EP85 Pete Mellows | Landscape & Tours

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam, this is the Camera Life podcast. It is. What's the date? Jesus. 5th of June already. How did that happen? It's always the end of financial year. Episode 85 of the Camera Life Podcast, proudly brought to you by Lucky Straps from Bendigo, Victoria. We make amazing, beautiful handcrafted leather camera straps. So if you don't have one and you're Interested, head to Luckystraps.com and. And use the Code Greg in the checkout and you'll get a nice little discount. Don't use Jim. Or you can use Jim's new code Jim soft focus. But I can't guarantee that that'll be a. A sharp discount. Welcome, Jim. Speaking of the devil. How are you, mate? [00:01:11] Speaker B: Well, thanks, Greg. [00:01:12] Speaker C: How are you? I don't know. [00:01:13] Speaker B: Is it glitchy on your end? Is it just me today? It's struggling with Internet. [00:01:17] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe a little bit. Maybe a little. That's okay. Thanks for joining. And Jim's had a few tech issues this morning, folks. So he's here. And he's using a mist filter for aesthetic, apparently. We're also joined today by Pete Mellows. Pete is an Australian Victorian landscape photographer. Pete, welcome to the show. [00:01:39] Speaker C: Thank you. Tasmania. [00:01:41] Speaker A: Tasmanian. What did I say? Australian. Victorian. [00:01:43] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:01:46] Speaker A: All kinds of wrong. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that the mainlander butchered your. [00:01:50] Speaker C: Oh, I'll keep it up here for later. [00:01:53] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. All right. Payback. Pete. Yeah. Welcome to the show. It's great to have you on board. We're looking forward to talking about your craft, what you do, what you're working on, where you've been and your journey. But first of all, can you just give us a little snippet of who you are and what you do? [00:02:11] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. So I'm predominantly a landscape photographer, but I really started to cut my teeth on live music, so which is why I was really keen on Lucinda's last week. Yeah, I photographed some really cool bands like Queens of Stone Age, etc, and then kind of took over a pub and it took a little while to get back into photography. It wasn't until I started mountain bike business that I really started looking at landscape, and it just snowballed from there. [00:02:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Cool. All right, well, we're going to unravel all of that. In case anyone's wondering, Pete was referring to Lucinda Goodwin's time on the Camera Life podcast last week where we unpacked what is, you know, a marvelous and inspirational story about someone working against many people who said she couldn't do it. And is now a, you know, a really an icon in Australian music as a photographer. So, yeah, check that out in the archive. And of course, if you're watching along at home, please make sure you like and subscribe. And tickle the bell so you get notifications of our episodes. And if you're on audio podcast. Welcome. Um, let's jump to some comments. Jim, do you wanna. Do you wanna say good morning to some people? [00:03:36] Speaker B: Yeah, we've got Phillips in the chat. Morning, Philip. [00:03:39] Speaker A: Morning, mate. [00:03:40] Speaker C: G' day. [00:03:42] Speaker A: Hey, son. How are you? Fs in Geelong at the moment, so he's probably closer than. Closer to Peter than he is to me. [00:03:51] Speaker B: So he hasn't said good morning to you yet already? [00:03:53] Speaker A: No. No. So that's Shane. Shane Henderson, who also shoots live music. G' day, mate. [00:04:03] Speaker B: Hello, Rodney. [00:04:05] Speaker A: G' day, Rodney. Rodney's joining us soon for an episode too. [00:04:08] Speaker B: I'm assuming it's Justin. Morning, Justin. [00:04:13] Speaker A: Whoever's hacked our account. [00:04:15] Speaker B: Yeah, and we've got Yolanda as well. Oh, yeah, And Seb says, hey, father. [00:04:21] Speaker A: Hey, son. Oh, very cool. Welcome, guys. Good to have you on board. Make sure that, you know, if you've got any questions or any topics you want us to. To cover off with Peter while we've got him on the show today, please jump in the chat. Ask away. You can ask us anything. Doesn't mean we'll answer it, but you can certainly ask us anything. Pete, let's. Let's jump into your story a little bit. Can we roll back the clock? I won't say how many years. I'll leave that up to you. [00:04:50] Speaker C: Sure. I'm gonna go all the way. [00:04:52] Speaker A: Let's go all the way back to what were your inspirations like growing up from, you know, you got into the live music scene, you got into a mountain bike business and eventually you've gotten into, obviously, landscape photography. But where did some of that stuff originate from? [00:05:10] Speaker C: Look, I've always loved live music right from the start and music in general. I left school, I did a. A diploma in audio engineering. So that's always been in my bones and always had a camera on me. So it was really easy. Just take photos of who's playing. The. The real kicker came when I, after I come back from the UK back in 04 and there's a website called Naked Dwarf and they asked me. [00:05:43] Speaker A: What was that? [00:05:43] Speaker C: Sorry, a website called Naked Dwarf? It was a. A kind of a music scene, local music scene website down here. A lot of forum stuff going on, talking about all the bands that were playing all the Local bands and some of the visiting. But yeah, they hired me to take some photos of Thirsty Merc. It's my first. Yeah, they're amazing. And I had my Pentax in dsl. It's like one of their first digital cameras. And the photos that came out were just awesome. Yeah, I fell in love with doing that more on a professional level and taking the lighting that they put on and using that to create the. The images and using their DRO being and. And all sorts of things. And the performance was so good that it was vibrant and alive. So it really spoke to me. [00:06:42] Speaker A: Yep. Just. Just a word of caution to the folks watching and listening along. Probably best you don't Google Naked Dwarf. Don't do it if you're at work right now. Is Naked Dwarf still a thing, Pete? [00:06:56] Speaker C: I don't believe so. Yeah. [00:06:58] Speaker A: We'll leave that for Jim to Google later and let us know in the. [00:07:00] Speaker C: Chat you might find in the archives. [00:07:03] Speaker A: Yeah, just be careful, folks. Don't. Don't Google that while you're at work. It's. What's that saying? Not safe for work, Pete. You know, you said that you went into audio and you've always had a camera on you going before even your. Your like, say, formal education in, in tertiary. Was there. Was there something that kind of inspired you to pick up a camera? Was it, you know, your parents always had cameras or you had friends or. [00:07:29] Speaker C: Yeah, so my dad had a camera and he. He was really into bird watching and we would have to sit through these slideshows on summer nights. It was horrendous. Like, it really was. But, you know, the. The images he was capturing were really lovely. Had like a. I think it was a 200 millimeter lens so I could get these little birds really nicely. But it was 1979. For Christmas, I was given a little Kodak Instamatic and it just kind of stayed with me and I took photos of everything. You know, I had birthday parties and friends coming around, or we'd go for rides out into the bush and we take pictures. And yeah, it was really. It was just something that kind of stuck with me. And it would fit in your pocket? Yeah, really easy. [00:08:27] Speaker A: Do you still have that camera? [00:08:28] Speaker C: I wish. I. I think I just threw it out. It's a piece of plastic junk in the end. But, yeah, I. I do wish that I kept all of these old cameras that I've had over the years. [00:08:40] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's fair. That's fair. So, you know, your dad. Your dad was out shooting a lot. Did you ever go with him on those shoots with a camera of your own? Or was it just more that he came home from his adventures and said, everyone sit down, I've got something to show you. [00:08:58] Speaker C: Well, actually it was on the family trips that we went on that he'd take the camera. So not only would we sit through the slideshows, we'd actually have to be with him while he was taking these pictures. So we'd go camping and he'd bugger off into the bush for a little while and take photos. Yeah. [00:09:16] Speaker B: Do you think that he wanted you to, I guess, try and appreciate the photos because how hard maybe bird watching photography really is, you know? [00:09:25] Speaker C: I think so. He was certainly really proud of his pictures and we had little choice and of course mum would support him and I'm sure she was just as excited as we were. But I, I believe he had a camera because his father had cameras when he was young. [00:09:47] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:09:48] Speaker C: And I've scanned a whole bunch of his old pictures and, and they're, you know, they're just these tiny little things. Some of them are, you know, a couple of inches wide, but they're, you know, it's, it's just in the blood. Yeah. [00:10:02] Speaker A: Yeah. That's interesting. Do you, do you, do you remember your grandfather or did you not meet him or. [00:10:08] Speaker C: Oh, no, no. He, he passed away a few years ago at 96 years old. So. Yeah, so he was a long lived gentleman. I never saw a camera in his hand, so it must have been before he had kids or, you know, in those early years. [00:10:25] Speaker A: And did you ever have conversations with him about your photography and share that kind of experience? No, different sort of thing. [00:10:32] Speaker C: Yeah. And they lived in New South Wales and we were down in Tasmania, so we'd see them once a year. We'd fly up and, and stay on their farm. But that all kind of stops when I hit 15, when. When I was getting more interested in sort of that artistic side of things. Yeah, we saw him less. Yeah. [00:10:56] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fair. Should we just jump to a couple of more comments? A couple of more people have joined us, which is great. We've got J.S. honey, Jason. Morning, all. G' day, mate. We've got Rodney Nicholson. I'm waving to him across the Bass straight. [00:11:14] Speaker C: Hey, Rodney. [00:11:14] Speaker A: Hey, Rodney. Sam Olson has joined us. Morning, all. G' day, Sam. Thanks for joining us. And fellow Taswegian. Is that how you say it or just Tasmania? I think I made that up. [00:11:26] Speaker C: Tasmania. Yeah, people do say that. [00:11:28] Speaker A: Yeah. I think my mum says that because my family, my mum's side's all from Tassie. And Sash, my partner, Sash, her whole family is from Tassie, so. [00:11:36] Speaker C: Oh, really? [00:11:37] Speaker A: Yeah. She's got one leg shorter than the other because she was raised in Launceston. Very hilly. Digi, Frog, Dave. G' day, Dave. Hi, Jim, Greg, Pete, represent Taz. P.S. pete, do you want to be premier? Are