can use for, you know, if you need to, to figure out if you're getting the shot or not. [00:39:51] Speaker C: So yeah, of course, I mean, look, I, I, I'm, I'm a technophobe. I, I, I love the technology that is in the modern cameras and obviously with my relationship with, yeah, working with Fujifilm in Tokyo closely and developing some of these, some of the X series cameras, you know, I've been grateful to be involved in, in that process of improving AF and doing all the rest of it. But at the end of the day, I shoot, I shoot full manual. I, I love my electronic finder in all my, on my cameras. The fact that, you know, if I run and set a film simulation like on the optical, in the old days, the optical camera, I could still set it to black and white, but I'm looking through an optical finder and I'm still seeing it in color. My brain wants to see it, my brain wants to see it in black and white. So the electronic viewfinders are amazing. I don't get hung up on the tech like the people. The first question whenever I do a presentation or something at a camera club or, you know, or I get a new camera, they go, oh, how many megapixel is it? And I always say enough. It doesn't, that's that obsession with having more and more megapixels and more tech. You know, I, my light meter in my camera, we have a love hate relationship because I, I usually ignore it because I'm, I'm adjusting my, my settings, especially through an electronic finder to. To what I want to. How I want it to look. And what I see is what is. What I see is what I get shooting film for 20 years with an exposure latitude of what, half a stop or a stop, f stop. You know, if you got that wrong, it was in the bin. There was no post production, there was no Photoshop, there was no raw. There was nothing. So I shoot JPEG only. I don't shoot raw. So I'm confident enough in my ability that I can get it, get it as close to right in camera. And the reason for that is twofold. One, I don't have the time to do extra processing, especially at the track. And two, I'm rubbish at Lightroom and Photoshop. So I, I try and get it as right as I can in the camera. [00:42:03] Speaker A: So you, you're telling me that on your, if we go to like your Instagram or your website or something that the motorsport photos that we look at, they most likely were shot JPEG straight out of the camera? [00:42:16] Speaker C: Pretty much, yeah. [00:42:17] Speaker B: That's cool. [00:42:18] Speaker C: Yeah, I just, I'm just trying to get this dot out of middle of my forehead figure. Yeah, like I, I just said, I don't. I try and get it right in camera because of just the speed which I need to get some of the. But even my, you know, the stuff I do now down at the pool in the morning, it's all jpeg. I've, you know, Fuji's re launched the. What's called a Fuji X app, which is the app that connects to all our X series cameras. And that's much improved from the previous version as Greg. [00:42:49] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:42:50] Speaker C: It was so funny. I mean as a, as an ambassador, I was always what people were saying to me, you know, often being complimentary about our cameras and things like that. But then they were saying, oh, but the app sucks. And I was sort of going, I know. You know you'd go actually, yeah, it does. It did. [00:43:07] Speaker B: Yeah. But most brands do. That's what I was gonna say. Almost every app is terrible except do better. [00:43:15] Speaker A: Pretty good. And I was like, how are these. [00:43:18] Speaker C: How. [00:43:18] Speaker A: I mean like as cool and all, but like how are they leading, leading the pack when it comes to apps? Like. [00:43:24] Speaker C: I know, I know. But our, our app is. Our app's really cool now, so. [00:43:29] Speaker B: Oh, awesome. Yeah, it's much better. [00:43:31] Speaker C: It's much, much better. It uses Bluetooth Connect and then some other, you know, wizardry. [00:43:36] Speaker B: But although having said that, Andrew, I will say this, that I started using that, the original Fuji app when I got my XT1 maybe and my X70. I remember one of my earlier trips to Japan using that to transfer photos to my phone so I could do quick dirty edits and put them on socials or send them to family or. You know, and at the time it was, it was, it worked, it was, it was unstable and unreliable but it worked like if you got a good run of it, like it. Oh yeah, it's obviously much easier now. It's all, you know, there's a, there's a. Not a barcode. What do they call it now? Gosh, I'm old QR code on the box, you know, and you just. Yeah, yeah. The. [00:44:21] Speaker C: Honestly like the, the. So the app is. Gets to the point now where I, I went to Tasmania a little while ago with my darling wife just for a holiday and I took no laptop and I shot jpeg. JPEG only transferred it to the phone in. In full res, made a couple of tweaks and posted it straight away. So, you know, that sort of technology, that's about as much as I embrace. Yeah the tech. I said everything else, you know, it's on my camera is. M only taught my daughter to shoot manual. She loves it and she's a better photographer than me, but it's. So yeah, I just think people get hung up on all this, all the tech. I actually have my original X100 which was the first camera that I got involved. [00:45:08] Speaker B: Justin's still got one too. [00:45:11] Speaker C: It's brilliant. And I, I took. Pulled out of the drawer the other day, put a battery in it. It's 12 megapixel. Put what? Put one of my SD cards in it. And it went, no, I went, oh, that's right, it's too fast. [00:45:22] Speaker B: So yeah, it's too fast for it now. [00:45:24] Speaker C: Hunted through the drawer to find it, like a, a two gig, you know, 15 Mbps card. Put that in it and went and took some pictures. Awesome. Loved it. Yeah. So I think whenever people ask me, yeah, megapixel. And then they say to me, oh, how do you find the dynamic range? And I go, it's there. It's doing what it's meant to be doing, like histograms. I had a presented at Castle Hill Camera Club the other night, Tuesday and they said, I said to me, just out of curiosity, how many people here shoot raw? And everyone put their hand up and then I said, how many people look at, look at the histograms on the camera and they all put the hand up again. And I went I have, I don't know what a histogram does. And I'm sure that all of mine, because I'm, because I'm ignoring my light meter. I'm sure it's, it's screaming at you. It's screaming at me again. It's just like, what are you doing? I said, I don't know. I don't look at the thing. So as I said, I'm, I'm, I'm so old school in, in that regard. But, you know, I said, I appreciate the technology and the high ISO and all the rest of it and I know when to use it to get a nice picture. But as to how it works. [00:46:37] Speaker B: Yeah, nice. [00:46:39] Speaker C: Not a clue. [00:46:39] Speaker B: Good to hear. Good to hear. There's a level of cluelessness. [00:46:43] Speaker C: Oh, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's epic. And it's so funny because Warwick, who used to be the digital trainer here, he would sit down, he would, he would, he was determined, it was his life mission to teach me about phase detection or something on autofocus. And he, he said to me, he sat me down, he goes, right, Andrew, I'm going to explain face detection. And he just watched my eyes to just roll back. [00:47:04] Speaker B: Roll back. [00:47:04] Speaker C: Yeah. And he goes, when did I, when did I lose you? And I said, when you said, sit down, Andrew, I'm going to explain face detection to you. [00:47:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Warwick was a very technical. I mean that was his job. And he was a very technical shooter as well in his own work. Like new his stuff back to front. Justin, do you want to jump to some, some comments? Because it's starting to build a little. [00:47:27] Speaker A: Yep. And it might lead us into a bit more of a, of a gear discussion, if that's okay. [00:47:31] Speaker B: Sure, yeah. [00:47:32] Speaker A: Yeah. But, uh, so just a few, a few comments. Uh, Dennis Smith says, uh, it's nuts. The Leica at perfect Sony app. Absolute clusterfuck. How is that? Yeah, and that's. And same with Canon and Nikon. They just don't, they wouldn't connect properly. And it, I don't know, it's just weird interfaces. Anyway, creative photo workshops. Glenn Lavender says JPEG only man after my own. [00:47:57] Speaker C: I know. Glenn. [00:47:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, the drunk wedding photographer from California. Good to see you. He is a full time. Sorry. Shoots only film at weddings still now, like he's. Yeah. Sort of a full analog wedding photographer. And he says, I love film but not the dark room, not for me. And I guess they're different skills. Glenn also says, it's not the tool, it's the tool, using it. [00:48:25] Speaker C: Yeah, thanks. [00:48:26] Speaker B: Sometimes it can be. [00:48:27] Speaker C: It can be, yeah. [00:48:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:29] Speaker A: Jim's in the comments too. Jim's another co host, photographer, wedding photographer, photographer, boudoir photographer, sports photographer and he's. [00:48:38] Speaker B: Also part of Lucky Straps. [00:48:40] Speaker A: Also part of Lucky Straps. Hey team, sorry I couldn't be on today. Keen to listen to this one later on. Now the, the question that might get us into a bit more, which I think Dennis is alluding to, you've already answered it a little bit, but he says when you guys were chatting you had a discussion about the type of gear and it was refreshing that you talked about using gear that others might think is basic for super high end motorsport. And can you talk a little bit about what really matters for this type of work? [00:49:16] Speaker C: Sure. I mean as I said, I shot, I shot Canon for 20 years. So you know, all through the EOS, original EOS, well T90s back then, in the old days, A1s, F1s, all the manual focus stuff through to the autofocus things and then obviously into the digital age. Since 2015 I've been shooting Fuji, Fuji only. So even with my motorsport and I think what I'm most impressed with was the fact that in my 20 years with Canon, no, I was not. No one asked me or ask for my input or any other photographers that I knew of. They would just release a new camera obviously with some new features and things like that, but not really ask what we would like or what could be done to improve it. And you say, well, what have you made different on this camera? We've improved the AF a little bit and we've moved that button over there and you sort of go, why did you do that? Because it's now not in our reach, you know, it makes it more difficult to use the camera. So there wasn't really that, that connection in my experience anyway. I'm sure they were speaking to some, some people but with, with Fuji especially trying to develop it for motorsport or. I was involved in a lot of the testing for the early XT ranges and things like that purely because they wanted to improve the autofocus because it wasn't, it wasn't good enough in, in its infancy. So about 2015 they released a T2 I think, and the AF algorithm was really good. So we gave, I gave them some feedback myself and a bunch of other X series ambassadors around the world. There was three or four of us involved in motorsport. So we, we were the core group with that. So for me, for the high end motorsport now I Mean I've got. What have I got? I've got H2, an H2S. I run them one's the 26 megapixel super fast one, the XH2S with 40 frames a second and all the rest of it and a bunch of other technical things that I don't understand. And then the H2 is the 40 megapixel one for me the key for motorsport side of it is the af. Fuji's got to a point now where the AF with subject detection and all the rest of it is a game changer. Since they came with subject detection on the H2 H2s, I did some testing during COVID for them on my T4 with made a bit of a test mule to develop the algorithm. So I did some stuff in lockdown where I could just go and photograph some surfers and moving stuff to help them develop that, that algorithm. So when they put it in the H2S with the subject detection, huge, huge game changer for me. So that made it. Not. It didn't make it easier to shoot but it made it. I could concentrate on framing, I could concentrate on a lot of other things and the AF would do its job. Whereas back in the old days your brain had to multitask, was trying to focus and compose at the same time. So but I mean obviously this thing's. These things are built really, really well around. I've taken them around