EP49 Running a Film Lab with John Umina

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:07] Speaker B: I could listen to this all day long. [00:00:10] Speaker C: It is be a long podcast. [00:00:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't mean. I didn't mean live. Welcome everybody to the Camera Life podcast. It is, what is it? Thursday 6th February here in Australia, Victoria, Australia. And this is episode 49 of the Camera Life podcast, proudly brought to you by Lucky Straps from Bendigo, Victoria. And speaking of regional destinations, stick around to hear more from our guest, John Yumina. Is that how I pronounce it? [00:00:43] Speaker D: John Yumina Yumena. [00:00:47] Speaker A: Potato. [00:00:48] Speaker D: That's fine. [00:00:49] Speaker B: We're joined by John John, who is the. You're the owner and manager and runner and chief, what's that term? Chief cook and bottle washer at Lumina Labs in Kyneton, Victoria. We're going to get into John's story in just a moment. Just reminding everybody that we are coming to you live right now at your eyeballs via YouTube. All of our back catalog of the Camera Life podcast episodes is available on YouTube and we're also uploading regularly to audio podcasts. So if you don't have the time to sit down and watch a long form video of such gorgeous looking men, what is wrong with you? A, but B, you can listen to us. A lot of people are into what is it amsr these days. So you know, if you want to hear Justin's whiny voice or Jim's, you know, kind of baritone voice, then my voice is amazing. Anyway, I digress. [00:01:47] Speaker A: Speaking of listeners, good morning Philip Johnson. Good morning editor Seb. Good morning Matt Palmer from Bright Alpine Light. And good morning David Mascaro from the Bay Area. David's a avid street shooter and film shooter, so I think he'll enjoy this one. I think he'll have a little bit of input for us. [00:02:07] Speaker C: Is that David? [00:02:09] Speaker A: I think he's number one or two. I don't know. We'll see, we'll see who shows up today. [00:02:14] Speaker B: Yeah, John, just for your information, we get a lot of David's. Oh, here's another one. [00:02:19] Speaker A: We attract David's morning duty frog, Tassie two Head. [00:02:23] Speaker B: Dave and Matt Palmer's also watching along. And guys, we're going to cover off a little later on project, a new initiative that Matt's working on that we're going to take part in if we have the time and, and the, the opportunity. But more on that later. Let's, let's just hear from our guest. Oh, also good morning. Welcome back, Jim. [00:02:47] Speaker D: Thanks. [00:02:47] Speaker A: Oh yeah, Jim's here. [00:02:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:02:49] Speaker A: Morning. It's been a while. Popped on, popped on. I like the lighting theme this morning, the pinky blue kind of thing, it's. Yeah, it's red. [00:02:59] Speaker B: Red on my end, but looks pink to me. [00:03:01] Speaker A: Yeah, that's those Nick. [00:03:02] Speaker B: And there's nothing wrong with that gym. That's, you know, it's 20, 25. [00:03:06] Speaker C: It's definitely red. [00:03:08] Speaker B: Okay, John, we just want to hear from you briefly who you are and what it is that you do at the moment. [00:03:17] Speaker D: Sure, yeah. Well, as you can see, with my very corporate image, this is. This is me, Lumeta Labs. I suppose I was a photographer first and foremost. I. I loved getting up with my camera. I had a corporate job, sickly, in Melbourne, and I'd just grab my camera on my lunch breaks and go out and take pictures. And that sort of, sort of started my love of photography in general. And then I suppose corporate life got a little bit. Got me down a bit. It was quite stressful. And then I got sick. And after I got sick, I. I was sort of in bed for six months. I couldn't move and I couldn't talk or eat. And I had a lot of rumination time to think about what do I want to do and what am I passionate about. And so with a couple of people that I knew, I formulated a plan to start a film lab. And actually the film lab already existed under a different name and it's called Blue Hour Photo Lab. And it was run out of Bendigo. And. Yeah, so I started talking to the owners of the lab and I decided to buy into it, which is a crazy proposition. Under normal circumstances, you do not want to buy into a film lab in, in the, in this era. It's nuts because firstly all this, all this year, people were just throwing it out. They just threw it in the tip. When, when digital cameras came about, they went, oh, this is junk. This is just industrial waste. But a few people held on to them and the prices for those objects became very, very unattainable. So now, like all those film labs that have started, particularly the big labs in Melbourne, they. They bought into this at a time where, you know, all those small labs were closing up. All the pharmacies were getting rid of their film processing machines and their scanners. So that's really helped them kind of get a good start in the industry. But to do it today, like, the machines are just crazy expensive and the financial reports just aren't there. Like you're operating on very slender margins. So, yeah, I started the lab to, I guess, fund my, my own gas, let's call that partially. I wanted to I wanted to shoot film and I wanted. I wanted to be able to process at home. And when I started doing it for myself, I realized, well, maybe we could extend this to other people and offer the same equipment. And I love having people here and using this stuff. Yeah. So that's. That's essentially why I started the lab. Just. Yeah. Further my love of photography and to further other people's love of photography, too. It's really. It was hard. We moved from Melbourne to Quineton and there was nothing really around for film where we are, although there's a couple of wonderful artists working here that use film, and it's Gold Street Studios up the road as well, which specializes in traditional process. So, yeah, I. I think it's been. It's been a crazy journey and I'm just getting started. I'm just getting to the point of telling people like this that I'm here and I'm doing this and we offer this to Regional Victoria. [00:07:04] Speaker B: Very cool. [00:07:04] Speaker D: Awesome. [00:07:05] Speaker A: And. And that's the thing. It's. So you're based in Kyneton, which is. Which is quite a small town, really. You know, it doesn't have a population to support a film lab, certainly, but you set up dropboxes across a big part of central Victoria and also in Melbourne, so that people can just drop off rolls of film in those drop boxes and then they get. I don't know, somehow magically, I assume. I thought when I saw that, that maybe they go through those old school, like, air pipes they used to have in the. In the things to shoot them and then they just pop out. Yep. Into your lab. Which is pretty cool. You wish. [00:07:46] Speaker B: Is that, like, how does that work? [00:07:50] Speaker A: Yeah. How do the dropboxes work? And is this. Is that mostly. Is that where the industry is going? Is it. Is it going to be like less and less film labs so that more and more it's going to be. You have to post something in. You know, obviously back. Back in the day, there used to be a film processing lab on every corner in every town, but now I know we've sort of one kind of in Bendigo within our camera store. And Bendigo is a much bigger place than kind. But, you know, around the world it's getting less and less. I wonder if that model is going more and more towards having to post. Post your film into your preferred lab within your, you know, greater area or country. [00:08:30] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do think that. So in Melbourne, there's labs. More and more labs are actually opening, so we're actually seeing a Reverse of the cycle of closing down. The people are very much still interested in shooting film and film is ramping up production with Kodak as opposed to slowing down. So they're hiring people. There's a bit of an issue in the industry with the film price, which I don't know if you want to talk about, but it's. It's still, it's still. Well, I won't say I'm the most informed about all the industry going on spot. Essentially there's a couple of companies. One. One was an investment company that bought out Kodak kodakalaris. And there are. They have no interest in basically sustaining analog film photography. They're just there to make profits. So they're responsible for sort of jacking up of prices. So we're going from an affordable, let's say 15 a roll up to 30 plus. You know, I mean it's just been gradually going up and up, which isn't it. That's an issue for this is sustaining this industry in general. And then there's also the film labs themselves. The prices of chemistry also goes up. So the process of the equipment that you don't have a technician to support you with any of this stuff, you have to fix it yourself. So when the film processor dies, when there's a pump or a weird electronics error, you're the one with the multimeter fixing it all. Which is also something I wasn't prepared to do initially. I thought I was hire someone, but there is no one to really help you. Yeah. So it's a fascinating industry being held together by bus, Scotch tape. You know, there's just like a little thing can go wrong and you can shut down a film lab. Wow. [00:10:42] Speaker A: Yes. [00:10:43] Speaker B: Okay, Justin, in, in, in parallel, it's kind of a lot like not the, not the manufacturing of leather camera straps. You know, having toured the factory with you, the. Some of those stamping machines are from World War II. [00:10:57] Speaker A: Oh yeah. And there's older stuff even. And yeah, there used to be techs that were cruised around that would fix the more complicated machines because they've got similar sorts of stuff. They've got like vacuum tubes and all sorts of weird pressure and stuff like that. That, that there aren't techs anymore. The guys at the, at the factory where lucky straps are made, like they'll, you know, if a machine goes wrong, it's like, all right, we stop work and pull the machine apart if we can figure out how to fix it. And yeah, it's. It's very similar in that way. It's it's, yeah, it's tough. Definitely makes life a lot harder than just being able to ring, yeah, ring, ring your local tech and, and get them to come and sort the problem out. [00:11:39] Speaker C: So yeah, you found there's been a change with like, with that film price changing and increasing. Has that changed, I guess how many roles people are dropping off or. [00:11:54] Speaker D: Well, I mean I'm small, I'm only a tiny lab. So in Melbourne an average lab would probably do a thousand roles plus a week. So yeah, they're probably going to see a bigger shift. Whereas I always see a very small number being a small player. But it does have an impact. But interestingly, other industries have sprung up to support film and namely the cinema film respoolers. I don't know if you're aware of these guys, but they'll buy the 400 foot rolls of cinema film and they will respawn onto reused cassettes and sell it under their own brand names a little bit deceptively sometimes, but other times they're quite upfront and say what? This is actually Kodak Vision 3 film. And so there, there's a whole industry that has sprung up doing that. But as I was saying about Kodak Alvaros, they're the ones that have said, actually we've noticed you're doing this and you're taking the cream off the top here because we keep our, our, our cinema film low for filmmakers to make movies. We don't want you getting that stock and putting it into reloadable cassettes. So they've, they've cracked down on that now. [00:13:07] Speaker B: And so, yeah, just, there was an article that just came out yesterday. [00:13:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I was like, this is crazy. [00:13:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Kodak breaking down on respawlers. [00:13:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I was just trying to Google it then I was like, I literally read this yesterday. Yeah. So what's interesting though is how can you crack down on that like if it makes no sense, like again, to compare to camera straps. If people were buying our camera straps and then cutting the leather up into little other things and reselling them, I'd be like, oh well, according to this, well done finding a cool way to work with our product. Like you can't, you can't just stop it, you know? [00:13:43] Speaker B: Well, according to the article on Petapixel, so basically it says, this is from Reflex Lab. Over the past year, Kodak has implemented a policy restricting the sale of bulk rolls of motion picture film to individuals or companies that cannot prove the film will be used for shooting movies. [00:14:00] Speaker A: Wow, isn't that interesting? [00:14:04] Speaker B: Changes Response to the growing trend of small businesses reselling respilled film. You know, there's a lot of brands that have done that, obviously. [00:14:14] Speaker D: Yeah, there's quite a few and a few in Australia. There's about three or four that I'm aware of that do it in Australia. [00:14:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:20] Speaker C: So someone else is buying it, though, respooling it and then selling it cheaper than what Kodak are, surely. Yeah, they've got too much of a margin. [00:14:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:31] Speaker A: Like. [00:14:31] Speaker D: Yeah, well, they subsidize it for film, for people making movies. They don't think that still stills photographers are going to be using that stock. That's why it's low. So. [00:14:43] Speaker A: Yeah, why subsidize it for people making movies and not subsidize? Why not just make more images? Yeah, yeah. [00:14:49] Speaker B: Why not meet the demand? It's crazy. [00:14:52] Speaker D: I think there's two. A couple of different perspectives there and maybe different companies. One, one is very pro, you know, movie, and the other is about stills. And the still side of the business isn't really that concerned with making film cheaper. In fact, they know that they've got a monopoly and they can charge whatever they like. Yeah, but that was one of those industries that cropped up as a response to the price of film. So they were selling a roll of Cinema film for 16 or, you know, $17, and that was making it more affordable. But we'll see what happens. Whether Kodak can really implement such a crackdown might be difficult because when you shoot a movie, you get short ends. You know, the bits of the roll that you don't use at the end of a take. And you can also just use those. And there's ways of probably getting secondhand film to keep that industry sustained, at least for a while. [00:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a disappointing turn of events, isn't it, with, you know, the. And this is partly why we see the resurgence of film falter so many times. You know, it was popular pre Covid with all the hipsters, at least where I. Where I live in South Yarra. Aren't you, Greg? You know, I've dabbled, but yeah, like the resurgence of film always seems to falter because. And I think. And obviously from what you're saying, you know, a big part of it is that the big brands do have that monopoly, do control the market and, you know, you're kind of left begging for scraps almost. It will be interesting to see what Kodak does with this. And it's, you know, and it's. It's disappointing because Kodak has such a Such a long history and it's, you know, it was obviously a much loved brand and it's changed hands so many times that it's really lost sight of what it was to begin with, you know. [00:16:53] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:16:53] Speaker B: Which is really sad for the industry. You know, Fujifilm managed to pivot and hold on to their brand and their product with film. And for those of you that don't know how Fuji survived the, the, the, the fall of film and the rise of digital is that they re pivoted that all their factoring and manufacturing plants they retooled because they had knowledge in color science and chemicals. So they pivoted to use those systems to create skincare products and beauty products, makeup and all that sort of thing because they had, they kind of had what they needed the, the, the foundation to be a cosmetics company without too much extra effort. So that's how they managed to survive. But, but yeah, I think and we, we've often talked on the podcast John about how film is so, you know, unaffordable for a lot of people. Even just finding a decent camera is tricky. You can find a bunch of cheap ones secondhand. But you know, we've often talked about these sort of small attempts to reintroduce film cameras like the, the Pentax was at the 17. The i7, the half frame. [00:18:03] Speaker D: 17. [00:18:04] Speaker A: Half frame, yeah. [00:18:05] Speaker B: 17. Yeah, the