you guys on the hunt for a new premiere? [00:11:52] Speaker C: I think it's anyone's game right now. [00:11:54] Speaker A: Oh, is it? [00:11:55] Speaker C: Yeah, they're. They're supposed to know confidence going through, so that's interesting. [00:11:59] Speaker A: Times that doesn't happen often. [00:12:02] Speaker C: No, no, Look, I don't want to get too political, but they've made a complete falls up over the last few years with shipping and stadiums and all sorts of stuff, so. [00:12:13] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. All right, well, let's not get into that because we have. [00:12:17] Speaker B: We're not a political podcast. [00:12:18] Speaker A: We're not a political podcast at all. So you're running around as a teenager with a little point and shoot film camera. [00:12:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:32] Speaker A: Do you remember when you kind of, you know, and then you went into audio and then it was. Well, I'm. I'm doing. I'm working with. In the concerts kind of scene anyway, so I'm going to take photos. Do you remember what your first camera was that you took into that. That space? [00:12:48] Speaker C: Oh, look, it probably was like the, the proper one was the, the isdl when I. When I was hired by Naked Dwarf leading up to that as a sound engineer, I wasn't really focused on the photography side of things, but. Yeah, yeah, you know, and those, those little cameras, they're terrible in low light. So. Yeah, I have a huge collection of blurry photos. Yeah, I. I wouldn't even consider any of those early photos to be anything proper. [00:13:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, but you probably learned a lot from it. Sorry, Jim. [00:13:27] Speaker B: They had about 8.8iso, I reckon. [00:13:30] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. And the only way you get something decent is to put one of those bold flashes on the top and. Yeah, and then they just give you that white spot around the face. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:13:42] Speaker A: Not pretty. [00:13:44] Speaker C: Not pretty. But they're a front camera. Yeah, yeah. [00:13:48] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:50] Speaker A: So what was next for you in. In the photography space? [00:13:56] Speaker C: It. Look, it was. It was really. When I started the bike business, I had a little GoPro that I mount on my bike and the idea was take photos of everything. So I had that set to take a photo every 30 seconds while filming and sometimes you get a decent enough picture to post on social media of each particular tour. I Had my phone because by then I'd given up the digital camera because the phones were actually getting better than the. The SLRs. So I. I kind of just carried that around and I had this little waterproof, shockproof Panasonic compact camera. And so I get a few pictures with that as well. It was nothing amazing. Looking back, I'm actually really embarrassed by the pictures, but at the time, I was so proud of them because we. We had these amazing landscapes and the people in it were clearly happy. And. Yeah, that. Those landscapes, they fired me up and they got me seriously thinking about getting a DSLR again. And it was about 2014. I got myself a Pentax KS1 and took that everywhere. And then I got some really nice shots of some of my friends and some of the clients up close with the blurred background and everything. Yeah, everything started to look like I imagined it would be. [00:15:35] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And so you were taking your gear with you when you were running the tours? [00:15:42] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. The look, my backpack was full of spare parts, cameras, foods, first aid kit, and a plb. Oh, and a sat phone. So, you know, everyone else has got these tiny little backpacks with a bit of food in it. And then here's me with this big clunky thing on the back. [00:16:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:05] Speaker B: And heavy. [00:16:06] Speaker C: Yeah, really heavy. [00:16:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Because the Pentax would have been heavy, wouldn't it? [00:16:10] Speaker C: That particular one? I guess so. Not compared to my. My current camera, but the. Yeah, yeah. Not like the little compacts that I used to carry around, for. Sure. [00:16:21] Speaker A: And so tell us a little. I'm interested about these mountain biking tours. I'm not into mountain biking, but Jim and Justin and Yelena all are. Yeah. Elena rides too, doesn't she, Jim? [00:16:31] Speaker B: Yes. [00:16:32] Speaker A: Yeah, they do a lot of mountain biking. And. And Justin also shoots for a mountain biking publication. Is it. No, no, for a brand. For Flow. [00:16:45] Speaker C: Yeah. Flow. Yeah, That's a mag. Yeah. [00:16:47] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah. Keen to hear a little bit more about that side of things for you. So what. What got you into that? [00:16:57] Speaker C: I've been riding road bikes for quite a while, and I. I started on a get fit regime, riding to work between Kingston and Hobart. There's this big hill, and no matter which way you go, you've got to go up a hill and down a hill. And I was riding to work every day, getting really, really fit, but I. I got sick of the road and I wanted to go off track, so I picked up a mountain bike and then got into exploring, went off to a mate in this remote location called Adams Field. And it was a, an old four wheel drive track, really rutted up along a ridge line of a mountain on sort of the western side of the state. And just fell in love with the landscape and the idea of riding these trails. And I was saying to my mate, we need to show people these areas and photography is one way of doing it, but we wanted people, or I wanted people to really experience the, the bush around us, the vast landscapes. It was so amazing. So I started looking at other places that I could take people and it just kind of evolved into a business, put myself online and we're getting so many international people into Adams Field, down to the very south, down near Cockle Creek, which is the furthest south you can go in Australia. And on the eastern coast there's this beautiful farm where Abel Tasman landed, like very first landing, 1642 I think. And then, and did some on our local mountain. Yep, the landscape was just fantastic and it was so much fun. Every day we'd come back laughing and, and smiling and so with these, these. [00:18:59] Speaker A: Locations, I assume they were just one day tours or were they overnights or just one day. [00:19:05] Speaker C: We, we set a limit of driving maximum of two hours anywhere. So we, we drive like the Southport one that took about two hours to drive down to the trail and then we'd spend six hours riding and then jump back in the vehicle and, and drive back home again. Yeah, the Adamsfield one was close. I think it's about an hour and a half. And again, five, six hours of writing. [00:19:33] Speaker A: Yep. [00:19:33] Speaker C: Yeah, big day, big day. But so joyful. And I, I'm still friends with some of the people that I took on tour, you know, a couple from Iceland that I get updates from and there's a guy that lives in China who's Spanish who sent me some gear like because he worked for a, a design company for biking gear. So I sent me this box of gear and they're really, really lovely people. [00:20:06] Speaker A: Yeah, sorry. [00:20:11] Speaker C: No, no, that's all right. [00:20:12] Speaker A: I was just going to ask you, were they. Were the people that came with you, were some of them photographers themselves? Were they pulling out gear at certain spots or was it more just the, the, the experience of being there. [00:20:24] Speaker C: Just the experience to be there because it, it wasn't predominantly about riding, it was about the landscape. [00:20:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:20:32] Speaker C: So I did get a few people who were really big mountain bikers and they were trying to do jumps off everything and screaming down these trails, but that really wasn't what it was about. It was about experiencing the landscape and. Yeah, yeah, and so many people who are visiting Tasmania who'd never ridden really, but also had never seen what we had to offer. [00:20:58] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. [00:20:59] Speaker C: It was just that joy of being out in the wilderness. Yeah, yeah, we all loved. [00:21:06] Speaker A: No, that's pretty cool. I remember when we, when we interviewed Levin Barrett, who landscape and astrophotographer, he's also a commercial pilot for Jetstar and he was talking about when he runs tours, he took a tour group to New Zealand, I think it was, and he was saying how often when he gets to a spot he'll do the, the workshop bit. You know, he'll support people as well as take a bunch of photos himself. But then he'll encourage everyone just to put your gear away and just to sit. [00:21:38] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:21:39] Speaker A: And, and you know, and just look at this scenery. Look at this amazing space that the only way they could get to was by landing a plane on top of the, the glacier, you know. So the, the tracks that you were traveling, they were only accessible by foot or bike, is that. [00:21:54] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right. So the, the one in Adamsfield you could get a key which you'd have to pay for to drive with on the four wheel drive track. But it was a very rare thing. It was really tough driving down Southport. It used to be four wheel drive tracks but the locals had torn the landscape up so much they just locked it off. Yeah, yeah. But it left a network of trails for us to ride on, which was fantastic. [00:22:24] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:22:25] Speaker C: Right. And the, on the east coast, because it was a farm, there were roads, but a huge part of their farm which is what we were accessing, that actually locked off for conservation. So there were some walking tracks but that was it. And the only way you can visit is to actually like talk to the owner of the farm to get access. Yeah. [00:22:51] Speaker A: So you were getting to see and, and your, your, your clients were seeing parts of Tasmania that most people probably wouldn't even know or could actually access. [00:23:00] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah. [00:23:01] Speaker A: And that was amazing. [00:23:03] Speaker C: Yeah, that was the, the fun part too, knowing that we were doing stuff that nobody else was. And you didn't even have to say exclusive because just no one really cared or knew about it. [00:23:16] Speaker B: Yeah, so. So you were using the, like, the images you were taking with your camera to sort of like promote the business. [00:23:24] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So they're going on my website. If you scroll back far enough in my Instagram feed, you'll find all of those wild bike tours images. So yeah, I just left them on there. Yeah, there's some really dodgy Instagram filters. On there as well, so don't judge me. [00:23:43] Speaker B: No, you had to do it back in