EP32 Mark Condon Tells us What's in Every Great Photographer's Camera Bag!

[00:00:09] Speaker A: Good morning. Good morning. Good morning and welcome to the Camera Life podcast. It's not the camera. It's not the Fuji Camera Life podcast as I incorrectly called it last week. It's the camera Life podcast brought to you by lucky camera straps. We're coming to you live. It's Thursday the 3 October 2024. It's 09:00 a.m. here in Victoria, Australia. And this is episode 32. Can you believe we're already up to 32? We're traveling strong. I hope that everyone listening and following along is having a great start to the day or an end to the day if you're in the northern hemisphere. And please make sure to add any questions, comments. Oh, sorry, that was my speakers. Please make sure you add any comments or questions below and we'll try and get to them throughout the show. And this is coming to you live, but it will be available on our channel as well. And you can also, for audio podcast lovers, you can find us on all the usual podcast channels. So we've got it all covered pretty much. [00:01:13] Speaker B: We're everywhere. [00:01:14] Speaker A: Yeah, we're everywhere. Coming at your eyeballs and your ear balls. Justin, good morning. [00:01:19] Speaker B: Good morning. [00:01:20] Speaker A: How are things in Bendigo? [00:01:22] Speaker B: Nice. A beautiful day. Sun's out, lovely. Already been outside. It's wonderful. [00:01:28] Speaker A: Nice and special. Welcome to our guest Mark, Mark Connan, who is the founder of Shotkit and I've known Mark for many, many years. We've worked together quite some time. Well, I've worked for him, let's be honest. And Mark is joining us today. Welcome. Good morning. [00:01:46] Speaker C: Hey, guys. Great to be here. Thanks, guys. [00:01:49] Speaker A: How you're very welcome. We've been looking forward to having you on. And you're not in Victoria. You're coming to us live from what part of the world are you in? [00:01:58] Speaker C: So a place called Koala beach, which is a small town in northern New South Wales, right on the border Queensland of New South Wales. I always tell people it's 20 minutes from Byron. That kind of geographic beach, that's a. [00:02:15] Speaker A: Bit of a magical name. It kind of reminded me of Muriel's wedding. Where were they? Pauper spit. Koala beach. [00:02:21] Speaker C: Sorry. [00:02:21] Speaker A: No, you're right. Koala beach sounds much nicer. [00:02:24] Speaker C: It is the most Aussie sounding name. Yeah, my english mates love that. It's like some of the neighbors. [00:02:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:31] Speaker A: Very good. Very good. Now, for those of you following and listening along at home, as I said, mark is the founder of Shotkit, but he's also been a professional photographer and he has had a lot of experience in our field in our industry and worked with a great number of visual creatives. So we're going to get into Mark's story. But before we do, Mark, I want to just sort of dial back a little bit to your earlier days with the craft and can you share with us a little bit about your first kind of inspiration, motivation or experience with a camera or with photography? [00:03:12] Speaker C: Yeah, I remember growing up, this is in the UK, and I remember distinctly the release of the first digital camera. I can't remember the name of it, but I think it was a Fuji. Greg, you're going to love this. [00:03:24] Speaker A: I think it was a dp one. [00:03:27] Speaker C: It had like a one inch. It was rubbish. But for the time it was amazing. And I think my dad bought it for himself. Anyway, we had it in the house and I was playing with it and I loved it. Battery lasted for about 20 minutes, but it was the best thing ever. So that was like my introduction to kind of digital photography. And then after that, I went to Japan and I lived there for about seven years. That's another story completely. But the funny thing was, when I was there, the only interest that I had in photography was going out with my mates with a pocket camera, you know, at nighttime, taking some drunken photos here and there, that kind of thing. I never once took a photo of anything of any meaning the whole time I was in Japan, which now seems ridiculous. And I wasn't interested in cameras while I was in Japan either. And, you know, being a Japan file Greg book, there's every imaginable camera photography related thing in Japan. So you're just in the Mecca. But yeah, I had no interest until I left. And I had a lot of points up from one of the camera stores there, Yorubashi camera. Whenever you buy stuff, you get points. [00:04:42] Speaker A: It's like my. [00:04:44] Speaker C: Yeah, when I was leaving the country and I had a few thousand points and I'm like, oh, well, I might as well get one of these DSLR things. And, yeah, I got a little Nikon D 40 and that kind of just trying to work out how to use that. Then my next stop was Australia. And then I did some research about lenses and I bought myself a thing, 35 millimeter, 1.8 Nikon lens. And I was like, okay, well, what am I going to do with these things? And, yeah, I started a little project at that time, I called it project 35, just using the 35 millimeter lens to do 35 consecutive days. And I started taking these photos. And around that time, Facebook had not just started, but it wasn't a big thing. And I just thought, okay, I'll just throw these photos on Facebook. And, and just the response from my friends, I just realized, oh, people are actually interested in these kind of photos. And it just kind of spurred me on and kind of made me enthusiastic about the whole photography game. And, yeah, that's the long answer, really, how I got into it. [00:05:43] Speaker A: That's a good answer. Long answer is a good answer. It's interesting knowing your mark and knowing the sort of work that you have done with Shotkid and how you worked closely with you on a number of projects that even back in the early days, you're. Project 35 was an early indicator of how you could turn a visual medium or a visual craft into something greater than just taking photos. And I think that itself is inspiration. And I know Justin's recently been on a journey last month with his 30 day challenge of trying to get out and take JPEG images to try and explore what I can do with this medium. Now that, you know, now that he's not a professional wedding photographer anymore and he's looking, he's a little lost. Let's be fair. He's looking for a new project, a new direction for photography. And I think it's inspirational for people to hear these stories, because getting out with your camera, even if it's just something like, just shoot at f two, everything at f two, or, you know, work with the one lens for a month and, you know, and I've written an article for Shopkit about my single lens challenge. Just using a 27 millimeter pancake for anything I could possibly photograph and how much that teaches you and opens up opportunities for you to explore the medium further. So that was a long answer to your answer. So you're playing around with this Nikon camera. You've set yourself some projects, you're getting feedback on your images. What was the next step for you? Where did it lead from there? [00:07:20] Speaker C: So, yeah, just to follow on from your comment about trying to create a project for yourself to, I think it was twofold. It was kind of to motivate me to make myself accountable. So I put it online straight away. People were like, okay, what's tomorrow's photo going to be like, oh, I love this. So it made me complete that 35 days. And then also, there's a little bit, let's be honest, there's a lot of, when people like a photo or comment, it just makes you feel great, and it pushes you further to create more stuff. So after the 35 days, I was exhausted. Like, it's hard work, especially when you're. I was using lights. I was trying to do off camera flash. And it's funny because I made more of an effort then than most of the time in my career to create these images because I was like, wow, I've got an audience here. Even though it was like my mom and, you know, five schoolmates, it was like, yeah, I need, I need to make an effort here, otherwise I'm not going to get these comments and likes. So, yeah, shallow as it sounds, that kind of pushed me on. And then after 35 days, I was like, okay, what's next? So I did a project 50, I think another month or so later using a 50 millimeter lens and, yeah, similar thing. So, yeah, I think I did another project 35. So, yeah, two or three projects like that. That. And then after that it was a case of, all right, I seem to have this kind of talent now, probably because I did so much and so little time. It wasn't like, I don't think I had, you know, I picked up a camera and I could take a great photo. It was more like I was trying so hard for 35 days, 50 days, and then 35 days, like, I suddenly became pretty good at okay, photography. And then it's like, okay, well, how do I earn money from this thing? You know, it's. I love doing it. And you can earn money. Isn't that the perfect combination? So that's when I started to think about, like, professional photography. This is long before Shotkit, by the. [00:09:20] Speaker B: Way, what year was this, roughly, do you think? [00:09:24] Speaker C: So that would have been 2011. [00:09:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:30] Speaker A: And what was your day? What was your day job at the time? Were you still traveling? Or was it. You were planted? [00:09:36] Speaker C: Yeah. So I'd come to Australia and the first month I replied to a newspaper ad and it was for online marketing position in an online casino, of all things, based in Bondi Junction, which sounds. [00:09:50] Speaker A: That doesn't sound dodgy. [00:09:52] Speaker C: Yeah, I know. Sounds completely illegitimate. Surprisingly, the most legitimate place you'll ever go to is super regulated. But, yeah, there's a company in Bondi junction, 200 people, loads of people from around the world. Yeah, lots of young people. It was a great working atmosphere and a lot of fun. So, yeah, I was writing content there, so that's probably leading into the stuff that I do on Shopkit. So I had a bit of a writing background and it also gave me a lot of time to do other stuff as well. So, yeah, I'd be taking photos for fun and doing this online marketing job. [00:10:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And so you weren't Mac, you weren't trained or educated in photography. What did you study or what were your study interests? [00:10:37] Speaker C: Yes, I studied in England. I studied this course called university at the University of Bath. I studied international management and French, which is this big, waffly business title. I learned very little, but I did spend a year in France, which was great. Yes, to answer your question, nothing to do with photography. Yeah, not really creative at all, actually, come to think of it. Just a bit of language, bit of business. Nothing that's relevant now. [00:11:04] Speaker A: So you 100% self taught, and when did you make the transition to increase your photography and become more professional and make it work for you, work for. [00:11:17] Speaker C: You financially and, yeah, I think I came across. So there's a guy, Joan S. Peterson, who Justin will definitely have heard of, maybe you've heard of back then to some extent now, he was the world's most famous wedding photographer because he was doing something so different at the time, he was going against the grain. Nowadays it seems quite standard, but he was storytelling. He wasn't doing these stylized pictures. He was very candid, using very desaturated color palette and that kind of film look. And I don't think he pioneered it, but he was definitely in the limelight for using that kind of style, and that kind of resonated with me. And I've never thought about wedding photography in the past before, but I just looked at his images and thought, regardless of the bride and groom in the picture, this is actually a really cool image. I'd like to do something like that. So he kind of sort of turned me on to the idea of wedding photography. And then, even though I didn't, like, imitate his style or anything, my work was nothing like his. It just put me on the track of, okay, wedding photography is actually quite cool. There's things that you can do in wedding photography that you can't do in any other types of photography, and it allows you this creative freedom to some extent within the boundaries of the wedding day. And, yeah, that really kind of ignited my passion. And then I discovered other wedding photographers and realized there were lots of different styles. But, yeah, that was the catalyst of how I discovered wedding photography. And then a portion of it, if I'm completely honest, it was, how can I earn money via photography? And there's not a lot of ways that you can support yourself with photography income, but wedding photography is probably the top one at the point. So, yeah, that was a big influence. And then, yeah, I can tell you how I shot my first wedding, if you like. Yeah, yeah, please. Kind of. Justin must have gone through this as well. And every other wedding photography, actually, come to think of it, is how do you book weddings when you've never shot a wedding in the past? Like, the bride and groom aren't going to book someone just based on their project, 35. So, yeah, it's kind of like this catch 22. I want to shoot a wedding, but I haven't shot one before. So I thought, a lot of people ask other wedding photographers, can I second shoot for you? And that's always, like a bit of a, it's hard, because if I was a professional wedding photographer, after ten years, yeah, I'll say, yeah, come along. But after two years, I'd be like, I don't want anyone who's, you know, tripping over in the background. I understand why everyone said no to me when I reached out to them. So I thought, okay, well, how about I approach the bride and groom and ask them if I can come along as a free wedding photographer along with their photographer, and they can have all the images I won't get in their way. So I found someone who was getting married, a friend of a friend, and I just pitched them that, and I said, I'll give you every photo I take, and I'll give you a wedding album at the end of it, and you don't have to pay me anything. And they said, yeah, sure, come along. We've got a photographer, but that sounds great. And then my mistake was I didn't actually contact that wedding photographer, the one that they'd hired. So you can picture on the day groom walking down the, the aisle and the professional guys at one end, and I'm kind of suddenly, like, coming out the other with this big camera. And I remember meeting his eye, and there's just confusion on his face because I was dressed. I was like, yeah, yeah, I had a suit on, so it kind of looked like a guest, but I had this big camera, and he was like, you know, I didn't order. I didn't know that's another guy here. But, yeah, he was cool with it. And then, yeah, that started the career, really. So I gave him the photos. I asked him if I could use them on my blog, and then I got booking after that. Booking? [00:15:00] Speaker A: Booking. [00:15:02] Speaker B: Very cool. The, the parallels between our stories are uncanny. It's, it's, it's quite crazy, actually. Like I've said, I got a quickly recap because it's just, it's wild. So, like, I think I got my first kind of main dis, like Canon DSLR in 2011 or 2012, something like that. 2011, I think, and then fell in love with it, wanted to make it a job. How can I make money out of this? Started shooting everything, but realized that weddings exactly the same as you, but through other photographers as well. I'm trying to think of some of the names, but heaps of different styles, including Gerry Gionas, all those people that were quite famous at the time and putting content out about wedding photography, but obviously Jonas Peterson was one of them as well. And then the way that I managed to book my first wedding was first, my sister was getting married, and I asked her to ask her wedding photographer. It would be all right if I could come along and shoot during the photo session and throughout the day, but just stay out of her way. And she was cool with that. I did. So I contacted first. That's a little bit of a difference between our stories, but otherwise, basically the same thing, like, can I come along and shoot but just do my own thing? I wasn't second shooting. And then there was one other wedding photographer in Bendigo