half frame. Brilliant idea. But you know everyone kind of held their breath when that launch to see what would actually happen with it. And it's been perpetually out of stock in a lot of places which is great to see but I just think it's also no one else is brave enough to go actually you know what Fujifilm's going to bring out a film camera. It, let's just do it. You know, no one's brave enough to do that at the moment because you know there's all these other elements in the industry that are out of control. [00:18:33] Speaker D: It's probably more that there's more second hand cameras out there and that makes it a more untenable kind of market to go after when you can just pick up your grandfather's camera, get it serviced and Bob's your uncle, you can go out and shoot. And they're often better technologically than the cameras that are coming out now. Even though that they're new and newer electronics. The, the old camera is still very fully featured, you know, so that's probably the thinking there, that. But then there's a, there's a market of people that want a camera that works reliably and they'll pay that money for a warranty and for the support of Pentax and they'll go out and buy that camera. And they did lots of interesting design. Design decisions with that camera. Yeah, where it shoots, you know, half frame, which is. [00:19:31] Speaker B: You've got to work out your orientation before you, you know, you've got to retrain your brain a little bit. [00:19:38] Speaker D: It's focused on people that use Instagram and, you know, so it's in that orientation. That's. That's who they are. They're going after. [00:19:46] Speaker B: No, I didn't either. [00:19:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I didn't even think about that. I just thought, okay, they're just trying to economically use the film, which obviously to get more shots per roll. But yeah, I didn't even think that. That, that means that if. If that's your sort of natural shooting style for Instagram and stuff, then it's. You're holding the camera this way and getting that vertical shot. That's it. Yeah. [00:20:06] Speaker D: You know, that, that comes back to how a film lab operates today in that we develop and we scan film, but back in the day, you get a print, or you might print yourself in your. In your. In your dark room, but most people just get the digital file. So it's essentially, you know, we don't like to admit this. It's an abstracted digital photography. You're getting a digital file, you're posting it wherever. Why you shoot film? People would say, well, it depends on your practice and your process. So if it's. If you're an artist and you just love the medium and you love developing yourself, you get into the nuances of developing and producing an image that's just right in camera and also in developing and also in printing. [00:20:55] Speaker A: Coming from the, Coming from the audio world. I used to do a bit of recording and stuff back in the day when I was famous guitarist. Not. I've always thought about it as the bands that prefer to work with analog tape when they record. Yet they were still releasing on CD and or now streaming, but they still preferred to record to analog tape because it had particular sound. It's also a particular way of working that was much more live than. Than recording to digital. Even though digital can be more live, you had the ability to edit so much more easily that then you fall down that trap of editing more easily. You know what I mean? So. So, yeah, I always thought about that a lot. It's like, even though it's still digital, in the end, people are still buying a CD or listening to it. On a streaming platform, there is a different outcome, recording to tape than there is recording to pro tools or whatever the other choice was. So it's, it's kind of similar to that, that it could, it could potentially change the outcome of what you're capturing, despite the fact that you're still ending up with a digital file. [00:22:08] Speaker B: Yeah, but some people like that, the purity of film and the minimal digital intervention in composing and exposure, which is something we often harp on about here, about going back to basics as though your camera is a film camera. If you're using a digital camera, turn off all the bells and whistles and just stick with your exposure triangle as though it was a film camera as a means of learning your craft more effectively and mastering your camera and then start to turn on all those extra bits and pieces. But I think, you know, and there's other, other industries that still use tape or analog for recording too. Like there's data. Tapes are still very much in use in some places. And I think also for. I don't know if it's for audio or video. It might be black magic, I might be wrong on that. But there's one brand that produces a massive device that takes these huge 30 centimeter reels of tape for recording, for recording, you know, video data. It's. So there are still some demands for that sort of analog process. Now, John, let's, let's roll back a little bit. One, one question I just wanted to have answered was how does the Dropbox system work? Have you. Do you have like, you know, local. We don't have milk bars anymore either, but local stores have a place where people can drop off their film and it's sent to you, it's collected. How does that all transpire? [00:23:33] Speaker D: Yeah, so there's a network of like mailboxes, dropboxes, and I have them located around central Victoria one in Bendigo and Castle Main and Dullsford and all those sorts of places. And there's a code, you know, QR code on that. Just you scan that, you fill out an order form online, you drop your film and I come and get it. Either I come and get it or someone posts it to me. It depends on where it is. But I aim to get the film to me as quickly as possible because as you mentioned, people don't want to wait around and not too much, even though it's film and it's inherently a slow medium, people were like, where is my film I want yesterday? So I try to get on top of that as quickly as I can. So I do a couple of developing days a week here and that helps me, you know, have a really fast turnaround. At least what I think is a faster for regional Victoria. If you're in Melbourne you can go into a lab and some of them will do it the same day. But I'm not a walk in store. I can't, I can't operate like they do, unfortunately. [00:24:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:24:42] Speaker B: Okay, so it's purely the Dropbox. There's no storefront for you where you are at the moment? [00:24:47] Speaker D: No. [00:24:48] Speaker B: And are the Dropboxes like a physical box with your branding on it? And sorry, just to re clarify, are they located in other stores like in camera stores or. [00:24:58] Speaker D: Yeah, so I try to put them where people might think to go. So I've got one in like a print shop in Brisbane. So people would, they come in with their old camera and they're like, can you develop this film? We'll, you know. Yeah, the sort of natural alignment, I suppose adjacent industries. But sometimes they're just in a cafe or I've got one in a laundry, in the laundry in Castle Main just on the wall. So yeah, I think, yeah, I try to make it convenient and I think that's the, the barrier that some people might have with film. It's like where do I get it processed in this area? And you've got options. And I'm also, I hate to say this but I feel like I'm quite competitively priced because you know, you've got some of the big chain stores that still develop film too and they're charging 30, $35 a roll and I'm, I'm doing $20 a roll. So. Wow, that's all the other. Makes me stupid because I'm not making very much money or very philanthropic because I do care about sustaining film for everyone. I want, I want it to be affordable. I don't really want it to be $50 a roll or $50 for 36 pictures let's say. I mean the economics of that sound crazy to people sometimes and I do understand why. [00:26:26] Speaker A: Speaking of affordability, John actually set up a code for from now until the the 20th of February I think. So if you, if you're lucky enough to live close enough to utilize a Dropbox or even post it in, you can get 10% off film processing with the code Lucky Lumina which is in the description, which is near the link to the lab. So if you, if you are in the area and you're interested, you want to test out John's services, it would be a good Time to do it soon. [00:26:57] Speaker B: While we're talking about the lab, Justin, do you want to pick up, bring up the. The site? Yeah. Just so people know what they're looking for. And then. [00:27:10] Speaker A: Maybe we can get a little, a little virtual tour of the lab too. By turning your MacBook around the second John, you can tell us about some of the stuff. [00:27:21] Speaker B: Just be lucky just for all those Apple Vision Pro users out there. [00:27:25] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I love this. When I saw this, it was like, I want control. I want to scan my work. And it's like you can come and take a trip and do it. [00:27:36] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Really? That's awesome. [00:27:39] Speaker D: Yeah, feel free. I love company. Make your coffee. As I say there. [00:27:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:45] Speaker D: I think it's one of the joys of having this equipment, having never had it before, is knowing how much difference the scan makes to your final work. And often you outsource that to someone else's sensibilities. When you send your film away, they just, they'll scan it and they'll essentially edit and color it the way that they want. And here you can take control. You can sit here in front of these 90s scanners, which have a very unique color science attached to them and I think makes them quite special actually. But you can do that and. Yeah. Scan your own. [00:28:21] Speaker A: Can you just explain to us more? Because I've always wondered this and I had a question written down here about do you, do you edit your film scans? But let's, let's hold off on that for now. But can you explain to me what difference a scanner can make? Let's say we're talking about 35 mil, not medium format or whatever. Like if I'm just shooting 35 mil film, whatever color, black and white, whatever film stock, what difference can a scanner make? And what controls do you have within those scanners to alter the image? Like what? Yeah, because that, that's a part of the process where I've just always just left it up to the person. I drop the film off and they just do stuff. So what control is there with film scan? [00:29:09] Speaker D: This, this a lot, in short. So I mean, you, you, it would be like editing your pictures in lightroom now. Like, you have that level of control. You've got CMY controls, you've got curves, you've got shadow detail, highlight detail, and then you've also got whatever the particular machine offers in terms of color science. So when these machines were made, they were, you know, lots of engineers and, and encoders obviously worked with the film manufacturers to Bring out the best characteristics of each of each film. So if I feed a Kodak Gold into that Naruto scanner behind me, other side, we're getting confused. It will kind of use a certain algorithm to come up with an approximation of what that film should look like. But then on top of that, I can go in and I can. I can change the color balance, essentially. I can change, you know, I can give it a warm tone, a cool tone. I could change the sharpness of it. And film is interesting because when you underexpose it, the color shifts. So what you'll find is if people, and often they do not know how to expose their. Their shots properly. You have to correct the color shifts that happen in the shadows or sometimes in the highlights. So you have to know what the color does with film. It reacts very differently too, because it's literally a light that's shining through the. The dyes, the color dyes of the film. So you can imagine there's a red. A red LED light shining up through red dyes in a physical emulsion that has a sort of. It's a very unique way of capturing that. That film. Because even today, people will use a DSLR and a white light and will put their film in front of it and scan it. And then there's another algorithm that will reverse it and find the right color for it. But these, these machines actually have RGB lights, like a. Like a traditional dark room enlarger will. So it's physically shining a light, you know, those colored lights. And then the. The scanner's combining like a sweeps. Let's call them sweeps. I'm not that technical with all this, but, yeah, essentially there's layering involved and then there's merging of that file. You can think of it like that. So, yeah, I like to think that each machine has its pros and cons. So the frontier here that I've got. And you see that there's. Yeah. [00:32:06] Speaker A: Oh, that's very nice. That. That style machine. I love the. The. [00:32:10] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. [00:32:10] Speaker A: Design. That's cool. [00:32:11] Speaker D: Well, it's actually, it's a. I'll see if we can get that far enough to. [00:32:18] Speaker A: It's like a desk all the way to the ground. It's a full. [00:32:21] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a full. [00:32:22] Speaker D: It's a full desk. And it has stuff out of this is going to either work or not work. And there's the keyboard that is awesome. [00:32:37] Speaker A: If you're not seeing this, it's like. It's like a half keyboard that looks like a. A game console. From the early 80s or something. [00:32:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like it came out of Chernobyl. [00:32:46] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Shut it down. [00:32:49] Speaker B: Y. [00:32:50] Speaker D: You can see the. There's color controls on the. On the. On the buttons there. [00:32:55] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:32:56] Speaker D: Yep, yep. So that's how you change the color. Yeah. So this one. A lot of wedding photographers love the Frontier because it has a very Fuji take on color. And this one behind me, the white one, is a Naruto. And it's. I suppose it's a bit more clinical in some ways. It's sharper, produces a bigger file resolution file. But it also does black and white really nicely. So, you know, it depends on what emulsion people shoot as to what film scanner I will use sometimes. And then there's. Let's call them special effects, where people like to see the rebate of the film. You know, we can see the perforations of the film in the scan. So people, you can tell everyone that this is film. This isn't digital, this is proof. So the Frontier allows me to shoot to sort of scan the edges of the film so you get to see a bit of the imperfections. So there's always, you know, like, it looks more raw. [00:34:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:12] Speaker D: So that's cool, all that stuff. You know, there's so much I could talk about with that. But it's probably best just to experiment yourself and try a scanner because on my form I say, which one do you want? Do you want the Frontier or the Naruto? And you can. You can have a play around. [00:34:29] Speaker A: If I was. If I was sort of. And there'd be so much I want to ask you about emulsions now because you said that word and I don't know what that means, but if I was. So if I was shooting a role and I was really quite happy with what I'd captured on that role and I wanted to sort of experiment my film journey. Could I ask you to skip scan some things on both and. And I can have a look and see if I can see the difference and see if I have a preference. And I could pay extra to get. Yeah. The same image scanned on multiple scanners just to see what the difference is. Yeah, yeah. [00:35:00] Speaker D: I actually haven't. I haven't done a very good job explaining all the minute differences, but there's lots of little differences that you might see side by side. But maybe if you just saw the image, you go, that's. That looks nice, you know. Yeah. There's a slight green cast in the Naruto, for example, in the shadows, like you know most people wouldn't notice that. [00:35:21] Speaker B: Yep. I think what's impressive is. Sorry, you go, mate. [00:35:26] Speaker A: I was just going to throw a couple of quick comments before we, we keep digging because DX Fincher says, holy moly, it's John, the best in the game. That's pretty cool. And David Mascaro from San Francisco says, for me it's love of old Nikon cameras and just holding them. I could care less about the digital file argument. So you just like that, hey, they make a camera for that, what's it called, the ZF or whatever. It's like, you know, a digital old film looking kind of thing. Bruce Moyle says, morning everyone. Good morning Bruce. Oh, and Matt says morning Bruce too. So morning Bruce from