the day. [00:23:45] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. It was all new, but, yeah, the. The scenery. So, yeah, that is why I just kept taking the camera with me and why I kept upgrading. Yeah. [00:24:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:02] Speaker B: Did you find that, like, I guess, having, I guess, good photos for. To advertise the business, did that bring, like, any photographers along that would. I guess, were interested in the mountain biking, but also in the. [00:24:14] Speaker C: You know, I. There's only one person I noticed who really took photography seriously, and it was on one of my local. We were going up to Wellington Falls. It's one of the easiest rides that I was doing. But he was getting the camera out, taking, you know, pictures of lichen and fungi and. And that sort of thing. Everybody else, it was just like. Got a phone, take a snap. Yeah, this is what we're doing. [00:24:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, fair enough. [00:24:42] Speaker C: Yeah. It's. It's funny. You would expect that people would be, you know, a bit more keen on the cameras out in the wilderness. [00:24:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It is interesting. And maybe people felt that they couldn't safely carry their gear or that they, you know, it would be too much extra effort. I don't know. It's. Yeah, it's interesting. [00:25:05] Speaker C: There's certainly that safety aspect in. Safety of the gear. [00:25:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:10] Speaker C: Where I. I guess. I think if they come off the. The bike, then the gear's broken. [00:25:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. It's always a risk, isn't it? [00:25:18] Speaker B: I. I think what worries me the most is. Is landing on the gear and then heard, you know, like. [00:25:23] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:25:24] Speaker B: You know, you get a camera to the ribs or, you know, to the back or something. More so than breaking. [00:25:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:30] Speaker B: Me, I think, than the gear. [00:25:33] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Well, funnily enough, on that. On that first trip out to Adamsfield, we were not even 10 minutes into the ride and we're riding up on this. So this track, it had two deep ruts, so kind of about this deep. And in the middle you had this sort of mound. And I was riding up the middle. It's a little bit slippery. And I fell over, like, because it. It was steep, so we're going quite slow. And I just fell over and landed on my elbow, on my rib. And I actually cracked my ribs at the start of that ride and didn't realize until we'd got home that it was actually really painful. [00:26:13] Speaker A: Oh, that's a bit sore. [00:26:14] Speaker C: Yeah, Just. [00:26:15] Speaker A: I'll just push on. [00:26:17] Speaker B: That would have been a hard ride home. [00:26:19] Speaker C: It was a. It was a big ride. Because that track is. It's not a round trip or back and forth. We kind of had to. At the end of the ride, there's 18ks of dirt road which we also had to ride and we had no idea. We thought it'd be really easy but it just took another couple of hours to get back to the car. Yeah. All with that broken rib and my mate, he was gone. We ran out of water. It was 35 degrees. [00:26:49] Speaker A: Oh, gosh. [00:26:50] Speaker C: And I wanted to go back. It was amazing. [00:26:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, very cool. Let me just jump into a couple of comments. [00:26:59] Speaker C: Sure. [00:27:00] Speaker A: A couple of more people joined us. The O show. G' day. From Devonport. [00:27:05] Speaker C: Oh, hi. Oh, show the osha. [00:27:09] Speaker A: Yeah, we've got Justin here. Morning, guys. Sorry I couldn't be there. Excited to listen. Back later, we've got Chris317. I don't think I've seen Chris in the, in the chat before. G' day, Chris. Let us know where you're from. Loving my new lucky strap I got this week. Well, chances are if you got it this week that it was Jim or you later sent it out to you, actually. Anyway, yeah, any week it's Jim. Oh, you later. But yeah, Jim's the man. Hit a man. And we've got someone else here. Hey, Chris, which one did you get? I ordered a lucky strap with custom branding this week. Yeah. So Samantha. Sorry to interject there with a sloppy segue, Pete, but I did warn you before we went live. So for those of you who may recall, Samantha joined us a couple of months ago to promote her book. It was a Monday night podcast. She jumped on the show and had a big chin wag with us about gear and, and, and, and the book she's been working on. And I'm pleased to say that Samantha did achieve. She got what she needed to fund the book and she's working on getting that printed now. So it's a, it's a photographer's guide to the Great Ocean Road. Very detailed, provide you with some, some tips and access details on how to get to the kind of spots that most tourists don't go to or most photographers don't go to for that matter. So. Yeah. And Sam also just ordered a custom logo. So she wants her photography business logo on her leather strap. So we are making a plate. She's provided the, the branding. We're going to send it off and get a special plate made that we can then emboss into her leather lucky strap. So, yeah, well done, Sam. We'll get that out to you as soon as we can. So, Pete, when did. When did the adventures turn from. I mean, are you still running the bike adventures? [00:29:10] Speaker C: Sadly, no. There's a bit of a story, but essentially it involves a marriage breakup, so. [00:29:18] Speaker A: Right. [00:29:18] Speaker C: It was. Yeah. Sorry. No, no, it's fine. Look, I was a little disappointed for a while, but it's fine. I've moved on. No, we. I had the business up until 2015 and then sold all the gear, got all my money back that I'd invested. So, yeah, I call that a win. But yeah, it was after that that I kind of needed something to do and mountain biking kind of left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth for a little while. So it was hiking. So going out hiking and taking that camera. [00:30:02] Speaker A: Yep. [00:30:03] Speaker C: Yeah. And learning very quickly that the camera I had actually wasn't up to the task. I went up to the Walls of Jerusalem. I think it was 2016. And where's that? [00:30:18] Speaker A: Sorry. [00:30:19] Speaker C: So the walls of Jerusalem is just to the east of the. The Cradle Mountain Lake. Sinclair National Park. [00:30:28] Speaker A: Okay. [00:30:29] Speaker C: Which is where the overland track is. Y. It's magnificent. I'd never been there before and I was so just drop dead or inspired by the place. And I had my camera and I thought I knew what I was doing. And I got home and most of the pictures were a bit disappointing because I. Even at that stage, I still didn't know what I was doing. And it was that moment that made me look hard at how to take photos properly. Like, I knew I've always known about composition because I have this background in design, but I never really knew how that camera works properly. And so I started to study up a bit more and look at better equipment. [00:31:17] Speaker A: Yep. [00:31:18] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:31:20] Speaker A: And so what. What equipment did you think or what equipment did you move to next? What was the right equipment for you? [00:31:28] Speaker C: So I. I had made the decision with. So I had my Pentax KS1, which is a APS C sensor. I had made the decision to stick with Pentax. I'd looked at everything and thought that that had everything I needed but my next camera. And it was. It was a while later because I still didn't really know what I was doing. But it was 2018. I saw the Pentax K1 Mark II was coming up for release and so I pre ordered one of those and I've never looked back. And it was in the KS1. The biggest problem was the noise. The noise pattern had this kind of cross hash. Yeah. It was really distracting when you lifted up those shadows. Everything just had this, it was almost like a Moira pattern, but it was a cross hash. Very strange. Yeah. And it just destroyed so many pictures because I, I didn't know what I was doing, so I wasn't getting the best pictures out of it. And so, yeah, using the software to bring things up just didn't work. [00:32:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:52] Speaker C: I did get lucky on a few though. I do have some really lovely pictures that I took with that camera. Some through Italy, some from that wall strip as well. But largely I just found it very disappointing. [00:33:06] Speaker A: Yep. And so you undertook some self imposed study to work out. [00:33:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:14] Speaker A: So this was what, 2018 you said? [00:33:17] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:33:19] Speaker A: So what did you do? You know, now we have almost an overabundance of information and I know even in 2018 there was still a lot available on the Internet. But what, what was your journey of sort of working out how to take better pictures? Like talk to us about that. [00:33:38] Speaker C: My, the way I learn through all my life is trial and error. I just, I try something like I learned some basics and then I just try everything out. So strangely enough, the biggest stumbling block for me over the years was the f stop. I never, in my early years, I never really understood what that was, how it worked. And so I made it my mission to work on that before anything else. You know, I understood what shutter speed did, but it was just the F stop. I didn't understand the depth of field. I, I didn't understand how you could get more lighting or, or shut it down. I don't know why. It just, it was foreign to me. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I just made it the biggest mission to, to work on that. [00:34:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:32] Speaker C: And certainly it takes a while to like. [00:34:35] Speaker B: There's a lot of things to take in. [00:34:38] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:34:38] Speaker B: And, and lots of settings to change that get you similar outcomes. So. Yeah, it can kind of limit for sure. [00:34:46] Speaker C: And I think really it was mostly my fault because I don't do formal training very well. I don't, I can't just sit in a class and take all that information in. It disappears pretty quickly. And I, I just kind of never really worried too much because when I had my film camera, I would literally just put it into program mode and take a picture. And because my composition was usually good, everything else kind of worked. Yeah. Yeah. And, and you know, with film, you don't get the film back for a week or two and then you've completely forgotten what you've done unless you write it down. [00:35:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:27] Speaker B: There's, there's no little information box to go, oh, I shot that at this. [00:35:30] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that's right. [00:35:32] Speaker B: My shuttle speed was this. Yeah, I didn't work there. Didn't work. [00:35:37] Speaker C: That's right, yeah. And, you know, with the advent of good software, you could really start to. To pull those pictures apart and like you say, you can actually see what it was that you did right or wrong. [00:35:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Which is a really good way to learn. Often when people are starting out photography and they ask me for advice about, you know, how do I. How do I master this? I'll say, you know, just start with a prime lens, one lens, like a 35 or a 50 full frame, and then go out and shoot at every aperture in the daylight and in the dark room, and then go and review those images and understand what the aperture did, and then go out and shoot the same stuff but change the shutter speeds and don't touch the aperture, you know? [00:36:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:21] Speaker A: And just really it's. And it is, it's that trial and error, because back in the film days, when I studied film in art school, we always had to have a notebook and a pencil with us to write down everything that we did so that we could do that review. You know, once we'd processed our own films and printed our own prints, we could actually understand what, you know, what we had done to create this, to make this image at the end of the process. But digital spoils us in that. In that regard. So new camera in hand, new walking shoes, I presume you're out on the tracks. What are you looking for when. You know, when you're building compositions in landscape photography, what sort of elements are you looking for in your work? [00:37:07] Speaker C: So I'm very opportunistic. I will go visit a place and I'll just see what's there, and if I like what I see, I'll take a picture. So I don't necessarily plan out pictures. There have been a few that I do and I've got in my mind. But I guess the main thing for me is I like to fill the. Fill the image with what it is that interests me. So I get that subject and I just fill the frame. Sometimes if, like, if I've got a subject in a big scene and it kind of makes sense in that context, I will push it out, but it's really about just filling the frame. And I do that with my sports photography. I do that with any. Any portraits I take. And I can't help myself. I. I know I tell myself sometimes I've got to go wide, but I'm always drilling down, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, When I'm. When I'm heading out, it's not so much. I want to get an element here and an element there. I'm just looking at the scene and adapting to it as it goes. However, when I had first purchased that K1 Mark 2, I did have a plan to go down to Tasman island. And it was. It was full moon. I thought, I'll get the full moon shining on the cliffs and get the night sky. And I had my place marked out on photo pills. So I just. I walked down there and I knew the scene I had in mind. And it. But again, it was filling the frame with what it was I was trying to say. So I had the edge of the island on one end and the edge of the cliffs on the mainland on the other end, and it just kind of filled top to bottom, left to right. [00:39:08] Speaker A: Yep. [00:39:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:10] Speaker A: Very cool. [00:39:11] Speaker C: I don't know. It's pretty simple. I'm a simple man. [00:39:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Putting that into practice every time is. [00:39:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:23] Speaker B: Is different. [00:39:23] Speaker C: So it's something that I can rely on so I can then spend time thinking about all the other settings and, you know, the composition is just. It's in my brain and I just do it. [00:39:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:37] Speaker C: So I don't have to worry about it. [00:39:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Just a quick comment here from JS Honey. Wonderful to hear from a Pentax user. Not too common these days. The K1s are nearly indestructible. [00:39:50] Speaker C: They sure are. Yeah. [00:39:53] Speaker A: Although I did break for a long time too. Sorry, you were saying you broke yours? [00:39:59] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was up on Mount Wellington and taking some shots of the south at night and, you know, I had everything packed away. I got in there and took all the photos. And then I was so excited by what I'd done. I was carrying my camera with me, tripped over a rock and the camera just went down. The massive 10 to 15 millimeter lens just broke the mount. So I just split apart. The whole thing was toast. Yeah. [00:40:28] Speaker A: Really? Yeah. Not salvageable at all. [00:40:32] Speaker C: No. Well, so the. The insurance paid up, which is really nice. The CR Kennedy who looked at it and who I buy through, they said they could never repair it to the, like, the specs, that they would want to, but they did a few months later. I asked them, look, even if you just super glue a new mount in, I'm happy just so I can kind of have a spare. And, yeah, a few hundred dollars, I've got the camera back and so now I've got two of these things. It's really wonderful. [00:41:06] Speaker A: What about the lens? Was the lens shot or was that, was that saveable? [00:41:10] Speaker C: No, the lens is done. Yeah. [00:41:12] Speaker A: Wow. [00:41:12] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that's glasses. [00:41:15] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. It was so hard. I was devastated and I had a, I had a job coming up where I needed that camera. So even before the, the insurance paid out, I just had to go and buy another three and a half thousand dollar camera hoping that they were going to pay up. [00:41:36] Speaker A: Yep. [00:41:37] Speaker B: You need, you needed one either way, didn't you? So. [00:41:40] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. [00:41:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What? I forgot my question. It's just gone. I'm so sorry. So. Oh, you mentioned jobs. So, you know, having gone through your, your Instagram and checked out your website, you know, landscape photography isn't your only pursuit or genre that you shoot. You shoot a bunch of other stuff too. Talk to us about what, what sort of genres you work in or enjoy shooting. [00:42:14] Speaker C: Yeah, so one of the things that I do enjoy shooting is kids sport and I kind of fell into that because, you know, my kids did sport. My youngest daughter was doing football and I am not a football fan and so as a dutiful parent, I would need to be at the football games. I took the camera just to keep things interesting. Yeah. And then I was posting pictures on that, their Facebook page just to say, you know, here's some pictures of the kids. And then they've asked me to do team photos and I was taking pictures of all the games and selling them and it just kind of kept going. So that was 2019. I started that and my other daughter was doing gymnastics. So same sort of thing. I asked if I could go down on the floor and they're like, oh yeah, yeah, no worries. And I've been doing that ever since. So two, two state competitions a year and we do their awards show, which is a lot of fun. So we, my partner and I, we take a, like a mini studio into their award ceremony. So all the kids just come up, they do a photo booth sort of thing and we do some fun things with the lights and, and they do all their fun moves, whatever. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. [00:43:39] Speaker B: Cool. [00:43:39] Speaker A: It's a very different, it's a big change of pace shooting landscape compared to shooting kids sports, especially fast paced sports like footy and, and gymnastics. How did you find that challenge moving. [00:43:54] Speaker C: That well, that it's like stepping into fire. They, you know, you've got to get that shot right the first time. And yeah, as before I had a lot of blurry pictures, but you quickly learn and that actually helped me a lot with my landscape because it meant I could think fast and frame my shots and get all the settings right that first time. But the kids sport. With a football, it was fine. We're outside, but the gymnastics is an indoor sport. It's low light. We're shooting really fast moving kids. So we're running 1/1,000th of a second because you, you can't go any slower than that. Pushing the ISO up as high as you can, which is for us, 6400. And then maximum F4. And even then, when I get home on the. The computer, I've just got to push the exposure right up, you know, on capture one, that's 1 to 1.5 exposure. Yeah. Just. Just to get those kids in the right sort of without blurring and get enough light so that we get some detail. [00:45:14] Speaker A: Yep. [00:45:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:16] Speaker C: But it was, it was. It's always fun. You know, those kids, they've got these amazing expressions on their faces. They're so dedicated and they're concentrating so hard and sometimes there are tears. But, you know, seeing the joy in their faces when they do things right and then allowing the families to see what's been happening on the floor, that's, you know, that's why we love doing what we do. [00:45:41] Speaker A: Yeah. And do you foresee that that would continue once your kids, if your kids decided to stop sports? [00:45:49] Speaker C: Yeah, my kids stopped doing those sports years ago. [00:45:52] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:45:54] Speaker B: You're still locked in. [00:45:55] Speaker C: Yeah, still locked in. So my youngest stopped football and started volleyball, which she's still doing. And for a couple of seasons, I was doing the. The state comps for them. That was actually a lot harder than the gymnastics because they. Their arms move so fast. Even if that's a second, it's blurred. Yeah, yeah. [00:46:19] Speaker A: And. [00:46:19] Speaker C: And the thing with gymnastics, you know what the kids are going to do. Even when you don't know the routine, you've got a fair idea where they're going. With volleyball. The whole idea of the game is to fool the other team into thinking you're going to do one thing and then do the other. [00:46:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:36] Speaker C: And, you know, I'm that other team on both sides. I don't know what they're gonna do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:46:43] Speaker A: It's. [00:46:43] Speaker B: It's also like having the net there. It makes it quite difficult to shoot volleyball. [00:46:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:46:49] Speaker A: Oh. Because it can obscure faces and details and things. [00:46:53] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's some really cool angles you get. Like you get down under the net and look up at the opposite team. If you're lucky enough, you could get that net out of Focus. But you know, autofocus just would not comply. It would always focus on the net. So everything was manual. [00:47:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Wow. Fast paced. [00:47:17] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty brave. [00:47:21] Speaker A: It's, it's really interesting to hear that someone, I mean, I know there's, there's lots of