the world. This is 2022. I got this, I got it early to do some testing in secret where I was standing at a racetrack in America and I really wanted to tell everybody how good it was but I couldn't because it wasn't released another few months. I've been there but I did the testing and they said to me just use it for practice. We're not sure about the algorithm and the rest of it. And I used it in the first practice session and I used it for the rest of the event because it was so good. And this is actually the original, this is the original body, 180,000 frames or something on it now. So yeah, I mean the question was, yeah, what's the most important thing for the high end motorsport? It's for me it's that AF performance, not necessarily frame rate because it's 40 frames a second. I never use it. I use maybe maximum 10 frames a second because. And again I don't. If I'm panning at a corner I'll track it obviously with the autofocus and especially through stuff I'm doing stuff through Trees, you know, we can customize it to avoid obstacles and do all the rest of the fancy stuff. So. But I only take one or two frames when it's in the position I want. I don't, I don't, you know, I'm standing next to a guy and I can hear the shutter go off and the car's not really even in view. It doesn't do your photography any good because you're not, yeah, you're not perfecting your, your art and you're also going to have to download all that and pick through weed through all the rubbish. The two frames that you should have shot just the two frames of in the first place. So. Yeah, I, I don't feel like with a shooting JPEG, I think I've got 64 gig cards in my cameras. I don't, I never go anywhere near filling them. So yeah, that's crazy because some guy sometimes shoot, I don't know how many, like some ridiculous, like five or six or even 10,000 frames in, in a three hour practice session and you're going, dude, what are you doing? You know, you just, you're just gonna have to wade through that. Why don't you just wait, you know. And again I get the old man yelling at clouds. You know. [00:54:36] Speaker B: It'S impressive. You know, you're shooting pro grade motorsport and you're delivering JPEG files. Like it's, yeah, it's quite inspirational really. Like that, you know, and obviously you, you've, you've invested the years, you've trained yourself, you've, you know your gear backwards. You're not upgrading your camera every six months. You're still using the OG XH2. And what did you say? 180, 000 frames. Like most Pro photographers would start to get nervous and, and move on their digital camera because technically shutters and, and sensors only have a certain lifespan. [00:55:11] Speaker A: And you know, I actually I, I would argue great. Most pros don't like me. Jim and I, we used to, we used to drive the wheels off the thing, you know, like people and actually it was the, we would talk to amateur especially when we went to sell gear and we'd be like, yeah, it's got250,000 clicks on the shutter. And they'd be like, oh well, I'm not going to buy it because it'll probably explode or whatever. And we're like, dude, our other one's got 500,000, you know, like, like and worst case you put a new shutter in it. So I think it might actually Be a little bit the other way where the, A lot of the pros, they just, they just keep driving them until the wheels fall off sometimes. [00:55:49] Speaker B: True, I guess. And they are a financial investment. [00:55:51] Speaker A: So that's it if you want business. [00:55:55] Speaker C: Yeah, I've had never. [00:55:56] Speaker B: But I think for Andrew who has access to Fujifilms live like stable. [00:56:01] Speaker A: I wanted to ask Andrew about. So if you, if you can. Oh, hang on, there's a garbage truck coming. [00:56:07] Speaker C: So did I answer that question? Okay for. For Dennis? Was that. [00:56:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I think you answered Dennis's question perfectly. I just wanted to sort of dig deeper into. Oh my gosh, there's another one. [00:56:22] Speaker B: Such a, such a relaxing, you know, week away, Justin. Just in the mountain air. Breathe it in. [00:56:30] Speaker C: Make sure that, make sure they're doing the recycling properly. Make sure they're picking up that what. [00:56:35] Speaker A: I wanted to ask basically. So for those that are listening that might be into motorsports photography and, and they can extrapolate this out into their own camera brand or maybe their Fujifilm shooters just run through like what's the kit that you take away when you go on one of these assignments? Just, just, just sort of the main stuff that's. That's in your bag that you use and what you use it for. Give us a rundown. [00:56:56] Speaker C: Too much. Too much is the answer. Too much gear. I have Fujifilm XH2s and a Fujifilm XH2. So just one of each body, a battery grip. These are all. If you can see that they're all covered in. In vinyl and like a vinyl wrap. Purely because my, my stupid arm braces rip the bejesus out of the plastic. So I always protect my cameras like that. A range of lenses, a range of zooms, primes. One interesting thing though. I'm guilty of carrying way too much gear. I have beautiful. Imagine you've seen my hands, Greg. Imagine how long it took me to put this on. Why did I do it to myself? It was this vinyl wrap that came from. [00:57:46] Speaker B: No, but it looks amazing. [00:57:47] Speaker C: That's so cool. They're never going to miss me. So this is, this is my. Yeah, my precious 200 mil F2 people get, people get hung up on. I need a. I need a. Yeah, much, much bigger lens. I need this. I need that 200 F2 which is on. On Fujifilm is APS C. So it's 300 mil 300 F2 1.4 converter which gives me like a. In the old school 428. Yeah, that's more, more than enough for every racetrack that I Go to. Especially if I'm trying to do, you know, little car, big scene. I'll often use a 50, 140. I take a bunch of primes, which I shouldn't do because our Fujifilms, the X series zooms are amazing. But I tend to shoot. I've got a 50F one for a lot of my nighttime stuff. Got 5140, a range of wider primes. But what I did, what it was a good exercise and it will probably be a good exercise for some of the listeners. Is that on Lightroom you can go and do metadata and go, okay. And isolate it by. By lens. I have a beautiful 8 to 16 mil zoom. Fuji Zoom F 2.8. Absolutely gorgeous. Really heavy. I took it away with me to The Le Mans 24 hour a couple of years ago and I had it in my pouch in my photo jacket and carried it around for no apparent reason. Got back and I went, how many. I can't remember how many frames I took with that lens. So I dragged it 20, you know, how many hundred thousand kilometers away. I took two frames with it, so. So the next year it stayed at home. [00:59:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:39] Speaker C: And I took an 18.18mil prime, so. Or I took the 8mil XF 8mil which is a 3.5. And so it's a tiny little, tiny little lens. So yeah, you can get caught up with carrying too much gear. And it depends too, if I'm going to the pit lane, I'll take a few more primes and a few different lenses to shoot, you know, driver portraits and things like that. I have a beautiful 90 mil F2 which is the equivalent of the old in the old school. 135 F2. I had a 135 F2 FD Canon Manual Focus lens. And I always use that for my portraits. So I carry that with me. So but if I'm going out on track, I'll just take the 250, 140 and maybe A. I did use the 90 mil at night in Bahrain last year during a night race. And that was more than capable. So, you know, so my gear, it's two bodies, a bunch of. Yeah, A bunch of random bunch of lenses, but nothing, nothing too, too over the top. And I've shot the. I tested the 500 mil, the new 500 mil F 5.6. I tested that at, in Japan a week before it was launched. The. The friends, my friends from Fujifilm Tokyo came to the racetrack with me in the shadow of Mount Fuji and gave me the 500 to try and it was too long. I was like 750mil equivalent. I was, there was everyone, everyone standing at the, at the photo hole and I was standing another, you know, 50 meters back. It was just too long. [01:01:13] Speaker B: So that's the lens I had when we went to befop, Justin. [01:01:17] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. Okay. [01:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I had the pre production. Oh, it's a gorgeous lens. [01:01:21] Speaker C: But yeah, it's a glass but, but you know, so I think having a shorter lens and a converter maybe is, is a, is a good option. Yeah. [01:01:34] Speaker B: The other thing too though, I will say this, you know that's, that's your track kit but all too often on your socials I see kind of this collection of background images that you do. You, you, you know, you'll be, there'll be all those. Oh, that's lovely. [01:01:57] Speaker A: Is that the original? [01:01:58] Speaker C: No, that's, that's the six. [01:02:00] Speaker B: Oh, that's the six. I, I was just going to say often I see on your socials that it's not just the motorsport stuff. Yes. That will be what you're there to do. But often there's a lot of, you know, behind the scenes stuff. There's a lot of stuff that you just wandering to and from the track and you've got a day off or you're a day, you know that the race is over and you've got a day before your flight and often I'll see you taking these amazing shots around, around the locations that you've been sent to. So you know, there's, it's, I think it's great to see that there's that blend that you're using your kit, not just here's the job, I brought the job kit, I'm doing it. But you've also got, maybe you've got your X100 or your X70 or something. [01:02:42] Speaker C: Because it's so far to travel anywhere. Any destination I want to go to. You know, I, I did a, I did a race in or a motorsport festival in California a year and a half ago, I think A friend of mine works for Porsche North America invited me over and we did a bunch of pictures at this motorsport festival and I had my race cap racetrack kit with me. But then for the rest of the time I had a couple days in San Fran and. And that was it. Yeah. So, you know, I, the reason why I got the original X100 was purely because you don't want to be walking around like a city with yeah, a big canon 5D Mark II or whatever it was in those days over your shoulder and a big lens, you know, it just looks, it looks obtrusive. You make yourself a bit of a target. This is, this is the most, most unintimidating camera. Like I shot some beautiful things in Qatar, some beautiful stuff in alleyways and things like that with some of the locals because they're not intimidated by the camera. And I feel so much freer by walking around with this, just that over my shoulder and a battery in my, in my pocket. And that's all I need, you know. And it also makes you photography. You have to zoom with your feet. You have to really think about it. So often people say to me, if you could just pick one camera out of the Fujifilm range, which one would it be? And it's going to be something like this, a fixed lens where, you know, it's not complicated, there's no stress, you don't have to worry about, oh, if I change lenses, will it be a better shot? And you just go, well, no, this is the only lens I've got. I did when I, when I went to Paris in 2012 and they gave me a pre production X Pro 1 and the three lenses that were available at that point was the 18mm F2, the 35mm 1.4, the OG and the 60mm Macro. And I had all three of them with me. And I came away from Paris with some lovely pictures but I got annoyed because I was changing lenses too much. Whereas the year before I had the X100 and I couldn't do that. So, you know, I was fussing too much and overthinking it. So that whole mindset, you know, where you go, okay, this is the only lens I've got, I have to zoom with my feet is what appeals to me with the, the X100. But I mean if I, I'm unfortunate because I'm obviously in a privileged position being an ambassador. I've got way too many cameras. My darling wife asked me the other week, how many cameras do you actually have? And I went, is I don't know. [01:05:31] Speaker B: An acceptable answer as best you don't know. [01:05:35] Speaker C: Well, the thing is, I mean, I can't, you know, again, being, being very, very fortunate to be involved with the development and testing of these things. The Fuji have done the lovely things like put my name on the serial number as my, yeah, my, my 100 to 400 has got a 001 hall as a serial number. So, yeah, so it's really, really cool. Nice touches. And you can't, I can't sell Those. [01:05:59] Speaker A: No. [01:06:00] Speaker C: And I've got, obviously got all the, every one of the X X100 series. But to be honest at the moment, I mean I'm, I, I love, I love analog. I love this, this is, this is my, this is. You know what my favorite camera at the moment is? Look at that. That's a Instax Wide 400. And I reckon it's like Fuji. If Fuji went to Lego and said, make me a camera, that's what you get for sure. This is, this is. You know what I do? I take this to my, to a party, a pack of film, pack of film in my bag and this analog thing and I take pictures and they come out of the top and I hand them to people. All my, all my tech, tech mates go, but what happened? Where's the RAW file? Where's the digital? How can I, how can I edit it? You don't. [01:06:55] Speaker B: I reckon that would do Matt Crummond's head. [01:06:57] Speaker C: In you go, how do I share it? I said, well luckily, you know, with the Instax and Fuji's got a suite of apps, there's one called Instax up which you, you can digitize those analog pictures and get your social media digitized fix on. But I love walking into somewhere and going, this is what I'm shooting with today. Here is the picture. And handing them a tangible print and they go. And all my tech mates go, but you can't edit it. I said, no, couldn't edit in the old days and, but I watch them, they, they, they shake. They're just like, I don't understand, how can I, how can I download it? You don't. So for those of you that. [01:07:47] Speaker B: Andrew, I was just going to say for those of you that watched our Monday night episode, I, I put our good friend Matt Crummons into a slight mental breakdown by revealing that my. I bought a new camera on. When was it? J. Monday. [01:08:01] Speaker A: It was. [01:08:02] Speaker B: I walked, I walked into a camera store and I know the manager there quite well because I bought all of my Fuji gear through him and I said, I want your dirtiest, cheapest digital point and shoot camera. And he sold me a sixty dollar had Ilford printed on it. But I'm sure that Ilford had nothing to do with it other than the royalties for the name. [01:08:21] Speaker A: Yeah, licensing money, just the licensing money. [01:08:24] Speaker B: But otherwise I'm sure I've seen that same camera with different brands. Brands on it. But. And it's absolute garbage. But I had such a delightful time shooting with it and making what I had Work, you know. But our good friend Matt had trouble understanding that because he didn't see the point in shooting something with such a, a low megapixel and poor dynamic range and terrible grain. And I think he was, he was. [01:08:47] Speaker A: Also triggered a bit because of the, the, the recent resurgence of as trendy cameras that are actually becoming more expensive because they're desirable despite the fact that they're quite average cameras. And I think that side of it was there was getting at him pretty hard more. So you know what I actually thought after we had that, that podcast, I thought if, if Greg had have say been able to pick up just a random DSLR for 60 bucks, you know. [01:09:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:18] Speaker A: Matt might have had a different opinion on the whole project despite the fact that it was more about hey just grab. You could just grab a camera and use it on auto or whatever and just, and have fun. Shooting was kind of the point of the exercise. Not, not that it needed to be a trendy 90s point and shoot that's getting popular on Tick Tock. [01:09:40] Speaker C: But I think, I think too like it's, it's not about yeah, everything doesn't have to be shot in yeah massive high resolution. Everything doesn't have to be pin sharp. Everything doesn't have to be digital. I mean I, I love, I'm a bit of an evangelist for the, for Instax particular because I love it. It's so old school. There's, it's living in the moment. You're handing out tangible prints, you know, to, to someone which I mean the new generation are going what is this new technology? I'm going well actually it's been around for a while but, but just, but watching them freak out when they go but I, but I haven't got a digital copy of it. But what, what if the eyes are closed in the photo and you go will you take another one? Like it's not, you know, it's very hard for them to compute. And I think the fact that as a photographer I don't need to have the highest resolution my most of my, those shots down at the beach in the old days, Greg was shot with my x70 16 megapixel fixed lens and I used to use the tilt screen on the back as the tripod, you know, to stabilize it to do long exposure shots. So you could. [01:10:48] Speaker B: I did that yesterday with a fountain outside the National Gallery. [01:10:51] Speaker C: So, so it's. And, and alluding back to the, the whole, you know, Glenn's lovely comment about, you know, it's the tool, not the Tool or it's the tool. It's like I always have a, A saying when I say to my friends, it's, it's not the wand, it's the wizard. So you know, or the wizard s or whatever the. Yeah, yeah. Appropriate comment is. But yeah, it's not, not the tech. You shouldn't be able. I can, I can teach someone the. How to use a camera but you know, if they don't have an eye for it. Yeah, yeah. Then, then it's different. Then they're going to be just generic. Yeah. Pretty much vanilla type shots. But if you have someone who has an artistic eye and they can take an artistic photo with anything, you know, so regardless of, you know, whether it be digital, whether it be, whether it be Instax, whether it be X series, whether it be gfx, you know, it doesn't really matter. And I think too also people now when they go, oh, but you've taken this picture, these beautiful pictures at the party and they're gone. Well, they're not gone, they're actually on a print and you've handed it to the person that you took the picture of and they have it as, as their memory. So you know, it's, it's just, it's a concept. They can't, you know. But how do I upload it? We don't, you know, so it's an. [01:12:08] Speaker B: Interesting concept though, isn't it? Because when we think about it in reality, given the speed at which we scroll through Instagram feeds, even if we had uploaded that image, let's say, for example, you know, a bunch of people uploaded that image, they would have looked at it for three and a half seconds and moved on. Whereas the physical print would live on their fridge or attached to their mirror in their bedroom. Or you know, I, I've shot weddings in the past, smaller events and parties where I've taken an. In either an Instax camera or I've shot with my Fuji because the Fuji as, you know, compared directly to an intersex camera. And so I've just shot and, and the digital photos have appeared and I, as part of the package that I offered, you know, the people employing me to do the shoot, which was mostly friends and family, but even still I would buy a black paged photo album, like just open pages, not the sort of slot in types, but just open pages and a white, you know, like gel ink pen. And I'd say, well, I've taken your photo, your group shot or you, you know, you muck around shot or whatever. It may be, it's over there on the table next to all the birthday presents. Why don't you go grab your print and you can stick it in. There's a glue stick, you can stick it into the book and write a message. [01:13:24] Speaker C: Perfect. [01:13:25] Speaker B: You know, for the birthday boy or the couple or. And it was such a different delivery of a service and it was such a different experience for them because then you know, the 21 year old kid or the couple or whoever it was got to walk away with this tangible book. [01:13:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:13:40] Speaker B: Of all the crazy little quirky moments that maybe do, you know, a traditional photographer might not have shot. But. Yeah, because it came out on a film and it was a fun thing that happened right there and there and, and the small little group of people would run off to the printer laughing and giggling and. Yeah. You know, because it was such a unique experience. It changes, it changes the way that you kind of absorb images and appreciate them. [01:14:03] Speaker C: Yeah. If I'm doing it, if I'm doing a portrait shoot or. Yeah, it's a fun shoot. This comes with, yeah, this is a, it's, it's the, completes the circle of life as they call it. Like this is a Instax printer. So I'll shoot with my X series or my gfx, send it from the camera to my phone via the X app and then open the app for this printer and print them out. You know, so people walk away at the end of the day with this bunch of photos or, or if we have a break in the shoot and we're having lunch or something like that, there's all these photos that they can take with them and often you see them next time and they've got the print in the back of their phone case. It's all about having that every time they turn their phone over they see that picture rather than have to open and scroll. So it's that physical, tangible link and I think for me the whole environment, the whole ecosystem, Fuji ecosystem, you've got, you know, you've got the X series, the gfx, you got Instax and a lot of professional photographers using that, the, the air quotes, you know, they, they tend to poo poo, you know, something with Instax, but, but I as a, as a, live in the moment, have a bit of fun. I think it's just, yeah, phenomenal. And they keep, keep doing things like, you know, I've, I've got, look, I've got access to this, I've got access to whatever camera I really want. But the One I've had over my shoulder the most in the last few months is that one. [01:15:39] Speaker B: It's your Lego toy. [01:15:41] Speaker C: Lego toy with double A batteries, you know, and then you've got other things like this. I know you were coveting this one, Greg. [01:15:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. My partner Sasha wants that one. [01:15:51] Speaker A: Is that the Evo? [01:15:52] Speaker C: That's the Mini. Mini. That's a wide Evo, which is, you know, the best of both worlds. So it's basically that printer but with a camera on it as well. So I can use it as both. [01:16:03] Speaker B: It's a hybrid. [01:16:04] Speaker C: It's a hybrid. So you basically take, take the picture, it records it on internal memory or a micro sd so you can, you don't have to. Whereas my Lego one, you push the button and it prints it. Obviously this one, you can choose what to print. And then when you want to print it, you crank the handle, which is so cool, and it prints out. So again, it's more, it's more about the theater of photography and having. And getting back to the reason why we are photographers. That bright spots following me, you know, you. Getting back to the core of photography, you know, it's fun. You have to. Are you enjoying it? Are you stressing about. Oh, well, how might, how. What resolution does that? How am I going to upload that? No, just have fun. Like get back to the real reason why we all do photography or I do photography. Have. Just have fun, don't stress about, you know, some of my favorite images are either taken, taken on my. My x70 or my x100 or an instax and they're not. Are they sharp? No. Does it matter? No. So, you know, I just think people tend to get upset. Obsessed with the modern era. Oh, I must, I must have it so I can upload it. I must do this. No, just stick it on your fridge. [01:17:27] Speaker B: You know, so I don't know anyone like that personally. [01:17:31] Speaker C: No. [01:17:34] Speaker B: Not at all. [01:17:38] Speaker A: Great comments coming in, Greg, if we can, if we can. [01:17:42] Speaker B: I just wanted to say let's jump to some comments, but just before we do, just to remind everyone listening along at home that this is the Camera Life podcast. It's the 3rd of April, for crying out loud. You know, lots going on. April Fool a few days ago, if we get some time, we'll jump to some April fool jokes. Other big news, Nintendo announced a new gaming console last night, which is pretty exciting for me, but other than that, make sure you like and subscribe. Subscribe and hit the bell notification because we're on the road. [01:18:12] Speaker A: We're on the road to a thousand subscribers. [01:18:15] Speaker B: We are on the road to a thousand. [01:18:17] Speaker A: We're at 983. [01:18:19] Speaker B: So yeah, come on, you can do it, team. You can do it, team. [01:18:25] Speaker A: Give us a, give us a little one. Come on. [01:18:27] Speaker B: Yeah, give us a little like and a little follow and a subscribe and all of that stuff. But yeah, don't forget this is a live show. We love nothing more than interacting