who was a friend of a friend. She was very, very good, one of the top wedding photographers in our town. And she allowed me to come along and second shoot with her for the day and taught me quite a lot on the day. And it is a lot of work. And that's the thing. It's like, it's not. People sort of ask and have asked me in the past and things like, oh, can I come along and second shoot? And it's not just a, like, she put a lot of work in to make sure that the day still went the way she wanted and that I wasn't in the way, but also, I got something out of it. You wouldn't want to be doing that every week with new photographers running around while you're trying to work. It's, yeah, it's not something I've ever been keen on, unfortunately. And then, yeah, after that. So I had two weddings of, like, bits and pieces that I could put on a website, plus some other random work, all the other random things you take photos of when you get your first camera. And then I booked my first paid wedding for $500, and it was my ex girlfriend. [00:17:37] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah, times were tough. [00:17:40] Speaker B: Times were tough. Times were tough. They were great because they had seen, like, you know, what I was trying to do and stuff like that. So they knew I was sort of putting a lot of work in, but had not much experience. So they, you know, offered to pay me to do it and stuff. And, yeah, and anyway, but other than that, very, very, very similar kind of way of getting into it and then it just snowballs from there. It's. Takes a long time, but yeah, it doesn't. Weddings are that one of those things that you like. You say you can actually make money because it's hard work and people value what you do, therefore they're willing to pay for it so you can make a business out of it. [00:18:20] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Very similar stories. [00:18:23] Speaker A: Mark, do you remember your first solo paid gig? A wedding? [00:18:28] Speaker C: Yeah, it was the one after that. So with those photos, I stuck them, I sent them to all the blogs, and one of the blogs featured me. And I think someone contacted me after that and I may have told a little white lie to her and said I'd shot a few weddings in the past just so I got booked. I told her afterwards, actually, I said, you know, yours was my first wedding, but yeah, up by that stage, she was cool with the pages. You already had the money. That was my first one. [00:18:55] Speaker B: Do you remember what you charged for that first one? [00:18:59] Speaker C: I think it was 1200, maybe, which. Yeah, I've done a bit of research and I. I think, yeah, yeah. That seemed to be like for someone with no experience but was confident, I guess, of delivering. [00:19:16] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it sounds like it's right in that zone where it's. Yeah. Because as soon as I did this one for $500, I think my package was somewhere around that 1215 hundred or something like that, which is basically saying, hey, it's more than half. Like, it's. Sorry, it's less than half of what a pro is charging and. Yep, that's why kind of thing, you know, like, you don't just charge. Exactly. [00:19:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:46] Speaker A: Mark, you mentioned that you put images onto your own blog. Is that kind of where you got started in writing about your photography? And did you run your own blog? Is that. Did I hear that correctly? [00:19:58] Speaker C: Yeah, that was just on gold hat photography.com, which is still online. But I. Yeah, it's not what it once was. I deleted a lot of the content by accident about a year ago when we switched servers. And, yeah, my head was in the clouds and I told the person that, no, there's no concept. Anyway, so gold hat photography was where I put that. And I wrote, I think back in the day, Justin will remember this. It was kind of traditional thing to write spiel. It was nothing to do with SEO back then, which is quite fun. So you just write this entertaining few paragraphs of the wedding day and, yeah, that kind of bored me after a while, because it was like, this has got to be. If it's boring me, it's boring people to read about this wedding day. So I kind of went off on tangents and said I turned up on a scooter and it was raining, and I got, you know, just, I made a story out of it. So I don't know if that helps, but I think that's kind of a key thing even now. Like, just to do something a little bit different or just try and show your personality when you put that content out there. [00:21:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I find that because. [00:21:10] Speaker B: Hey, sorry, go on, Greg. [00:21:12] Speaker A: I was just going to say I find that too. Like, I write professionally for you guys, both of you, and I write articles to meet a brief and to meet specific requirements, whether it is or is an SEO target. But I have my own blog, and on that, I far less, obviously, far less careful about what I write. It's more raw, it's more about me, it's more about my creative journey and my images. So I find that a really good balance to have that as a writer and as a photographer, because obviously a lot of the photos I take, especially for Shotkit, mark their product shots and actually getting out and testing new gear that's been sent to me by different brands and taking photos of the gear and with the gear, if it's a camera or a lens, but then being able to get out on the weekend or any other day and just, you know, being able to shoot whatever I want, it's a really nice balance to have that kind of, that alternative outlet. Yeah. So, Mark, talk to us about the inception of Shotkit. What spurred that idea? What was the little light bulb that caused that? [00:22:33] Speaker C: So that was when I just started wedding photography and I needed some gear and I desperately wanted to know what these other photographers that I admired were using. So now, for anyone who's, you know, experienced photographer or professional, it kind of seems odd to say, like, I like Jamie Oliver's food. What frying pan is he using? You know, that's the equivalent thing. I like this guy's photos, what cameras are using. But for a beginner, that seems absolutely normal. You know, I like Tiger woods. What wood is he using? It's just everyone wants to know the gear that someone uses and they think that that's going to help them, which to some extent, it definitely will. So, yeah, I reached out to these wedding photographers and I just said, you know, can you tell me what camera you're using? Most of them didn't reply. I went into forums and I started asking and I realized that other people were asking as well. So back then it wasn't so much about what presets is he using or how does he edit his photos. It's literally what lenses are using to get that kind of creamy bokeh. So yeah, I realized, well, there's nowhere that's actually explaining this and I really want to scratch my own itch here. I want to know what my favorite photographers are using. So yeah, I built this site, a very basic version of Shopkit. Ironically, it's pretty much how you see it today. It was just like blocks of, it was just like a grid format. [00:23:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I might bring it up while you chatting. [00:24:00] Speaker C: Yeah. And then. Sorry, I just lost you there. Are you still there? [00:24:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:11] Speaker C: I thought these, these famous photographers, they're never going to reply to me unless I show them something special. So just giving, just taking Jonas Peterson as an example, I mocked up a page for him with his name at the top and then I put some of his images on there and I wrote a little thing and I emailed Jonas and I emailed these other people and I said, here's a mock up of how your page could look. I'd really appreciate it if you could, you know, tell me what, what gear you use or write a little bit about your photography background. And I just went through Google, went through the first three, three or four pages of every type of photographer I could imagine and just sent out these emails. And yeah, I think the replies were great. After that you have to chase them up for the, you know, the content itself. But I got a handful and I got Sam heard, which I'm guessing a lot of the audience will know whether they're wedding photographer or not. But yeah, a great wedding photographer also does a lot of other stuff and at the time, even now he's really well known. So he agreed straight away. Kudos to him. He was like, I'll take a chance on this new project and, yeah, great, I'll be on there. I put Sam herd there. And then obviously the next emails that I sent out, I was like, sam's on the site. You want to be on the site marketing snowball after that. But yeah, that was it. So when I launched the site, I already had 15 to 20 photographers on there amongst them, Sam. And I can't remember the others, but there were some semi high profile people. And then I, I remember distinctly clicking the line, go live publish button. And then my mum was actually visiting me. This is in Sydney and we've gone out for a game of golf. And I was just about to tee off on like midway through the. My phone started buzzing and ringing and, yeah, one of the photography sites, f stoppers had put it on their site and then SLR lounge and journalists and. Yeah, so it was a really fortunate way to launch. I think we just suddenly got a lot of traction because we were doing something a little bit different at the time. [00:26:25] Speaker A: I just want to jump in here, mate, and just have a look. Show people the site. So this is shotkit.com and there's a shotkit covers, gear reviews, software, there's education sections, which I sometimes do some articles for. And then there's a photographer section, and when you look in the photographers, you can break it down. Bye. Different genres. And then it will actually bring up, literally, their shot kit, which is going back to what Mark's original concept was. And you can see here that these are different, obviously different photographers. Let's have a look at Alexander. This looks interesting, the human elephant. And you can see that the gear that this person, they're unfortunately using a cannon. It actually talks about, you know, every photographer that mark and the team approach about being on Shotkit. They'll provide a little blurb about their story, how they got into it, what their genre is at the moment, and also specifically what gear they're actually using and links to their socials. So, you know, it's. It's really fascinating to see. And some of the kits that you see are massive and others are quite minimal. Like, I probably consider this a fairly minimal kit, but some people's kits are huge. You know, you look at something like this, for example. Who's this? This is Bobby. Bobby's shooting with film cameras. Hmm. I know there's a Sony in there. Couple of Sony's. Well, there's a lot of cameras. Cameras than you, Justin. [00:27:59] Speaker B: Nah. What, what I find really interesting, first of all, I spent way too much time on this site when I was. Because this. Because this was like, there was a need for it when it come out. And that's why it did so well, because it's. I was trying to build my kit. And when you're new to photography and you're trying to build a business around it, and you're also growing your skills and learning, so you constantly feel like you don't have everything that you need. I need to get this lens. You know, if I get the 2.8 version instead of the f four version, I'm going to be a better photographer and stuff like that. But you have very limited budget so you're constantly trying to figure out, do I buy the 35 mil, 1.4 prime or do I get the 7202.8? What's more important for, like, the next step in my photography and being able to jump on here and just, like, trawl through, you know, high level, respected photographers kits and be like, oh, Samhood doesn't have a 70 to 200, okay? So it's not essential, you know, or whatever. And it started, it sort of could reinforce it. What I usually found is it just reinforced whatever decision I wanted to try and decide on. You know, I could just find a kit that justified buying whatever lens I was trying to buy, but it gave an insight that otherwise was just not available. And it was. Yeah, it was super value. I spent so much time on there. [00:29:32] Speaker C: Yeah, that's great to hear. Yeah. Glad it was useful, I think. [00:29:37] Speaker A: Also what I've always found, I mean, putting aside my affiliation with the site, what I've always found appealing about Shotkit is that it's kind of a central go to place. Like, if I'm looking for a particular review of a product, then it's kind of my. Well, Google will often bring it up first, but it's often my first port of call if I'm thinking about software or is this Mac? Like, I've just recently upgraded my Mac, and I actually use Shopkit to look at a whole bunch of different reviews before heading to forums to see what people were saying about, you know, different levels of ram and processor and all those sorts of things. There's a whole bunch of stuff on there and about software, but I do want to share one little. If I can just steal a moment to share one. One more screen with you about Shotkit. This is the article that made all three of us at my worlds collide. And I know that Justin and Mark knew each other beforehand, but this was an article I wrote for lucky straps. I can't remember when it was. Sorry. An article I wrote on Shotkit about lucky straps, and it was one of my earlier articles. I can't remember if it's the date. No, it doesn't have the date on it. And it was a review for lucky straps. And it was the first time that I was introduced to Justin. It was one of my first articles on Shotkit, and it was just. It's just interesting that now here we are, many, many years later, you know, talking about photography again. I just find that fascinating. I think it's funny how things come around. [00:31:10] Speaker C: Yeah, this is 2020, I was gonna. [00:31:13] Speaker B: Say it would have been 2020 when we released our quick release stuff. But yeah, prior to that we'd been on, we'd been on the site in a few different forms for years, I think. Yeah, it's sort of, like I said, it's one of those things that I spent so much time on the site, it just. We ended up crossing paths and doing something. It's, yeah, it's really cool to see how fast it grew, um, into something so huge, uh, like, because I think I, um. The first time our straps were probably on the site, I reckon, um, back when a wedding photographer called James Day was using our straps, I think. I think he put his kit up on there and had a couple of s straps on there or whatever. And I think maybe that's when it first appeared in like a photographer's kid or something like that. And then since then there's been a few articles or whatever, but you know, like we've always been, we've kind of almost been not buried in the. But it, like, it's not like you guys have only had a few straps on your web. Like every strap from every manufacturer is on this website and somewhere in someone's kit or in an article or in reviews or in the like ten best strap, like peak design, every. But all of the best ones. Ones from all over the world. [00:32:39] Speaker A: The same bags. Tripods. [00:32:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:41] Speaker A: All the accessories. [00:32:42] Speaker B: There's so many options and it kind of all comes together on here somewhere. [00:32:50] Speaker A: Sorry, mate. [00:32:51] Speaker B: I was just going to say it'd be amazing. I don't know if it's even possible, but if you could search kits by gear. [00:32:59] Speaker C: Yeah, we had that. We had that in the early days, but it became so overwhelming that it slowed the site down. Yeah, there was so many. [00:33:06] Speaker B: I can imagine. [00:33:09] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree with you. That's a really useful feature. It'd be interesting. [00:33:14] Speaker A: Who else is using five d mark two and. [00:33:16] Speaker B: Exactly. That'd be pretty wild. Yeah. Just to be able to look through and see or. I don't know. Cause what I find really interesting is obviously reviews are amazing because reviews are usually attacked with like a professional sense of, I need to outline things about this product and what's good and bad and stuff like that. But the little nuggets you get out of people's kits and what they write in there when they