photographers out there who shoot, who can and do shoot different genres, multiple different genres. But it is interesting to hear someone that, you know, you're working in probably one of the, one of the faster paced genres of photography that's quite dynamic and unpredictable and you need, it really pushes your photography skills and your camera's capabilities and then you've got, at the other end of the spectrum, you've got, you know, your landscape. It's, you're walking, it's karma. You can take it in and appreciate the moment even before you lift the camera to your, to your eye. So it's really fascinating to hear that you know, anyone listening along or watching along, you know, do you shoot at opposite ends of the generous spectrum? General genre spectrum created a new word. Let us know in the comments what, you know, what, what's been at the, the polar opposites of your work or, or hobby photography or enthusiast photography genres. [00:48:30] Speaker C: Sorry. I find that doing those different genres, it's like cross training with any sport. You can really be expert at one thing and do really well at it. But if you're cross training at all, whatever it is that you're doing on that other side helps you do your main focus. So you'll see a lot of, lot of runners will do mountain biking and weight, you know, sort of weightlifting is kind of part of the training. But certainly the riding really helps those runners in different ways because it activates different muscles and it's the same with the photography. While I'm doing those high paced, you know, really fast shots and thinking quickly, that helps me with my landscape and the landscape helps me with the sports because it allows me to think about the framing of those kids and what they're doing. Yeah. And so I can, I can frame the shot hopefully before they, they come into to what they're doing. [00:49:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's really wonderful advice and obviously great to hear a success story in that, in that regard. You know, sometimes I'll talk to other photographers who, and I've been in a rut myself and who maybe feel a bit like they've stalled or they can't really move forward enough with their skills and their output and, and I often suggest, you know, when you go out and try a different genre you stuck on that. You're not really making, you know, whether it be macro or something or. Often I would, and I did this during COVID a lot. I'd tell people, you know, borrow or buy a macro lens and just go in your garden, just get on the ground. And it makes you look at the world in a whole different way. And, you know, with the hope that some of those skills transfer and provide inspiration and motivation and maybe even you learn a thing or two to help you build that original genre again. Or maybe you fall in love with something new and that becomes your main genre, you know, and the stuff that you learned in the first genre carries across. So I think there's a lot to learn from that. That story. Pete, let me just jump to a couple of quick comments because we've got some more. JS Hani has said talking about the indoor shoots at the gymnastics and the lighting in indoor stadiums is always rubbish. [00:51:03] Speaker C: Sure is, yeah. [00:51:05] Speaker B: Very dull. [00:51:06] Speaker C: Yeah. I. I hate it. I. I actually spend the first sort of half a day because the competition's over. Two days. The first half a day I'm hating everything I'm doing. And then as I get used to what the light is, it's like, oh, yeah, that one's all right. [00:51:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Next comment from Rodney. G' day, Rodney. Again, challenging depths of field with those shoots, I guess. [00:51:30] Speaker C: Yeah. I think they came up with the volleyball. [00:51:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:35] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:51:38] Speaker C: And because you've got that aperture wide open, you. You've really got this much space. [00:51:44] Speaker A: Yeah. And if the net grabs it, the face is out. [00:51:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:48] Speaker A: And then again from JS Honey. Yep. Used to shoot some bfl. Showing your age, mate, ironically, with a pentax and a K5 and a K10. But also shoot landscapes, street macro, general random stuff, but all purely as a hobby. [00:52:07] Speaker B: I think it's still called vfl, Greg, for the Victorian Football League. [00:52:11] Speaker A: Is it? [00:52:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Which is like the upper. Upper tier of. [00:52:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:15] Speaker B: A local footy before you get to afl. [00:52:17] Speaker A: I'm not a footy person either, so. All I remember was, so, are you showing your age? Maybe I am showing my age. Yeah. As if this isn't enough, but I remember my pop getting up in arms when the VFL became the afl. [00:52:34] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:52:36] Speaker A: And he was. And. And there was a coachi. Ron Barassi. Bang on about Ron Barassi. Every weekend I went over there for a sleepover. [00:52:47] Speaker B: Anyway, that's why I don't like footy. [00:52:49] Speaker A: I think that might be. Yeah. Although back in those, like, when I was a kid and I did a paper round. I was in Airport west and I did a paper around. A lot of the football players were just tradies. They were just plumbers and sparkies and they practiced at night and played on the weekend like Essendon players. I mean. [00:53:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:08] Speaker A: Anyway, yes, I am showing my age. Thank you for reminding me, Jim. All right, so we've talked about your landscape a little bit. We've talked about you doing the kids sports. You also shoot a range of other stuff I've seen in your site and your insta doing some portraiture. Talk to us about some of the other genres that you enjoy, I guess. [00:53:36] Speaker C: Sure. So I, I've got a business called Photograph Tasmania so there's a whole other site and a lot of that is the sports but I've done some corporate sort of gigs as well. I don't mind doing those as bit of cash. But as far as other genres that I like, I don't mind the macro. [00:54:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:01] Speaker C: I don't mind getting right down on my hands and knees but it's, it's a whole other level of patience for me and I don't know that I've got the patience that I could do that on a continual basis. [00:54:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:16] Speaker C: But I do have a lens, a macro lens and on my YouTube channel I've done a couple of macro videos which always tend to do really well as well. Which is kind of weird I think. [00:54:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:31] Speaker C: People really, they get excited by macro. [00:54:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think also with macro now what I especially since COVID I remember during COVID I wrote a couple of articles about get out in your garden. You know, if you can't go and do your normal photography because of restrictions, get out in your garden, do some macro. Doesn't matter what lens you've got, just try it, you know. [00:54:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:54:53] Speaker A: But I know that a lot of third party brands started pushing macro lenses around that time. Lauer put out a whole, have put out a whole bunch of different macro lenses for different mounts. On that note, how do you find lenses for your Pentax kit? Like getting to suit what you need. [00:55:16] Speaker C: There just aren't that many. So I look, I've got pretty much the, the full range from 15 millimeters to 450 and they're all the Pentax zoom lenses. The glass is amazing. Like they're really high level. I haven't really seen any issues with them at all. So they're, they're my, my bulk, they do all of the work. The, the macro lens also Pentax like It unless you're going to go back and buy some second hand ones, there just isn't anything out there anymore. At least nothing that I've seen. I picked up, hang on, I picked up one of these dodgy things. What's that? Lens baby. [00:56:03] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [00:56:04] Speaker C: So they're, they're still being made for Pentax but I've never actually seriously taken a photo with that so wasted money. [00:56:14] Speaker A: There's your challenge for the weekend. [00:56:17] Speaker B: You with the, the advertising. Did they. [00:56:19] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look I've been looking at them for years because they on the CR Kennedy website they're always for sale and I was like ah look, you know it's cheap, I'll get one. And I ended up getting a few of the inserts for them and they were cool. But yeah, it's a toy. It really is a toy. I like to go looking for vintage lenses. I go up to the tip shop every now and then, see what they've got and I found a couple of good lenses that are slightly misaligned and when you're, when you're using a DSLR without the live view it's never in focus. But if you use the live view it's just like a mirrorless camera. You can get spot on focus and they have some really nice qualities. [00:57:10] Speaker B: Are you manually focusing those or are you still using the auto. [00:57:16] Speaker C: Most of those are just manual but you still get those focus points though. So it will tell you if it's in focus. Yeah, unless you know because my eyes obviously not the best so I tend to with landscape bring in the zoom on the live view so I can get that really fine adjustment. But otherwise I just rely on those focal points. If it's something quick I have to trust the camera. [00:57:43] Speaker A: Yeah, very true. Let's jump to a couple of comments because people have jumped in about the Pentax lenses. Oh just from JS Honey again. I started photographing bees during COVID just in the front yard. Creative photo. Gotta love them Tamron Pentax lenses. Well some of them. [00:58:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:58:08] Speaker A: Jason again get the FA 77 millimeter. [00:58:13] Speaker C: Yeah, I've got the 70. I think. Yeah it might be a. I got the DA 70 millimeter which does fit the full frame and that was amazing. I bought that in Japan. It's fantastic lens but I, I did pick up the, the old 50 millimeter SMC from 1980 or something. 