with you guys live while we've got a guest or even on our Monday night show. So that's a good segue. We also have a Monday night, the random photography show, or as I somehow decided to start calling it open mic night because Matt Crumman seemed to have a few grievances to air. So what? [01:18:54] Speaker A: The show, it's perfect. [01:18:56] Speaker B: It is, yeah, it's, it's about dialogue and it's a safe space to do that. And we're all mature and we're all like minded and you know, we're all what? [01:19:04] Speaker C: Mature? [01:19:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I said that. But let's jump to some comments. You want me to. [01:19:12] Speaker A: Oh, no, I've got a, I've got a bit of a rough plan here. There's so many, I don't know what. [01:19:15] Speaker B: All right, you go, you go with your things. [01:19:17] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a couple that might take us into a longer discussion. But first of all. And it's basically a who's who of, of photography in here. Let's start with, let's start with Bruce Mole. He says people don't live in the moment anymore. They want the ability to replay and share the moment. Brands have pushed that for years. Digital life made that cheap and way less special. He also goes on to say, I used to shoot Polaroid until the film disappeared at shoots to give to the models as a keepsake. Maybe I should start that again with Instax. [01:19:51] Speaker B: Why not? [01:19:52] Speaker C: Definitely. [01:19:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And going on more Instax talk, Dennis Smith says, Andrew, is there an Instax in the larger format that can do a 10 second exposure? I'd cut a nut off for that. [01:20:11] Speaker C: No, no, no. And, and keep your nuts, that's fine. [01:20:15] Speaker A: And actually so hold on. Drunk wedding photographer, he says, way past my bedtime for off a Monday show. I thought you're going to bed now. I was like, well, okay, we'll get to you. We'll get to your question now. Because he had an interesting question. Before we jump back to some more Instax talk, he wanted to know any good news from Fujifilm opening the film manufacturing plant in China? Will we see Legacy stocks resurrected. [01:20:40] Speaker C: I, I haven't really been privy to those conversations. But the demand for film is increasing, increasing and increasing. So one would assume that there are, there are plans afoot to restock a lot. [01:20:54] Speaker B: I would hope so because the price is going up as a result. Of course, of course. I mean you know, post covert the price of film was astronomical. I remember how stock just disappeared off shelves. Fuji, particularly Fujifilm. But, but yeah, you know you see it more and more in different places. But I, I, I do hope that it, this current trend, you know we saw is it Rico brought out the, what was it? The i7 or 17. Yep. Half frame film camera. We've talked a couple of times about. We'd love to see Canon just bring out a you know, a remake of an old school film camera with some, with some current edge tech in it, you know. But it's still an analog film camera. I don't know whether we're going to see those products but, but regardless I do hope that the cost of film comes down and that more labs. You know we've had John Lumina on from Lumina Labs in Clinton, Victoria. He took over the lab that used to be in Bendigo not far from actually it was where Justin and I first met. The very first time we met face to face was where that lab was. [01:22:02] Speaker C: Okay. [01:22:03] Speaker B: And I still remember that day Justin because in the, in the background of the cafe where we were sit where we met there was what was it was something records or city records or. [01:22:15] Speaker A: Something that city music was next to it and there was ghosty Toasty diner. [01:22:21] Speaker B: Yes. And at the back was the lab and they took us out and showed us it which was really lovely. But I remember in the corner there was wooden cameras. I don't know where you got them but they were like wooden models of cameras. Oh were they? [01:22:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I've still got some of them. They, they went around to camera stores all over Australia to be the displays for the straps. We made these timber displays and then the straps would hang off the timber display with a, with a camera, like a wooden camera on them so you could see what it, how it attached and stuff like that. Yeah, unfortunately. Look, a lot of the camera stores were awesome and displayed them sort of as, as planned. But then a few times I walk into a camera store and there'd be like a peak design strap hanging on our wooden camera and stuff like that. I was like ah, come on guys, come on. We had these camera, these wooden cameras hand, hand chiseled. Anyway, anyway, more, more a few More comments that came through about Instax. Matt Palmer is in the chat which is very cool. Says, hey Matt, loved Instax at our wedding. Some of our favorite photos on it. Taking the printed version to. Is that Kirkistan? Yeah. I wanted to say taking the printer to Kyrgyzstan to with us to share photos with the locals. That's awesome. [01:23:46] Speaker C: That's brilliant, man. [01:23:48] Speaker A: What else is coming through? I don't know. We've missed the heat. The only other one I wanted to bring up was from the ever present JS Hanny, Jason. I took my OM1 to Phillip island last two years for the MotoGP and the autofocus abilities of the camera blew me away. It's ridiculous how far things have come. Agree. [01:24:08] Speaker C: Yeah, totally. [01:24:11] Speaker A: I wanted to ask on gear, just before we. I guess we should also probably have a look at some Andrew's photos at some stage. I wanted to ask, have you. Obviously you've got the ability. You mentioned gfx. It sounds like you've got some GFX gear or if not, you've got the ability to use it if you want to use it. Have you shot any motorsport with gfx? [01:24:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:24:34] Speaker C: That was bizarre. It was really weird. Like last year. No. 2023, what are we in now? 2025? 2023 again. Whenever I go to Japan in September for the sports car race at Mount Fuji Speedway, I usually pop into Fuji film to have a meeting or an Italian meal. As, as you do when you're in Japan, you go to an Italian restaurant. [01:25:02] Speaker B: I've done that out of curiosity the. [01:25:05] Speaker C: Last two times I've been. I've been to Japan to see, see my, my friends in the design team and development teams in Fuji Square in Roppongi in Tokyo. I've been to an Indian restaurant and an Italian restaurant. I'm going. I think that they're thinking we'll just. It's their excuse, they really want, they want to go to these restaurants. And I go, well yeah, take the guy from Australia, you know, that'll be fine. [01:25:28] Speaker B: Has a very multicultural. [01:25:30] Speaker C: Yeah, that was, it was, it was awesome. [01:25:32] Speaker B: A very multicultural. What do you call it, you know, like society in that. Yeah, lots of Indian, lots of Thai now. [01:25:41] Speaker C: So I went there and I, I was able to. Again, they gave me the GFX 100 mark 2. Yeah, not big one, the big one with the grip, with the grip on it and I bought my 250mil which I had with me. I don't think the 500 did come out that point and I took it to the racetrack and they said, just try it, you know. Yeah, GFX for motorsport, that was phenomenal because, I mean, basically it's got the same autofocus capabilities as maybe it's parallel to an XH2. You know, it's got all the, all the subject detection, the speed was there for what they've managed to cram into that camera. It's, it's phenomenal. So, yes, it was perfect and I shot a bunch of stuff and I was really, really happy with it. Would I use it for motorsport? No. [01:26:35] Speaker B: Why. [01:26:38] Speaker C: Do I need a hundred megapixel file? Even if I'm shooting jpeg, it's a massive file. Look, maybe, maybe I would use it for pit lane and stuff like that, but on the track, would I use it? Probably not because I've got the X, my X series, I've got all the kit that I need and, and I would probably feel like I, I would need to bring both kits and practically that's not, that's not the case. You know, so there's enough restrictions, I have enough issues with trying to get my gear, current gear on a plane. [01:27:11] Speaker B: But also the physicality of it. Andrew, you know, as we, you know, I found as a result of my physical limitations that I've downsized my kids so much. You know, like, I basically go on street walks now with just an X70 and, you know, like you said, a spare battery in my pocket because it's, it doesn't cause any physical impacts on me. But I would imagine shooting with the gfx, especially something like Le Mans where, you know, you're on track for two solid days at least before and after stuff. [01:27:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:27:45] Speaker B: You know, and you're carrying a camera that, I mean, granted some lenses. Is it the 500, the XF500 and the GFX500 are pretty much the same camera in terms of size and weight. [01:27:57] Speaker C: Same lens. Yeah, pretty much. [01:27:58] Speaker B: Pretty much. Like even the optical structures, you know, fairly close from what I understand. But, you know, the bodies are twice as heavy at least as an X series. [01:28:08] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, the reason, yeah, with obviously my, with my physical limitations, you know, the reason. One of the main reasons to go mirrorless and go with the, the Fuji was obviously I, I love the result, but it was also size and weight. So I sort of counteracted that by, by carrying a 50 mil F1. Like, seriously. Yeah, I, I do question my sanity at some point, but my gear is definitely, you know, with my Canon kit it was weighing so much, whereas now it's you know, it's far less, Far less weight and, and physical size. So look, I mean, would I, if I could shoot a full GFX kit on track, maybe. But yeah, I think it, its limitations would be the weight and the size of me to carry it around all day. But as, as a, as, as far as its capabilities concerned, not a problem. It was, it was more than capable. Oh, look. Yeah, that's my, that's my pictures. I love, look, I love my portraits. I'm not gonna lie. I shoot that 90 mil F2. And I think the only aperture it's ever been on was, was F2. So, you know, I don't think the other ones have actually ever been used. So that was, That's Barry, Barry the Bat. He was, he was in my wetlands around behind me, my house. And that's with the, that's with the 500, the. The XF 500 mil. So really cool shooting a 750 mil equivalent handheld. You know that, that was at, yeah, 250th of a second. That's the Aston Martin Valkyrie, which is the most amazing car you'll ever hear and see. So that was in Qatar. So V12, 6.5 liter, normally aspirated engine. And you can hear it from. Actually, I could have heard it from Australia, I think, if I was here, if I was in Qatar. Yeah, it's just a sweet sound. And that's, that's a racetrack where most of the races at night. The illumination on the track, as you can see, is quite phenomenal. So plenty of time to experiment with. Yeah, slow shutter speeds and panning. That, that was like a 40/40 of a second, I think. So, you know, 40th or 30th or. [01:30:24] Speaker B: Yeah, 1/40. Yep. [01:30:25] Speaker C: Yeah. So. So see, on my Instagram, I always put what. I shot it, you know, what camera, what lens, ISO, shutter speed and aperture. Because. And people go, oh, but don't. Why are you telling everybody that? It's like, well, why wouldn't I? But they'll go and they'll go and copy it. I said, oh, good luck. Off you go. Like, go and copy it. I, I don't care. I think it's. I did the same for all my, all my camera club presentations. I put a lot of stuff on there so that they can see what I used, what in the Fuji Range I used, and what lens and all the rest of it. And it just helps with their learning. I'm not going to be, you know, but see the. If you can Click on the. Here's me pointing at the screen. It's not going to help the camel, the flying, the camels with the flying pigeons. Yeah, that was, that was with the X100. And I had Nigel, my train, my train, stunt pigeon. He, he led his flock through the frame. [01:31:19] Speaker B: Good old Nigel. [01:31:20] Speaker C: He's good, he's Nigel. He travels with me everywhere. So. But again, I was walking around Qatar with just my, my X100. Yeah. So I'm still, Yeah, I don't feel like I miss out on any, any shots, but not taking all my kit, if you know what I mean. Like, I'm happy to walk