say, oh, I bought, I actually bought this flash trigger, but I don't even use it for flash. It's got this thing or whatever, you know, like there's all these little nuggets in the kits of different ways. To use gear and why they chose a particular piece of gear that is super valuable. [00:33:55] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Back then as well, it informed a lot of my gear choices as well. So, yeah, it's great. I was using it just like you were using it, Justin. And bit of confirmation bias, I'd say. Right, I want a prime lens. Who's using prime lens? [00:34:08] Speaker B: Exactly. It's exactly what I did. I have to be honest with myself. It was just like, all right, I need to justify this. I'll go and find a really good photographer that's already got it. Okay, perfect. [00:34:19] Speaker A: Nice work. [00:34:20] Speaker C: Now I've got to sell the like. [00:34:23] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:34:25] Speaker A: So, Mark, at last count, how many photographers are featured on Shotkit? [00:34:31] Speaker C: Okay, here we go. Let's have a look inside. Your camera bag should know this offhand, but they get published Willy nilly and I can't keep up. I think they're out over two and a half thousand. [00:34:47] Speaker A: Wow. [00:34:48] Speaker B: Wow. [00:34:49] Speaker C: Yeah, we get them updated every now and then as well. So, yes, it's constant thing. That was one thing that I wish that could happen a bit easier on shotkit. The photographer could update their own kit so it could, you know, become a really up to date sort of database of what people are using. Like, if you go to Sam's kit now, if someone found Sam's kit now, they'd be like, whoa, he's using really old school Sony cameras. But, yeah, they're just. People are too busy to update their kits and I think when it has to come, come through us, it's just another step. But, yeah, that would be a nice thing to add to the site, actually. [00:35:27] Speaker B: Just while we're on this, just as a, as an aside, if people want to put their kits on here. Cause I'll be honest, I've always wanted to be on the site, but I've never, I've never said so. I've never done it because it seems like, like doing the photo of all the gear and stuff like that, it seems like it needs to be quite a creative shot. Most people do the gear layouts and stuff are always pretty cool. [00:35:49] Speaker A: I do mine, I did mine on my timber decking out the back. [00:35:51] Speaker B: I'll tell you the other reason. [00:35:53] Speaker C: Pull yours up on the screen, Greg. [00:35:56] Speaker B: Yeah, pull yours up. The other reason I've never done it is because, and this is a lesson to everybody and myself, my kit's always been probably one piece of gear away from being the perfect kit, you know? So it's like, I'll just wait until I. And then I'll submit it to shot kit. [00:36:15] Speaker A: I'd argue that your kit is several pieces away from being a perfect kid. [00:36:20] Speaker B: We'll see. Wait till we get over this bright festival, but, yeah, we'll see. [00:36:24] Speaker A: Here's my one now. This is. Yeah, this. I do need to update it. So this is an XT. It's an x t three. An Xe three and my x 70 with my owner camera bag and my three f. Two Fuji primes. I don't have. I still have the x 70 that they're gonna bury me with that to my will. I don't have an x t three anymore, but I've got an xe four. So my kit is actually smaller. I've still got these lenses. [00:36:52] Speaker B: What, what camera straps are you running now? [00:36:55] Speaker A: Oh, not these. I found some. Some on Teemu. [00:36:59] Speaker B: Other ones. Oh, those Timu ones are good. [00:37:01] Speaker C: Timu's are good. [00:37:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:03] Speaker B: Cause I don't love 20. [00:37:04] Speaker A: I don't like leather. Camera straps are shit. I don't like leather. And the ona bag is gone. I don't know that. To charity. Yeah, it's gone. It too. [00:37:15] Speaker B: Looks too bulky. [00:37:16] Speaker A: Like beautiful and heavy. Really heavy. [00:37:18] Speaker B: That's what I found. Yeah. [00:37:20] Speaker A: Well, I just got the. The wandered 21 provoke off my mate Adam, who is the distributor for wandered in Australia. So I got that in time for bright. So you'll see that next week, Justin. But, yeah, so here it is. Here, this is me. And a little bit about my journey, how it began, what I started with, and what I'm shooting. Yeah. [00:37:50] Speaker B: So, Mark, if, if I. I probably. All right, I will. I'll submit a kit. What's the process for myself or anyone else that's listening that want to submit their kit? Is there like a minimum? Do you need to be a certain level of famous to go on shot kit or like, how does it work? [00:38:06] Speaker C: Now? Before, we had some criteria that revolved around. Yeah, it's a difficult one because there's people that were submitting with really great photos, but then their kit photo was just had no thought whatsoever put into it. And then we'd have to turn them away and said, do you think you could lay your camera gear out? It sounds silly, but that's kind of our ethos. We just want it all. You can do what you want with it, but just make a bit of effort. And then at the other end of the scale, you'd have someone with the most amazing kit photo. And their photos were like my project 35 back in the day. So it's kind of lacking a little bit so initially we were like, okay, professional photographers, that kind of, you know, start steps, that first hurdle. But then obviously there's a lot of difference in professional photographers. So then we were thinking, well, social media following, and that's a tough one as well. You can be a great photographer and not be on all the socials. So now I kind of found that really difficult because at the time it was me doing everything. And if someone had sent me them, I'd be like, you're not quite ready yet. But I didn't want to be that person saying, the guy at the door saying, you're not coming in cause you're wearing yellow sneakers. So I passed that off onto the team. I was like, look, I don't want to be the one doing this. You guys use your own judgment. If you're unsure, then ask me and I'll give my opinion. But, yeah, as you know, photography is super subjective. But I think as professionals and other professionals on the team, we do have a bit of kind of judgment involved. So, yeah, professionals, amateurs, anyone can submit. Anyone can submit. And we've had people on there with just one camera, one lens. I, that makes no difference whatsoever. We can feature someone with the most basic gear, the most expensive gear. As long as the photography is there and the gear photos, you put some effort into it. Yeah, we're happy to feature, and I'm always excited when it's a genre that we don't have already. So, strangely enough, real estate, not the most interesting photography profession, I've got to say. But we don't have many real estate photographers and their kit is always interesting because they've got these and crazy tripods. So, yeah, weird genres are always welcome. We had to start turning away wedding photographers because there were so many that we were getting. [00:40:33] Speaker B: I remember you saying to me years ago, I said something about, I got it. I'll submit my kit at some stage. It was probably while we were doing something with lucky straps. And I was like, I'll submit my kit at some stage. And you were like, oh, good luck. It's a pretty competitive category, wedding photography. And I was like, oh, wow. [00:40:50] Speaker C: So, yeah, obviously we've, it's not like that anymore. We've kind of loosened the, loosen the criteria a lot. But I think in general, people look at the site and they click around and they, they can judge whether they're ready to submit or not. [00:41:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:06] Speaker C: So that's kind of helped. It was initially right at the start when people were just throwing in their submissions because they didn't know what to what? To measure themselves up against. But, yeah, that's funny that you hesitated, Justin, because I had that same thing. I was like, this is my site. I need to be on the site. And it took, it took two or three years before I plucked up the courage. And then I was like, this gear shot's got to be epic. You know, I've got to put my camera on an eagle and get it. My lenses on its wings. Yeah, don't pull it up on screen because it's pretty lackluster and there's a lot of old gear on there. But, yeah, get on the site, Justin. And if anyone else wants to submit, shopkick.com, submit. [00:41:50] Speaker B: Does it cost money to submit? [00:41:52] Speaker C: No, no, it's all free. We got rid of that during COVID It was never very much, but that was just another thing to show us that the person was involved in the process. We charged $30 or something. [00:42:03] Speaker B: So you didn't get spammed with like, just random? Yeah. So in terms of the benefit to the photographer, obviously the, probably the major benefit I see is being contributing to this database of information that could help other photographers make gear choices or even just enjoy. Sometimes I just enjoy having a read of why people have picked certain gear and that kind of stuff. So that's probably the main thing. Are there any other benefits to doing it? [00:42:38] Speaker C: Yeah. I was always surprised to hear because my only metric is traffic to the side. My only metrics are traffic to the site and comments. So comments everyone can see traffic to the site. Only I can see. So when someone submits their gear and we put it online, then obviously I can see those things, but nothing else. I have no idea if people are resonating with this stuff. So back then, and even to some extent now, the comments are minimal. No one comments. And then the traffic is also for the site, it's really big. But for individual photographers, it's based a lot on that photographer's social media network and how much they choose to promote themselves. So someone like Sam Heard puts it in his newsletter immediately. Lots of people come and see it. But looking at the front page now, these people, without knowing their names, you know, it's just basically based on their promotional strategy, whether people come to the site as well as people who just land on the site and just click around. So all that to say, I didn't have much of an idea how many people were looking at each one and resonating with whatever they've done. But then people started emailing me that were on the site and saying I got booked for a wedding in USA and I'm an english wedding photographer and it's because of your site. Another one, a guy called Jay Casario, said Leica offered me a sponsorship and it's because they saw me using a Leica camera on the site. And, yeah, it sounds a bit like a. These are all made up stories. I have so many stories of people being booked for work, commercial work, sponsorships. Greg, you got in touch with Justin, I guess, because of something. So, yeah, I think that's kind of an unseen benefit. And I hesitate to put that as a benefit on the site because it just seems a bit airy fairyland. But the fact is that a lot of people in the industry are looking at the site. No one's commenting, it doesn't really matter. But if you see someone who's using your camera as a marketing professional, you'd be reaching out to them straight away and saying, I love your work. This is especially true for the smaller brands like that. Like, that's an outlier. But a lot of these product shots that people send in, they're using small brands. Um, yeah, yeah, but they're passionate about those brands. So, Justin, you'd feel amazing if there was a photographer using your products and being passionate about it. So, yeah, that's just multiplied across the site and I think it's just like a nice. [00:45:15] Speaker A: I actually receive probably once a month, maybe twice, I receive contact from smaller brands with unique, weird little products. A lot of them aren't anything to do with photography, but they've seen the traffic on Shotkit. My shotkit, if you click on a link that I've written on Shotkit, it travels to my author page and then from there they can go to my social or my website. And often I'll get people reaching out to me through my website saying, hey, Greg, I read your article on Shotkit. You know, we sell these weird little. Whatever it might be. Would you like to have a go? Sometimes it feels a bit like spam and it's, you know, red flags go up. But, yeah, it does. I mean, even just in that simple way, it does lead to opportunities. [00:46:05] Speaker B: Opportunity, yeah, connections and things. [00:46:08] Speaker A: So, Mark, speaking of writing on the site, you know, obviously we've got the, the photographer lists or pages where people can submit a their shot kit. And the site obviously offers a lot more than that. There's a lot of content. A lot of content. Thousands and thousands of articles covering gear reviews, education software and news articles that are constantly updated. In fact, shock. It's my first port of call to get the news for our news segment on this podcast. So you have a lot of writers on site. How many writers do you think roughly work for or write for? Shotkit? [00:46:49] Speaker C: I should say between ten and 20 at any point. Yeah. [00:46:54] Speaker A: Yep. And you do a bit of writing yourself? I mean, we've co authored some big articles. [00:47:00] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. Back at the start, I was writing everything. Now. Yeah. It's few and far between, but every now and then. Yeah. I feel like I should get my hands dirty again. And I dive in. Yeah. Those big, best camera backpacks. Best camera bags. Yeah. Those were the ones that I put together myself. Again, vested in personal preference of receiving those cool items of gear and actually getting my hands on them and writing about them still excites me. [00:47:30] Speaker A: Now, I think I remember seeing a photo of you. It might even be on the site early on and you're in. Looked like a shed space maybe, and you were just surrounded by camera bags that have been sent to you for review. How many camera bags do you have now? Because we're all guilty of having too many bags. [00:47:50] Speaker C: You know what I forget? Angle this thing up here. So I've got one here. That's peak design's new travel backpack. Nothing to do with photography. Got a couple up there. A couple of new people design coloured bags there. The coyote colorway in the garage. I've probably got about, I don't know, 15. A couple more in there. But the one that I use. Yeah, it's like the camera go thing. You're never satisfied. I've not been satisfied completely by any camera bag or backpack. It's always something I'd like to change and I'd love to make my own one, but it's never happened. But, yeah. If I were to do a professional job now, there's a Billingham. I can't remember the number, but it's one of those big, old fashioned heavy, uh, it looks like a fishing bag. Yeah. [00:48:39] Speaker B: Um. Something someone from the UK would choose. [00:48:44] Speaker A: It is a classic. [00:48:45] Speaker C: Yeah. I remember when I got it. It was like six years ago. My tastes were different and I put it straight away on marketplace. I'm like, this is like an $800 bag and I can't even sell it for 200. No one wanted it, but I'm glad I've got it now. A bit older and a bit more boring. Yeah. So that. That's that. And I've got a. Let me grab the list. And visual, isn't it? [00:49:04] Speaker B: Yeah. While he's doing that, I'll just pull up a couple of comments. Get off my digital lawn, Tony. Hey Tony, is Mark the UK Justin or is Justin the australian mark? And me pop now says being able to search for photographers via genre is a cool feature. And yeah, I completely agree. I don't know if I would have spent anywhere near as much time on shotkit if it wasn't broken down by genre. Yeah, I think being able to sort of look at wedding photographers, specifically their kits, that's what hooked me at the site when I was trying to grow a wedding photography business. So I think if it, if it had just been all submissions in one big pool, I probably wouldn't have spent anywhere near as much time on there. So, yeah, I agree. How'd you go? [00:49:51] Speaker A: Show and tell. [00:49:52] Speaker C: I don't want it sort of back podcast, but yeah, that's the, the most english bag you'll ever see. [00:49:57] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, it is. Yeah. [00:50:00] Speaker C: And then this is my