1.2 lens I think. Nice, crystal clear. I don't think I've seen a lens as good, at least not in my experience. [00:58:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh It's a keeper then. [00:58:51] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah sure. [00:58:54] Speaker A: And JS Hanny again, all of the FA primes are great actually. [00:58:58] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:58:59] Speaker A: And Rodney said I bought my first Pentax because of their lens quality. [00:59:03] Speaker C: Oh fantastic. [00:59:05] Speaker A: So I'm relatively unfamiliar with lens with lenses that'd be a problem, wouldn't it with Pentax, you know. Tell us 10 tax are still putting out new cameras though, aren't they? [00:59:20] Speaker C: Yes they are. So obviously there was a Pentax 17 which is their latest, which is a film camera. [00:59:28] Speaker A: The half I meant more the DSLR side for sure. [00:59:31] Speaker C: So the most recent one they've put out is the K3 Mark 3. I'm not sure if they've discontinued it. I think I heard something but that's. So this one, this is the one because I, I bought that for the sport because it's got a fast focus, it's much more modern than the K1. It's a fantastic camera, high quality, it's got everything you need. I, I just find that quite crop sensor isn't enough for me. [01:00:01] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. Yeah I remember seeing some advertising on, on socials about. Was it advertising or maybe it was an article about Pentax, their current, their most recent offerings and they're in Japan. They're kind of considered a bit of a niche brand I guess given their scale. But I mean they've been around forever. It's. Yeah, they're still, they're still hanging in there which is great to see. [01:00:27] Speaker C: They are and they are developing the K1 Mark III. We just don't know when it's going to arrive. The, the rumor was it was going to be announced at the start of this year but it, it just has not. Yeah but I, I'm hanging out for that because my Mark 2 is showing its age. You know, I'm getting those dead pixels and I, I, you know, I'd like some more modern functions now. [01:00:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah that's fair. [01:00:54] Speaker C: Seven years. [01:00:54] Speaker B: Are you gonna stick with it with the Pentax? [01:00:58] Speaker C: Oh for sure. I've got too much money invested in lenses now. Yeah, yeah I, I did a video fairly recently just covering how much money I've got invested in these cameras. I know for a lot of people it might not seem like much for big camera gear, but I've got probably 20, 25 grand's worth and it's, I can't afford to replace all that with a new system. [01:01:24] Speaker B: Yeah, it cuts a lot cost a lot more than 25 grand to. [01:01:28] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well especially with the dollar now the cameras themselves are exorbitant, you know. [01:01:35] Speaker A: Yeah. I was talking to my partner about that last night because I'm looking at picking up a new camera soon and the last camera that I bought, I've tested a bunch since then but the last camera that I bought for myself I think it was just at the start of COVID It was whenever The Fujifilm X E4 came out and now Fujifilm are holding an X summit next week in Shanghai and the rumor is they're releasing a new version of the Xe so an Xe5 which would be at the top of my shopping list because I need something newer. Yeah, yeah I need, I need some, some better performance. For what? Excuse me, sorry. For what I do so. Not that I do a lot these days but you know, when I do do it, I want it to, to be good. Yes. Wookie. The XC5 I'm talking about. Shane is also an XC lover. I think Greg Carrick also has an XE. Yeah he has an XE4. He loves the XC series too. It's a, I think it's the unsung hero of the, the Fujifilm range and you know, fancy that Jim, me talking. [01:02:42] Speaker B: About Fujifilm I was just thinking that, I was like how do we go from Pentax to Fuji? I don't know if you've seen many of the shows before but Greg's, Greg gets paid every time he says Fuji he just. Another dollar appears in his bank. [01:02:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah it's gone up to A$20. [01:03:03] Speaker C: That's how he gets those pre release cameras. [01:03:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:06] Speaker A: No, that's not true but. Or maybe they. JS Haney said that they do a Pentax do the K3 monochrome. [01:03:14] Speaker C: Yes. [01:03:15] Speaker A: It's very niche as well. [01:03:16] Speaker C: Yeah. By all accounts an amazing camera. Yeah, yeah. The. Even though that's an APS C, it's because it's monochrome. It, it's even better than the K1 as far as the image quality. Yeah. [01:03:31] Speaker B: So they haven't released like a mirrorless camera yet. [01:03:34] Speaker C: They did one back in 2012 I think and it failed really badly and I think they've just gone. Yeah, not for us. [01:03:42] Speaker A: Stick to what we know. [01:03:43] Speaker B: Yeah, fair enough. [01:03:44] Speaker C: Yeah it was a bit of a joke by all accounts. Yeah. But they're, you know, they're slow and steady and, and I think for us Pentax users we, we love the brand so we're happy to wait, you know. [01:04:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah fair enough. [01:04:02] Speaker C: Like it's pushing, pushing the limits now. Seven years is a Long time. [01:04:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Time to upgrade. [01:04:07] Speaker B: Happy or you have to. It's. It's. [01:04:10] Speaker C: That's right. And you know, my partner's got. My partner runs Canon and she's got an R5. And I do look at that sometimes, thinking, that's a really good camera. I could use all of her gear. [01:04:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:04:25] Speaker A: Well, you think I talk about together. Oh, yeah. Then you can swap lenses. All of it. [01:04:30] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right. [01:04:32] Speaker B: Everything. [01:04:33] Speaker A: You think? I talk about Fujifilm a lot. Justin doesn't shut up about canon and the R5 Mark II or the R5s, because he's had both. He loves his R5 Mark II and rightly so. It's a phenomenal piece of kit. Like, it's just. [01:04:49] Speaker B: They're great. [01:04:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:04:50] Speaker C: So when. When we do the. The gymnastics, my partner, Laura, she has the R5 and her images just so much better. She gets focus so much more than I do. And again, first half of that first day, I'm like, why do I even bother when she's pulling out these photos? Yeah. So, yeah. A little bit of jealousy in that. [01:05:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that Pentax has stuck with the DSLR format while everyone else has moved to. And, you know, they. They have shrunk in size considerably, obviously, and popularity. It's a competitive market and it's an interesting move and I guess there are people out there that just want to stick with the DSLR format, that they prefer that style of photography, they prefer that style of system. And I think it's brave for a brand to stick with it, for sure. [01:05:41] Speaker C: Look, I do like the viewfinder, I don't like the evf. And looking through the lens directly, I actually really enjoy. So I can see what it is and the light is natural. [01:05:55] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not a replication of it. [01:05:58] Speaker C: That's right. Yeah. And I know you can see with the evf, you can see exactly the photo that you're going to get, but I'd like to see what the scene actually is. Yeah, yeah. [01:06:09] Speaker B: There's definitely pros and cons to each. [01:06:12] Speaker C: Yeah, Each one. [01:06:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Jim, is. Has Nikon formally said that no more DSLRs from us. Have they completely ditched the offering or do you think it will. It'll hang in there for a bit. [01:06:26] Speaker B: Not that I know of. They're still. Still selling them. [01:06:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:30] Speaker B: I don't know if they're going to bring out like another at D7. [01:06:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:35] Speaker B: Because they've got the D6 and obviously they're still selling the D at 50. Still pops up for ads for me sometimes. [01:06:43] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I see. I, I still see them being offered. I just wondered whether they are so invested now in the, in the mirrorless and tooling up machinery for mirrorless. Like it's a different, you know, it's a whole different kind of factory setup for them to. [01:07:00] Speaker B: Maybe they've said it. I don't know personally. [01:07:02] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I didn't know either. [01:07:04] Speaker B: It probably makes sense like they've bought out the Z9, you know, they've got a flagship mirrorless camera. [01:07:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:10] Speaker B: It might be that the, you know, the D6 was the last. [01:07:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:16] Speaker B: Sort of flagship body, the DSLR. [01:07:21] Speaker C: Yeah. I think it's a mistake really to stick with DSLRs these days. [01:07:25] Speaker A: You think it's a mistake? [01:07:27] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just because the, the technology is moving so fast in that mirrorless sector. DSLR is just being left behind. [01:07:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that that's what they've tried to do with like their lens mounts and everything. That may be forward thinking a little bit that they, they might not have the technology to do everything now but in the future kind of future proofing those mounts a little bit so that they can, you know, create different lenses, you know that are, have a wider aperture and stuff like that. [01:08:06] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. [01:08:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:08] Speaker B: As the technology gets better. [01:08:10] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I, I don't think there's enough investment in the old tech now to warrant keeping producing. So yeah, maybe Pentax might eventually move away from dslr but you know, if, if they can't keep up then the lose even more people and probably me too. [01:08:33] Speaker A: Yeah, it's true and it's sad because if they don't, if they don't shift into this new kind of world that we're in with mirrorless, you know, they, it kind of feels like they're only just clinging on. I don't know what their market's like or their sales or anything like that but you rarely hear about someone talking about investing in or opting for a Pentax camera. Yeah, yeah. [01:08:57] Speaker C: The only thing they've really got going for them I think is that they love photography and you can tell in their products that they are making these cameras because they love photography. [01:09:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:09:09] Speaker C: They're not making them to make a buck. [01:09:11] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah, well that's good. I think that's really important because sometimes it feels like other brands lose sight of that when they release and you camera and they, you know, incremental upgrades. Yeah. Or they emit features that other brands have been doing for years or you know, I guess it probably happened more when Canon and Nikon kind of dragged their heels moving to mirrorless. You know, initially because they, they were dominating the DSLR market and they still do. But you know, where other brands like Fijifilm, we're moving to, you know, we're going full mirrorless. Sony, I don't think Canada and Nikon took it seriously at first. I think they thought it might have been a passing fad and then they had to pivot very quickly and, and they've made significant grounds like they're the, once again the leaders