around with, with my Instax, I'm happy to walk around with my X100, you know. So you're not missing out on anything. [01:31:46] Speaker B: Well, I think it's also just that whole thing that we come back to sometimes that it's, it's just another tool. It's a creative tool, but it's another tool for the job. You know, it's no different to someone who paints landscapes. Sometimes I'll go out with their oil kit, sometimes I'll go out with their acrylics, sometimes they'll go out with, with charcoals or pencils or, you know, it's just another tool that we use to create images. And I think at the end of the day, other than those that are producing obviously work for a client, but at the end of the day, if you're happy with your image making, then it doesn't matter necessarily what you're using to do that because it's about that process again. [01:32:24] Speaker C: Correct, correct. And you were talking briefly before about, you know, offline, we were saying, you know, this bit of imposter syndrome. You know, you worry about, you know, photographers. We are. Well, myself, I know you have this, always have this self doubt. You never, always think, oh, you know, I'm a really good photographer. I'm, you know, you get to a racetrack, some days in particular, you go to a racetrack, you go to a corner and you, you're doing a pan shot, slow pan, and you look at the frame and look at the back of the camera and every frame is in the middle of the frame, pin sharp, everything's great and you just turn to yourself and go, you know, I am, I am a God, no problem. And then the next day you go to exactly the same corner, exactly the same conditions, exactly the same time of day and you can't, you couldn't hit, you couldn't hit the side of a barn with, you know, you don't get anything sharp. You don't get anything in frame. So it's all. I find it's, it's very, It's a lot more mental, a mental game than people realize. And you always think to yourself, I'm, I'm, I'm rubbish at this. This is not great. If I, if I walk up to a corner and I'm, I'm panning really badly, I have a bad. I walk away, I just go and do something else. I'll have a, have a, have a chat to myself. But the funny thing was because you, but you think you're the only one that is having those sorts of feelings. As a good mate of mine, Jamie Price, he's a very, very good photographer based in the US I had a shocking day at this racetrack called Sebring, where it's so bumpy. It's an old air base, so the track is so bumpy. I was panning poorly. I was having a bad day. I didn't get any really nice shots. The end of the day I had a good sit down with myself and have had a chat. And the next day had a reset and went and had a much better day. Walked into the media center and saw Jamie and I said I was quite, feeling quite happy because I'd had a really good day. And I went up to him, I said, g'day, mate. How are you going? How was your day? And he said, I'm selling all my cameras and I'm working at McDonald's. And I just went, he said, I had an absolute shocker. And it was funny because I was not happy that he had a bad day, but happy in the knowledge that, oh, someone else has had a bad day. So, you know, you, you, you have to, it's very difficult to get that out of your head that you're not the only one that has a bad day, you know, and even if you've been doing. I've been shooting for 40 years, some days it goes really well. Other days, yeah, not so much. So, yeah, you know, and the, the people say to me, oh, I can, that, that's an Andrew hall shot. I know you. I can pick, pick the style. And I go, oh, is that a compl. I know it's a compliment, but am I going, oh, am I, am I becoming too, too predictable? And it's like, do I need to switch it up or, you know, and it's all these, all these things that go through your head. So I just think, you know, it all comes back to, am I having fun Am I enjoying my photography regardless of what. What tech I'm using? Yeah, it comes back. [01:35:30] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a good point. And I think Jason just sort of chimed in saying we'll get to his other comment in a minute because that will open a whole can of worms. But we were talking about, you know, if it doesn't matter what the camera is if it gets you out. Correct. And the cape. The capability of a camera to make you want to use it is as important as its technical output. That's very true. And we talked about that on Monday night when we. We were talking about the gfx. And we will get to that with Andrew in just a moment. But I wouldn't mind jumping to Jim's comments. [01:36:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And I have something as well that I want to ask before we get into the. The GFX talk. What did Jim say? Jim was asking about a sec. What's that? [01:36:14] Speaker B: I'll be back in. [01:36:15] Speaker A: Roger. [01:36:18] Speaker C: Oh, no, you're still there. We can see you. [01:36:20] Speaker A: Yeah, wrong button. There we go. Now we're talking. So it's just the two of us. [01:36:24] Speaker C: Excellent that Greg died. Jesus. He goes on. Damn. [01:36:28] Speaker A: Oh, he just talks and talks and talks. So Jim was asking about how the demand has changed over the years. You know, you mentioned he used to do you drop your film off and then have to try and get it as fast as possible to the magazines. And I guess nothing's changed in the sense that everyone always wants it as fast as possible, but now we've actually got the ability to deliver almost instantly. Does everyone want everything, like immediately? Now, is that a lot of pressure and how does the workflow work these days? [01:37:00] Speaker C: Very much. It is a lot of. It is a lot of pressure. I'm actually in a privileged position where I don't. The website, Daily Sports Car, who I do a lot of work for, for the Endurance series. They're not. They don't push me for deadlines too much. Like, I have certain responsibilities if I'm the only photographer there covering them for that event with them end of each practice session, the top, top three or four in each class, we need photos of those guys. So that's easy. I can usually do that in the media, in the media shuttle on the way back to the media center, sort them out and then. Then airdrop them, pick them and airdrop them to. To my editor who's sitting in two desks in front of me usually. So that side of it. And then from the rest of it, I do what's called. I do a race Gallery or practice and qualifying gallery, a race gallery, which can be anything, can be art, it can be portraits, it can be, you know, people, you know, mechanics working on cars and driver portraits. It can be anything. So they're happy with what they get from that side of it. And I can collate that through, through the weekend. So the pressure is not, not hugely. I have to give that to them. Maybe the practice and qualifying gallery just before, at the end of that practice day, give that to them. End of race day, after race is finished, I can give them that picture. But I also do like throughout the day I'm dragging stuff into a lightroom collection that they can use as generic stock. So maybe the first practice session I'll go out and I'll shoot, you know, a couple of different angles of the top cars and then give them those. So I, there's no pressure on me. They can use those at any point during the weekend. So I know that the, like the picture desk for Getty and I have a few friends that work for Getty, that that's a little bit more time critical. And they'll often send pictures live from their camera to an editor who's sitting, you know, especially at the tennis, they're actually sitting, you know, when they sit at either end of the court, they're sitting there connected by ethernet cable. So they're connected by ethernet cable to an editor who's sitting in a room, dark, a darkened room, a darkened basement behind them. So, you know, at the end of a rally, the pictures are being sent and they're already on the picture desk ready to be edited and posted. So you know, the immediacy that. And the problem is the more you have that immediacy, the more they go, oh, I need it, I need it now, I need it faster. And you go, well, do you really? But you know, the percept, the perception is, oh, I've got to have it now. And why can't we have it? You know, and I know. And the problem is people are getting ascending images from the racetrack, you know, from out on the track. When I shot for the grand prix Corporation for did Moto GP and F1, they send runners out to get your cards, which is fine. I didn't have to edit anything. But this whole immediacy thing now where people are sending images from a mid session from a racetrack, it's that whole comes back to that chimping thing. You're missing, you're missing, you're missing stuff because you're going, oh, I've got to Tag and send that one while the car that you're meant to be photographing just ran off into the dirt and beautiful shot with gravel and stuff going over and you're concentrating on the back of your frame of your camera to send a picture to the editor that wasn't as good as the one you just missed. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, you know, it's. So I. I'm. I'm fortunate that the, you know, the data sports car that they're not. There's not too much pressure and I also alleviate that. Alleviate that pressure by shooting a bunch of stock that they can use and provided the weather conditions don't change. You know, like in Qatar. It's like the middle of the desert or middle. And we shot a lot at night, so don't. It doesn't matter whether it was letting a bit of a. Bit of a secret. It doesn't matter if it's practice session or race. As long as it's sharp. It goes in the gallery. So, yeah, but yeah, so yeah, the immediacy is. Is. Is nuts now. But I'm. I'm thankfully not. Not too, not too stressed about that. [01:41:01] Speaker A: Yeah. One, one more quick question before we talk. GFX100RF actually, and one. One comment before that. David from San Francisco just said he just come. Come into the podcast at 81 minute mark. And he wants to know where the hell I'm broadcasting from. I'm. I'm from my sprinter van on top of a mountain. We're traveling around and we're testing out Starlink and it seems to be working pretty well today. I'm really happy with it, so thanks. [01:41:28] Speaker B: Can you turn your camera. Can you show us the view or is it. [01:41:32] Speaker A: I can. It's on manual, so it might blow out and I'll see. I'll see what I can do. Let's. [01:41:36] Speaker C: Let's do this. [01:41:37] Speaker B: Wow, these photography these days. [01:41:39] Speaker A: Hang on, I'm gonna have to. [01:41:40] Speaker B: Oh, that looks great. [01:41:41] Speaker C: That's great. It's really good. [01:41:43] Speaker A: That's about the best I can do. So we're in a car park. Actually, I can. There we go. We're in a car park, but it's actually quite nice. So we're on top of Mount Holm. You can't see much from here, but we got a nice sunset last night. We're near all the winter ski slopes. Hang on, let me fix this. Can I use the back of my camera? So it's very important to know your camera so you can adjust the settings without looking at them. It benefits you from not updating cameras every six months because you actually get a chance to know where all the buttons are, unless the camera manufacturers start moving them around on you. I got booted to the garage. No, no, I'm in the van. Yelena actually got booted. She's literally. I should have pointed the camera. She's. Okay, I'll do it. What is that? We'll take a quick pause. Pause. If you're on audio podcast, I'll just describe it to you. Elena is in a beanbag in the sun, working in a hoodie with a blanket on, because it's actually pretty cold up here, but the sun's beautiful. [01:42:46] Speaker B: So is that the Starlink? [01:42:47] Speaker A: That's the Starlink setup, yep. Yeah, we're doing it. [01:42:54] Speaker B: Wow. Real van life. You should start a podcast channel. [01:42:58] Speaker A: I mean, if I was a real influencer, I'd be making reels and stuff and. And YouTube videos about a day in the life of, you know, my morning routine in the van and stuff like that. Okay, so last. Last question that I had, just about the motorsport. And I don't know if this is something you'll be able to answer or not because you've had such an extensive career. [01:43:21] Speaker C: If you. [01:43:22] Speaker A: If someone was starting again now, is it possible to. To make it a career in motorsport photography? And if so, how would someone even get started these days with so much, I assume, so much competition, it would be such a desirable thing to be able to make a living