one where I'm, if I'm traveling and trying to do a one bag travel thing, that's the Shimoda explore v two. [00:50:09] Speaker B: Ah, yeah. [00:50:10] Speaker C: What I love about this bag is the straps with the mobile phone pockets on the front. I don't know why more bag makers don't do that. [00:50:17] Speaker B: Yep. [00:50:18] Speaker C: Really useful. [00:50:19] Speaker B: That's the feature that I wish my bag had. For sure. [00:50:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay. And then, uh, this is the wandered. What's this one called, Greg? Do you remember? [00:50:30] Speaker A: No. [00:50:31] Speaker B: Is that wandered? That thing's huge. [00:50:33] Speaker A: Yeah, it is huge. It's like one of those sort of travel slash. [00:50:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I should notice. [00:50:40] Speaker B: Is that the travel duffel? [00:50:42] Speaker C: No, it's still a backpack. It'll come to me. It didn't sell very well, but I think it's a great backpack. Need to carry like 60 liters. [00:50:52] Speaker B: Yep. [00:50:53] Speaker C: Yeah. So, yeah, they all have things missing that I wish was included in one single bag. [00:51:01] Speaker B: They're all a compromise, aren't they? [00:51:03] Speaker C: If you want it, if you ever. [00:51:05] Speaker B: Want to make one, I'm game. I'm game. I'm just too scared to do it by myself. But I'm the same. I've owned. Yeah, a lot. And they're all, they're so close, but you're like off it. Just had that out of this. I've even got, I've got three tubs, like big tubs full of dividers from all the camera bags that I've ever had. Because every time I get a new bag, I rip all the dividers out because the dividers never work for what I want. So I have to piece them together from dividers from other bags to make them fit the way I want the gear to fit properly. It's. Yeah, it's a problem. I have a problem. [00:51:42] Speaker C: So that wandered bag was called the fernwehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe. [00:51:45] Speaker A: That's right. [00:51:46] Speaker B: And they don't do. No, don't do it anymore. [00:51:50] Speaker C: Um, it looks like they still do it. Yeah. Just. [00:51:52] Speaker B: Sure. [00:51:52] Speaker A: That got stuck. [00:51:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:51:55] Speaker C: I love that bag because it's so light for its size. That's my biggest pet peeve with camera bags, is when they're heavy, when they're already, when they're empty. [00:52:03] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I just got the, like I said, I just got the wandered. The provoke 21, uh, off my mate, and I took it out. What day is it today? Thursday. I took it out on Tuesday. I went for a walk in the city. I loaded it up fully, because I'm taking that bag to be fop. And having recently had neck and neck issues, I wanted to see what it was like. I wanted to make sure it was comfortable. And I went out for a few hours, did some street photography in the city, here in Melbourne, and it's one of the most comfortable backpacks I've ever worn. Full stop and even fully loaded, it really supported the weight well. Like, it's really well thought out. Um, you know, they do make exceptional products, and I like the material choices on it, too. [00:52:49] Speaker C: Um, yeah, it's really well waterproof, that bag. [00:52:51] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. I still don't like camera backpacks so much where you have to take it off, unzip it all to get, like, you can get to your camera through the side. Oh, here we go. Justin's going to get out his special little. His baby carrying his baby carrier. [00:53:06] Speaker C: Yes. [00:53:07] Speaker B: It's my kangaroo pouch. Have you used the rotations mark the man shop? [00:53:13] Speaker C: That big backpack review? Yeah, yeah. I think it's a great bag, but it's. Yeah, if you're an outdoor enthusiast. [00:53:20] Speaker B: Definitely my dream, because I know they've patented this whole. The way this system works. Think tank, mineshift. Same, same. My dream is to, like, I don't know, get in touch with them and do a lucky straps version that I can design, because it doesn't. It's missing some stuff, and it's not like, it's not quite right. I don't want to be like, hey, guys, I know you guys are, like, the biggest bag manufacturer in the photography world, but I've got some ideas that I don't think you've thought of. [00:53:50] Speaker A: I'm sure they're gagging to hear from you. [00:53:52] Speaker B: Just, oh, I'm positive. [00:53:53] Speaker C: They'll be like, okay, awesome logo on the front. [00:53:56] Speaker A: There's a youtuber I follow, Chase Reeves. He does a lot of bags, wallets, travel accessories. He's based in California, I think, and he's got, he's got quite a big following. But he does, he does heaps of bag reviews, not necessarily camera bags. Well, he does do gear, gear bag reviews and actually there's a recent video where he reviewed all of his wallets and he had this massive tub of wallets which kind of made me think of you, Mark, with your garage full of camera bags because you get sent them all from different brands, wanting to promote them on his channels. But he actually reached out with, I can't remember the bag brand, but he reached out to a bag brand and ended up making his own travel bag. Oh, that's cool because he's kind of one of the top youtubers for reviewing bags, travel bags and everyday carries and that sort of stuff. And yeah, he went out and had his own bag made and he did some videos where he went out to the factory and I think his factory was in Vietnam, maybe, but yeah, just interesting taking your passion and your hobby and your need to that next level to actually go, you know what, screw it, I'm just going to make my own. [00:55:07] Speaker B: I'll make my own. [00:55:09] Speaker A: Which is kind of like what you've done with lucky straps. Justin, you were looking for something that's comfortable, secure, sturdy, premium, that, you know, we all get. Well, those of us that are serious about the craft get a brand new camera and the first thing we do is we pull the strap out of the box and never touch it again. [00:55:26] Speaker B: Toss it. [00:55:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:55:28] Speaker B: Well, the reason it was, was because I was, yeah, I was shooting weddings and events and I wanted to be able to take my camera to all these places and not look like people are always going to notice you had a camera. Because I was using big cameras but not look out of place. You know, if everyone's wearing a suit and stuff and you're wearing a shirt, but then you've got this like ugly cannon strap or whatever, it just didn't. Yeah, whereas if you had like a nice leather one or whatever, people actually would comment on us, that was. It was that and obviously an extra comfort, but yeah, it was scratch, scratch your own itch. The, the good thing was, is making our first camera strap, even though it was actually quite a bit of. Took a long time, it's a lot easier than making a camera bag. This camera bags have so many little bits and pieces and pockets and stuff. I can't imagine how difficult it is for them to go through that design process and get everything still not quite right. [00:56:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Especially these newer peak design products. They're getting a bit too complicated, in my opinion. There's so many pockets. I'll travel backpack. I remember going to Thailand to shoot a wedding, and I couldn't find stuff that I put in there. It was literally pockets on pockets. [00:56:39] Speaker A: Yeah. You forget where you put stuff, which that is there. [00:56:42] Speaker B: That's their design philosophy, and they're obviously experts at it. But, yeah, I agree. Sometimes it can get a little bit too. I don't like having everything spread all over the place in. In specific little pockets that sometimes I prefer just to have a removable pouch or whatever in a larger pocket and just. Yeah. [00:57:02] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree. [00:57:04] Speaker A: Markham, on the topic of travel and bags and sloppy segways, you recently traveled back to the UK. A bit of a family trip, and I don't want to go into details about the family trip, but I'm keen to know what, if any, camera and lens and bag. Camera bag you took with you. [00:57:24] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. Yeah. Before I left, actually, before I go on any big trip, I think about which camera I take that I don't already own. So I want to spend time with a camera that I've not used before. So I reached out to a brand, and I went to. I was lucky enough to go to Iceland two years ago, and I thought, okay, epic scenery. I need a medium format camera. So I reached out to Fujifilm. That's another story, actually. Remind me, because that's a funny one. I borrowed a lot of edgy fu. [00:57:54] Speaker A: We've mentioned that story without naming anyone on the podcast before, so. [00:57:58] Speaker C: Okay, we won't go that story. [00:58:00] Speaker B: Okay, now it clicks. [00:58:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:03] Speaker C: Oh, it was a confidential one, and now I've just blown my cover. [00:58:07] Speaker A: I didn't mention any names or brands. I just said, I know of a person who wasn't a very expensive camera. [00:58:13] Speaker C: All right, well, I can't backtrack on that one, so let's move swiftly on to. Yeah. I went and I thought, okay, well, let's reach out to Laika this time. And I got a hold of their Q three, and we. Yeah, we're traveling with the kids and going to a few different places, so I just wanted the most minimal setup ever. So I literally just took the, like, Q three. Didn't even take the camera back. Just threw it in with all the other stuff. Sorry, Laika. Then, yeah, we went to the UK went to Greece and I just used that the whole time. And I had. I actually owned the Q two. I paid for that $6,000 and then I sold it for $6,000 about a year later. So I had a few annoyances with that camera and I couldn't justify having such an expensive camera around me when I went out. It just didn't seem right, especially because I was just taking photos of my kids and just everyday stuff. But I thought, okay, I'm going to give this camera another shot. With Leica Q three. They've improved a few of the things that annoyed me about the second one, but yeah, I came back in, I was pretty underwhelmed. Again, we can go down the Leica route if you want to, but I haven't used a lot of their cameras, so I won't comment on their brand as a whole. But just that camera in particular. There's a few things on there that shouldn't be on there at that price point and a few things that are missing as well that are on other cameras that are much cheaper. But yeah, the image quality is great, the lens quality is great, a lot of improvements. But yeah, I do not think it's worth the money, even if it wasn't. It's just, yeah, I don't know how they can get away with charging that much. And it surprises me. [00:59:53] Speaker B: Dig into it. [00:59:56] Speaker A: Justin took that. Justin has that camera. He spent that money. It wasn't gifted to him it or loaned to him. [01:00:05] Speaker C: He. [01:00:05] Speaker A: He spent and I took it hard. [01:00:07] Speaker B: Earned lucky straps dollars for three months. As the only camera to the US. [01:00:13] Speaker C: You are the only version of me, mate. [01:00:15] Speaker B: I think that is outrageous. I'd love to hear. Tell me what you think. Are you, are you happy to go into detail about the things that you don't like that you sort of think, hey, why did they do that? Why wouldn't they do this? Because I have sort of some thoughts about it as well. I still, I love the camera and I understand I won't comment too much on the price because it's like, it's their call if they want to charge that much for it, it's my choice to buy it or not buy it. Obviously, I don't think it's. If you objectively question the price, it's not worth the money, but it's whether someone's willing to pay that for. It's kind of like a Rolex. It's like, is it worth it? I don't know if you want to buy it, kind of, but I'd love to hear what you think just about the use, how it feels, and what sort of choices they made. That, yeah. Probably aren't wrong. [01:01:08] Speaker C: Yeah. So I'm not affiliated with Leica, nor am I with any of the camera brands. But there is a part of me that's grateful for them trusting such a, you know, expensive piece of tech with. [01:01:19] Speaker A: Me to go, especially given what happened in Iceland. [01:01:23] Speaker B: They probably don't know about it. [01:01:25] Speaker C: Yeah. My twin brother. Yeah. So I came back from that one and I started writing the review. And I started to review by saying, elephant in the room, the price. Let's just. Yeah, I just summed it up like you did, Justin. There's some people who want to buy a Rolex just because it's a Rolex, and that's fine if it makes them feel good. I totally understand that using the Leica is a joy. That's the definite. And whether it's the price or the heritage or the actual camera itself, it's hard to say. But yeah. Then I started writing this review, and I realized that there were more negatives than positives. I got to the end and I thought, this is kind of a tough one because I don't want to be biased in any way when I write a review, obviously, but then I don't want to slag off a product that is already out there. And a lot of people are enjoying. People have spent, you know, a salary on this camera. I don't want to be the one to say, these are the things that you should be looking at because it sucks. So, yeah, I didn't publish the review, but Leica didn't actually follow up with me and ask me about the review. If they did, then I was going to go back and forth with them and say, this is what I plan to publish. If you want to contest it, then let's do it before I publish it. But they didn't actually go through with that, so I didn't publish the review. And as it happened, another photographer published a review on the Leica Q three. And that was his own thoughts, and he loved it. And I was fine with that. A lot of people love the camera. That's fine. But, yeah, to answer your question, Justin, the specific things that I disliked, it was the first thing, the flip out screen, which I was really excited about because I really wanted that. I think the implementation is terrible. I just think that the way that the camera is so beautiful, and then they've got this flip out screen that sticks out by, you know, half a second I just don't think the design aesthetics there with that and the way that you have to pull it out, I just couldn't get, I couldn't pull it out on the first touch every time. I think they need to make that little latch bigger. So, yeah, they have a really small usability and design perspective is subjective, but it annoyed me after using it for a month. And then there's another user issue I think that they could fix with firmware where when you're shooting, there's a black line that shows your settings and you can't get rid of it. That reduces your, the viewpoint, so it becomes from full frame, it just reduces it. So you immediately you have to guess where your composition is and you can. After the photo. I just think that's odd. [01:03:53] Speaker A: They could go, it is really odd. [01:03:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I've had trouble with that for sure, because I've been shooting JPEG a lot my whole trip. I shot raw plus JPEG, but I haven't edited any photos from that three month trip. All the photos that I've started sharing on social media and stuff, all JPEG straight out of the Leica unedited. And I was very careful with my compositions and then I've still noticed in a couple of them I was like, ah, there's like the top of a bin lid in the bottom of it or something, you know, like. But it's in that spot that you can't see. [01:04:28] Speaker A: That's really, really an odd choice, isn't it? [01:04:30] Speaker B: Yeah, because obviously in cameras that have a little bit more customization, like cannons, for example, you know, you can choose the way the viewfinder lays out and there's like an option where it's fills the screen or an option where it's smaller, but you can see the whole composition and stuff like that. It's like, yeah, you should be able to. That should be pretty straightforward software stuff for them to just give a couple of choices, you know, do you want to fill the screen with an overlay or do you want it to have the stuff