Matt. That's just a quick catch up. What's happening in the chat? [00:36:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to say I think what's, what's most impressive is the opportunity. And I know it's a, it's a regional Victoria lab, but there's also a bit of, kind of, bit of romanticism in that that you know, you can actually go to your lab and spend some time with you and get to know how the machines work with your film and, and which one works best and you can actually see it happening while you're working on it. I think that's a really impressive service to offer that's, that's unique and personal and provides support to your community of photographers that rely on your lab and your, you know, your knowledge, your growing knowledge. And I think just prior to us going live, for those of you watching and listening along, we talked very, very quickly about potentially the Lucky Straps team heading to Kyneton for a bit of a day potential. [00:37:06] Speaker A: It's not. Okay, it's happening. [00:37:07] Speaker B: Lucky Straps are heading to Kyneton and we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna take some film. I've got a fridge full of film. Justin's got a fridge full of film. Jim, have you got any film? [00:37:16] Speaker C: I got beer in the fridge. [00:37:20] Speaker A: Don't put that in your camera. [00:37:22] Speaker B: Let's make a day of it. And yeah, we're gonna head out to the lab and we're gonna film some content there for a future video on the channel just to show what, what John's got set up and, and just to see how badly we ruin hundreds of dollars worth of film. [00:37:39] Speaker C: John, I've got a question. I've got an old film camera. Do you, is it like a service? How do I get it going? Like where do I take, do I drink Someone like you. What do I need to do? [00:37:51] Speaker D: Actually, I can't fix cameras. Firstly, I would love to, but break it, preferably. There are people that can do it and there's still people I can recommend to you that can fix them and give them a cla. Clean loop adjustment. Yeah, that's all really important. When people pick up their old cameras, they often get a roll of film and they shoot it and the results are crap because the machine's gummed up. It's been sitting in their grandmother's cupboard for 25 years or something, and they don't realize it just. It just doesn't work anymore. So it's really important to find a good service person for your camera. And thankfully, there's still people keeping that alive as well. Lots of people I could recommend to you. Awesome. [00:38:36] Speaker A: Yeah, well, we might. We might get some of those recommendations. Yeah. Even later in the show or something. And I'll put links or something because it's a question I get a lot. It's also a question I have because I. I'm like, I've got camera sitting on the shelf here and I don't know if they still work or not, and I want to play with them. But yeah, it's that, that it's like a. It's almost like a mental barrier where I'm. I'm not sure if it works and so I just don't pick it up. Yeah. If someone could check it out and be like, oh, no, no good, but this one works. And yeah, whatever that. I think that would be very useful. And it is. It's super common because we've all got cameras kicking around from. Yeah. Whether we saw it at a Salvation army store or something and just bought it because it was $30 and we thought, that's cool. Or, you know, it's been passed down or handed to you. I even got boxes handed to me from people that said, I'll, you know, clean this out and here's a box of cameras. I know you're into photography and I'm like, cool, thanks. You know. [00:39:33] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:39:33] Speaker A: Do they work? [00:39:34] Speaker D: Yeah, but that's a. It's a. It's a lovely gateway. I mean, often I have a lot of customers that are very young and they just. Yeah, they found a camera. Let's try. Let's put a roll through it. Yeah. And that's. That's how they got hooked on photography as well. [00:39:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:49] Speaker B: So I love that. That's pretty cool. A friend of the show, Greg Carrick, he collects cameras and lenses. Doesn't he. He often gets handed. I think he mentioned that he gets handed boxes. [00:40:01] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:40:02] Speaker B: Some estates and things. Because he puts community. [00:40:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That he's into that stuff and he just gets all the weird stuff. And then he tries to adapt the lenses to his gfx. [00:40:14] Speaker B: Yeah. He gets like a. Someone in his family does 3D printing and he gets them to make special mounts for these really obscure, like cinema projector lenses and things like that. Crazy. Really, really clever. [00:40:26] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:40:29] Speaker B: For those of you watching and listening along at home, we're talking to John from. Let me get this right. It's Lumina Lab, which is a film processing and developing lab in Kyneton in regional Victoria. But obviously not everyone is from Kyneton in regional Victoria or has access to one of the Victorian dropboxes for film. So those of you that are. That are listening or watching from abroad or other parts of Australia even, what's it like in your region? How do you get your film process? Do you have a store that you go to? Do you still have a brick and mortar store? Do you have a Dropbox? Do you just post them in? Let us know in the comments. [00:41:11] Speaker A: Tell us in the chat. And I don't know whether. Greg, I was just gonna. I wanted to ask John if people, obviously, if you're in the area, just try out Lumina labs. But if they're not in the area, how do people go about finding a decent lab? Like, how do you pick a lab? What should. What should you look for? If you're going on a website or whatever, trying to find, figure out, where should I send my roll of film? How do you know if a lab's good or not? [00:41:37] Speaker D: So you're asking a very biased person to not say good things about themselves. But okay, so let's put it down to your needs. If your needs are to see your film tomorrow, you can't wait. You've. You literally. You're shooting it like a digital camera, then you can take it to a film lab that has a fast turnaround time. Increasingly, that's becoming harder and harder because as film has this resurgence, the film labs that used to have a day turnaround or two days or even an hour, they can't sustain that anymore. They're seeing too much film to be able to do that. So if you go onto the websites of the big film labs in Melbourne or Sydney or on as Life, you might see our turnaround time is two and a half weeks, or it's a week or something like that. So that's. I guess that's the first thing. Like you really do really have to see your pictures tomorrow. I would say most people that aren't shooting commercially probably should wait a bit. But hey, I know a lot of people are impatient too. The second thing is, you know, does it. Can they process the film type that I'm shooting? And we asked about emulsions. So you've got E6 slide film, you've got ECN2, which is the cinema film, and you've got C41, which is the generic color film that we probably more familiar with. And there's black and white. So can your lab develop those film types? Because there's a different process behind each, each type of film, different chemicals, different ways of doing it. For example, the cinema film has a thick kind of black layer called remjet. It's carbon and it has to be chemically removed before you can process it to completion. So can your film lab do that or, you know, do they outsource maybe that to another lab or to another person? You know, sometimes you don't know behind the scenes. So I would say it's important that the film lab does the work that they say they can do and the person that's doing it knows how to develop each one of those film types. Maybe you don't know that from the outside, but I do all the film developing myself here and I think it's important to know how to do it because there's different ways of developing, say, black and white film. Some, some, I might be more expeditiously fast and use one developing type, but I like to use different developers for different films. So, you know, I think that's important. So that's just my perspective on. Yeah, yeah. What should you look for? I think the other side, if you're interested in the digital side, then you're looking at, well, how big are my files? If that. If you're, you know, pixel peeping in Lightroom or something like, you might go, why is this only 2000 pixels wide? So often, often film labs, they'll have two tiers for the files to give you. They'll have a low file and a high res file, what they call high res. And the low res file will be, yeah, be 2,000 pixels or something across for a 35 mil frame. But other labs will give you 6,000 or six and a half thousand across. So what are you paying for? Because people will go, they'll look at the prices and go, well, 17, that's pretty cheap for a roll of film. But then they're Getting a low resolution file with that. So they're getting caught up with the, you know, the, the digital side. But yeah, I try to just, I mean, labs that I think are trying to sustain the industry and not just kind of gouge out a product that doesn't really exist. I think there should only be basically one file. You get a high resolution file and. [00:45:53] Speaker B: Then it's up to you what you do with it, because you can, yeah. [00:45:55] Speaker C: You can then reform it if you need. [00:45:58] Speaker D: Yeah, I like that. But it's, it's not really an economy to get a 2000 pixel wide picture. No, I mean it might be fine for Instagram or something, but not for anything else. [00:46:11] Speaker C: Maybe those customers, that's what they're, if their end product is, they're probably just going to post it on their social media or something. They're maybe not too concerned that, you know, because that is the perfect kind of resolution for that. [00:46:23] Speaker B: But if you are trying to be a serious photographer and you're still getting that same outcome, you know, you're not really getting what you're paying for, are you? [00:46:31] Speaker A: And it's still pretty low. Like 2000 is low. Like it's, it's, it's web res, you know, you wouldn't really want to be printing even an A4 from a 2000 pixel file, in my opinion. So it's like, yeah, you sort of, if they said their low was like 4,000 or you can get a, you know, like a full high res one, I'd be like, oh yeah, okay, I could kind of see that. But yeah, 2000 is pretty low. Okay, tell me this, John. How many megapixels is 35 millimeter film? [00:47:01] Speaker D: Oh, that's actually a really hard question to answer because I believe that it depends on the film emulsion. Again, so some, some film types are considered high resolution. As in the grains, the physical grains that are, you know, that you can scan are smaller. So there's some black and white films that will claim we are 50 megapixels. Right. For a 35, I'm talking about 30, a 35 mil frame. And then, then it depends again how grain that grain increases in size. The, the limitations are the size of the grain. So by the time that you enlarge those grains to a reasonable size, it might be 18 megapixels or something like that. But it just, just depends. And I, I, I've gone down a rabbit hole trying to answer that myself and not really come up with a satisfactory conclusion. But yeah, it's, it's limited by the optics of the. [00:48:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:10] Speaker D: The scanning solution that you have, I think you can go all the way down to, you know, microscopic levels and you might not see any resolution, like change for you perceptibly, but you're getting more information technically. But yeah, yeah. So it's a little bit different to answer that for film because it's, it's very. Almost feels like a philosophical topic to explore. [00:48:38] Speaker A: Yeah, that's why I asked it. I knew that. I've seen people throw around like 12 megapixel, 16 megapixel and stuff for like, for 35 mil, but obviously, I mean, it's, it's kind of the same as it, in a sense, digital. It's like if I shoot at 25,000 ISO, like, is it still a 50 megapixel file? Yes. Are there 50 megapixels of clear data? No, no. You know, like, it's. So it's, it's. It's kind of like that, I guess, in the sense of if you scan. Just because you scan something at a high resolution doesn't mean it's. It's got that resolution. But yeah, it's always an interesting topic to be like, yeah, yeah. How sharp is film? What. What is it capable of? [00:49:20] Speaker B: Check out some, Check out some Reddit and subreddit forums about that. If you're watching or listening along at home just for some light entertainment. The level of technical prowess people claim to have over understanding how film and. [00:49:34] Speaker A: Mechanism and how much they're willing to die on that hill of information. Oh, yeah, that isn't really accurate. [00:49:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:41] Speaker A: Or doesn't have a factual answer. [00:49:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:45] Speaker D: Sorry. [00:49:46] Speaker B: No, no, you go, John, please. [00:49:48] Speaker D: Yeah, I was gonna say I watched a YouTube video on this particular Adox film that I can't remember the name of, but it's out there on the webs. You'll find it about. Someone goes deep into that topic for about 30 minutes about what the true resolution of film is or could be. [00:50:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I love it. [00:50:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's fun because at the end of the day, like, yeah, it doesn't really matter, but it's, it's pretty fun. It's fun to talk about. [00:50:16] Speaker B: There's also a good. Sorry, just very quickly. There's also a good YouTube video. I think I sent it to you guys, Justin and Jim, the guy who shot a YouTube episode entirely on film and used it to explain how film works and the different sorts of cinema film. And he goes, so this sentence, well, that just cost a dollar, you know, and so he was actually Showing how much film costs today. It's. It's really interesting. I have to try and find it again. [00:50:43] Speaker D: Yeah, I think I've seen that one. [00:50:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:47] Speaker A: Yeah. It was very cool and just a. [00:50:49] Speaker B: Clever way to explain it too. It was really intuitive. [00:50:52] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:50:52] Speaker B: We're going to go to comments. [00:50:53] Speaker A: Josh. There's a couple of quick ones in there. Just shots by Jeremy, former Lucky Straps employee strap packer. [00:51:01] Speaker B: Jeremy. [00:51:02] Speaker A: Hey Jeremy. He's shooting film. Oh no, he's not shooting film again. He will have to start shooting film again. Sending it to John. You will have to, Jeremy. Currently 10 off film processing with code Lucky Luminance till February 20th. So you better get some roles in. I see in your profile. In your profile picture holding a little medium format something something. So put a roll through that if you've still got it. David Mascara says he does have the Nikon Zs for special stuff. I thought you would. How many cameras do you have, David? Just roughly. Roughly. [00:51:38] Speaker C: Are you going to try and beat him? Is that the. [00:51:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:51:44] Speaker B: Well said, Jim. [00:51:45] Speaker A: Well said. DX Fincher says everyone can post Illumina. This is when I was saying if you're not in the area you don't have to be local but express post is pretty good also. DX Fincher. We. We have international. You know, I wouldn't suggest living in the States. It's probably not worth posting to Cotton. Um, you know it's a. It's very expensive. We send a lot of stuff overseas. You wouldn't believe how much it costs to send stuff overseas. Timu Temu would have you think that it's not very expensive, but it's quite. It's quite a lot. But if you are in Australia. That is a good point. Anyone in Australia could post if you're posting it to a lab. If you're in Queensland, you're posting it to a lab in Sydney. You might as well post it to a lab in Victoria. Doesn't it? It's the same. Same with Australia Post. David had his two F2A's rebuilt by Sova Wong in the UK. Now David's in the US. So you sent your cameras to the UK. He only does F2s and he usually has a two year waiting period, 700 each to have them rebuilt. Okay. I'm not sending my cameras there. [00:52:55] Speaker C: Buy a new camera. [00:52:56] Speaker A: I'll just buy a new Leica M6. Bruce Moyle says some labs give TIFF or JPEG options. Not sure why you would just want a JPEG which is usually compressed badly and only eight Bit. John, take it away. [00:53:12] Speaker