doing. Where would it even begin? [01:43:44] Speaker C: The thing is, now, nowadays, people go, oh, I want to shoot F1. And they sort of come in and think, oh, I want to shoot F1, like straight away. And you go, dude, no, like, start it. Start at club level. I mean, I started at a motorcycle club doing the motocross stuff. Work your way up. Back in my day, I mean, there was enough. There was quite a few publishers around, obviously a couple of. Quite a few magazines. So that was a cool gig for 20 years, you know, being a freelancer for them and you pick up other. Other. Other shots here and there, other jobs. But now, because it's so immediate and that whole, you know, you're talking about reels and social media and things like that and videography. It's more. Now you see the. The. And I hate to use that word, influencer, you know, turn up and it's just. It is very, very difficult. But there's no substitute for doing. Starting at grassroots, building a portfolio, building some relationships with. With teams, with organizers. Yeah, that's the only. That's that's, it's still. That would still hold true, but whether it be producing just still content or whether it would be starting to do things like with video and you know, on the social media side of it, that's more. I mean, we've got very few magazines, physical magazines left in Australia and even fewer websites. So, you know, the, the issue is our location, our isolation. You know, a lot more work is available in the States and in Europe. So. Yeah, but it's, there's no substitute for, for the starting off at. Yeah, the ground grassroots stuff. [01:45:26] Speaker B: Having said that though, is it. You know, we talk about the influences and even Fujifilm, you know, they recently had. We had Charlie on to talk about the creator summit in Sydney at Luna Park a couple, only a couple of weeks ago, really. Fujifilm have got a pushing very heavy into the influencer market, especially in Asia, especially in China, because that is booming now. And is it, is it a case, do you think that photography is becoming more about social media management than actual photography? I mean, photography is obviously an element, but you need to almost be a bit of a jack of all trades. [01:46:06] Speaker C: I think so too. I mean, people, I get often asked, oh, do you do video as well? Do you do reels? Like. Another great friend of mine, Drew Gibson, I did some work with him in, in Sebring as well and he said, oh, we need to do some vertical pans for the reels. Yeah, we never did. I'm going, I'm sorry, what? You know. And have you ever tried to pan the camera vertically? I have issues with my arms anyway. I can't. I have to shoot. You'll notice most of my, most of my portraits are also actually shot landscape format. I have an issue with. I can't lift my arm up to use a camera without a vertical grip. So a lot of the time I just, I just shoot horizontal. So when they said, oh, we need, we need to shoot some reels, and it was, it was like some, you know, social media manager talking to the two old guys from the Muppets again. And we're going, what do you mean? What do you mean you're going to turn it that way? What are you talking about? Why? It's not, it just doesn't. I tried to pan vertically and it was so hard. And so what I ended up doing was, was just shooting it normally and just cropping the middle out of it, so framing it so I could actually crop it vertical when I. Yeah, but it was. [01:47:19] Speaker B: Although I noticed now a lot more cameras are introducing the hold it. Horror. Hold it. [01:47:24] Speaker A: Landscape. [01:47:24] Speaker B: Shoot it. Vertical lines. [01:47:27] Speaker C: Yeah, that's the XM5 with the vlogging. [01:47:29] Speaker B: Mode and the new GFX had that too. [01:47:31] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So, but it's just weird. It's just like, oh, dude. And we're not that. I, I keep saying, yeah, I'm a dinosaur. We keep getting, we're getting dragged into that, that new era. So what content. The content we need to provide. Provide. We're still, yeah, we're still the same photographers but the content we need to provide has changed quite a bit. So. [01:47:51] Speaker B: Yeah, because Justin, you shoot hybrid content for your clients. [01:47:56] Speaker A: I do, I do. Oh, hang on, let me just plug my Mac in. We're about to go to sleep. So I shoot hybrid content. Luckily I'm not, I'm not responsible for turning that content into. I've done some edits, but the edits I've done a longer form like 20 minute videos and stuff like that, which is I, I get that and it works well with the way that I think for YouTube. But when it comes to reels and things like that, I don't have to make them. Hold on Truck. [01:48:30] Speaker B: It's a peaceful holiday. [01:48:31] Speaker C: You're in the hands of, hands of trained professionals. [01:48:34] Speaker A: I don't understand what's happening anyway, so. Because the real like producing reels is, is a whole sort of skill set in itself and I shooting for them, it does take quite a lot of skill because these screens for content suck. Like it's an amazing device. But if you watch the, the easiest way to see how terrible shooting for this format is despite we need to do it because that's where everyone's attention is right now. Put, put reels or shorts or whatever, go to YouTube Shorts, but on your TV. If you've got YouTube on your TV through Apple TV or Smart TV or something, do that. But then watch some people's shorts and just watch how much information is missing from the frame or how they've had to fit it into that frame because of the constraint and how terrible it looks and how much better it would look if you had the real estate of a TV or simply turn on the side and it's, you know, it's, it's obviously something we need to do because that's how the feeds are currently optimized for, for vertical content. But I, I see it being something that changes very soon and I. By very soon, I mean five to 10 years with the advent of like virtual reality or AR kind of screen oyster phones. When that shift happens, us as Image makers or, or media creators or whatever we are, will probably get a lot more freedom with how we frame up our images, in my opinion. But it is certainly, it's something that everyone wants. And when you said everyone wants hybrid, they want every, you know, possible style of media created so that they can put it out into any channel or any advertising that they want. When you mentioned earlier about how to get into this, into motorsport these days, when you were talking about club things, the thing that went straight into my head was, yeah, if I was trying to do this, to make a career in it, I'd probably. Obviously club is a great way to just shoot and shoot and shoot. But then I would be going, trying to find, like you said, a team, a team that can't afford somebody yet and just making everything they need reels YouTube. I'll be shooting behind the scenes of people working on the car, make a quick YouTube video. I'd be taking images, everything that they could possibly want because that's how you'll end up. Yeah, being valuable to maybe a team that can afford you. If you can say, hey, I can just. If you can pay for me to come along, I can do anything you want. But it's a tough skill set to, to build. [01:51:19] Speaker C: Totally. See this, See this button on here? I think it says, I don't even know where to turn it on. You say movie or still and it's like, yeah, they go, does this video? I go, apparently I've never. Only time I've ever turned it on is by mistake with my stupid fingers on the top of the button and I've gone, what's it doing? I have no idea, you know, so for someone to say, oh, can you shoot video? It's like, yeah, it's not, not my, it's not in my wheelhouse. And I, I don't, I'm. I'm too old to, to learn that whole new skill. And obviously someone who's been bought up in that, as I said, my, my social media manager, my daughter has been helping me a great deal and doesn't roll her eyes as much as she used to when I ask questions or things like that. So, yeah, I'm, I'm getting, I'm getting better. But yeah, it is true. You would not just be able to walk up and go, I want to, I want to be a motorsport photographer. Because, you know, there's those, those opportunities are few and far between. But if you went, you know, I can be your social media creator, then that's, that's different. [01:52:21] Speaker B: So it's a different proposition, isn't it? But you're also making a promise to be, like I said earlier, a jack of all trades. [01:52:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:52:29] Speaker B: And it's. [01:52:30] Speaker C: And then do you miss out on. Yeah, yeah, you miss out. [01:52:33] Speaker B: Maybe you miss out on quality of the photography or quality of the videography or maybe they're great with, you know, understanding hashtags and, and where to put the best content and the type of content for each platform. But you know, where, where this, where are the sacrifices being made for those marginal gains? [01:52:50] Speaker C: I find that I use a term and it's probably an old fashioned term, we call it sausage factory. So you just put output, output, output, you know, and photographers that are, that I know are far better can produce far better images or far more dynamic and emotive images. Can't do that because they don't have the time. Because the time pressure. Oh, get that out, got to get that out. And I've got to do a video and they've got to do this. Whereas if all they were shooting was yeah, beautiful background behind, behind the scenes stuff or beautiful portraits or beautiful. That they could concentrate and show their real skill. But obviously again it's that time pressure. Got to get it out. Got it. [01:53:31] Speaker B: And, and maybe brands don't care because they know that they, they look at the analytics, they know that everyone's going to look at that image for two and a half seconds. [01:53:38] Speaker C: It's, it's, it's. Yeah, exactly. It's us as old photographers looking at, going well that's rubbish. But everyone else is looking at it and seeing their favorite movie star or favorite whatever and they're going oh that's really funny, that's really cool. And we're looking at the background going oh, that's rubbish. Look at how exposures ridiculous, you know, so, yeah, horses for courses. So we, we. Yeah. And I'm, I'm quite happy that I'm, I'm learning new skills. I don't post as much as I, I should do probably on Instagram when I, when I have time off Instagram and I come back on, you know, the, whatever the algorithm is. Yeah. I drop in, in, in likes and views and things like that and it takes a while to build that back up again. But I don't, hey, I don't understand how that works. B. Do I care? Not really. You know, I post stuff on Instagram because I like it not, you know, and it's the same mentality I used to use in the old days when I was in camera club. You Know people would go, oh, competition this weekend. This is so and so he likes, you know, he likes cats, the judge. So everyone would drag out a picture of a cat. Yeah. Would never point the camera at a cat again for the next 10 years. I would just put in stuff that I know he hates or. Yeah, we had one particular judge who used to come around, a lovely man who's unfortunately passed away, Phil Ramsden. He used to come around and go, I hate motorsport, I hate motorsport. And he would tell me to my face and so I'd put in a bunch of motorsports stuff just to wind him up and because, because the whole idea was I'm doing this for my enjoyment, I'm doing this for the, for that rather than trying to, yeah, gain likes and views and all the rest of it. So I'm probably, you know, I'm lucky that it's not, I'm not trying to make a living out of it. But yeah, I don't think that I could even adapt to doing, you know, people say to me, oh, can you do some videos and short reels? I go, I don't know how. Yeah, I don't know. [01:55:36] Speaker B: Not your guy. [01:55:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm still stills only, so yeah. [01:55:41] Speaker B: Let'S jump to a couple of comments because we. Yeah, comments on that topic. Do you want to take care of it, Justin, or you want me to do it? [01:55:49] Speaker A: You go for it. There's also a couple about which I thought it'd be fun. [01:55:53] Speaker B: I missed that bit you cut out your starlink isn't that good? Andrew, this is from Jason. Is there a consistently best or favorite track in the world for motorsport photography? [01:56:05] Speaker C: The, the Le Mans 24 hour circuit. Yeah, 13, 13.29 kilometers around and I've been shooting there for 20, 20 