underneath with a very clear, you know, full composition? Slightly smaller. [01:04:59] Speaker C: Exactly. Yeah. And then I don't think the auto focus is there yet either, especially coming from any of the big camera brands. Yeah, any flagship cramber you compare it to is worlds apart. [01:05:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:13] Speaker A: I wonder if the new version with the 40 mm has better focus performance or if they just snapped another lens on. [01:05:19] Speaker B: I don't think it's changed, but yeah, the continuous tracking, I'd hate to see what the Q three, the Q two was like, because everyone was like, wow, the Q three is a massive step up in autofocus. The continuous subject tracking actually works now. Blah, blah, blah. I tried it a couple of times on very normal, like, people milling around kind of situations. And, yeah, it was very hit and miss. Very hit and miss to the point where I just used single focus or manual for what I was doing. [01:05:52] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a shame. And then the last one, just the startup time, I think it's too slow. Pushes a photographer. [01:06:00] Speaker B: When. When did you use it? Because that's gotten better, at least. [01:06:04] Speaker C: Yeah, I used it after they improved it. So. Yeah, yeah, I didn't. I was comparing it to the Q two, but I think that they can still make it quicker. It's difficult, though. I get why it's slow. Like, there's such huge files. I don't know if that would affect the startup time, if it's trying to read them before it starts up. But anyway, yeah, I think they should. Yeah, that needs to be worked on. But yeah, it's a great camera. I shot it in JPeg the whole time I was there. Yeah. Even when I owned the Q two, I never used raws on that camera. It's just. Yeah, it's great. So the image quality you can't argue with. [01:06:41] Speaker B: That's the thing to get full frame, 60 megapixel, and that lens is exceptional as well in that form factor. That's the one thing that I still come back to where I'm like, this isn't just. It's not just a mantelpiece camera, it's not just like a, hey, look at me. Because it does do something that no one else does, which is in. In something that weighs the size of most other people's camera bodies with no lens on it, it's got a sensor and lens combo that outperforms basically every other camera in terms of straight out of the box image quality. Like you'd have to get a Sony a seven r five with a great lens to get similar image quality, which you could easily do for less money, but it's going to be much bigger. So that's probably the thing that it still is. [01:07:36] Speaker A: Well, that's all drawing on that heritage. That's older than a lot of the japanese camera manufacturers. They've always been about sharp optics. They started as an optics company, making glass lenses for, you know, spectacles and rifle scopes and all of that sort of stuff in the early days before they moved into the photography field. [01:07:58] Speaker C: Yeah, I think no matter how much you spend on a camera, if it makes you pick it up and use it, then it's fine by me. And back then, with the Q two, that it was making me pick up a camera outside of professional work. So I was willing to pay that price for it. But, yeah, it could be said the same thing about a, you know, $50 film camera, if that makes you. [01:08:22] Speaker B: Exactly. [01:08:23] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:08:25] Speaker B: Or apparently every Fuji, every mate ever made. [01:08:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Every Fuji does that. It has magic. Let's just quickly jump to a couple of. Couple of comments that. Mark, you're happy to stick around a bit longer and chat a bit more? [01:08:38] Speaker C: Yeah, I just. Can I go to the other room and say something to my wife before she leaves? I'll be back. [01:08:43] Speaker A: Yeah, no, we'll allow that. Let's jump to some comments from Jashani. Jason, I believe it is Jason. G'day. Welcome back. Thanks for sticking along with us. For a genuine hiking trip. The bags that have the main camera area access against your back do make some sense. And Jason goes on to say, you can put the bag on the often wet, dirty ground without said dirt later, ending up on your back. I think that's my problem. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I don't like my bags getting dirty. [01:09:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:15] Speaker A: So the idea of having to take it off, put it down, unzip a big panel. I get it. The good thing with the. With the wand is it's got the little side access panel so I can grab whatever camera and lens I've put in that door. You were going to say something, Justin? [01:09:32] Speaker B: I was just going to say, I completely agree, obviously, that it's better if you don't have to take it off, which is why I like the rotation. And it's got enough of a gear pocket in the rotation part that I very rarely have to take it off to access extra gear. But if you need more gear, like, a lot of the snow trips when I was shooting snowboarding and before the 7200s were small enough, like the new canon one, to fit in those rotations, I needed that stuff and accessible in the pack. Rear opening is the only way to go for that kind of thing because, like he says, in the snow, you put your pack down and then open the backpack. If you go the other way, if it's a front opening, you're putting your back part down into the snow. Yes, because it's warm from your back, it soaks up all the water. I made that mistake the first year, so never again. Everything was then rear opening. Side opening is really good. If you. I could recommend the mind shift if they still make it. Photo cross 13 and 15. I haven't got one here, but Jim's got mine at the moment. They're cheaper bags, too, can compared to, like, peak design and stuff. They perform really well for active. And it's a side opening, so you can kind of sling it under and still get to it a little bit without taking it completely off. But, yeah, I agree. [01:10:52] Speaker A: Yep. Hey, guys. Welcome back, mate. And Jason's also said, and it. The Q has a genuine mechanically coupled manual focus lens complete with macro setting. None of the focus by wire stuff. [01:11:06] Speaker B: That is a joy to use. And I really like that. And that's the thing that every now and then I'm like, oh, maybe I'll buy an M series camera one day, but I probably won't because they're outrageously expensive. But that feeling, I don't know why no other camera manufacturers have focused on that. No pun intended. I assume even none of the Fuji Fujifilm lenses are all focused by wire as well, are they? They're still like, there's no feedback when you manually focus. It's kind of weird and. [01:11:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:11:34] Speaker A: Is that right? [01:11:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Well, the x 100, I've still got the original one. I assume they still operate the same in the way that they manually focus. It feels kind of horrible. And with no precise. Whereas the Q three, all the cues and all m lenses, it's a physical spot where every time your thumb rests in a little. In a little divot, and then you know that if you put it here, that's gonna focus at the same point every time. And that's like, you get a muscle memory to it. It feels wonderful, and it has some feedback. It's like, it'd be cool if. If another camera brand kind of tackled that at a cheaper price. Point in a X 100 style. Point and shoot kind of all in one camera. [01:12:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Very good point. Just before we move on with Mark's story, I just want to remind our viewers that you're watching the Camera Life podcast. This is episode 32, presented to you by lucky camera straps from Bendigo, Victoria, Australia, Earth, the universe, all of that. We're talking with Mark Condon, the founder of Shotkit.com and also has been a professional wedding photographer. So, Mark, are you still shooting professionally, or is that put aside for now? [01:12:56] Speaker C: No, I'm not. I shot my last wedding sometime last year. Went out with a no bang whatsoever. It was a little fizzle. Yeah. Brush that under the carpet. I haven't announced anything officially, I guess if your mate got married, I'd happily shoot them. Wedding. But yeah, not promoting myself or anything like that. [01:13:20] Speaker A: And so where are you at in terms of your motivation? Like what caused you to sort of go, well, that's it, I'm not going to book anymore? [01:13:31] Speaker C: Yeah, a couple of things actually. The first was gear related, funnily enough, when I was using a DSLR. So the last four years I was using a mirrorless, Sony mirrorless. Prior to that I used a Nikon D 750. Most recently a few different ones up until that point, but. So I was using a Nikon D 750 and then just two lenses, two prime lenses, and I found it was a very involved process. Justin and anyone else who's still using DSLRs will appreciate the fact, fact that it is so much more involved than a mirrorless camera. And that point was the high point of my career. I was booking a lot of weddings, I was shooting overseas, I was traveling around the world, and I think it was because of that involved process, I was trying very hard to create the images on the day I was experimenting, and just that small thing of not having the always on display of a mirrorless camera, not having a eye tracking, not having a million frames per second, you have to be a lot more skilled, I think, in my opinion, and just being, trying harder and the whole process of the gear being more difficult to use. And my images were better at that point, I think, than they were later on in my career because I started to become a little bit lazy because the mirrorless cameras make everything so much easier for you. Especially as a photographer who relies on getting sharp focus on a subject all the time. So with the Sonys, any of the cameras now with eye tracking, in fact, you can hold down a button or you dont even need to hold down anything and it will just lock on an eye and you can just concentrate on the composition. Thats essentially all I was doing. I put it on aperture priority, dont have to worry about the shutter speed anymore, auto ISO, don't have to worry about that eye focus, don't even have to worry about focusing. I'm just literally looking at composition and light. Dead easy in my opinion, after that much experience. But back in the day when I had to worry about all these things, yeah, it was just a more involved process and I was churning out better quality images because of it. So I switched to Sony, I was like, wow, this is amazing. There's a lot of things I don't have to worry about anymore. Ironically, it made me, I think a worse photographer, because I was delivering these photos to clients, everyone was happy. That was cool. But I stopped posting to my site because I was like, these photos are great, they're fine, everyone's happy, but they're not pushing the boundary. I'm not experimenting anymore. I'm not using off camera flash to try and do these unusual techniques. And it was because of the camera, it was making it so easy for me. That's kind of a bit. If you're just starting wedding photography and you pick up a mirrorless camera, it's not going to be easy for you. Don't get me wrong, it's still going to be hard. But for someone, it's like, if you had film and you went to digital, you'd say, digital is easy. There's a stepping stone in this process. But, yeah, I was at a point where I was, like, walking into a wedding and thinking, this is easy. This is easy to walk in the park. I'm just looking at light and composition. Bang, bang, bang. Managing the wedding day, directing the bride, and it wasn't challenging enough for me. So, yeah, it started to get boring for me. And I felt a little bit like I wasn't doing the bride and groom justice because even though they were happy with the photos, they're over the moon. I felt like I was. I could have given them more in terms of creativity, really pushing myself. Yeah. So it was those two things that I just thought, it's not right to carry on doing something that's nothing watching me. And, yeah, I kind of took a step out. I went out on a fizzle because my wedding, the last wedding I shot, it was actually a really fun one, and it made me think. I actually still like the process of getting out there and meeting people and having fun on their, you know, best day of their life. But I gave them the photos, happy with them, and that was it. Didn't publish them, didn't even put them on facebook. I didn't put anything out there for about a year. And I was just like, you know, it's just money in the bank now, and I think that it's just, you may as well be doing a day job. [01:17:46] Speaker B: So, yeah, I was gonna ask that whether it was maybe, obviously, that. I can definitely see what you mean about the gear, I guess making it less mentally challenging in terms of the. Just the image creation process. Obviously, it doesn't help with any of the other stuff. You still gotta manage the day and talk to people and do all the things that are like you say it's not just easy, but once you're already, if you're already experienced at that stuff and you've done it a lot and then you take a few more barriers away, it becomes even easier and, yeah, but was there also a little bit of not lost love, but were you kind of, you'd done it for a while as well. At the same point that you transition to mirrorless, you're all also kind of like, excited about other things. You'd shot a lot of weddings and it was just less. I found even when your progress slows down a little bit, because in the early days you're like, you're learning new techniques and you're getting more clients or you're going, ah, last year I booked 30 weddings. Hopefully this year I can book 35 or whatever. But once you kind of, I don't know, say you've booked 40 weddings a year for the last three years, you're pretty consistent with your output and all that, everything's kind of cruising along. All right. I lost a bit of interest for some reason. Was it kind of like that as well? [01:19:08] Speaker C: Yeah, definitely. I started to get very, what's the word? Sort of critical about the wedding industry. Sorry, not the industry, just weddings. Just weddings in general. I'm not a fan of weddings. I never have been a fan, but it never was an issue for me. I was just like, well, I'm paid to do this, I'm going to do a good job. But, yeah, just the whole template of, of a wedding really gets me. And the stress for everyone who's involved in the wedding, that kind of strikes me as odd on someone's really important day. So, yeah, I've got a lot of negative thoughts about weddings themselves. So that kind of, yeah, I guess that was eating away at me when I was like, sitting at the, you know, the best man speech and thinking, I'd like to be somewhere else. Yeah, it wasn't right for me to be re receiving the clients money to do something that I wasn't really happy to be at. So, yeah, there was a lot of that. I still understand, you know, I still understand why people want to spend a lot of money on their weddings. That's totally fine. And I understand why brides want their fairy tale wedding, but, yeah, I think if you ask any wedding photographer who's done it for a while, they probably have the same opinion and you should spend your money on whatever, your first car, your first house, go on holiday and just have a wedding with ten people. But that's totally personal opinion. [01:20:33] Speaker B: I ran into very, very similar issues in that sense. And I found myself having to. It was from just a change in attitude, but also I went, like, I went through a divorce separation within two years of getting married, while we were kind of at the height of our wedding photography business. And that certainly makes things very hard. You know, when you're coming into summer and that's all unfolding, and then at the same time, you're starting to see some of those patterns in terms of, like, say, in the industry and what happens in the wedding day. That seems a little bit templated on some people's days. It was great. What made it me able to keep going for a while was then you would go to a wedding that was a very, very. You could really sort of feel a strong connection through the whole day of everybody, and you were like, oh, okay, this is. It's not, it's not, it's not like all weddings are this way or whatever. It's just some feel, like you say they're