D: That's a good point. [00:53:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:53:13] Speaker A: Well, what do you. [00:53:14] Speaker D: I agree. I'll give you the choice. You can choose a tif. So on the order form you can go, I want to have an uncompressed file. GIF is the standard there. It's an 8 bit file, but there's also the option for a 16, 16 bit tiff. [00:53:33] Speaker A: And does that cost a bit extra? Because it takes a lot longer for the, the scanning and stuff. [00:53:39] Speaker D: So it's probably the file size and the time. So there's more time involved doing a hybrid scan. And we're talking, you know, it might be a 500 megabyte file that then has to be uploaded to the Dropbox, which is how people get the file. And so there's all that sort of side of things to consider. But yeah, in principle we can get a tiff. And I agree jpegs are good for, you know, for sharing online. But yeah, if you're, if you're serious about your work, you're going to get an uncompressed file if you can. And it's also like, this is your backup. This is like, you know, by the time. So if I'm having to physically put a piece of film into a film scanner and wait and do the corrections, you might as well get the best possible file out of that situation. [00:54:28] Speaker A: I agree. [00:54:29] Speaker D: Because it's false economy to go Now I'm gonna shrink that to half the size and then send it to you as a jpeg. Yeah, yeah. [00:54:38] Speaker C: So, John, so people send, send your film that, post it to yours, drop it at one of the, like the Dropbox locations. Do you then Dropbox the far. The digital files back to them? [00:54:50] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:54:50] Speaker C: And then what happens to the film? [00:54:52] Speaker A: Yeah, what does happen to the film? [00:54:57] Speaker D: That question makes me sad. So it may be a generational thing, but I noticed that about 50% of people just say, throw the negatives in the bin. And I have bags and bags of the negatives that are thrown into the bin. And this would be the same for all film labs. People don't keep their backups. That's, that's the physical backup. Your, your film. Yeah, it's crazy to me. So, yeah. [00:55:29] Speaker B: How do you dispose of that? Is it, is it recyclable? Is it, it. Can it be used for something else? Like it's such a waste. [00:55:35] Speaker D: You can recycle it in a way. You can take the, the silver out of it, you can take it to a person that will do that, or you can shred it safely and dispose of it. But it's, it's a, it's a sad thing because it's also a lot. I mean, it's very wasteful in a way because you spend a lot of time making sure there's no fingerprints and no dust and no scratches. And then people just say, oh, yeah, throw it in the bin now. [00:56:05] Speaker A: I, I made sure I got all, all my stuff back. [00:56:10] Speaker B: Yeah, but you're a hoarder. [00:56:11] Speaker A: I am a hoarder. You are, right, Greg? I got some, some in sheets and some on a roll. But what I want to do, I want to figure out a way to kind of display it in a way that won't destroy it or whatever. But I'd love to have it on. Oops. I'd love to have it on. Yeah, like on display somehow on the wall. I haven't figured out how to do it yet. [00:56:31] Speaker B: Like a light box or something. [00:56:33] Speaker A: Yeah, it'd be even. Not all of it necessarily, but be able to display some of it or the most recent roll or whatever on like a light box. I wonder if anyone makes that. [00:56:41] Speaker B: Yeah, you can get them for X rays. Remember old school X ray. [00:56:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:56:45] Speaker B: Secondhand. Now, I don't know what they're called, but they would sit on the wall in a doctor's office. [00:56:50] Speaker A: You know what though? If someone's not making them specifically to hold film in a way that, where you can kind of just lay it on there and then it, I know a clear thing just drops over the top of it to hold all the loose, you know, cuts or whatever. And then it hangs back on the wall hanger. There's a product for us. Great. You know, like LED backlit. Just a nice neat wall sized thing. And then it just, it just has like a Perspex top that clips on and it holds everything in place. And then you just hang it back on the wall with magnets. [00:57:23] Speaker B: Clips on with magnets just goes on. [00:57:26] Speaker A: Oh, I think we might have. [00:57:27] Speaker C: And then we added a checkbox on, on John's form and they say. Do you want to buy the light box too? Yes. [00:57:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:34] Speaker C: 99.95 Lumina Labs Light box. [00:57:36] Speaker A: Okay. If you're listening to it. [00:57:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:57:40] Speaker A: Don't steal our idea. [00:57:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:42] Speaker A: I'm watching you. [00:57:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:44] Speaker A: But, yeah, I love. I, I couldn't. This was part of why I wanted to shoot. I wanted to have the film, you know, and be able to like, I don't know, maybe it's because I've got the Magnum contact sheets book or whatever and it's. That's Got all the, have you seen that book, Greg? [00:58:00] Speaker B: Yeah, the book. [00:58:01] Speaker A: I love it. [00:58:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty amazing. [00:58:03] Speaker A: It's got the role and then it's got the, the ones that they ended up choosing and you can see how they, you know, they evolved into that shot that ended up becoming famous or whatever. I love that. It's very. [00:58:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:58:13] Speaker A: Like you say, maybe a little wanky or a little bit nostalgic, but I really like it. [00:58:19] Speaker B: Bruce has just said light boxes are still available around easy to DIY as well, commercial systems available for storefronts, etc, but just need to add clips at the top. I, I actually, when I was in art school, because I was, I was analog, so pre digital, I was doing all my illustrations by hand with the pen and pencil and all that sort of stuff. And I actually made a light box for tracing when I would do like, you know, concept arts and then build them up to finished products. And I just made a timber box with two. Well, back then it was fluorescence. There were no LED strips that were affordable or accessible in Australia. But now it'd be so much easier and cheaper to, to make something. [00:59:00] Speaker A: Bruce, you won't need clips added for the top of ours. It's going to come with a clip. It's going to make that awesome. [00:59:07] Speaker D: I was just going to say that I've got one of those light pads that I use for, you know, checking negatives and they're about like 20, 30 to $30. They just plug into your USB power source so you can just. [00:59:20] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:59:21] Speaker D: Yeah, they're really cheap. [00:59:24] Speaker A: I'm already, I'm already shopping. I'll be with you in a minute. [00:59:27] Speaker B: Let me jump to some. [00:59:28] Speaker A: We'll have a prototype next week. [00:59:32] Speaker B: Let's have a look. Bruce has also said that video is rad, Greg. Really good. That's referring to the one where the whole episode of YouTube is shot. The whole YouTube episode is shot on film. [00:59:43] Speaker A: Very cool. [00:59:43] Speaker B: The whole topic is about film. Very informative. Very educational too because it talks about the different film sizes and how much of a frame it takes up and it's incredible. David in San Fran, I pay 18. That's US dollars. That's about 420 Australian dollars. I pay $18 a roll and 8 of that is for 16 megabit tiffs and a dollar also for cut and sleeve. [01:00:09] Speaker A: I'm just going to check exactly what that. So that's, that's 30 Australian dollars. [01:00:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:15] Speaker A: So for, with, with 16 megabyte tiffs and a dollar for cut and sleeve. How does that compare, John, to what you charge? Is that in the same sort of ballpark, roughly? [01:00:23] Speaker D: Yeah, I think so. So I'm $20, assuming it's color film, $20. And I think I do charge a little bit for a tiff on top. [01:00:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:35] Speaker D: So another. I think it's $4 for a roll. [01:00:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:39] Speaker D: So, yeah, $24. [01:00:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:42] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:00:43] Speaker B: Very close. David actually has 16 cameras, Justin. [01:00:47] Speaker A: I bet you do. [01:00:49] Speaker B: He had 18. [01:00:50] Speaker A: We need to get you on the show. [01:00:51] Speaker B: He was able to just give two away. He's got so many. Just giving them away now. [01:00:55] Speaker A: You could have given them to me. I would have paid the ship. [01:00:57] Speaker B: How many have you got, Justin? [01:00:58] Speaker A: Cameras? I haven't done a head count. Not that many. Not that many that work anyway. I've got a ton that don't work or might work or whatever, but of cameras that work, I keep it pretty tight. I got three main cameras. Hang on. Do we have, like, action cameras? [01:01:13] Speaker B: Hang on. [01:01:14] Speaker A: Or is this. Or is this just. [01:01:16] Speaker B: You can't say terms and conditions. Just how many cameras have you got? [01:01:21] Speaker A: All right. Q3, R5, Mark II, R3, if we have to count action cameras. The. The GoPro, the Insta 360 and the DJI Osmo Pocket 3. Then two drones, an original X100. [01:01:40] Speaker B: They don't count. [01:01:41] Speaker A: They're just a Canon. A Canon 1D Mark 4, Nikon F5, Nikon F100. And then we start getting into the, like, the future film cameras that may or may not work. That I don't count. Oh, Sony, Sony Original, Sony RX100, if anyone wants, you know. Got that. What else? [01:02:07] Speaker B: How many film cameras have you got? Because so far it's 12 digital. [01:02:10] Speaker A: Didn't you just buy the F5 and the F100 are films? So there's a couple of films in there. [01:02:16] Speaker B: So that's 14 cameras all up so far. He's getting close, David. He's getting very close. [01:02:20] Speaker A: I'm coming for you, David. But they don't really count. GoPros and stuff, they don't count. But yeah, there's. There's. [01:02:26] Speaker B: Tell yourself that at night they don't count. I want to check your bank balance. [01:02:31] Speaker A: I want to like your M6. Anyway, look, I'm not. I'm not even close. I'm sure David's collection is a lot more pricey. [01:02:40] Speaker B: I'm sure you're playing it down, too. David has said he only has one non Nikon, which is a pin pentax67. [01:02:47] Speaker A: Oh, nice. That's a big, beefy camera. [01:02:51] Speaker D: That's my camera of choice. [01:02:53] Speaker A: I was going to say. That's a good. A good segue. John, do you shoot medium format? [01:02:58] Speaker D: I do for my work. I primarily shoot medium format. I think that's the cool thing about film cameras, that they come in such odd configurations and creative possibilities that it's fun to explore what you can do. But I've got a Pentax 67 actually might be behind me. Oh yeah, there it is, all the way in the background there. [01:03:24] Speaker B: So you talked about your work. What sort of work do you shoot? Speak of the devil. [01:03:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm just pulling up John's Instagram, which is obviously the best way to view really high resolution medium format scans. It's linked. Linked below if you want to check it out on your monitor. But it's at neatism on Instagram. [01:03:53] Speaker D: Thank you. Yeah, that was shot on the Pentax 67 with a promise. [01:04:01] Speaker A: Is that why you get that? Lovely. Where's that one that I saw before where I was like this. Does this have a misty mist? [01:04:11] Speaker D: I'll shot it through a fence, but. [01:04:14] Speaker A: I know, but the soft sky light. Is there anything going on there or is that just the magic of film? What's. What's happening? [01:04:24] Speaker D: There's a little bit of film. So the way that the highlights roll off really nicely is a very. Film as a film characteristic, I think. It doesn't just clip. So yeah, there's a bit of that. Bit of post work, of course, but. [01:04:38] Speaker A: Yeah, all right, post work. [01:04:41] Speaker B: Find that. I find that image a little traumatic because it feels like you've been abducted and you're inside a hessian sack. [01:04:48] Speaker A: Look, looking at an empty pool. It's a beautiful. It actually, it was like when I brought your profile up, it was one that stood out to me straight away. And I don't know whether it was the light or what, but I don't. That, yeah, that image just took. Yeah, straight away. But so. So when you say post work, so you'll do. Are we talking about within the scan or after the scan? Do you then do work in. In Lightroom or Photoshop or something like that? [01:05:15] Speaker D: So I'm, I'm. I'm lucky enough to use the scanners themselves to do some of that post work. So I'm doing a bit of editing in the scanner, but then on top I'm doing a bit of Photoshop, I'm, you know, might be warming up the image a little bit. I try not to do too much because I think, you know, we're getting into the realm of why do you shoot film at all if you're going to do all this digital editing on top? So I do try to keep the characteristics of the film I'm shooting intact. And this is Portra 400, which I shoot for most things. So it's got a certain palette, a certain look. And I try to. You know, I wouldn't say that one looks like portrait, though. Probably doesn't look so much, but there's a portrait in there that probably looks a bit more like portrait. Yeah, look, I just shoot like little quiet scenes. I mean, since I've moved back to the country from the city, I've enjoyed kind of taking the camera out and just finding quiet moments that, to me, reflect a bit of my childhood, a bit of growing up in the country, a bit of nostalgia, bit of Australia. [01:06:28] Speaker B: Yeah, well, apart from that one. There's a lovely gentle nature to the look of them, to the. The quality of the images. But even that, even that in itself is. Is quite a lovely. [01:06:39] Speaker D: I don't know. [01:06:39] Speaker B: Yeah, there's just something unique about them, isn't there? [01:06:44] Speaker A: Speaking of Lumina. [01:06:48] Speaker D: Yeah. I've just. I've been working on a project kind of loosely capturing my life as a teenager and coming back to the places that the. The highway, the Calder highway that then became a freeway. All these little towns that. That. That. That road bypassed. So I'm going back to these places and I'm kind of. I don't know, it's loosely thematically. I haven't quite worked it out yet, but it's either going to be physically about the places on that journey or perhaps more metaphorically about my family and coming home and, you know, some of my stuff about getting sick recently as well. So. Yeah, this is my dad's. My dad's idea of a good meal. [01:07:37] Speaker B: Meat and taters. [01:07:38] Speaker A: Yeah, delicious. [01:07:40] Speaker B: Love it. Yeah, Old school. That's cool. [01:07:47] Speaker A: So most of this will be shot on medium format, or are we seeing just a huge range of. Of stuff? 