something years and I'm still finding new angles. Well, I have to find new angles because they keep moving, you know, moving gravel traps and putting, knocking, not cutting down trees and things like that. So you know, as far as a circuit that provides, you know, opportunity, sunset, sunrise, pouring rain, you know, long shots, pan shots, you know, it's just an amazing. And just, just you can, some of the photos you take, you can feel there. You know, if they were a scratch and sniff type thing, it would be like just you feel the, the emotion of like a 24 hour race. It's. I love it and I've been back there so many times and I still get goosebumps when I walk into pit lane. So you know, the first, first day there, so it's very cool. It's Definitely, definitely. [01:57:06] Speaker B: Next question from David. Has Andrew ever shot at Laguna Seca in Monterrey, California? [01:57:14] Speaker C: The picture that was actually used on the thumbnail for this podcast was actually taken at Laguna Seca during the Rennsport Porsche Festival. That was really weird. That's straight. The cloud came over. It's some phenomena they get at Laguna Seca in the afternoon, the sea mist comes in and that car was. Because that is a famous corner. The gentleman who posted that, that, that question would know that's the corkscrew where they go over the rise and down through this massive, you know, famous, famous corkscrew turn. So that was just before it went downshifted as he went over the top. And that's an old, old fashioned Porsche that, that is, yeah, spitting flame all the time on the downshift. So yeah, that's Laguna Seca. I love Laguna Seca. And because I shoot, I've only shot historic Porsches there. I mean it in September in this, in the sunshine. It's one of my favorite tracks as well. [01:58:10] Speaker B: Very cool. [01:58:11] Speaker A: One, one more quick question about have you ever shot the Isle of Man? Jason wants to know, have you ever shot the Isle of Man tt? [01:58:18] Speaker C: That's on my list. Like as I, as I'm stepping back from doing a lot of races, there's a few, still a few races on my, on my bucket list. So I want to do Isle of Man TT and I want to do the Indianapolis 500. So there's, there's two races, you know, considering this is my 38th year or something in motorsport, you know, it's, I've missed those two. [01:58:38] Speaker B: But no, but it's still wonderful that you've got a bucket list. I think that's pretty, I think that's pretty cool and inspirational that even after all that experience and even after all that, you know, exposure to the industry, to your particular, your preferred genre, that you still have things that you wish to achieve, I think is lovely. And there's that romantic element to it. Again, that actually I've still got some photography goals that I wish to fulfill while I still can. [01:59:04] Speaker C: Well, there's Le Mans, the Le Mans 24 hour, which will be said my last one this year, two weeks, three weeks after Le Mans, there's the Le Mans Classic, which is only on every two years. So that has all the historic Porsches and things like that. So what I'm actually doing this year, I'm extending my trip and I'm actually staying over there for another three weeks. My darling wife will be joining me after Le Mans and then we'll do classic Le Mans together and then come home. So, yeah, that's another. [01:59:29] Speaker B: Another. [01:59:30] Speaker C: Another one that's on my list. But I, I'm forever grateful. I never, never take it for granted that I'm able to chase these things around the world. And you do pinch yourself, especially when you're standing. Yeah. Trackside in the middle of the night at Le Thinking, how cool is this? And then it ra. And then it rains and it's less cool, but, you know, still there. Still there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:59:53] Speaker B: No, it's very cool. Just in the interest of time, we've just hit the 11:00am here in sunny Victoria, Australia. For those of you watching along or listening along, this is the Camera Life podcast brought to you by Lucky Lucky Straps, maker of fine premium leather camera straps from Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. Obviously, Justin is the founder of Lucky Straps and, And Small Team. Great things. [02:00:26] Speaker A: We're doing stuff and we have a laugh, we have fun. We put all of the money from the camera straps is currently getting funneled into this podcast and I love it. [02:00:36] Speaker B: Yeah. But look, on that note, I think we might start to wind up a little bit. I. I just wanted to cover off a couple of quick, quirky news items. It was obviously April fool on. What day was. What day was the first. What day is it now? The third. So on Tuesday. [02:00:55] Speaker C: Tuesday, yeah. [02:00:57] Speaker B: And I often like to look at, you know, what are the quirky things going on in the world that are April Fool's jokes. And I did come across some photography ones and the good people at. What is it? Photo Rumors, they've compiled them into a list. Can I share those with you now, Justin, or do you have any other questions about. [02:01:14] Speaker A: Well, the only thing I wanted. [02:01:15] Speaker B: Oh, we have it. Yeah. [02:01:16] Speaker A: We teased. We've teased the fact that you want to talk a little bit about the GFX100RF. So whether you want to. Do you want to do that and we can save the April fool stuff for Monday or. [02:01:27] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll leave that for Monday. It'll be fine. It's not. There was. It was just a little bit of fun to wrap up on, but I think it's a good question. Andrew, what do you think about the GFX100RF? [02:01:44] Speaker C: I. I love. I love him. [02:01:47] Speaker A: Do you have one of them there? Do you have one with you right now? [02:01:50] Speaker C: No, I don't. I. I attempted to get one, but Charlie's got them all, so. [02:01:54] Speaker B: Yeah, they're doing road shows at the moment. Charlie's in Melbourne he's just arrived I think yesterday or the night before. [02:02:01] Speaker C: I have, yeah, I have, I have held them. I was privy to. I saw a couple of the development and prototype versions in Japan last year. But when they, when they announced it I thought who's this for? And like, I think it's for someone who uses one of these obviously like, you know, it's a. Being a fixed lens, having the 100 megapixel the key to it. When I saw the aspect ratio dial I thought is that a bit of a gimmick? I don't know. And then I used it and I went that's probably the single best feature. And again shooting jpeg like it's funny when you shoot, you can shoot JPEG and raw. People shoot JPEG and raw. I know because if they shoot something in black and white, I may want to have it in color later. But I, I commit. Yeah, method go. Full method and go. No, I'm shooting JPEG and I'm shooting it black and white. And that's the way it's going to stay. Because if I shot film back in the day, of course black and white, it stayed black and white. So yeah. And what I love about the RF is the fact that you've got this aspect ratio dial. So for the, for an old photographer like me, it's very nostalgic. You know, I shot the 617 film camera from Fujifilm and now there's actually a 617 ratio on 17 by 6 as they, they denote it which wasn't present in any other camera that we had. So you know, for a high resolution all in one travel camera I think that's, that's going to be its niche because you can shoot in all these different formats. You can, you've got 100 megapixel to play with. You've got digital converters which, which give you an increased range in that one camera. So you know, I think for that will be its true superpower and it's something that I would use it for even an every, an everyday. I know it's a, it's a rather high end everyday camera but if I was going out to a function or if I was going out just for a walk or I was going for, you know, anything, I grab this. So I would be probably inclined to grab the RF.35 mil F2. It's a 28 mil equivalent. That's perfect as far as I'm concerned as far as to give you a nice field of view. The build, build quality is phenomenal. It is just out of this world. It should actually just be put under glass. You know the, the build quality is, is next level. [02:04:48] Speaker B: Whenever I, whenever I review a Fuji camera, I think people that read my reviews are getting sick of this. But I often say you could hammer nails in with this camera because the build quality is, is just phenomenal. Like they are incredibly solid machines. [02:05:02] Speaker C: This thing. My poor long suffering XH2s, I just took it to the camera, camera camera repair to get the sense all I get is sensor cleanse. That's it. Because I've got half a desert or I've usually over my sensor not. I have been around the world and I can say hand on heart. I have never had anything go wrong with this or break off it or fought. Yeah and when I see some of the forums and go, oh my hot shoe fell off or the shutter button's falling off, I'm going dude, what are you doing? You know these things are hanging off, off you know, a camera over my shoulder and banging and clattering into concrete walls and you know, being you know, exposed to dirt and dust and all the rest of it and nothing's come off them. So I don't know what you guys, I don't know what they were doing with them but yeah, but the, the RF is next level really is just, just the machining the, the dials. Everything's very tactile and it's, and the size of it is, is something that is, you know, I thought was surprising and they kept it small and that's where it comes to that. You know, the elephant in the room that the no ibis and the 35 mil f4 lens. I don't have a problem with the f4 lens. I think that's fast enough. You've got ISO, you know to burn on these things. Ibis. I shot the full range of cameras before IBIS was ever around. Given the current state of my legs and my leg braces, I need Ibis on me more so on, on a camera. [02:06:28] Speaker B: Well you're in the right, you work for the right company to actually make that a thing. [02:06:32] Speaker C: I'll just say yeah, just inbuilt. Inbuilt, you know Andrew Stabilizer. [02:06:35] Speaker B: Because Fuji do have a medical, you know. [02:06:38] Speaker C: Oh don't worry. [02:06:39] Speaker B: Medical side to their business. [02:06:40] Speaker C: I've already, I've already hit them up. Don't worry. So I think it's, I think it will become another. And this is an icon. This range is very, very iconic and I think the RF will in that be in that same vein, yeah, I think it's genius and it's brave too of Fuji to do that to commit to a fixed lens. You know how it's not mainstream, it's quite niche, but I think it's, it'll, it'll, it's. Well, judging by the reaction to it so far it's been quite, quite good. And there's a gentleman, Brian Mina, who is a US based ex series photographer and he's been using it, he used it a lot in Prague for the launch and he actually deliberately shot some stuff at like 1 20th handheld to show that you don't, don't need the IBIs. So I think again we went back to that when we were saying people relying on technology too much and forgetting how we used to do it in the old days. So yeah, I think it's a great success. I mean to have 100 megapixel on board like that in such a small, a small footprint is, is quite amazing. So it definitely the trouble is though, the biggest decision you have to make. I've got silver ones. All these have been silver, all my whole range from the original X100. And I saw the silver one and the RF and I went well that looks great. And then I saw the black one and I went oh yeah, black one, black one looks really good now. I mean that's if, if the biggest decision in, in you know, getting the camera is what color does it, should it be? You can see where that I have no issue with any of the, any of the other specs. [02:08:25] Speaker B: So yeah, it is an interesting thing now that you mentioned it Andrew, that Fujifilm have always done. Not always, but you know the, the X Pro 3 they brought out in three colors with two different finishes because you could get that, what was it? [02:08:38] Speaker C: The duratech Duotech. Yeah. [02:08:40] Speaker B: On top of the titanium, three colors. Some of their cheaper entry level cameras they did in a champagne, a silver and a black. The XT systems have always been silver or black, like silver and black or black. But I must admit when I picked up the GFX100RF in black and at the, at the time when they'd sent it to me, because obviously I was under media lockdown, I was under embargo, I couldn't talk about it. There was very limited specifications