stressed in the morning. You're like, don't be stressed. Have fun. Like, it's a just, you know, it's about fun. Yeah. And then, and then it does start to eat away at you a little. A little while. And like you say, if you're not there to do, to love every minute of it and do the best sort of justice you can for the clients, it's hard to then keep doing it, I think. [01:21:56] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. [01:21:58] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a very, very interesting point. [01:22:00] Speaker A: So I think you two are twins? Separated at birth. Very similar story. So, as we've mentioned earlier, Justin's a little bit lost at the moment as to what to do with all this expensive gear that he's bought. Mark, what are you doing now that you're not a professional wedding photographer anymore? Creative outlets are you exploring? [01:22:20] Speaker C: So I have the cameras, like, probably like, just to have all my wedding photography stuff still. And, like, I sold a fair bit of it, but I've still got two cameras kind of ready to go if I ever feel like getting back into it, which I probably won't, but I hesitate to sell it all. So now I'm just using it literally just for family stuff, taking pictures of the kids when we're on holiday or just at home. But, yeah, it's a bit of a creative low point in my life, if I'm completely honest, where I don't have any purpose for getting the camera out other than just to document what's going on in the kitchen, sadly enough, like, with the kids or if I'm on holiday, yeah, I don't have a reason, really, to be taking photos other than for my own fun. But, yeah, I'm not the kind of person, I never have been the kind of person that just will go out with a camera and take photos of flowers or even landscape, really. Or just street photography. None of that's really interested in me. I like to have a purpose for a specific purpose, whether that's to earn money or to document my kids lives. So, yeah, I kind of. I'm envious of that initial buzz when you first pick up a camera and you are taking pictures of stuff. Like, back in the days of my project 35, I was excited to take pictures of absolutely anything that's probably the same. A lot of different hobbies, not just photography. [01:23:41] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. [01:23:41] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't have that many professional outlets at the moment with the camera, and I'm trying to find a reason to pick up the camera right now. Gear is great for that, I think. Yeah, I love gear. I love the fact that it makes you excited about something. I think people talk about gas, you know, it's bad. Yeah. Obviously you're spending money for stuff that you probably don't need, but I ultimately, if it makes you happy and it makes you take pictures, then I'm all for it. Like, go out and buy that camera. Go out and buy that camera strap if it means that you're going to take it outside. And it's often the smallest things. Doesn't have to be a camera. It's just like something that you feel in it. It's great. Or something that you look at. It's great. It makes you want to go out and take a photo. I think everyone needs that to keep the flame burning for photography. [01:24:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so, too. Yeah. Yeah. Gas is definitely a thing that I think we still need to keep burning, if you pardon the pun, to lose pun. Fomo is a different thing. I've moved beyond FOMO, mostly for financial reasons, but gas, you know, every now and then I'll kind of look at a lens and I'll sit on the idea of it. Like I, you know, a few months ago, I picked up a 50. I replaced my 50 mil f two because I had sold it when I became unwell. And just buying that new lens and just using that lens only for a few weeks, really. I still use it, obviously, but really kind of inspired that sense of, I want to go and, oh, I want to try and shoot street with this. I want to go and maybe, you know, walk through the gardens and the botanical gardens and just try it out because I hadn't used that focal range for a while. [01:25:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:25:28] Speaker A: And I actually got a, I've got a lone lens coming down from Fujifilm Australia to take with us to bright. Justin. It's the little talked about Xf 70 to 300, which I'm excited for because I typically shoot primes and I typically shoot mostly wide street travel, family stuff. And I actually picked up that 50 mil originally to do better product shots for my gear reviews for Shotkit. But getting the idea of getting a 70 to 300 has got me really excited because it's like, well, I don't really do. I shoot with that focal length unless I'm reviewing something, I'm going to take it to bright with me, which is a whole new environment. So I'm really, you know, it's starting to feel like I'm starting to count down sleeps as to when I get the lens and when we head to to bright and get to play with this toy, this new toy. So, you know, I think you can, you can take the kid out of the playroom, but you can't take the play out of the kid. You know, I think we're all, we all get a little bit excited for something that's new, that's coming along. That. Yeah. May inspire some level of creativity. [01:26:32] Speaker B: Yeah. It doesn't have to default to, like, the desire for new gear should inherently be thought of as bad. And a good photographer wouldn't worry about their kit. They would just use a crop sensor DSLR from 2001. It's like, that's not, you know, it's more just keeping it in check and not constantly worrying that unless you have the latest and greatest, you're falling behind. But that doesn't mean you like the best photographers in the world when you really dig into it. They say gear doesn't matter, but they also have, yeah, they've put work and time into refining their kit and whether that's sticking with an older camera, for some reasons that you'll probably still find that they've tried out a new camera and they were like, yeah. But then I decided to stick with my other one because of this and this and this. So it's not like they don't care about gear just because they're a good photographer. Most of them actually really do. When you, when you dig into. Oh, yeah, they just, they're just obviously skilled enough and knowledgeable enough to know that they could swap to a whole different kit and probably still produce great work. [01:27:42] Speaker A: I think the risk with gas gear acquisition syndrome, for those of you following along and FOMo fear of missing out, is it? Especially when you're new to photography, you think you need a lens for every occasion. And often when I'm writing education pieces or fluff pieces for you, Justin. [01:28:02] Speaker B: Don'T. [01:28:03] Speaker A: Tell me fluff pieces. [01:28:04] Speaker B: They're educational. [01:28:06] Speaker A: They are educational, but I'm a big advocate for saying, just shoot with what you've got now, go out and use that lens until it doesn't work for you anymore. But don't think that you need to move beyond the kit lens, even within your first six months. If you're new to photography and you've just bought a new camera, whatever the brand may be, and you've got a 24 to 70 equivalent kit lens, then work it to the bone, you know, use it until you can use it in your sleep, you can use it with your eyes closed. You can use it drunk, you know, whatever it may be, before you get into gear acquisition syndrome, you know, and FOMO is a funny thing because there's, you know, it's like any, any consumerism practice, there's always going to be something better coming. [01:29:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:29:01] Speaker A: You know, for sure. Like, we. You guys went and spent all that. Well, Justin especially spent all that money on a q three, and then, you know, they've just dropped another one. And it's like that with everything, you know, you buy it. Whether you buy Fuji X, you pick up the five, you think, oh, this is amazing. And then they announced the six, and all of a sudden it's out of stock. You kind of get that itch, that, oh, wow, I must need that camera. [01:29:24] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just looking at the comments there. Nev Clark saying that. Is it. Sorry, is it he or she? I don't. [01:29:32] Speaker A: Nev, he never. He's an alumni of the show. Yeah. [01:29:36] Speaker C: Oh, okay. Yeah. And he said that he got bored with his own gear and he just. It's okay to change because. Sorry. That's a whole new thought process. Yeah, that. Totally agree. If. Yeah, if you get bored of something and something else inspires you. Great. More work. [01:29:51] Speaker B: Yeah, why not? And it could be that, like, switching. I think that's something that people often ask about. Should I switch to this new, you know, to Sony because they've just released a new camera or whatever? And my answer is usually, no, don't switch your whole kit because someone released a new camera. There'll be another new camera and another new camera. Just like, be patient and use what you've got. Unless if it's for a different reason where it's not just, you're not just chasing the most mega pickles or something. Um, you know, if you just. Mega pickle. If you, if you want a different feel like obviously switching to fujifilm from full frame, whether it's switching to a smaller, lighter crop sensor system or to better image quality, to their bigger, slow, average, mirrorless system. What's it called? Medium format. [01:30:40] Speaker A: You were shopping for one of those last week. [01:30:42] Speaker B: But I'm still shopping. I'm shopping for everything all the time then. Yeah. If it, like, you know, Nev switched to medium format and you can tell just by the way he talks about his images and making the images and how immersive it feels when he takes a photo with the GFX system compared to his Nikon system, it's like, yeah, he's loving it. [01:31:03] Speaker A: And whether that and his craft and his work has blossomed as a result. [01:31:07] Speaker B: Exactly. [01:31:08] Speaker A: But he always took good photos and it's just elevated. [01:31:11] Speaker B: Yeah, but it may not even be like that might be just. Who cares? It could be a Nikon sensor hiding in there and the images would look the same. But if it's inspiring him to do it, then it was obviously the right choice. [01:31:23] Speaker A: I think all the Fuji sensors now are Sony made. [01:31:26] Speaker B: Are they? [01:31:26] Speaker A: Which is in. Yeah. Yeah. [01:31:29] Speaker B: So it's only canon. Canon that are kind of holding, holding out and doing their own thing. [01:31:34] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:31:36] Speaker A: But who knows? They probably all come out of the same factory. [01:31:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:31:45] Speaker A: Although I will say one of our guests who's also helped us co host the show, Greg Carrick. G'day, Greg. If you, if you're listening along. At some stage, he deals with FOMO in such a fascinating way. Mark. Greg is a Fuji shooter, but he was also a photojournalist, film photojournalist, like film photography. And he's now, his FoMO is now taking the form of adapting. [01:32:15] Speaker C: A whole. [01:32:16] Speaker A: Range of different lenses to his GFX or his X series cameras. And he even like, he went out on a shoot with a. The lens out of an old cinema projector and had a 3d print, a 3d mount. A mount 3d printed for it. Get that around the right way and attached that to his GFX and that's how he's dealing with his gas and his gas. He's just getting all these weird, wacky old lenses and finding a way to cram them onto a GFX sensor and exploring his craft that way. And some of his work is amazing that he's achieving with these things because it's not something anyone's doing, you know. [01:33:02] Speaker B: He also does the most outrageous night photography that I still want to try. I haven't had a chance. This is. He takes a GFX to the edge of, like, cliffs near the ocean. That's rescue for disaster at midnight, after he finishes his radio show, when there's no moon. Pitch black. And he'll just. He calls it. What's he calls it? No light photography or something like that. He just points it towards what he can hear and then just sets a long exposure and has no idea what his composition is. And then that's the photo. It's. They look awesome. [01:33:44] Speaker C: Yeah, I couldn't see these. [01:33:46] Speaker B: It's so. It's such an interesting thing to be, like, I don't know what's out there. I'm gonna see what's out there by using this camera to, like, see in the dark, to see what can be seen. Yeah, it's such a cool idea. And the photos look great. Yeah. I've got to try it. But obviously you need a very dark environment and, I don't know, maybe your ropes stop me from falling off a cliff. [01:34:05] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe. Whatever. Tether to the van. Yeah, tie yourself to the van. You'll be fine. Yeah, Nev wants to try that as well. [01:34:16] Speaker B: Yeah, you gotta do it, Nev. Show us what you can get up. You've got all the great landscapes over there to do lightless photography. [01:34:26] Speaker A: So, Mark, you kind of hit a space where you're not working professionally anymore. Obviously, you're still running shopkit. Thank you very much. What's on the horizon for you? Yeah, what do you see as your next project? [01:34:44] Speaker C: Yeah, I haven't actually mentioned this publicly, but Shotkit is now owned by someone else or another company. So I actually exited a couple of years ago, almost two years ago, and I'm still working as the founders, the manager, essentially, doing what I did before. But the paychecks are all going somewhere else. And your wages being paid by someone else, Greg? [01:35:12] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. [01:35:14] Speaker C: Yeah. So it doesn't really affect me. It's a site in any way. Hopefully nothing's changed. No one would have known about it. There's no reason to. But, yeah, it does leave me in a bit of a strange position where my head is still in shock yet. And come December this year, sorry. But by the end of the year, I can, if I want, to, just go off and do something else, but then the problem is, what else do I do? So, yeah, that's kind of been on my mind for a bit, but with my head still in shock, it's very hard to think of something else to do. So, yeah, it's a bit of a. Watch this space one. I'd like to say that I've had something ready and waiting, but I don't. I'm just giving shotgun my full attention until the time when I get booted out. Yeah, maybe this time for next year, I'll still be here. Like a bad smell in a elevator, which you can't get rid of. And, yeah, I may still be on shotkit, but, yeah, there's a. There's a bigger chance that I'll be doing something else, but it will be gear related, I think it will be gear related. Yeah. Can't take that out of me. I love the gadgets. [01:36:18] Speaker B: Yeah, well, hey, you want to make a camera bag? I'm all for it. [01:36:24] Speaker C: Yeah, that's all for it. [01:36:26] Speaker A: I think we should call the brand megapickle mega pickle. [01:36:29] Speaker C: Yeah, we have a green camera bag. [01:36:31] Speaker B: With lumps all over it, just shaped like a pickle. [01:36:37] Speaker A: So basically a green shimota. [01:36:39] Speaker B: That's super exciting, that. Yeah, there might be sort of a blank slate coming up for you that you can do. Is that. Is it whatever you want fun or scary? Like, feeling like you could do whatever you want in the coming years and. Yeah. How does that make you feel? [01:36:58] Speaker C: Yeah, it is a little bit scary. It's like, I feel with Shopkit. Yeah, it was something that didn't exist, but there was a lot of luck involved, just with the timing and very fortunate that it came. It grew quickly. I put a lot of work into it. Yeah, a lot of work. But then people put a lot of work in things that don't take off. So, yeah, there was a lot of luck involved. So, yeah, I feel like I was extremely lucky. Like, I haven't had much corporate work experience. I worked in the online casino. That was. That was a fun job. Wasn't corporate in any way. And then I just suddenly, you know, made this site that's really popular and fortunately I've managed it to, you know, it's been acquired now. It's the next thing, but I feel like I haven't. It hasn't been realistic in terms of, like, really grinding away, trying to make it successful. Don't get me wrong, I worked really hard for it, but there's