35 mil. Like, do you. Yeah. How. How widely varying is your current choice of cameras and. And lenses and stuff like that when you get out and shoot? [01:08:11] Speaker D: So I'm. I'm shooting mostly medium format today, but if you go further down my feed, you'll see when I was just shooting street photography, and that's all 35 mil. So past. Past all these, let's call them. [01:08:26] Speaker A: I am a sucker for lights like this. [01:08:30] Speaker B: Yep. [01:08:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:32] Speaker C: An absolute cool motel sign. [01:08:35] Speaker D: Yeah, I like what they did with that place. It's pretty cool. [01:08:40] Speaker A: I'm Gonna get down to some street photography. I've just heard a knock on my door, so I'm gonna have to leave you guys for one second, see what's going on. [01:08:47] Speaker B: What did you buy now? [01:08:48] Speaker C: Yeah, that's the camera. [01:08:50] Speaker A: I'm hoping it's a camera or something. Wow, these are amazing. I'm just gonna leave it on this. Yeah, leave it there. [01:09:02] Speaker B: So you. You will get to your street shots when Justin gets back, because he has control of the screen. But that's all right. I also consider myself a street photographer. And what was it that you think? I'm interested to hear what you found compelling about street photography. [01:09:22] Speaker D: For me, it's probably the closest I could get to making a movie, which I always dreamed about doing. So when I studied. I was. I studied screenwriting, and I wanted to. Yeah, be a filmmaker. But then I found out how collaborative and difficult that process was. And so when I went out with a camera in the street, I was able to kind of create individual frames from the movie that I could never make with a bunch of friends. So it was like a way of. Yeah, microcosm of that experience. [01:10:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:01] Speaker D: And so, yeah, you can control light and you can control the Nissan Sen. You can control sometimes the actors, sometimes not. It wasn't the random side of it that intrigued me so much. I think a lot of street photographers love random and they enjoy that part of it, but I find that a little bit frustrating. So, yeah, I. I think it's also a good way to meet people and to kind of develop as a photographer. Like, it helps you. Photographers are often very introverted people. I don't know, maybe that's a bad assumption to make. But when you're out there with a camera and you are interacting with people and developing your social skills and. Yeah, I think that's a good way of interacting with the world as well. [01:10:56] Speaker B: Yep. [01:10:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:59] Speaker D: You might have to go a bit further down. This is all still probably medium format. [01:11:02] Speaker A: I was getting stuck in. I love these images. It's like I was just thinking to myself, you know, when you see beautiful images from other countries, particularly, I get sucked into the typical images from the States, in the small towns in the U.S. route 66, you know, like, all the old motels and things like that. And I'm like, this has that feel for me. And I struggle to find that in my own world. I feel like I need to go somewhere else to find this sort of stuff. And you're finding it, you know, in our backyard, and I love it. Yeah. Beautiful work. [01:11:41] Speaker D: Thank you. It's a bit harder to find sometimes. America has, you know, like I say, RIPS is 66 in the Midwest and there's decrepit sort of things Everywhere in the US but bit harder here. So this is all 35 mil I think from this point onwards. [01:12:02] Speaker A: And, and you said that you used to go out with a couple of Leica M6s slung over the shoulder. [01:12:09] Speaker D: Would that so pretentious, isn't it? [01:12:13] Speaker B: It's awesome. [01:12:14] Speaker A: I love it. [01:12:16] Speaker D: Yeah, I, I, I used to just shoot with a 28 mil. And for portraits, street portraits, I'd have a 50 and then I would have a body per lens, I suppose so I would, I would switch between them instead of switching the lenses out. [01:12:33] Speaker A: Would you use different film stock in each body as well? [01:12:39] Speaker D: I, I didn't actually. I was just shooting black and white mostly back in the day. So I was all pushed film, you know, push the film as well to make. Yeah, a bit of that. Yeah. So these are, these are all shot in India and I think there's actually on a point and shoot Ricoh gr1v which I just love that camera. [01:13:09] Speaker A: I love that. [01:13:10] Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. Well, there's rumors that the Ricoh are about to release the GR4 digital, right? [01:13:18] Speaker A: Oh, the digital, yeah, there's some rumors. [01:13:20] Speaker B: Swirling about that too. [01:13:21] Speaker A: They need to do that so that I don't know. [01:13:24] Speaker B: Well, they just need to produce enough of their cameras. [01:13:26] Speaker A: Yeah, that too. Which it seems so Fuji had that with the, the X100 series multiple times. But it seems, I think I saw the other day, some are in stock for the X106. You know, they were like $150 off, which is, I know is not a lot, but it's like. [01:13:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:43] Speaker A: You know, a year ago you had to buy it for more than retail secondhand if you wanted one. So it's actually cool. [01:13:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:13:52] Speaker A: See that they're kind of catching up. And hopefully Ricoh can do that with the GR series because that's a camera I'd love to try, but I can't, I can't pay whatever they're charging for 1800 for one of those. That's almost a four year old camera or something now. Yeah, it's crazy. [01:14:06] Speaker B: It's a lot of money. I mean the beautiful cameras and they are kind of, they do offer a timeless experience from a point and shoot. But like the X100, you know. But yeah, they just need to work out their stock issue. Yeah, stop bringing it because they brought out so many different models of that GR3. Two different lenses, different body colors, different. [01:14:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:14:31] Speaker B: Styles. There's a diary edition as a street edition. There's, you know, let's just make some camera edition. Yeah, let's just put out the basic camera and get it on shelves, you know, it's really frustrating. [01:14:42] Speaker A: Love that. [01:14:43] Speaker B: Oh, these are wonderful. [01:14:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, very cool. [01:14:47] Speaker B: So do you still get out and shoot street these days or is it more focusing on your projects around. [01:14:56] Speaker D: I think I had a bit of a falling out with street photography and it's, it's funny because I did it for about 10 years and I think at a point in Melbourne where I was shooting mostly it just got a little bit too confrontational for me to, to deal with. And I'm not doing a Bruce Gildon out there with a flash. I'm quite discreet with my, with my work. I'm not really out there to agitate, but I found that there was. [01:15:25] Speaker B: Tends to do that people. [01:15:27] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, I. Increasing number of people that were just being more hostile to me in the street when I was out, even just holding the camera and if I held it up to my, you know, to take a shot, there'd be someone two blocks away that would come storming up to me and say, did you just take my picture? And I was like, oh, not this again. Like, no, you were in the scene. You are a distant subject. So there's a bit of. [01:15:55] Speaker B: I had that last. During the week. I, I haven't been out doing street for a couple of months. I've been in a bit of a funk. And I took my camera out on. Must be Monday. It was a nice sunny day. No, it was Tuesday. It was before it got really hot, I think. And down to Chapel street in Prahram, which is really good for street photography because it's a diverse community and old and new buildings and all that sort of stuff. Good light. And I think my second photo, an old lady was walking into the frame and I wanted her in the shot and she came up, she kind of walked past me and then went, what are you doing? And I turn around and said, sorry. She said, are you taking my photo? I said, well, I'm taking a photo of the scene. And you know, you walked into it and so. Yes, well, you better not be. Oh my God. I finally got myself back on the streets. Not the confrontation took me off the streets. It was just more of a creative depression I think than anything. But it is getting worse and you know, people unfortunately have ill informed ideas of their rights as subjects in a Public space, you know, and. And I just. I don't have the patience anymore to explain to people why I can do what I do. And by the way, have you noticed that there's a security camera right there? And there's one right there. And that car has a dash cam. And look, there's a group of tourists over there taking your photo right now. On this, on the smartphones. [01:17:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:17:20] Speaker B: You know, people. But as soon as you hold a camera in your hand, all of a sudden you're a nefarious player in the scene like you suspect, you know, and people believe that we don't have a right to take photos. And this. A whole range of issues over what's morally and ethically okay for street photography. You know, some. Some people operate without boundaries. I prefer to operate within boundaries, mostly to protect myself from confrontation. But. But yeah, it's a challenging genre. And you're right, it is getting more so. And where I live, it's very inner city, very diverse. There's a lot of people affected by drugs, alcohol, mental illness, you know, situation. It's getting scarier. You know, it's not just a fear of being yelled at now. It's. There's a little more to it. [01:18:13] Speaker D: Yeah, I. That picture, the last picture you had up was foot screen. I used to shoot there a lot prior to kind of becoming really gentrified. And I had a friend with me, I think it was even this day, and someone pulled a knife on him for taking a picture. So it's like, well, yes, you have to be careful what you shoot, but sometimes you don't know who is taking offense and why they're taking offense. [01:18:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:18:42] Speaker D: And I think you might just be. [01:18:44] Speaker B: The straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak. [01:18:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:18:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:48] Speaker D: It doesn't have to. It's a shame because. It is a shame. It's a big shame because we need people to be doing this work and we need people to. [01:18:56] Speaker A: That's what I was going to say. This. This is a photo that in years to come shows a time and a place and a moment that without that photo will be lost. [01:19:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:07] Speaker A: And. And it hasn't hurt anyone. And it hasn't. You know, it hasn't. I mean, obviously this wasn't a photo that caused issues, but like most of the photos that are being taken, any. No nefarious sort of plans with them or, or anything like that, they're not provocative. [01:19:22] Speaker B: They're just. [01:19:24] Speaker A: But people are, I guess, wary now that they're being exploited or made fun of online or something like that. And they don't realize that. That photographers really just want to just make it a great photograph of. Of an interesting moment. [01:19:43] Speaker D: And. [01:19:43] Speaker A: Yeah, that's it. [01:19:44] Speaker D: But I think it's funny how people assume because you have a camera, you have nefarious objectives. Like. Yeah, like you were saying. Like you were saying, Greg, like, there's a dash cam here. There's a. There's a. There's a camera at the ATM filming you in the supermarket, but the second you hold a camera, I'm out to get you. [01:20:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Ring cameras. Now, like, a lot of the footage from the LA wildfires, a lot of the footage that they showed is evidence of what happened was from doorbell cams. [01:20:17] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's even here in Clinton, a sleepy little country town. I went for a walk and I took a picture of a house one day, and a lady came out and said, you're not taking pictures of my house, are you? I'm like, well, I kind of was, but yes. [01:20:37] Speaker A: Yes, I am. [01:20:39] Speaker D: We had a. We had a raving argument in the street and I'm just like, really? [01:20:43] Speaker A: She wasn't even happy. If you had just said, hey, I'm just a local and I like taking photos of the town. [01:20:49] Speaker D: I said that? No, she didn't believe me. She said, oh, I know what you're up to. You're casing my house. [01:20:58] Speaker A: No, people that cast houses don't take photos of them with large cameras. They just look at them and go, okay, in the back door later. I'll sort that. Yeah, you know, like, you don't have to take a photo. You don't have to take a photo. There has to be like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm gonna. I'm gonna go in this window here, Put the legs on that. [01:21:15] Speaker B: If I move those two bricks. [01:21:19] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, but you're right, you can conceal the camera quite well these days as well. You could have it in your pair of glasses if you're being. [01:21:29] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the other thing. [01:21:31] Speaker A: Yeah, that'll be a whole new world when they. [01:21:34] Speaker B: No, they tried that again. They tried that five years ago and it failed. I don't think they're still. [01:21:40] Speaker A: They're still selling them. [01:21:41] Speaker B: I know they're still selling them, but they're not popular. [01:21:44] Speaker A: Yeah, but did you see the new. The newer ones and what. They're capable. Yeah, no, like, there's the newer Ray Ban ones that are for sale, but there's the. What are they called? Orion Meta. Like Zucks Zucks had a heap of influences over to hang out and test them out. They look like the most ridiculous glasses you've ever seen. Hang on, I gotta pull it up. This is. This is a good conversation because this, this. It is where things are heading. But it's gonna take longer, I think, than everyone thinks. Meta Smart. No, what are they called? AR glasses. [01:22:23] Speaker B: No, why you bring that? I mean, yeah, the. The Apple Vision Pro, I'm sure they're selling, but it's a very niche product and it's a very expensive product. You've got to, you know, it's a. [01:22:33] Speaker A: It's a product of privilege selling. I don't think they're selling as much as they'd hoped. [01:22:38] Speaker B: But the same thing happened with. Yeah, earlier, the quest headsets, the PlayStation VR 5 headset. Undersold almost, you know, they almost canned it. It was. It was so poorly received. People just aren't ready for wearable vision yet. [01:22:57] Speaker A: Yeah, these are like. They're like, obviously a little bit Ray Ban styled because Meta have been working with Ray Ban, but they're very, very like. They look. They look. They're sort of obviously nothing like a headset, but they're also extremely big and. [01:23:13] Speaker B: Thick, but they look like a prop from the Thunderbirds. You know, Remember that? Yeah, that nerd in the Thunderbirds or the big thick glasses. [01:23:20] Speaker A: That's what it looks like, but this is what. This is sort of what it looked like. And. And they had quite a few influencers go and test it out. Influencers? You know, YouTube reviewers, like, what's that dude's name? MKBH. Oh, yeah, that guy. The famous guy. All those famous people went and tested him out and they did say it was quite amazing. But it's also a long. It's not, you know, it's a long way from being consumer tech, but, yeah, it can be overlay in the. [01:23:47] Speaker C: In the glasses. Are they. [01:23:49] Speaker A: Yeah, so you're wearing the glasses, your friends over there wearing the glasses, and you can, you know, like, you can overlay information over the real world and it's constantly scanning and. And they're playing. It's. It is literally like, Remember Pong? Like, that was. Hey, you could play a video game on tv. [01:24:08] Speaker B: That looks really dumb. [01:24:11] Speaker A: Was dumb. Pong was dumb as well. [01:24:13] Speaker B: No, it was revolutionary for its time. This looks shit. Oh, that looks. [01:24:18] Speaker A: Well, the fact that you're wearing it, though, you know, like. So it works. I think it works off a puck. Like a little puck in your pocket that has the compute power and stuff like that. And I don't know. And I guess WI fi or stuff. Anyway, it's coming. It's. It's coming like a freight train that's starting slow. When are you ordering the freight train? [01:24:39] Speaker B: He already has. This is why he's so pro it. Because he's already dropped 4000 bucks on him. Is that why? [01:24:45] Speaker A: I'm just saving up for an M6. I'm saving up. I've just got to test John's out first and then what about the gfx? I do. I would do. I do fancy a GFX range. [01:24:56] Speaker B: There's rumor of a Fuji for a Fuji summit coming up next month. Oh yeah? [01:25:02] Speaker A: You reckon that's when they're gonna drop the deeds on the. Is there any more rumors floating around? Oh I see, I see. You're on. You're on the inside. [01:25:12] Speaker B: No, I'm not. I just like to pretend I am. No, no more rumors other than what we've already experienced which is just. And you know, it's funny because I write the news for Shot Kid every morning. I get to review all the rumor sites to see what they're saying and get a feel for what's going on. And. And I do that. [01:25:31] Speaker A: I do that and I don't get paid for it. [01:25:33] Speaker B: No. Well, I get paid for it. [01:25:35] Speaker A: Look at the rumors the room. [01:25:37] Speaker B: The original rumor of this gfx, you know, rangefinder style fixed lens camera started off as a. Imagine this. We believe Fuji's doing this to. All of a sudden these rumor sites are talking like it's definite, it's happening and here are the specs. Like it's just. [01:25:54] Speaker A: And it's not based though like as in is. Don't they get. Do you reckon they're just running with a rumor or don't. Don't leak through. [01:26:02] Speaker B: And they're like now the Canon rumor site's pretty respectable. [01:26:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:26:08] Speaker B: But the Fuji rumor site, they hold a war with other Fuji rumor sites. Like they get really competitive and nasty. [01:26:14] Speaker A: Yeah. And they know that they'll get clicks if they put something out. So. [01:26:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it doesn't matter. [01:26:19] Speaker A: It can be. [01:26:21] Speaker B: It's. It's the whole fake news syndrome. [01:26:23] Speaker C: Well they run. They'll be running ads and stuff on there like they're. They're running a business. [01:26:28] Speaker B: Oh yeah. And links to affiliates. Yeah. [01:26:31] Speaker C: So yeah. If the more that they get people on they get. Sucked them in. [01:26:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. It's just a business model. It's just. I don't know. I don't think it's. I don't think it's wholly ethical. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, divergence. [01:26:48] Speaker A: Anyway, we're getting distracted. We should get back to film labs and stuff like that. [01:26:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, John. John's here. Hey John. Welcome to the Camera Life podcast. [01:26:57] Speaker D: I can talk about digital cameras. Let's go. [01:27:00] Speaker A: Hey, do you have any digital cameras? I do. Do you? Do what? Do you. [01:27:08] Speaker D: I have a Sony RX1 which is a little compact, full frame. [01:27:13] Speaker B: Oh, nice camera. [01:27:15] Speaker A: Really? How often do you. The RX1, was that the 42, 40 something megapixel sensor, wasn't it? 40. [01:27:23] Speaker D: I think that was 24 or something originally and then they might have changed the sensor. [01:27:28] Speaker B: Yeah. The RX1, is it a Mark II or something? They went up to 52. [01:27:34] Speaker D: 3 or something that. [01:27:36] Speaker A: When it got the. The higher one. Yeah, but they both had the 35 mil like 1.4 or something crazy on it. Like a really sort of cool piece. [01:27:44] Speaker D: It's got a 35 mil Zeiss glass on the front of it. [01:27:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Great street camera. [01:27:51] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. But that's the only digital camera iron sadly. [01:27:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:56] Speaker A: Do you. Do you have any aspirations to buy any digital cameras or is that just not even on your radar these days? You just don't. Don't care for. It's all film all the time. [01:28:06] Speaker D: No, no. So I mean, I mean I'm in pretty deep with film as you can see. So it's like why don't I shoot? You know, I can't shoot some formats without film like that 6 by 17 camera up there. But if I were to go to digital I'd be at the Fuji GFX range, look really good. That would be probably where I'd go as well because a lot of my friends are working with that camera now and they're really enjoying the. The files that produces and. And also just holding it handheld in low light, something that film has. Has trouble with. You can't really get high sensitivity for some situations without a strobe. So the. [01:28:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:28:48] Speaker D: The Fuji GFX is like. Yeah, low light beast. [01:28:53] Speaker C: Is Greg paying you to say this? Every time you mention it. He's 50. [01:29:01] Speaker B: My eyes light up. [01:29:02] Speaker A: You might have to. You might have to sell me one of those M6s that you've got John to fund a GFX purchase. [01:29:09] Speaker D: I'm just going to say I. So this is the other Fuji camera I own the like the XPAN or the Fuji TX102. So you can get adapters for this glass for those Fuji GFX bodies. As well. So that's, that's another way I'd like, you know, maybe I can make use of these. Make use of these, these lenses because they, the image circle will cover the format with these lenses. [01:29:35] Speaker A: So. So it's a. It's a Pano camera, but it's interchange. I didn't realize they were interchangeable. I thought they were fixed lens cameras. [01:29:44] Speaker D: This one? Yeah, no, this. Now this is. You've got like a 30 mil, which is about the equivalent of a 15 mil lens, which is crazy wide for Pano. And then you've got. This one's a marker 50 kind of equivalent. [01:30:01] Speaker A: What's the quality like of those images? [01:30:05] Speaker D: Oh, it's awesome. Yeah. I don't think I've got any on my. My Instagram, but they're just beautiful. And there's no. I mean, they've got a center filter on them. So they do vignette a bit at certain apertures. You can see the center filter. [01:30:23] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [01:30:25] Speaker D: Yeah, they. The files are big and beautiful and you could print them big and that's all that matters. But maybe not as big as this one here. I'll quickly grab it. [01:30:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Show and tell. Oh, look at that thing. [01:30:39] Speaker D: If you want a Fuji Beast. [01:30:41] Speaker A: Wow. [01:30:42] Speaker B: I love the fact that it's got a roll cage. [01:30:45] Speaker A: What is it? [01:30:45] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:30:47] Speaker A: Is that it? What Is that a GX617? Is that what I saw on the. [01:30:51] Speaker D: Yeah, GX617. [01:30:53] Speaker A: So make this big. How do we do it? And then I feel like I'm just. [01:31:01] Speaker D: This is such, such a shallow boast having one of these. But no, go for it. [01:31:07] Speaker B: That's what we're here for. [01:31:09] Speaker D: It's a beautiful camera. It's also. This is interchangeable. So often with these, they would just be a fixed lens. So that roll cage you talked about that actually unscrews the whole lens housing comes off. [01:31:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:31:21] Speaker D: And you can put in a different lens, but. [01:31:23] Speaker A: Wow. Do you have any other lenses or just. Just the one. [01:31:26] Speaker D: I have one other lens. [01:31:27] Speaker A: And that's. [01:31:28] Speaker D: So when you're shooting roll film, that's. That's the physical size of the frame. [01:31:34] Speaker A: And this is so. This is medium format, like 120film. So how many shots do you get in a roll? [01:31:40] Speaker D: You get four. [01:31:42] Speaker A: Nice. [01:31:43] Speaker D: Whoa. [01:31:43] Speaker A: That's. That's commitment. I. Freaking crazy. Now I got a question. How many megapixels is that file? [01:31:51] Speaker D: Well, I don't think you'll find a digital camera can even get close to what this can produce because what sensor size is that? [01:31:58] Speaker A: No, exactly, yeah. [01:32:00] Speaker B: I'm sorry, John, what. What brand was that again? [01:32:02] Speaker D: It's Fuji. [01:32:05] Speaker B: No digital camera can get close to that. That's interesting. Sebi clip that. We'll need that in a clip. [01:32:12] Speaker D: If you can make a sensor that size, it's such an unusual size. I know that you can crop in from your sensor and approximate a Pano, but actually physically having a sensor size that big, I don't think they'd even bother these days. That's the cool thing about film though, because you can. There's all sorts of weird cameras like that that just will never translate into digital. But you get to. You get to explore that world, explore your guys. [01:32:43] Speaker B: We indeed, we talked a couple of months back about how. Gosh, I've just forgotten his name. I just had it and I've forgotten it. The American actor Keith. No, Bridges. Jeff Bridges. Jeff Bridges is working on a new wide. Lux. Yeah, that's another example because he loves that wide. That wide format. Yeah. [01:33:04] Speaker D: If you love Pano. And that's a very unique. I mean, it's almost like the conjunction of interests for people that like Swiss watches and cameras because they're designed with such unusual mechanisms to take a picture with a swinging barrel that, you know, exposes the film. That's such an unusual design. [01:33:26] Speaker B: It is. [01:33:27] Speaker D: It produces quite unique pictures too. [01:33:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it'll be. It's fun to see that stuff making a comeback. And that's why it is. Obviously that's niche and they probably know that because there's only a certain number of them out there and they're quite expensive now and maybe the mechanism starting to fail or whatever that they can release a new one and have a particular size market. But that's why it is. It's interesting that you've got that, but you don't have someone making like just a nice 1500 $35 film camera that's extremely high quality. But, you know, I don't know, it's. Yeah, it is. It is odd even. [01:34:08] Speaker B: Just a point and shoot. [01:34:10] Speaker D: Well, there's a few. There's a few. [01:34:14] Speaker B: There is. But I mean, none of them are. I know that there's one of the big labs in Melbourne. Is it Film Never Die. They sell a bunch of reconditioned point and shoots. [01:34:24] Speaker A: There's a new one. A new. A new. What's a new one? It's like, like recently because I was Rolly. [01:34:32] Speaker D: Mint rolly. [01:34:33] Speaker B: Ah, yeah. I mean, I know, like, you know, at JB hi Fi and places like that, you can buy those. It's it's kind of like, it's a. It's a nearly a disposable quality. Disposable quality point and shoot. But it's for int. Like it's putting new roles in and there's like one, there's one design and I think about four different brands have slapped their label on it. I think Ilford have got one with their label on it. But it's basically the same camera. [01:35:00] Speaker D: Yeah, I think there's a bit of controversy about that. Yeah, it's not really. This is part of sustaining the film industry too. Like buying a camera that works, buying one that actually takes good pictures, it all encourages people to stick with the medium. And the second that you get some, you know, some dubious design decisions coming in and then suddenly people aren't really having good experience of film and that affects everyone. So. [01:35:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, this one, well, you're right. [01:35:33] Speaker B: Because it also turns people off, doesn't it? It's like, oh, this isn't what it's gonna be. That's the one. [01:35:37] Speaker A: Yeah. This is like their own brand or whatever. And is this one that, that they've. They've like used a design that's available or something like that or is this their own design? [01:35:48] Speaker B: I'm not sure. [01:35:49] Speaker A: Not sure. [01:35:50] Speaker B: Yeah, but I don't know. [01:35:52] Speaker A: I don't know whether it's, you know, for a $333, it's not bad though. [01:35:58] Speaker D: It's. [01:36:00] Speaker A: Yeah, but is it, is it. Yeah, is it worth going for that or are you better off going for sort of a, you know, find a 200 to $400 second secondhand camera and then sending it to someone that knows what they're doing to give it a. What did you call it, John? What. What do you get done to your film camera if you're not sure if it works? [01:36:19] Speaker D: Cla, clean loop adjust. Yeah. [01:36:23] Speaker A: What do you. Do you have any idea? Roughly, Obviously it probably depends wildly on the camera, but roughly what would that cost someone in Australia say, say for like a, A pretty standard, you know. Yeah, like, like this, for this bad boy. [01:36:37] Speaker D: Just a pretty standard $250 for a service, probably something like that. I mean, assuming so it is that camera. Yeah, it's. It is significant, but I mean, maybe 200, but it's also quite a hard job. I mean, you have to disassemble basically like a Swiss watch and, you know, lubricate the gears and so. [01:37:00] Speaker B: Yeah, and you're pulling apart something that was put together 30, 40, 50 years ago. [01:37:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:37:06] Speaker C: And you kind of spray WD40 in there and hope for the best. [01:37:09] Speaker D: Well, you can. [01:37:13] Speaker C: It might get everywhere, though. That's the problem. [01:37:18] Speaker D: Yeah, but there's. There's some good people. I could recommend some mates of mine that will do that. And, um, they do a good job. And I think it's also a dying art. It's something that all the young repair people are not interested in. Film cameras. So we've got to treasure these people while they're still around. [01:37:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, the more that we use services like that, the more that there's a call for a new generation to be trained. Hopefully before this current gen moves on. [01:37:54] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:37:58] Speaker B: Very cool. What's the time, folks? It's 10:40. Just a reminder to everyone watching and listening along at home, this is the Camera life podcast, episode 49, the big five zero. Next week, Jdog. [01:38:11] Speaker C: What are we doing for episode 50? [01:38:13] Speaker B: Justin's buying us all lunch. [01:38:16] Speaker A: I mean, I can. I don't know how we'll do that on the show, but sure, you guys can get Uber Eats delivered and we can all just eat it into the microphones and. [01:38:25] Speaker B: Do you have Uber? [01:38:27] Speaker A: No, no. It's a horse and cart that brings it around. It takes a while. [01:38:32] Speaker C: We're still waiting for tv, so. [01:38:34] Speaker A: Yeah, now, I don't know, hopefully we have a guest or something. I actually have no idea what we're doing. What I might do is actually fix up my background lighting. As you can see, my really expensive podcast background lights are starting to droop off the shelf because I used tape to hold them up. So similar. Similar to the. The analog film lab industry. Everything is held together here with tape. Hang on. Before we. I had this question. Before we get distracted, I want to ask John. What, John, what is your zombie apocalypse camera and lens? If you. If. If zombies were here? End of the world or maybe a desert island? I prefer zombie apocalypse. And you had to have a camera to document it. Let's assume that you've turned your film lab into a bunker. So if you want to use film, you'll still have the equipment to process it yourself. So it's up to you. [01:39:27] Speaker B: If it's filming, you'll need a generator. [01:39:29] Speaker A: You would need a generator. [01:39:30] Speaker B: You can only run it during the day because the zombies come out at night. Very invested in this. [01:39:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm very. Anyway, so the vampire zombies are coming at night, but in the daytime you can process with your generator. What camera and lens. You can only have one. Even though you can have all of your lab equipment. Still, what camera Would you choose? [01:39:53] Speaker D: Yep. Well, already a few kind of limitations hitting me. I was just thinking, as you're saying that. Did you see that film Civil War recently with the. Yeah. So there's a film photographer in that. Essentially the same situation. Nowhere to develop a film, but, you know, in. In between war zones, essentially between. Between all that. So, yeah, you can develop in the field. And that's. That's probably what I still need to do with black and white. So I have to shoot black and white. Take my chemistry with you. HC110 was the developer that war photographers often used, and that was developed by Kodak to develop, you know, when you couldn't get back to a lab easily and it was kind of resistant to temperature and, you know, and going off. So they've got my developer sorted. But in terms of film, I'd have to go with. With the lighter or maybe a Nikon F2 or something like that. A mechanical camera. That would make David happy, basically. Yeah. It's not gonna. Doesn't need a battery. Gonna use a sunny 16. No light meters. What focal length? [01:41:09] Speaker A: Exposure lens. [01:41:11] Speaker B: What lens? [01:41:12] Speaker D: I'd have to go. I'll have 28 because I. 28. 