that I got when I first started writing the review, which was great because I wasn't clouded by knowing what this camera technically could do. I just went out and enjoyed shooting with it. And it wasn't until after that I'd Actually taken most of my shots. I'd worked a lot of it out because you do, when you do this all the time, you know, it wasn't until after that I found out that actually, oh, there's also a silver version and here's all the specifications and I think it's interesting that Fuji still pursue that. I know that other brands like OM sometimes do it and you know, sometimes Canon will do it with their point and shoots. But I do like the fact that Fuji gives you that little bit of choice about how you want your camera to look. Do you want it to look more retro or do you want it to kind of look more modern and, and sleek and black? [02:09:59] Speaker C: It comes, it comes, it comes back to the fact that they ask for input. You know, like when, when, when, when I go to Tokyo, usually they sit around with a bunch of us and they go right, what, what do you like? What do you like? What don't you like? What and what do you want? You know, things, even down to simple things. I had a, had already had the, almost the XT3 3 in production, I think it was, and the, the actual dial for the ISO and, and the, and the drive, it was, it was even. So when you grabbed the ISO dial, you turned it and it turned often turned the drive button as well. Yeah, yeah, we just, we just said we had a prototype in our, in our hands. It's signed all the NDAs and had a prototype in our hand and I said we just need the top dial to be bigger. [02:10:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:10:46] Speaker C: So you don't, don't grab both. And they all. There was lots of, lots of nodding and okay, cool. And I thought never, not a chance. You know, and obviously it wasn't just me who was giving this, this feedback. The production model came out and the button was, the dial was different. [02:10:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:10:58] Speaker C: They'd actually gone back and changed the tooling. [02:11:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:11:02] Speaker C: To change that and just simple things like that. So when, when we, and we're, we, we're encouraged to be honest, you know, and people say, oh, you know, AF is. How good is the AF compared to the Canon and the Sony? And I said, well, I don't know because I don't use those cameras, but I'm sure the top end one is going to have better autofocus than, than my XH2s, but yeah, does it matter? No, because my XH2s is more than capable and I'm more than, I'm more than capable of using it to its best with the autofocus. So. [02:11:35] Speaker B: And you know what Andrew, that's okay. If, if, if, if you want R1 speed and Fuji don't deliver it, you don't have to buy a Fuji. [02:11:43] Speaker C: Correct. [02:11:43] Speaker B: Maybe that camera is not for you. And I keep coming back to this point. I've seen a lot of people getting carried away and you know, this is the parent in me coming out carrying on about what the, what the new GFX doesn't have and it's like, well then go find the camera that does have that for you. [02:12:00] Speaker C: Correct. [02:12:01] Speaker B: This obviously isn't it and that's quite cool. It's fine. [02:12:03] Speaker C: They don't let me on forums, they don't let me answer things. [02:12:06] Speaker B: It doesn't make Fuji a bad company. It doesn't make them dumb or, or, or misguided or near sighted. It's, it's, it's, they didn't make this for you, that's fine. [02:12:16] Speaker C: The one thing I say when they say, oh, you're an, you're a Fujifilm ambassador. You, you know, you get to use all the new cameras so you're obviously going to say good things about them. And I go, well I'm, I a passionate Fujifilm user. Yes. But if the Fujifilm camera could not produce the work that my clients demand in a professional environment, would I use them? No, because you know, that's my livelihood. [02:12:41] Speaker B: So I on the table, I can't. [02:12:44] Speaker C: Turn around and go, you know, oh well yeah, I love Fuji, it's brilliant. It does all this and then it doesn't because yeah, so I'm proud of the fact that I've watched the evolution of the X series. I'm proud to be involved in a lot of the development of the cameras. So you know, I can't say, you know, oh yes, I'm fully responsible for the new af. You know, there's been a collaboration with a whole bunch of people around the world but there is that collaboration and there is that desire to improve and my autofocus is more than capable of producing the images that my clients need. And yeah, I have that confidence in the system. So I'm not always, you know, I am a, I am a professional photographer using Fuji's Fujifilm system and a fanboy. So it's sort of a. Yeah, but you can't have one without the other. I mean if the camera wasn't producing the results then, then it wouldn't be good. [02:13:37] Speaker B: Yeah. A great comment here from Jason, I think to just to cap that one off is that, you know, spot on and this is driving me nuts. I about the new OM3 controversies. No one is forcing anyone to buy it. Use what works for you, whatever form that takes. And, and it's absolutely spot on and it's a, it's an ethos that I've tried to stick to as you know and I look, I don't work professionally anymore and I barely did even when I did. Especially compared to what yourself and especially Justin. You know Justin has shot a crazy amount of images for, for paying customers. Customers. But you know I think we, and we often lose sight of things and I see it more and more, you know and I, I love Apple products. Always have like from the early days when MacBooks were white, you know the clamshell white and blue one of the clamshell semi transparent blue one. Yeah that was like the first one that we used. I've always been. But you know that they have led the world in terms of telling you what you think you need. [02:14:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:14:42] Speaker B: And I find that that's created a mentality amongst consumers especially of high end product like MacBooks and cameras and, and things like that that everything that that brand talks about is for you and it's not. You know and it's like you said, the X100, the GFX100RF is a niche camera and it's for a select demographic and, and we'll wait and see what that turns out to be in more detail in you know as cameras get out there and after sale. But you know it doesn't necessarily mean that it's few and you know I remember when in the early days the X1 hundreds people thought they were a fad and a phase that would, you know, are they just like a toy camera? They're not real cameras because the original X100 was grainy as hell but it had gorgeous color profile and you know, and it was more about the, the joy of it, the experience, the fact that you could carry this all in one little thing with you like you could in the old days. [02:15:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:15:44] Speaker B: And I think that's what we'll find with this GF gfx. Obviously time will tell but. But yeah it is interesting watching the Internet lose its collective over something that 95% of them a can't afford to buy and really don't need it. [02:15:59] Speaker C: Yeah. When, when all they, all they, all they need is. [02:16:03] Speaker A: Yeah, that's gold. [02:16:06] Speaker C: That's all they need. [02:16:07] Speaker B: Y. Yeah. So you know, put your wings in. Get an Instax. [02:16:10] Speaker C: Get an Instax. Put you engine. Yeah, yeah it's go go go for analog. Embrace Embrace the analog. [02:16:15] Speaker B: So, yeah, yeah, listen to the old man shouting at the clouds. Look, I think on that note, I am conscious that you are actually at work today. [02:16:24] Speaker C: So, yeah, I've allocated enough time, so it's. [02:16:28] Speaker B: Oh, good. But Justin, do you think we might wrap it up there? [02:16:32] Speaker A: Yeah, let's wrap it up. [02:16:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure Yolanda is sick of being out in the cold, snuggling under a blanket. [02:16:39] Speaker A: Pretty cold too. [02:16:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:16:41] Speaker C: Oh, cool. [02:16:41] Speaker B: Cool. [02:16:42] Speaker C: All right. Peace, Dennis. [02:16:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Dennis says, Andrew, thank you for your time. Openness, inspiration. Peace, Dennis. And Jason says, great show, guys. Enjoy your week. Thanks, yeah, both of you, everyone for watching. [02:16:56] Speaker B: Thanks to everyone. [02:16:58] Speaker C: Thank you. [02:16:58] Speaker B: And yeah, everyone in the comments too. Like really great conversation. Keep the conversation going. I know we say we'll try to get to comments. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. But we'll probably have a look at this episode again on Monday night. Just remember that if you subscribe to our channel, you'll get the note and hit the bell. You'll get notifications for our Monday night show, which is 7:30pm Australian Eastern Time. Daylight savings is about to end here, so be aware of that. And obviously our Thursday morning episode where we talk to amazing, inspirational and clever people like our good friend Andrew Hall. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us. [02:17:35] Speaker C: It's my pleasure, My pleasure. [02:17:36] Speaker B: Like I said, talked about bucket lists earlier and this has been at the top of my bucket list for this podcast and I'm, and I feel amazing knowing that we've had you on the show and we've been able to have this conversation. [02:17:47] Speaker C: Thank you. I hope, I hope I didn't ramble on too long. [02:17:52] Speaker B: That's usually my job. So it's nice to, nice to have a rest. [02:17:56] Speaker A: It was, it was perfect. And we've had tons of people viewing the whole time. It's been, the viewers have been more and more and more. So everyone that's come on has been stuck around and listening. So everything you've said has been super valuable. [02:18:08] Speaker C: Thank you. I appreciate it. Appreciate it. I'm not. If you, if you are foolish enough to want me on again, just let, just let me know and I'm happy to, happy to show up. [02:18:16] Speaker B: Oh yeah, we'd love that. Absolutely. But look on that note, folks, we are going to wrap it up. This has been the Camera Life podcast you've been listening to Justin Greg. And remember, you'll get the best discount by using the code Greg at the lucky website. My Christmas bonus and my trip to Japan is part of my Christmas Bonus is at stake. So use code. Isn't it, Justin? [02:18:41] Speaker A: It is, actually. [02:18:44] Speaker C: I look forward to my lucky straps merch arriving, you know. [02:18:47] Speaker B: Oh yeah, we'll talk about that off camera. Don't you worry about that. [02:18:49] Speaker A: I mean, we'll get you a nice warm hoodie. [02:18:51] Speaker B: Yeah. So don't forget folks at home and listening along, you know, Christmas is really only just around the corner. Corner. It's already April, so buy your loved ones some lucky strap merch. We sell T shirts. We sell hoodies. We also. Winter's approaching here in Australia. We sell gloves. Beanies. [02:19:09] Speaker A: Yeah, the Valorant. The Valorant gloves. They're not ours, but we do whether we're looking after them in Australia. So that's all, all coming up for winter and otherwise, if you don't have a wonderful camera strap, that's the main thing we make and the main thing we've made for the last 11 years. Make them in Bendigo, genuine leather, quick release cut resistant webbing, anti theft locking, all that stuff, all the good stuff. So check them out. Luckystraps.com. thanks, Bruce. Thanks for the show, guys. Bruce says, Matt says. Have a great week, fellas. [02:19:42] Speaker B: Thanks, Matt. [02:19:44] Speaker A: With that. [02:19:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Should we play out the music, boss? [02:19:48] Speaker A: I've got no music, so we'll just. [02:19:49] Speaker B: Where's your ukulele? [02:19:50] Speaker C: Where's the garbage truck? Where's the garbage truck when you need it? [02:19:53] Speaker B: Just. Yeah, reversing actually. [02:19:57] Speaker A: Anyway, we're just going to silently and awkwardly wait for the stream to end. [02:20:01] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks guys. But thanks everybody. Be safe. Get out and hunt the light and. And. And make the most of it. Look for the fun. All right, on that note, thank you. See you later, everyone. [02:20:13] Speaker C: Okay, see you. Bye.