so much luck involved, so I feel like the next thing that I do, you know, if it fails straight away, I'm going to be, well, what happened? [01:38:05] Speaker B: It'd just be easy. [01:38:08] Speaker C: So, yeah, I've definitely done my 10,000 hours on shotkit and it got it to where it is, but I could do 10,000 hours on next thing and it won't be a success. So, yeah, that's kind of weighing on my mind. Yeah, I want to definitely take this same kind of gear kind of concept to some other industry and, yeah, see if I could kind of replicate that. Trying to serve the community first and then serve myself as I'm quite into cycling now, so that was one avenue that I was thinking about. [01:38:40] Speaker B: I was, yeah, I was wondering if. No, I wasn't going to say cycling specifically, but I was about to say this was obviously born out of something. It was already a passion for you, it was already something you were interested in. You weren't just like, oh, I did an analysis of industries and I've found that photography would be a good industry for me to start a website in. It was like, it was a natural evolution. I was going to ask if there's anything else in your life that you could see something evolving out of. So cycling is obviously something like that, that you could see. [01:39:13] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. A couple of years ago, I did actually think about starting a cycling related cycle. Yeah, probably that would be the direction that I had something to do with sport and, yeah, gear and, you know, showing off what you use. That kind of thing seems to be tried and tested and oddly doesn't exist elsewhere, so. Yeah, maybe that. But, yeah, there's a bit of nerves, definitely. I think ready was starting something new. [01:39:41] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. But that's the fun part. If you knew it was a guaranteed success, it sort of like takes all the that, you know, fear and excitement that turns it into. I think that's what channels us into working hard. Or is it like, oh, I know this will work. You might not put enough work in to make it work for sure. [01:40:04] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And I'll miss. I'll miss working on Shotka and just the community of all these photographers. Like, if I look at the homepage now, I've only had a hand in one of those photographers, like, I've not seen. I'm seeing these for the first time, just like you are, because I'm not. I don't work on that part of the site anymore. And just, Greg, you clicking into one of them now, so. Oh, God, I got to read that one later. That's great. Whereas before, when it was much slower, I'd be looking at each one and ironically making my own gear choices based on what they're submitting, but now it's this beast that I can only focus on one thing while all these other things are happening. I guess that's the same with any business as it grows. But, yeah, I think that's why you. [01:40:48] Speaker A: Build a team of people that get it. Passions and interests. I think we've got good people in the shotkit team, especially India. [01:41:00] Speaker B: Um, yeah, definitely. [01:41:03] Speaker C: Just to clarify, that's a name of a woman, not the country? Sorry. Yes, we have a lot of slave. [01:41:09] Speaker B: Labor, but it's not because I've emailed with India before, so I didn't even think. I was just like, oh, yeah, I know who they're talking about. But I didn't even think about. That's hilarious. Yeah. Got a good resource in this country. [01:41:22] Speaker C: I know. Yeah, the whole country. [01:41:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Timu. Let me just. Let me just use another slop. I like my sloppy segues. I think we should call a camera strap that the sloppy segway. [01:41:41] Speaker B: Marketing in trouble for that? I don't know. [01:41:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Mega pickle, though. We definitely need a megapixel one. Let's jump to some news. And proudly brought to you by shopkit.com because I'm using their site to bring up the news. Let me just jump to a screen. First news article of the day. Oscar winning actor Jeff Bridges is working on a new wide luxe film camera. So we've seen, in recent times, a resurgence in film, you know, peaks and troughs as things go along. We had the Pentax 17 came out a couple of months ago, which was the brand new 35 mm film camera that works on a half slide. So it kind of the whole sensor. There's no sensor. The concept is that the lens is flipped so that it only takes a half a 35 millimeter frame. So a 24 roll of film will actually get you 48 shots lower resolution, but still. [01:42:48] Speaker B: So kind of like a Fujifilm crop sensor almost. Yeah, it's like, not as good quality, but. Yeah, that's it. [01:42:55] Speaker A: Yeah. So Jeff Bridges, who's apparently a really passionate film photographer, and he's worked with a wide Lux before. He's looking at developing a new film, 35 mm film device called the Widelux X. And on a recent interview with Steve, Stephen Colbert on the Late show, talked about most of the photographs I take are done with a wide luxe camera. It's a panning steel camera, and I use the 35 millimeter version. It's got a 28 millimeter lens that pans so the whole, the whole unit slides to get the panoramic panoramic shot pans nearly 180 degrees. Instead of traditional shutter, it has a slit that Azelin pans as exposes the film. And you can see here the way that it's cut out. And so that whole, that whole section rotates almost 180 degrees to get the panoramic shot. So whereas on a traditional digital camera or on a smartphone, you actually pan the lens with you, like the whole phone. In some. Most digital cameras now, you can choose a ratio and you can choose to do panoramic shots. And others, it will take multiple shots and stitch them either in camera or in software later. But this one's a film camera, so. [01:44:16] Speaker B: Do you know how fast it turns? Like, can you handheld this? This bad boy. Oh, here we go. It says down there, speed options. [01:44:23] Speaker A: So pretty slow. Yeah, you have to have a pretty. Pretty. To be 120 5th second, I was going to say. [01:44:36] Speaker B: Well, yeah, 125th and then. Yeah, maybe even faster. [01:44:41] Speaker A: 125Th. [01:44:42] Speaker B: I don't know, because it says one 15th. Yeah. So. Okay. But either way, a tripod is probably ideal. [01:44:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:44:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:44:50] Speaker A: Um, so the wide Lux camera, the original was from the pan and camera Shoko company, 1958. And they're. These are, you know, they're not being made still. But he's looking at reinvigorating the brand. He's going to be working with Silver grain classics to form a german based company called Silver Bridges, which is named after Silver grain classics and Mister and misses bridges and. Yeah, I think that's really interesting. I like. I like when the Pentax 17 came out. You know, I think it's good to see that film photography is still alive. Obviously, a lot of people are still working with film cameras, and there are other brands that make film cameras. There's. Lomography makes some kind of kits that you can pick up along with many of their amazing 35 millimeter film. So that was our first news article. [01:45:43] Speaker B: Very cool. I like the original company's name, Pannon. It's like they were like, making this panoramic camera. What should we call our company name? Canon? [01:45:55] Speaker A: I didn't pick up on that. [01:45:56] Speaker B: It's like Canon, but with a panorama. [01:46:00] Speaker A: Mark. Have you ever shot with film cameras? [01:46:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I have. I've got this yashica. [01:46:07] Speaker A: Oof. Whoa. [01:46:09] Speaker B: What is that? [01:46:11] Speaker C: It's a y. I should know. So Max 124. It's got these two lenses here and then this. This is the viewfinder. So it's so confusing to shoot because you. You hold it waist height. That's why camera companies never lend me stuff. Yeah, you hold it at waist height and look straight down and everything's reversed, as well as you having to look down. It's not particularly fun to use, I've got to be honest. It's really confusing. [01:46:43] Speaker B: Is it a medium format? Like, what is that? [01:46:46] Speaker A: Yeah, 120 roll? [01:46:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right, yeah. And why? Did you buy it or did it get sent to you? [01:46:54] Speaker C: No, I got that second hand in the UK a while ago and I think I just wanted to try something different at the time. Yeah. And then I've got this Nikon film camera, which is my dad's old camera, so, yeah, I didn't actually ask him much about it, but, yeah, I'm not sure which one this is. [01:47:18] Speaker A: Nikomatousen. [01:47:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Very cool. [01:47:21] Speaker C: Yeah. I haven't shot with that yet, but that's a 35 mil. [01:47:25] Speaker A: Anyone in the comments knows what that one is, please feel free to drop us a line and let us know. [01:47:31] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I should know. But, yeah, I don't. I don't dabble with film much. It's just such a process to get it, you know, all the stuff involved with it. I'd love to. Yeah, I'd love to have the time and patience to do that kind of development in the dark room. That'd be really cool. But, yeah, the few times that I've shot with it, I found it odd that I was importing those pictures back into lightroom and then fiddling with them, and it was kind of like this. I want to make these look better and I know I can, but I shouldn't because then it's digital photography. But then it was originally film photo, you know, I just. I couldn't get my head around how I should be using it. [01:48:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:48:09] Speaker B: When I went through my spurts of. Of film photography, I did get all the scans back and that sort of stuff, but I just got. I've still got stacks of them. I just got every single photo printed in the six by fours. That's what I wanted. I was like, I just want. Send me the photos and I just want to look at the photos as prints, like it the way it used to be, and I don't want to even know about, like, it is what it is. Whatever they look like is what they look like, because I'm the same. It felt weird to be editing them in. I didn't realize people edited film photos in that room. The scans. [01:48:44] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just kind of wanted their digital copies of them in case I lost the prints. And then when they were in lightroom, I was like, ah, that exposure is one click away. I just want to fix it. You're not allowed. You shouldn't. [01:48:58] Speaker A: Don't touch. David der Parker. G'day, David. Love to get you on the show. By the way, Nicomat Japanese branded. Nick or Matt. Ah, cool. [01:49:09] Speaker B: Okay. [01:49:10] Speaker C: Yeah. Like, isn't there a model, though? Like, I know it says that right there. Maybe that is the model just says nicomache. [01:49:18] Speaker B: Usually there'd be like, if something off to the side or something or. [01:49:22] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:49:24] Speaker B: Interesting, interesting. But yeah. David, we definitely want you on when you're not too busy, please let us know. [01:49:30] Speaker A: Yeah, let us know. Drop us a line. Um, speaking of medium format, terrible segue. Let's go to another piece of news. Oops, no, I don't want to share a slideshow. Why would I want to do that? Hasselblad. Our news today is proudly brought to you by shotkit.com. hasselblad's limited edition earth explorer x 2d is worth a look. So this is very similar to how Leica will often do. [01:50:02] Speaker B: I was gonna say maybe a little too similar. [01:50:05] Speaker A: Maybe a little too similar, but I think there's, I think there's something in it. I mean, fujifilm just did it with the x 106, but that was an absolute schema of an event where they released the 90th birthday edition and they only did 1935, which was from their year of founding. [01:50:27] Speaker B: Um, what made it a shimozle? [01:50:30] Speaker A: Well, they were going to do, you could sort of pre order from select retailers, I think. And it, you know, it went pear shaped because there was only 1135 of them. [01:50:42] Speaker B: Okay. [01:50:43] Speaker A: And, uh, the demand was massive. I mean, it's hard enough to get an x 100 mark six, just a standard edition, but these limited editions obviously are really appealing. And so a lot of places held lotteries, each sort of Fujifilm region, like the USA, Asia, Japan and Oceania and Europe. So they had lotteries that you could kind of, you know, your name would get drawn, but people were getting in, getting in multiple entries, I think, and then grabbing them at the price that it was a few hundred dollars more than the original version, but then flagging it for, you know, ridiculous amounts of money on secondhand marketplaces. [01:51:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So is the way it is the. [01:51:28] Speaker A: Way and the same thing. I mean, completely different thing. But Sony have just unveiled, not camera, but Sony PlayStation five has. They've just announced a 35th anniversary edition that's got the same colorway and branding as the original PlayStation, and that's had the exact same issue. They only made limited numbers. The retailers, like JB hi fi here in Australia. And EB games put up ballots. People got them, and now they're selling them for ridiculous amounts of money on the second hand market. Anyway, back to Hasselblad. So. Yeah, so Leica had the. They did one with Daniel Craig, the zero zero seven version of one of their M M cameras. They've, they did it with Lenny Kravitz. They did like, the safari green ones. [01:52:13] Speaker B: Yeah. I'll show you once you've finished it. When you go to pull this down, I'll bring the Leica one up. That, I mean, because it's not the special edition thing that gets me. It's this specific. [01:52:23] Speaker A: Okay. All right, cool. So the x, it's 100 megapixel, medium format camera. They released an Earth Explorer edition, which offers a little bit more. They're releasing the new edition for serious outdoor use with. How much are these worth? Like 10,000. 