35. Something like that. Something wide because that's how I see the world. [01:41:23] Speaker A: 28'S awesome, isn't it, for. For being able to sort of capture a scene, but not being so wide that you have to get eaten by a zombie to get the shot. [01:41:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:41:32] Speaker A: You know, like, you can stay safe working distance, but you can still get the environment around the zombie or the whole group of zombies, depending on what's happening. I. I really like 28. [01:41:43] Speaker D: 28. And those cameras, too. They're made of metal, so if a zombie gets close, you can cave their head in pretty, pretty easily. [01:41:52] Speaker A: Well, that's why the M6 would be obviously a good choice, the Leica M6, for beating a zombie brain in, I think. [01:42:01] Speaker B: And if you attached. If you attached a lucky strap, leather camera strap, you could swing it, like. And there's a video of Justin doing that. [01:42:10] Speaker A: I was gonna say, I've actually made a video. I actually need to do that properly. [01:42:13] Speaker B: Wasn't that with the Q3? [01:42:15] Speaker A: It was with the Q3. And it was just to show a customer that the. Because they were like, are you sure this system works? And I was like, yeah, look, I swung my Q3 around with it. I don't really think about it. And then I was like, I should put this on YouTube. But, yeah, speaking of which, we don't really advertise much but if you guys don't know what Lucky Straps is, just head to the website Luckystraps.com we make Australian made leather camera straps. Best in the world. Ship them all over the place. Quick release, you can personalize them. They're huge. They're the greatest, they're the best straps ever made. But seriously, check them out. [01:42:48] Speaker D: Can I ask you a question about straps? [01:42:50] Speaker A: You can, yeah. [01:42:54] Speaker D: What, what in your view makes a good strap? Because I've had a few and I've had a few break and they often, they often break here. So how do you, how do you go about making a strap that won't break? Right there, like. [01:43:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. So for the people just watching that, that was a leather strap that's looped through a ring back on itself. That is, is an inherent problem with leather because leather doesn't like to be folded really like that and then, and then be a, I mean it can be on a, like a, a really thick piece of leather that's used in like horse riding or something like that. They'll do loops back on themselves but the thinner the leather gets and obviously you want thin leather to be supple and comfortable and soft. But if it's thin and then folded it'll end up like creasing and then deteriorating. And that's why we like, we use multiple pieces of leather that connect to a webbing end. Hang on, I'll see if I can get it to focus because it's on face focus and this is not a face. Come on camera. My face isn't there. Yes. All right. So that's the end of the strap that goes to. So the webbing end is actually webbing that we make, we get made in Melbourne. We don't make it. And it's out of a product called Dyneema, which is really abrasion resistant webbing. It's actually cut resistant so you can cut it with scissors and it won't chop, but we sew that in. There's actually like this isn't going to work because the camera's going to focus on me. But there's four pieces of leather on the end. So the webbing is folded over inside this end sandwich and then glued and sewed with like a cross over stitch. So that's the only like kind of potential weak point. And that's over engineered massively for any reg, any camera that you can handhold, it can hold like there. We've tested it to like 50 kilos of hanging strength, like tensile strength and it does it no problem. So basically that's how we avoid it. We don't, we don't like to fold leather back on itself to make a join or a loop or anything like that because it will eventually deteriorate. Obviously this webbing, if it's put into a really abrasive system, it could start to wear. And that's where you'll see like we used to have old Canon and Nikon straps like back in the day before these were being made especially on Canon because they've got the slots. Any cameras that have a ring style attachment, like Nikon, Sony, Fuji, basically everyone, they're pretty good because the ring can pivot towards the direction that the strap is pulling. But Canon has slots and if you put a really heavy lens on it, it's kind of holding at an angle. The webbing gets pulled up in the slot into the corner and then you walk around it just rubs and, and appraise it. And that's why you would see Canon. I had a Canon 1D Mark 4 strap from one of my early cameras and it was just almost worn through because it would just sit in the corner of that slot and just rub while you're running around. So anyway that's, that's how we do it. It doesn't, doesn't suit the aesthetic of some people that shoot film and stuff like that that really like the, the leather to go right to the camera for looks or for just sort of a cleaner style. But yeah, yeah that, that's something we're playing with designs for. But like a fixed non adjustable because this also has length adjustment in it, a fixed non adjustable leather strap that goes close to the body of the camera without having those issues of, of sort of perishing on the loop back on itself and things like that. So yeah, it's tricky but yeah, in my mind that's a really important thing. Hand feel is a massive thing for us. I hate bulky clips near my shooting hand and that's why, that's why we designed our quick release system the way it is. That's why I like to keep webbing near the strap because if this, if this leather end was near where my hand was, I would hate that like just this sitting on my hand while I'm trying to shoot. I like to try and I like to hopefully not feel the strap at all. So hand feels a really important one for us and then know if possible and all of our straps are like this. But some, some camera strap brands can't do it because they want to make them adjustable one size Fits all. Whereas we've got two size options but no hardware at all on the body of the strap because I don't want buckles and sliders and stuff resting anywhere on my body when I'm out shooting. And I like to be able to have the strap as like a sling across, hang on across, like this. First time doing this, it's my first time doing this. So I can bring the camera up to my eye and bring it back down and it's all smooth and there's no buckles or anything heavy on the strap whatsoever. So that's, that's our design philosophy and. [01:48:17] Speaker C: Probably the last thing John is comfort. So yeah, there's different width straps for depending on what sort of camera you're on. So Justin's got like, like a strap there that's for a heavier camera. Give you heaps of comfort on my little film camera here. Like I've got the little, the 20 mil strap. So yeah, still super strong but it's a heap thinner. [01:48:41] Speaker B: So. And I prefer to use a lucky strap deluxe wrist strap because it's comfortable. The leather is really supple but it gives me a great amount of security doing street because I have had my camera knocked out of my hand just walking through crowded areas and when you know, you're walking along and you're holding it down next to you, someone's going to bump or a bag bumps into you and I've dropped my camera but with the strap on it just dangles, you know. And I always prefer to have my camera in my hand when I'm doing street because as you know, the moments come and go in the blink of an eye and you've got to see it raise and shoot and you know, and that comfort is really paramount. And I especially as the older you get, you know, I've had a lot of neck and shoulder and back issues over the last few years and having a comfortable strap makes the difference between me enjoying photography and me absolutely hating going out because I don't like carrying a camera bag when I go out to do photography, I'd rather just go with a strap with either like Justin the crossbody or a wrist strap and a spare battery in my pocket and head out the door, you know, and so that comfort is absolutely paramount, I find. I think that's my first consideration for me. [01:49:56] Speaker D: I feel like I've, I've been using a bad strap for so many years. That bad strap strapped. I'm hearing what you're talking about. I'm going, I need a new strap for my Pentax 67 because I'm just using the one that came with the body. So maybe you can help me out. [01:50:10] Speaker A: We can, we can help you out. We'll get, we'll bring one down for you to play with and we'll bring a few down so you can test. [01:50:16] Speaker B: Them out and J Dog and Jimmy A will sort you out, don't you worry. [01:50:20] Speaker C: We didn't mention John is, is length of strap too. So like most standard camera straps are really short and I guess they probably initially were designed to run around your neck. [01:50:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:50:31] Speaker C: Again, which is super uncomfortable. Whereas like the lucky straps, most of them come in two lengths. There's one that comes in a shorter length as well. [01:50:39] Speaker D: So. [01:50:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And the other thing with lucky straps that I've found and you know I write product reviews for a whole range of different cameras, lenses, accessories, lots of camera straps. And the thing that I always come back to with lucky straps is a couple of other selling points I find. And yes, you know, I'm an advocate for the brand. But they're Australian made and owned. They're made Bendigo in Bendigo, Victoria, you know, who don't even have television yet and you know, and they're made, but they're made by a small, a small group of like minded people. Like they're, there's that element to it that you know, they're not mass produced in a factory offshore and that's fine if that's, if you want to pay less and get maybe, you know, a mass produced product. But if you want something that's had genuine photographers, real photographers. Jim does all the order fulfillment, you know, Justin does product development and concept and all that sort of stuff. You know, it's, we're photographers, we know, we, we know what we need and we know what photographers like. So we're, we're trying to deliver products that meet your needs. Not just what we think but you know, and we take feedback from community and all that sort of, of stuff. So it's, there's a lot more to it than, oh, they just make straps, you know. [01:51:55] Speaker D: Yeah. Test them and test them to certain tolerances and, and weights. That means a lot because I've had cameras fall off straps before and it's not worth the risk, you know, to not invest in something that works. [01:52:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And the other thing is to its detriment in a way, lucky straps, A lucky strap should last longer than your camera or you. I think we're talking to someone yesterday about the product and we said, you know, a lucky Strap is something you should probably pass down to your kids. [01:52:28] Speaker A: That's the goal. [01:52:29] Speaker B: You know, as much as that. You know, that sort of evergreen product makes it tricky for Justin to sell another one to another to the same person. But plenty of people buy multiple. [01:52:40] Speaker A: Well, there are photographers in around the world and in our chat that have 16 cameras, so you need 16 camera straps. [01:52:46] Speaker D: So that helps. [01:52:48] Speaker B: And we're just here and there's a QR code on the screen for. [01:52:51] Speaker A: I was about to say, as much as we don't do. We don't do like lucky straps ads on these podcasts because we've just spent. [01:52:56] Speaker B: 20 minutes doing one. [01:53:00] Speaker A: Ads. [01:53:00] Speaker C: They just come up organically. [01:53:01] Speaker A: We don't do ads. This one come up organically. And if we're. If you're going to be a bear, you might as well be a grizzly bear. So there's a QR code in the top of the screen that will give you 15 off if you're. If you're on a device where you can scan it. If you. If you're on your phone and you can't scan a QR code that's already on your phone because that just is weird. Website. Yeah. If you're on audio, use the code. Justin. That's J U S T I N at checkout. And you'll get 15 off, which is pretty awesome. [01:53:28] Speaker B: But no special treatment beyond that. [01:53:30] Speaker A: No. [01:53:32] Speaker C: Maybe I'll set up a code GM and you can get 15 and a half percent off. [01:53:36] Speaker A: No, you can have. Actually, that's all right. So we'll set up codes for Justin, Jim and Greg. I'll set it up right now. They'll all do 15% off, so you can vote with your order as to who is the best person on the podcast. So Justin or Greg. [01:53:53] Speaker B: I will say this, as much as this felt a little like an infomercial. [01:53:57] Speaker A: It really did. [01:54:01] Speaker B: The reality is. But wait, there is more. The reality is, is that it's a product that we're proud of and we're passionate about. [01:54:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:54:08] Speaker B: You know, it's a homegrown business. It's a homegrown product and we're proud of that. You know, we're proud of that little Made in Australia label that hangs off every single strap that comes out to you. It's a part of our identity and it's a part of our, I guess, ethos as a brand. You know, that we're just a little team, but we're doing good things and we're happy about that. And because we do this, you know, it's not just that we're here flogging the product. You know, we do this podcast to support the community, to bring on people such as yourself, John, and talk about aspects of the industry that other people haven't thought about or are having trouble with. Or maybe we might inspire someone to pick up a camera today. And if that's the case, then we've done our job. You know, if we happen to sell 20 straps at the same time, well, then we've also done our job. [01:54:56] Speaker A: Well, then we can actually pay for the podcast and stuff. [01:55:01] Speaker B: I didn't want to remind you of that. But look, it's. It's getting close to 11 o'clock. I am conscious of time we were going to cover off today and I'm sorry to Matt Palmer if you've waited two hours to hear about your new project, but we are running out of time, unfortunately. But we will cover it in an upcoming episode. Just in a nutshell, Justin, do you want to give everyone a bit of a quick rundown of what photokaizen is? [01:55:27] Speaker A: I will. Hang on, let me pull it. [01:55:28] Speaker B: Would you want me to? [01:55:30] Speaker A: Well, you can start, I'll pull it up and then we'll go. [01:55:33] Speaker B: Matt Palmer, who with his partner Mika, run Alpine. Mika, I got corrected yesterday when I speak on the phone. Sorry, Mika, I called him Mickey. I don't know where, where I got that from. Anyway, Mika and Matt run Alpine Light Gallery in Bright and we were there for bfop, that's the Bright Festival of Photography last late last year. Justin, you caught up with them both, didn't you? You went into the gallery. One of them anyway. [01:56:03] Speaker A: I went. No, I can't remember. I don't think it was on that weekend. But at some point I popped into the gallery but they both weren't there. But yeah, it's okay. [01:56:10] Speaker B: I'm just making up stories now. So anyway, Matt is launching Photo Kaizen. And in a nutshell, Photo Kaizen is a website, a platform where you can submit your images and they organize for professional, industry standard, industry level critique of your work. And you can, you know, if you, if you've got an exhibition coming up or you're going to enter a competition that you're really passionate about, you want to get some feedback on your image beforehand. You can go to photokaizen and they will critique your images. You can have, you know, 1:20, you know, they will organize sort of custom packages depending on the level and size of work you have. But for those of you that aren't familiar the term Kaizen is actually a Japanese term. It's more often than not used in business and it refers to continuous improvement, always wanting to do better. And that's what photokaizen is all about. [01:57:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And so basically you join up. I've already joined up. When Matt first showed me the project he was working on, I've joined up. So that's easy. You just like, you go join up, you make a thing like a profile and that doesn't cost anything. That's free. You just join up for free, cost nothing. What starts to cost is each time you want to submit an image to be professionally critiqued. But I believe at the moment it's very cheap. I'm not sure exactly how cheap it is and while it's still in sort of the getting, getting off the ground stage. But so you're basically, you're getting professional judging in a non competitive environment. So it's, it's for improvement, it's not for how good am I compared to how, how good is Jim? Because obviously I'm better, but I already know I'm better. So I just want to know how could I be even better than Jim? [01:58:03] Speaker B: We all know the truth, Jim. [01:58:05] Speaker A: And that's where Photoshop. But, but seriously, it's for, it's for feedback for you, not for feedback in a competitive setting against other people. And I think that's a really great, great way because previously, you know, if you didn't have a photography mentor or something like that, you needed to enter competitions to get this kind of feedback. But then you are getting graded against other people in, in something that isn't, it's very subjective. So, so it takes all of that out of it. It's, no one says, oh, you're not as good as this person or anything like that. It just says, hey, you did a wonderful job with this image. Here are some things you could have thought about differently or you know, I think might have improved it or. Yeah, like. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think it's, I think it's a really, it's missing in the industry and it's going to be a great initiative and I think the plan will be to get Matt on to explain this in, in a lot more detail. Yeah. But to do that, Greg, correct me if I'm wrong, but me, myself, Jim and you are all going to submit some images to get critiqued. [01:59:14] Speaker B: Yeah, we're all going to create a profile. We're roping you in, Jim. No, you know, you don't get to say in this. So basically we're all Creating a profile. We're all going to submit some images for critique and then we'll get Matt on the show to talk us through the process as well as deliver our critique live on the YouTubes, which will be fun. [01:59:33] Speaker A: And then he will, even though he don't normally rank us, he will rank us and see who is officially the best photographer out of the three of us. [01:59:41] Speaker B: My money's on Jim. But the other thing with this site you can, you can do individual images, you can do folios of work, current projects, you can do books. Or even if you've got a photography website and you are hosting your gallery, you can have Photo Kaizen, Matt's team, to actually review your website and get some feedback on whether these are the best images to promote your business. I love it. So. Which is amazing. Just before we wrap up, my jump on a couple of last minute comments and Matt, we obviously look forward to having you on the show. This one's from Digifrog. Dave in Tassie, is that right? Yeah, Dave's in Tassie, isn't he? They, as in Matt and Mika, were honeymooning him when the Bright Festival was on and he got free calendars. And Matt has concurred that it might have missed something due to bad Internet. But yes, we were honeymooning and did leave some free calendars. Oh, honeymoon. They were on their honeymoon. [02:00:43] Speaker A: They were on their honeymoon. Yeah, because they got. [02:00:46] Speaker B: I thought they were honeymooving. I thought that was like a. A term for kind of schmoozing Dave to take a calendar to buy a calendar. Anyway, I got that mistaken. But yeah, they're going to be at beef up 25, which lucky straps will also be there. [02:01:02] Speaker A: We will. [02:01:02] Speaker B: Have you ever been to Befop, John? [02:01:05] Speaker D: I haven't actually. I did see it come up as a targeted ad. Was it last year or is it on every year? [02:01:12] Speaker B: Yeah, it's on every year. It's been going for about eight. Eight years, I think they said. [02:01:17] Speaker D: Yeah, it definitely intrigued me as you've got like, like lots of different aspects of the industry and lots of different creatives there, so. [02:01:25] Speaker B: Yeah, but you want to know what's lacking? Film. [02:01:29] Speaker A: Yeah, Film lab. [02:01:30] Speaker B: How at least expertise, expert advice. [02:01:33] Speaker A: Would it be to bring your entire film lab to Bright or some of. [02:01:37] Speaker C: It is some of it portable. [02:01:39] Speaker B: Justin's got a van. [02:01:40] Speaker A: I got a van. All right. [02:01:43] Speaker D: I'd have to take this thing. Would I fit that in the car? [02:01:46] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I'll get that Mercedes. It looks expensive though. [02:01:52] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:01:52] Speaker A: And like maybe one Bump on the road and it might not work. Matt's confirmed M Sneaker. That is awesome. And now I will never forget again. [02:02:04] Speaker B: Yep, yep. [02:02:05] Speaker A: That is great. What else? Is there anything else we need to go over? Is there any news or anything? [02:02:13] Speaker B: Well, yeah, there is. So overnight, Nikon dropped the. [02:02:17] Speaker A: Oh, Jim. [02:02:18] Speaker B: Cool picks. P 1100. They're still making those. [02:02:22] Speaker A: It's your new wedding camera, Jim. What's the focal length, Greg? [02:02:26] Speaker B: It's a full frame equivalent 24 to 3000 optical zoom. So 125 times zoom, or you can, you can pair that with the digital zoom for the optimal mode is 250 times zoom, but you can actually. [02:02:43] Speaker C: 3,000. [02:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:02:45] Speaker A: Yes. [02:02:45] Speaker B: You can actually get a 500 times digital zoom paired with the optical. [02:02:50] Speaker A: It's actually a product. It's a real product. It's. They've been super popular for years. [02:02:54] Speaker B: These really big in Japan because they're kind of a one and done. [02:02:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:02:57] Speaker B: One and done machine. They're, they're, they're Nikon. They've got a beautiful organic, odd. It looks like someone's wedged a camcorder in the front of a. Of a. Like a D8.50 or something. [02:03:09] Speaker A: Jim, can you please hit up Julie and ask her if we can test one when there's one available? Like, we'll do a proper. Like we'll do a YouTube video test of it because I've never tried one. And that is an insane focal length. [02:03:22] Speaker C: Like the 24 to 3000, 3000 optical. [02:03:25] Speaker B: Plus a 2 times or 4 times digital zoom. [02:03:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the aperture at 3000, it's. It's f1 million frames. [02:03:37] Speaker B: It's f8. It's actually not too bad when you think about it. [02:03:40] Speaker A: It's really not too bad. [02:03:42] Speaker B: It's really not 2.8 to F8. A 2.8 is the wide anyway. It's got a couple of fancy modes. One of them is like a moon mode for getting sharper images of the moon. It doesn't have very good low light performance, generally speaking, but it's. It's got some funky modes. The other big news which, which is probably more up Jim's alley is the new Nikon Nikkor 35 millimeter f 1.2s. It completes the S line trilogy. So you've now got your 35, your 50 and your 85 F 1.2s. [02:04:16] Speaker C: They don't have a 105 though. That's what they know. [02:04:21] Speaker A: So, Jim, You've got the 50, don't you? The 51.2s. [02:04:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:04:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Which you love. [02:04:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And that just obliterates backgrounds. [02:04:28] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:04:29] Speaker B: Into this beautiful swirly swirl. [02:04:31] Speaker A: Obliterates wrist, wrist ligaments as well I think. And I believe this 35 is essentially very similar form factor. So similar weight, similar like length and size and stuff. So you're paying a penalty for the quality that you're getting. [02:04:48] Speaker B: So the new 35 mils expect there's already a petapixel hands on review. It's an absolute behemoth. It's a kilo. Yeah. [02:05:01] Speaker A: It's the same as the 50 in in terms of like quality. [02:05:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah it's a gorgeous piece of glass and it currently US 2800. So what's that about four, four and a bit probably. [02:05:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:05:19] Speaker B: That's at B H in the states. So they're usually a pretty good indicator of the global price. It's due out at the end of the month. [02:05:27] Speaker C: Well hang on. They emailed me about it yesterday so I'll see if it's on the Australian website. [02:05:32] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [02:05:37] Speaker B: Oh just. [02:05:38] Speaker C: Did we see the 494-899-949 wait for. [02:05:44] Speaker A: It to come on special. [02:05:45] Speaker B: Yeah we've got a hundred dollars off. Just quickly Matt's jumped. I don't know if we covered this. Sorry I don't if I missed it. Matt said photokaizen is in testing right now but you can jump into the testing. It will be formally live in a few weeks. [02:05:58] Speaker A: Yeah nice. So you might as well get in early. And he also said haha sure I can rank you. So he will be officially ranking us. Who is the. We're gonna have a full podium. One, two and three photographers. Justin, Jimmy, Greg. Also just to recap on the lucky straps discount Justin, Jim and Greg codes are all now live. They all give you 15 off vote with your wallet. [02:06:22] Speaker B: Yeah this, this goes towards our end of year bonus so. [02:06:25] Speaker A: That's right. [02:06:26] Speaker B: You know I'm coming from my son's bedroom. Look at Jim and Justin setups. Quality studios. [02:06:31] Speaker A: Check out my lighting. [02:06:33] Speaker B: You know who to vote for. You know I'm just a family man. I've got five kids to feed. Anyway, Dave has asked has the new OM model dropped as yet? No, but the. There's official photos that have leaked. I can show you those because that. [02:06:50] Speaker A: Doesn'T really need to rebrand it. Yeah it's. I, I haven't seen it official. I don't even know what the date was. [02:07:00] Speaker B: Was. No. [02:07:02] Speaker A: Or there is no date. Okay. [02:07:03] Speaker B: No there's a, there's a, there's a. Yeah there's a rumored launch happening in a few days. But let me just share this. Just very. This will finish up on this. Because otherwise we could talk all day and I really need to go bathroom. Om 3. This is the render here. This is what they say is the official image. [02:07:24] Speaker A: Cool. [02:07:25] Speaker B: But I saw some better ones because that's the pen. Here it is, here. I can see that. Okay. Oh, page not found. What? B and H. Why? [02:07:38] Speaker A: Yeah, cool. [02:07:39] Speaker B: So, yeah, it looks a bit like a classic film camera. And it also looks a bit like the Nikon zf. Yeah, as you'd expect. [02:07:48] Speaker A: Very cool. [02:07:49] Speaker B: But his top plate design. It's nice, actually. [02:07:55] Speaker A: Yeah, clean. [02:07:57] Speaker B: It is clean. A lot of real estate on this side. It's actually quite a wide body. Yeah. Like, if you think that that's a 3 inch screen, that's like another 2 inches of real estate there. That's. If that is the three inch screen. [02:08:14] Speaker A: I just got to say something to you, Elena. We're communicating via podcast. Any reason why I should not head to the factory now? No, you can go now. [02:08:21] Speaker C: Don't heat it up. It's already a warm day. [02:08:24] Speaker B: Yeah, don't hit it. [02:08:25] Speaker A: Yeah, that would be great if you can go and grab whatever they've got for us. [02:08:29] Speaker B: Anyway, that's the new. Well, it's not confirmed, but these are the leaked images. I've also seen some images of it with a different colored finish, more of a gold finish. This one here, it's almost rose gold. I don't know if that's just the quality of the. Of the image that's been captured or the lighting, but I wouldn't be surprised if they brought out maybe two models. They look very different to me. Anyway, we'll see. We'll know in a couple of days, but let's finish. On that note, I just want to. [02:09:06] Speaker A: You're muted. Did you mute yourself, John? [02:09:09] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:09:09] Speaker B: Oh, there we go. [02:09:10] Speaker A: Oh, cool. Just someone. [02:09:11] Speaker B: Someone's gardener has shown. Is that your staff show Justin? [02:09:14] Speaker A: That's my gardener. Gardener. He's leaf blowing. He does it every podcast. [02:09:20] Speaker B: So inconvenient. So the staff don't know the timing of your show. But look, on that note, I want to thank John from Lumina Lab. And don't forget, there is a discount code available for the camera life viewers. And Lucky strap. [02:09:37] Speaker A: It's Lucky Lumina Film Processing. All the links are in the. In the description, so can jump down there. And if you want to post or Dropbox to John, I would highly recommend it if you're in the general Australia Region, you can. [02:09:54] Speaker D: Yeah, give us a try. Yeah, I think if you're using another film lab at the moment and you're posting it to them, I'm local and I'm here and I'll do a good job. [02:10:08] Speaker A: Exactly. He's passionate about it, you can tell. Absolutely. And he shoots, he plays. He's got all the toys and he plays with the toys. So he understands the real deal to do because he does it himself. [02:10:17] Speaker B: Yep, absolutely. We will go and visit and yeah. [02:10:22] Speaker D: You'Re most welcome to come and visit. [02:10:25] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. Well, you don't have a choice actually. [02:10:28] Speaker A: That's one final question for John. Do you sell, do you sell film? Do you sell rolls of film as well? I do, but not on the website. [02:10:37] Speaker D: I don't have a store. But I will, I will get one eventually. [02:10:41] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, very cool. [02:10:44] Speaker B: So look, if you're a film photographer and you're looking for a lab or you're looking to get into film and you want to know more about the processing side of things, you can get in touch with Lumina Lab with John at Lumina Labs and organize the time to go and work side by side and get some first hand knowledge on developing and processing your film and coloring it the way you want it and getting the sort of files that you need for your craft. On that note, look, John, thanks for offering our viewers and listeners a discount. That's really great of you. For those of you watching along, this has been the Camera Life podcast, episode 49. Tune in next week. We have Mika Rhymes with Sneaker joining us from Alpine Light. Mika is an Australian landscape photographer. Stunning amount of work, well worth a look. Award winning landscape photographer. But that's for next week. But yeah, once again, John, thank you so much. All the links to John's site and any of the other stuff that we've talked about through the show will appear in the comments soon. And also please stay tuned. Editor Sebastian, aka Greggy Jr. Is. I've never called him that. He's working on some shorter videos for us. Some clips and bits and pieces that will soon be coming at your eyeballs on social media. So stay tuned for that as well. John, thank you for your time. [02:12:11] Speaker C: Thanks, John. [02:12:11] Speaker D: Thanks for having me. [02:12:12] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks so much, John. Appreciate the opportunity and I'm excited to learn more. [02:12:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And look, we'd love to have you back in the future if you want to come back and tell us how things are going or any projects or. [02:12:24] Speaker A: I'm thinking we need in our new, like at some point when we get these Evening shows running. Maybe we need like a. Once a month or once every two months, a bit of a film roundup. You know, we get, we get Joel or any of the, you know, anyone that's right into shooting film along with John. Just get a heap of people on here to talk nerd out on film stuff, make a film show. [02:12:45] Speaker D: Sure. Do a photo walk and. [02:12:48] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll be in touch. [02:12:50] Speaker C: That's good. [02:12:50] Speaker B: We're gonna work you to the bone. [02:12:52] Speaker A: That's right. Too busy processing our film. [02:12:57] Speaker B: But on that note, like we mentioned earlier, what we do here is purely for the community. Yes, we talk about Lucky Straps now and then, but realistically, we're here. [02:13:08] Speaker A: 20 minute infomercial. [02:13:10] Speaker B: But realistically, we're here. Well, that's how passionate we are about the product. But we are here to support you guys. So if there's anything you want to talk about, drop it in the comments. Get in touch if you've got questions about Lucky Straps. You know, hit us up. Jim, Yelena or Justin, we'll get back to you. Very prompt service, great customer service and yeah, look, we'll leave it at that because I'm about to go into another promotional ad. [02:13:34] Speaker A: Yeah, great editor. Seb says, great chat today. Enjoyed hearing about the film industry. And Dave Digifrog says, thanks, boys. Great show again. Thanks, Dave. Thanks for listening. [02:13:45] Speaker C: Are you gonna throw those discount codes in the, in the chat or in the description? [02:13:49] Speaker A: I'll put them in the description. But hey, easy to remember. Justin, Jim, Greg, they're all there. Say 15 on. [02:13:55] Speaker C: Just remember, remember who packs your orders. [02:13:57] Speaker B: Yep. Elena does. Elena, get a code. Use. Use your Elena. See how that goes. [02:14:04] Speaker A: I'll. I'll get that one. Next. Bruce. Thanks to the show, guys. And with that, I'm gonna roll the music. [02:14:12] Speaker B: Yeah, have a great day, everyone. Get out and shoot. Pick up a camera. [02:14:16] Speaker A: Goodbye. [02:14:17] Speaker C: Thank you. See ya. [02:14:18] Speaker B: Bye.