12,000. It comes in a tundra brown color option. So here's a camera here. And it comes packed with a 55 millimeter 2.5 lens, a limited edition strap, a uv filter, two batteries and a charging unit. And so the other thing that happens is when you power this on, there's a special welcome stream, a welcome scream, that scream, I can't say it screen that is a kind of like a mountain range in the background. So that's the load screen. I don't know how much that impacts, how fast the camera is. [01:53:16] Speaker B: Slows it down a bit. [01:53:18] Speaker A: Yeah, probably. And then there's a. Each one has a unique serial number, which is what they did with the Fuji X 100 mk. Six limited edition versions. So, yeah, so that's it there in all its glory. And. Yeah, you know, the news article here talks about how it's, you know, clearly a collector's edition. It's obviously an amazing camera, but there's the whole kit there. And they could really do with a leather lucky camera strap, let's be honest. [01:53:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I was trying to see what. Who's making those for them? Hard to know. [01:53:56] Speaker A: Special branding on the strap. But other than that, it's still a x normal edition of the camera costs around 8200. I imagine this is us dollars, Mark. [01:54:10] Speaker C: Yes. [01:54:11] Speaker A: Does Steven usually do us? I think the earth Explorer kit will set you back roughly $12,000. [01:54:19] Speaker B: Holy. Us. [01:54:21] Speaker A: Us. However, the collectors edition Earth Explorer kit with engraved accessories and special packaging is 14. Sorry. [01:54:29] Speaker B: So 14 normal X 2D with the accessories would. Normal norm nor like. So. Yeah. Okay. So it's saying X 2D with the normal x with the kit, with the accessories. But not in a kit would be twelve. But then for the privilege of the green and stuff, it's 14. [01:54:50] Speaker A: And getting everything engraved, it's 40,000 us worth it. That's crazy. [01:54:58] Speaker B: Now show me the photo at the top again and let me. And then. Okay, so that's the. Yep. [01:55:04] Speaker A: Everyone seen that? [01:55:06] Speaker B: And then this is the Leica Q two reporter edition, which has been out for a long time and very, very popular. I'm just gonna say she looks very similar. [01:55:19] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:55:20] Speaker B: And I can see why they would do it. This was a popular color. Like, people love this thing when it came out. [01:55:25] Speaker A: Well, they also had the safari one, which was a similar green. [01:55:28] Speaker B: Was it? [01:55:29] Speaker A: Yeah, but that was an m, I. [01:55:30] Speaker B: Think that was an m. An m, yeah. [01:55:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:55:33] Speaker B: But, yeah, it's. I'm all for it. Like some cool colors and stuff like that. But, yeah, that's a pretty. That's a pretty hefty upcharge, I think, from memory. I don't think the Q two reporter was significantly more expensive. They seem to do it more like halfway through the product life cycle to reinvigorate the product that's a few years old now. They bring out like a color or whatever, but I don't think they often charge a lot for it because they're already very expensive, I guess. But, yeah, that X 2D is interesting. Is that a bigger sensor than a Fuji medium format? Is that the difference? It's like. Yeah, it is. Okay. [01:56:10] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. It's in between, like a full frame and a Hasselblad. Sorry, the Hasselblad is bigger than the fujifilm. Fujifilm's in between. [01:56:19] Speaker B: In between, yeah. Because I've often seen Fujifilm haters online say it's not a real medium format anyway. [01:56:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:56:26] Speaker A: And they've stopped calling it that with the original X 100 and the original 50s. They were referring to it as medium format photography because they wanted to get people on board. But in more recent marketing, they don't call it medium format. They call it either larger than full frame or larger format. Okay. So they're not technically branding it. I just want to see if there's any limited edition x 106s on the eBays. Um, yeah, 7000, 11,000. And they're listing the numbers. Yeah. Whoa. [01:57:10] Speaker B: Surely no one's buying those. Bring it up. [01:57:12] Speaker A: I'll bring it, um, just very quickly. So we head towards the end of the show. Let's just end on this sad, sad note. So this one here, this one's in Japan. They won't sell that 11,000. I mean, you think 1134. [01:57:30] Speaker B: You think a Q three is expensive? Imagine paying the same money for a crop sensor. [01:57:35] Speaker A: Hey, it's more than the sensor size, you idiot. But yeah, so. And there's heaps of them. There's a lot of. [01:57:44] Speaker B: Isn't that crazy? [01:57:45] Speaker A: Yeah, so it clearly, you know, out of 1935 limited editions, you know, there's a good 15 of them on the secondhand market that are saying that they're brand new. So people weren't buying them for the love of photography. They're buying them for a commercial venture. [01:58:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:58:08] Speaker A: Which is sad. [01:58:10] Speaker B: It is. [01:58:11] Speaker A: It is sad. [01:58:13] Speaker B: David Dare Parker also commented he enjoys visiting the Shopkit site. Great advice and lots of fun. Fun. Gear acquisition syndrome is still a thing for sure. Thanks, Mark. Do you know David? Mark? [01:58:25] Speaker C: No, I don't. But I like his photo. [01:58:28] Speaker A: Looks like he's a photojournalist. [01:58:29] Speaker B: Photojournalist who's done some serious, serious work and we really want to get him on the show. Yeah. But, yeah, I was going to ask, I don't know if, David, if you're still listening, but if you are, have you put your kit on shot kit, David? [01:58:43] Speaker C: And if so, I'm looking when he has. So, yeah, sorry. [01:58:49] Speaker A: Awesome. [01:58:49] Speaker B: You missed out of the 2000 photographers, you should know them all. [01:58:53] Speaker C: Well, you know what? Photojournalism, that's my favorite genre on the site because they're gear, the stuff that they include with the cameras. It's amazing. Some of the stuff we've had bulletproof vests, we've had like flare guns, all kinds of crazy stuff. [01:59:07] Speaker B: I always check that one out if I go on there because I also have this. This is probably stupid, but I have this thing where my ultimate kit would be like the kit you would take to a war zone, or the, what I like to call like the zombie apocalypse. You know, like it's one or two lenses, a camera body, you know, like, it's not. You're not taking a pelican case to a war zone or to the end of the world, you know. So that's how I like to often think about my gear. It's like if I could just grab this stuff and go get dropped anywhere to do anything, it would do the job. And it's so often like a nick on d four s and a 24 to 70 or something like that, and a bulletproof vest and a helmet, you know, it's like. [01:59:53] Speaker A: Let me just quickly bring up. Mark's just shared with us here at the podcast photojournalism. Section. [02:00:04] Speaker C: The one in the top left, um, has a bulletproof vest just to the. [02:00:07] Speaker A: It does. That's very minimal. There's your kit. [02:00:11] Speaker B: Yeah, just most of them are. I mean, obviously there's going to be some that have, have some serious bigger kits, but yeah, most of them are like one or two bodies, one or two lenses, and then there's even a helmet. Yeah. [02:00:25] Speaker A: Wow, look at that old school reporter style bag. Wow, that's. [02:00:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they all got those kind of like a donkey shoulder bag or something like that. And then that's it. [02:00:33] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. [02:00:37] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's. [02:00:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [02:00:42] Speaker A: Wow, that's really amazing. [02:00:44] Speaker B: Oh my gosh. [02:00:45] Speaker A: Oh, shit. That was a body. Sorry, everyone at home. I didn't realize that was coming. Well, look, that pretty much brings us to the end of episode 32 of the Camera Life podcast. Before we wrap up, obviously, I want to say a huge thank you to mark Condon for joining us and sharing your, your experience, your journey, for keeping me employed and for telling us a little bit about what inspires you and what motivated you and where you're at now. And we wish you all the very best on your future endeavors. I'm sure that given your ability to find a gap in, in a crowded space and create something unique, I'm sure you're going to be fine. So thank you very much on behalf of, on behalf of us for, for tagging along for this chat this morning. [02:01:35] Speaker C: Yeah, my pleasure. It's been great. Yeah, it's been really good talking to you both and meeting you like this for the first time. Justin. And yeah, I wish you all the best with the podcast. It's great that you're doing this for the community. I hope everyone finds it interesting as I do. [02:01:50] Speaker B: Thanks so much, Mark. [02:01:51] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks, mate. We love what we do. You know, it's a good outlet, I think, for creatives to. And community is essential. And it's a really key part of what lucky Straps is trying to do and what I do with my own, my own work and working with the Fujifilm group. Community is a huge part of photography and I think that Shotkit actually makes us feel a little bit closer to other photographers in a way that real photographers and visual creatives are writing the reviews. It's not just, just, there's no AI involved, let me tell you that much. But, you know, it's not just people that are spitting out reviews about products they've never touched or looked at. These are real people that get out on the street or get out in the countryside and test this gear. And I think there's a lot to learn from sites like Shotkit, so be sure to check it out before we finish up. Any. Any creative projects ahead for you this weekend or this coming week? Mark, got any family events you want to photograph or. [02:02:54] Speaker C: No, got nothing except school holidays, which is a mixed bag of pain and pleasure. So just getting through that, as any parent will tell you. [02:03:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I hear it. [02:03:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:03:07] Speaker A: I mean, most of my kids are adults, five kids, three adults, two are still at school, but the youngest one is needing the most. Most time. [02:03:17] Speaker C: Right. [02:03:18] Speaker A: But, yeah, no, it's good. It's good. I like having their kids home sometimes. Justin, how about you? What have you got on this, this coming week? We've got bright next weekend. Any gigs on? [02:03:29] Speaker B: No. A photo shoot this afternoon for flow mountain bike, which would be fun. Get out. And I'm gonna absolutely hammer the 50 mil Canon 1.2 lens. Again, I've been shooting without heaps for action sports, wide open at 1.2, and it's. It's like. It's so much fun. It takes you back to those days of being like, oh, did I get that in focus or not? Whereas if you shoot with a regular, you know, like a 24 to 70 or whatever, pretty much every shots in focus all the time. That's like. And they just look. They look fantastic. And 50 mil is just that normal focal length where everything looks quite real. It brings enough foreground into it and stuff, but it's still. Yeah. So I'm shooting hybrid photo and video this afternoon with the five reals mark two and the 50 mil 1.2. And I'll probably take something else as well, a wide and one or two other lenses and. Yeah, my rotation backpack. [02:04:28] Speaker C: Where do you share those photos, Justin? Are they, like, on another side? [02:04:32] Speaker B: Yeah, so I was gonna say. So flow mountain bike Australia, they review mountain bikes and do a lot of other content as well. They're a content site, and basically almost every bike review on there I've shot the photo on video for. There's starting to be a few new ones now because they're getting. Their team's getting bigger and bigger. So there'll be some reviews coming in from, like, Canada and stuff, but almost every bike review will be my images. I haven't done anything personally with the images, which is a shame. I've got this. I don't know how many bikes I've reviewed a lot or, like, I don't review them. I shoot. The tech editor lives in Bendigo, in my town. [02:05:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:05:13] Speaker B: So he. He does all the reviews and the writing, and I just shoot all of the stuff for him. It's. It's such a fun. I don't know. It's turned into, like, a fairly regular thing for me. It's sort of the only paid photography work I do now. [02:05:29] Speaker C: Okay. [02:05:30] Speaker B: And it's super. It's like, I get to be creative with it, but I'm also just out mountain biking around. Yeah, it's super fun. Super fun. Outlet to test gear. [02:05:42] Speaker C: I'm looking at this image of a bike that's just in the air with no cyclist on it. I'm wondering how the hell you've done that. [02:05:48] Speaker B: That might not be me. I don't even know. Because some of the stuff. If it's news for, like, a new bike release, it could be the stock. Like the. Where's that? Oh, I didn't do that. No, I see. That's it. Yeah. So that's like a first look. So that means that that bike's just been released and they've just used. It's a news article, and that's just photoshopped from the manufacturer. But if you just underneath that, you'll see the Merida E 160 review. Actually, I'll pull it up on here. Yeah. Done. So where are we? Uh, present? [02:06:25] Speaker C: Yeah. Just so people get an idea of what shooting sport with a 51.2 is like, because that's really unusual. [02:06:31] Speaker B: I'm trying to remember if I used it on this particular review. Um, but, yeah, basically. Now that was a wide. I don't know if I used it on this one because I've been bringing it in and out of the fold. Um, so not. Not all these shots of mine, but shots like that are mine. That's a 7200. [02:06:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:06:53] Speaker B: And that is the 7200 as well. [02:06:58] Speaker A: Very cool. [02:06:59] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know, the 50, which I can't even remember. I. I should have had some stuff prepared. I've got. It'll all be in lightroom, but I don't know whether it's easy enough for me to pull that up. But if I do this, this and then this. [02:07:21] Speaker A: So, Mark, are you riding a road bike or a mountain bike or a bit of both. [02:07:25] Speaker C: Yeah, both. And gravel bike around here. Gravel's, you know, got a lot of nice sort of. Yeah. Gravel country around here. So it's kind of a cross between the two. [02:07:38] Speaker A: Cool. [02:07:40] Speaker B: I can do this. Share screen window, lightroom. Last chance. We'll see if this works. Otherwise, I won't hold you guys up any longer. So this is from a shoot with a cross country racer called Tali. And I'm positive. Yeah. So this. These would have been with the 51.2 and wide open. [02:08:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:08:11] Speaker B: Just getting him coming up. So it's probably hard to see on if I. That's not like. [02:08:19] Speaker C: Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, you nailed it. How many keepers versus throwaways are you getting with that lens, man? [02:08:27] Speaker B: So on the old r five, it would miss a lot, to the point where I didn't really use it. On the r three, probably not quite 50 50. So probably every third image would be sharp, which is pretty impressive. Depends on the conditions. Like backlight, like, if it's harsh backlight, it would be a little bit less consistent. But this overcast condition was very consistent. That was with the r three. And then what's crazy is with the r five mark two, it's even better in my initial testing than the r three, which is a little bit insane. Yeah. Almost every second probably would be in focus and certainly getting a keeper, because the thing is, I don't even shoot. The frame rates are getting ridiculous. Like, mountain biking is pretty quick, but because it's a review shoot rather than, like, a race or something, I'm mainly shooting at 15 frames a second. And it's plenty if it's a really, really fast section where they, like, come in and out of it very, very quickly. Maybe I'll bump that up to. To 20 or something like that. But, like, they can, you know, 30 frames a second is just. You'd easily get keepers at 30 frames a second with these new cameras at 1.2. And. Yeah, I just. I love the. Just. That just sort of melts away. It almost has that medium format, sort of fuji look about it. [02:09:52] Speaker C: Yeah, Canon's 1.2s have always had that. Yeah, it's great. [02:09:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And that RF lenses is very, very sharp at 1.2 as well, which is. Which is quite crazy. Whereas I think I heard, I never shot with the old 1.2, but a lot of people said it was a little bit soft, wide open, even though it still looked nice. Anyway, so that's what I'm doing. That's what I'm doing this afternoon, which is always heaps of fun just to get outside, take a sort of a fairly minimal kit, and, yeah, get some fun photos. [02:10:25] Speaker C: Cool. [02:10:25] Speaker A: Nice. [02:10:26] Speaker B: Hmm. [02:10:27] Speaker A: Sounds good. [02:10:28] Speaker B: Cool. All right. Better let you guys get on with your day. [02:10:31] Speaker A: Yeah. So once again, thank you, Mark. Thank you, Justin. [02:10:36] Speaker B: Thanks, Greg. [02:10:37] Speaker A: Enjoy your shoot, Greg. Yeah. And thank you for joining us. Once again, guys, following along, please. Make sure you like and subscribe. Tickle the bell button in YouTube so you get notifications of the upcoming episodes. We do have next week, the bright festival of photography photography. We're heading off on the Friday morning and, but we will still have Thursday's show. We might chat a little bit about what's coming up at bright for us, but we might also do some impromptu videos while we're in bright, so stay tuned on the channel. Make sure you hit the notification so you get word of those coming. Thanks for watching along. Listening along. If you're on audio and we're signing off, have a great day. Get out and shoot no matter what camera it is, preferably a food you film. Make sure you get out and shoot and chase a little light. Thanks for watching. [02:11:34] Speaker C: Thanks guys. [02:11:35] Speaker A: Catching smart. [02:11:36] Speaker B: Thanks, Greg.