in that field. [01:10:08] Speaker B: Maybe it was that maybe they wanted to make sure that they were releasing products that were. Yeah, like, I know that, you know, the early Nikon mirrorless cameras, weren't that as great as what they are now? Yeah, Justin had the Z6 and he wasn't stoked with it. [01:10:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:29] Speaker C: I, I think the mirrorless cameras now, they're, there's so much more that you can do with them just in terms of using AI because the, the image is hitting that sensor straight away all the time. And so you can really start to change the way the camera works just because it can see everything that's going on all the time. And the DSLRs, you just can't do that. [01:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they do bring a lot of, I think modern cameras, modern mirrorless cameras are becoming more and more convenient for anyone to pick up and you know, there's a huge learning curve. But I think that they're more accessible because of some of the features that mirrorless have over dslr. [01:11:15] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. You can see what you're shooting is probably the number or you can even just hold the camera up here like you do your phone. It's, it's very easy. [01:11:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And also like, you know, the, the significant leaps that have been made in, in video recording capabilities in our, you know, in our photography cameras. Like, you know, Justin shoots hybrid. Jim, you shoot a bit of hybrid too, don't you? Yeah, when your Nikon is working, obviously. [01:11:41] Speaker B: Well, it's working the, the software to make it work with the computers. [01:11:45] Speaker A: Okay, whatever. Yeah, whatever you take. [01:11:47] Speaker B: Still, still a big issue for Nikon. [01:11:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Let's jump to some comments. They also did the Pentax Q. Absolutely tiny and sought after. What else has he got to say? He's very vocal today. Great to have you on the show, mate. The optical viewfinder is still better for live action and sports, in my opinion. And he goes on to say, I'm also one who uses the optical viewfinder in the X100 and the X Pro 2. So they have a hybrid optical. [01:12:22] Speaker B: Yeah, when I've used the X100, I also shoot. Yeah. With the viewfinder. [01:12:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it's got that range finder style over there, the X100X Pro rangefinder style. So. Yeah, so. And yeah, with the, with the, with the Fujis. Pete, I don't know if you know, but the hybrid viewfinder is either pure optical or pure 100. Like it drops a screen, that becomes the electronic viewfinder. You can also do like a picture in picture where it just puts a tiny version of the electronic viewfinder in the corner of the optical. [01:13:00] Speaker C: Oh, cool. [01:13:01] Speaker A: So you look really interesting. Yeah, it's, it is interesting. I think the X100V had a few issues where the, the dropping and rising panel. I think it came in at an angle over the ovf. It started to jam. So hopefully they're ironing that out for future models. But yeah, it is, it's bizarre looking through an OVF and, and you've just got nothing but a clear view. There's no. Either with a range finder or a dslr, you know, there's no overlay of information necessarily. It's just. Yeah, it's just you and what you see, which is lovely sometimes. [01:13:36] Speaker C: Yeah. Oh, look, I, I have a lot of information online. Yeah. You know, all the basics and that, that I find is enough. The main thing I've been looking at is the horizon horizontal. You know, having that, that level at the bottom of my screen is probably the most important thing. [01:13:55] Speaker A: Yep, yep, that's fair. [01:13:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:13:58] Speaker A: One more comment here from Shane. That's when I left Canon for Fujifilm. Mirrorless in low light. Especially shooting live music. Music was a game changer. [01:14:08] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. So, yeah, for sure. Yeah. [01:14:14] Speaker A: So what are you working on these days, Pete? [01:14:18] Speaker C: Yeah, so one of my main focuses is my YouTube channel which, you know, I'm just kind of learning as I'm going. I've been doing for about a year and a half now on and off, but I, you know, I'm just going out into wilderness and taking photos and talking people through what I'm doing. But I'm also interviewing other photographers which I really enjoy. [01:14:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I've. So I've seen that on here. You've got what you got Tim, is it two Timsy. [01:14:52] Speaker C: Yeah, Tim Grimsey. He's like one of the most popular fungi photographers down here. [01:14:59] Speaker A: What a title. [01:15:00] Speaker C: Yeah, look, he's a real character as well. [01:15:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:15:06] Speaker C: He's also a celebrant so he, he does weddings in his particular style. [01:15:14] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [01:15:15] Speaker C: A lot of fun. [01:15:15] Speaker A: Yeah, that's very cool. Yeah, your channel's got a, a huge amount of videos on it. Some talking to camera about what you're experiencing. Yeah, you know, a whole range of topics really. Um, which is wonderful. Are you finding that, that video production side of things? [01:15:35] Speaker C: Oh it again, big learning curve. Because it's not just photography, it's editing and storytelling, scripting and you know, it's the whole thing and just talking to camera as well. It took a long time for me to get used to doing that actually. I took a video camera around with me for about a year before I put it. Put my first video out. And you know, it was just trying to find things to say but also do it in a natural way. And it. Yeah, it took over a year before I was comfortable enough to be able to put something up. And even then looking back on those old videos, you can see I wasn't quite there. But you know, you've got to do it as well. [01:16:21] Speaker A: You start somewhere. Yeah, yeah. And do you enjoy that process? Do you? I mean, obviously you, there's something in there for you because you, you publish quite a lot of videos. How do you find that process? [01:16:36] Speaker C: I do really enjoy it. I enjoy like sharing my. One of my things always been. I love helping people. So for me that part's really easy. The, the process itself. I do enjoy the filming, I enjoy the editing, but I have to wait. Like sometimes I have to wait a week before I can even look at what I've done because there's so much and. And what I find that I, I really fail at and I'm still trying to get to grips with is getting all of that B roll together to tell the story. Yeah, yeah. And so I recently went up on a trip with my mate to Shadow Lake and the last video I put out this week we were doing the, the full circuit. And that was when I really started to like, I'd stop him and say, look, we need to do this. A bit of B roll. It's very, very patient. My mate Chris. But yeah, it'd be like, nah, look, we're going to do this and then we're going to do it from this angle. And I got him to take the camera down doing this first person view of this, you know, long boardwalk. And then he would get me going down the boardwalk. And then I sort of, I looked at that and I overlaid it. So it was telling a story like it was me doing it and all that sort of thing is it's really exciting, it's a very rewarding experience. But the YouTube also makes things, I can't think of the words like it's not depressing but it. Sometimes you just feel like you're just not doing a very good job because the views can be really super low. And you know, you'll see the, on the analytics you can see your reach might be say 10,000 people, but you might only have 100 views. And it's like, well, you know, where am I going wrong? And that can be quite debilitating. And then you have to really think, well, what am I going to do next time to make it better? [01:18:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:18:47] Speaker B: I think slow burn. I think you do, yeah. [01:18:50] Speaker A: We've talked about that as a, as a team for the camera life quite often about, you know, we're getting there. But it is a very slow, long climb and it's a crowded space. [01:19:02] Speaker C: Oh absolutely. [01:19:04] Speaker A: Which is great. Consumers. [01:19:06] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. The only reason I did it was because I couldn't find anyone in Tasmania that was really doing it. There are plenty of people doing YouTube but none doing photography. And so I thought I wanted to fill that space and even within Australia there aren't that many. [01:19:25] Speaker A: Yep. [01:19:25] Speaker C: So yeah, I thought that'd be really cool just to add my voice to the mix. [01:19:31] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah, yeah. [01:19:33] Speaker C: People Tasmania as well. All the better. [01:19:36] Speaker A: Yeah, well, exactly. I mean it's a wonderful space and I think, you know, for we have a lot of people on, have had a lot of people on past episodes that are based in Tasmania or spend a lot of time there. And you mentioned earlier the overland trail. We've had Cam Blake and Tom Putt who've done a lot of work there and I think they've even published a book about it. [01:19:59] Speaker C: I got that book. [01:20:00] Speaker A: Yes. There you go. So yeah, there's, there's a lot to love about landscape and nature photography in Tasmania. It is such a beautiful part of the country. You know, big, big swathes of it that, that are untouched and that are only accessible maybe with local knowledge like yours. So yeah, I think, you know, there's a real niche there that's right. For people like yourself to create content that celebrates it and promotes it and, and gets people to appreciate it respectfully. [01:20:32] Speaker C: That's right. And one of my favorite parts of the process is just pouring over the maps, looking to see where the tracks are, looking for old four wheel drive tracks that don't exist anymore, old rail trails. Those sort of things are a lot of fun. And I used to do that with the mountain biking as well. So it was just this natural progression and then, yeah, you find this one little spot where you picture this view and you go down there and it takes you half a day to walk in. Or. Or longer. [01:21:04] Speaker A: Yep. [01:21:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:21:05] Speaker A: Just for the view. That's amazing. [01:21:07] Speaker C: Just for the view. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:21:09] Speaker A: That's dedication. I love it. So what's next on the cards for you? Where do you see your creative pursuits taking you? You know, we've talked already this morning about how your, you know, you always had a camera with you. There was a bit of family inspiration or, you know, insight and incentive there. You got into audio and you had a camera with you. You got into mountain biking and you had a camera with you. What are you going to get into next that you think may lead to maybe a new chapter of your photography? [01:21:47] Speaker C: I actually just like to focus on the photography. I think I'm at a point now where I've used other pursuits as an excuse to have a camera and I think now it's time. My excuse for having a camera is to have a camera and so I just want to go looking for those places that no one's seen and take pictures. Yeah. I currently work in a shop that's a day job and it's a. We do hiking, food. So I get to talk to people who go out into the wilderness. [01:22:20] Speaker A: Ah. Yep. [01:22:21] Speaker C: And so that gives me a chance to think of new places to go as well. But ultimately I'd love to just be doing that as a living. Yeah, I don't think it pays very well. [01:22:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a, it's a tough gig, isn't it? It's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've talked, we've talked at length with other landscape photographers who, you know, who have reached that, I guess that pinnacle of selling wall art and opening an actual physical gallery. But the amount of work that they have had to go put into that is quite significant to get there. And not everyone makes it. It's just the reality of, of the genre. Speaking of successful photographers, there's a, there's a gold hunting guy. Sorry, this is from Creative Photo. There's a gold hunting guy called Rob Parsons in Tassie that gets into some great looking photo places. I, I've actually followed him on YouTube for a while. On YouTube? Yeah, on YouTube. And yeah, he, he's extreme. Like he will walk up rivers for days. There's no tracks, there's no paths, there's no. Have you seen him, Jim? [01:23:32] Speaker B: No. [01:23:33] Speaker A: Yeah. And he, he. And he, he's got this kind of process. He doesn't dig or pan necessarily. He does have a pandas to sift. But first he'll actually, he wears just a scuba mask and a snorkel and he'll wear a wetsuit because it's often freezing and he will just lie on his belly and just move along the, the riverbed with this kind of picking tool and this like a sauce bottle with a little tube on it and he'll suck up the gold with it and yeah, it's really good. And then at the end of the video he'll be back at home and he'll be weighing how much he collected on that trip and what it's worth today. And really fascinating and really clever YouTube videos too because he, he, he does it all solo but he must set up a camera, walk up river to capture the shot, then walk back just to get his camera. Yeah, you know it's, repeat that process. [01:24:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:24:29] Speaker C: It's a lot of work. I, I couldn't imagine doing that. Wading through a river. It's bad enough with a full pack on your back. [01:24:36] Speaker A: Yeah. And he often has like, he'll have a blow up paddle board in his pack. Like he, he carries a serious amount of gear. It's really interesting to watch. And the amount of B roll stuff they do is incredible. Yeah, it's all that walking back and forth away in two cameras or going. [01:24:54] Speaker C: Way off to the side, putting the camera down, then walking all the way back along the track, walking up the track and then going off. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:25:04] Speaker A: And so you want to focus on what you're enjoying at the moment. You want to focus on exploring more of Tasmania's wilderness to find amazing vistas to photograph. [01:25:14] Speaker C: Yeah. Was just gonna say look, I want to do some more exhibitions but I, I, there's a, a guy, I can't think of his name now. He does these like drone sort of things at night. So he puts a light on a drone and programs it to do circles and it shines light down landscapes. Amazing, amazing work. But he has this thing where he does a, an AR thing with his phone. So you walk into a room, he's got a picture up on the wall and you point the phone at it and you can see everything moving. I'd like to do something like that. [01:25:56] Speaker A: Wow. [01:25:57] Speaker C: Yeah. So where I can take a photo like even if it's a traditional landscape photo, and then you bring your phone in, overlay it and you can see what's actually happening there. You can see the Amount that the grass is moving and the. Yeah, yeah, that is my next big project. Yeah, yeah. [01:26:18] Speaker B: So that'd be like shooting a video as well of the same scene. [01:26:23] Speaker C: That's right. Yeah, yeah. Now I can't shoot photos through the video camera because the quality is just not there. You know, if I want to put something on the wall, it needs to be that big, 30 plus megapixels. But I can mount a camera in a very similar position. [01:26:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or you could get a Canon R5 and then you can just do it all in one camera. [01:26:47] Speaker C: Well, strangely I've got an R50V just recently which doesn't have a very big sensor. But the, the image quality is amazing for video. [01:27:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:27:01] Speaker C: So that's as close to Canada as I'm getting for now. [01:27:04] Speaker A: Fair enough. [01:27:07] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I do have access to a bunch of lenses so I'm really excited about that. [01:27:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you do. And you can adapt your, your Pentax lenses, can't you? [01:27:17] Speaker C: Look, you can, but it's fully manual. The. To fit on the old DSLRs, I think you've got a sliver of a amount change and there are mount changes for or adapters for the new R series, but there's no electronics at all. [01:27:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:27:37] Speaker C: So everything's manual, which means I can't even use my modern lenses because you can't change the aperture unless it's done electronically. [01:27:45] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. [01:27:46] Speaker C: So vintage lens only. [01:27:48] Speaker A: Yep. [01:27:49] Speaker C: But yeah, thank. Thankfully Laura's got the. She's got a 24 70, 70 to 200 and that's plenty. And she's got this really lovely 85, 1.4 which is the beers. [01:28:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a pretty cool lens. Yeah, it's very popular. [01:28:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:28:11] Speaker A: Okay. [01:28:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:28:14] Speaker A: I've got to ask Justin's question. Oh yeah, we're heading towards the end of our, the, the, the downward slope of the show. No, that's not the right way to say downhill. We're in the back half, nearing the end. Thanks Jim. Thanks for helping me out. Thanks for letting me sweat for a while before you did. Justin loves to ask every guest that, that we have on the show, imagine the world is ending. You're in Tasmania and you've just heard word that the zombie apocalypse is very real and the zombies are hoarding en masse and searching for victims and you've got to run and you've got to grab only one camera with one lens on it so that you can document the end of the world and you know, hopefully from a safe Vantage point. What camera and lens is it? [01:29:09] Speaker C: Look, it's my go to, which is my. [01:29:11] Speaker A: I've got it right here. [01:29:13] Speaker C: K1, Mark 2, the 2470 lens, it's. That goes everywhere with me. Broken this lens probably three times because. [01:29:23] Speaker A: It'S been a bit of a habit for you, Pete. [01:29:25] Speaker C: Yeah, look, I'm not precious with my gear, let's just say. But yeah, it's. I, I had that in Japan on repair for months and I really missed it. All I had was a bunch of primes that would fill the void and so swapping lenses all the time, it was, yeah. Got really lovely pictures, but it was really tedious. [01:29:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:29:49] Speaker C: And so to have this back, it's. Yeah, I haven't taken it off since it's come back a few weeks ago. Yeah. [01:29:55] Speaker A: And that Pentax. Sorry, man. [01:29:58] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:29:58] Speaker B: And the L bracket would be, you know, a good weapon should, you know. [01:30:02] Speaker C: Absolutely sharp on those edges. [01:30:05] Speaker A: Yeah, solid. [01:30:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:30:08] Speaker A: We talked, we talked a little bit before we went live about our shared love of Japan and, and you had a travel. You traveled to Japan recently, did you say? That was last year? [01:30:17] Speaker C: Last year, yeah, last year. July last year. [01:30:20] Speaker A: Yep. So very sweltering hot. As we discussed, did you take a kit with you or were you purely focused on the experience with family? [01:30:29] Speaker C: Well, funny story. So yes, I took the family and I had this camera, this very setup with me and it was hanging on a strap actually which went into the bottom mount in the Hobart airport before we'd even left. It mustn't have been attached properly. The camera fell on the concourse, impacted on the engine of the lens and buggered the lens. And so I had this. The, the camera mount was slightly out of alignment as well, so I sent the lens off to get fixed. I took the camera with me and I had to do everything through live view. It was really, really annoying because, you know, I like to stick it up to my face, so holding the camera like this the whole way. But I did manage to get some nice pictures. We went to some temples and you know, did a lot of street photography and. Yeah, absolute fun time and still great pictures. Yeah, yeah. And I picked up those two lenses I spoke about before. So the, the 50 millimeter vintage lens. One of the best things I've bought over there. [01:31:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's very hard to go to Japan as a photographer and not want to buy a bunch of lenses. Especially if you go into like a second hand camera store. [01:31:54] Speaker C: Yeah, yes. Those stores are incredible. [01:31:58] Speaker A: I think I went into map, Map camera In. I think it was Map in Shinjuku just around the corner from Yoda Bashi. Was it Yoda Bashi camera? Anyway. And you know they had a Canon floor and then they had a Nikon floor and then they had a pentax Rico micro 4/3 floor. And it like and, and camera bodies that you rarely see in shop windows. Like secondhand cameras in camera stores here they just had shelves and racks of them and they're all popular. [01:32:27] Speaker C: Perfect condition. [01:32:28] Speaker A: Yeah. And like Ricoh GR3s and GR2s and, and even the old film GRs. I've never seen so many secondhand bodies of those in my life. Like they were just everywhere. [01:32:41] Speaker C: Yeah. And good prices. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I picked up my. So the 50 millimeter, that was about $150. Yeah, that's pretty good. It's really good. [01:32:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:32:55] Speaker C: And it had demo stamped on the side of it as well. So it's reasonably rare. But the picture quality was amazing. And I probably spend about 400 here on that same lens. [01:33:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:33:08] Speaker C: And those camera stores, what was the. [01:33:12] Speaker A: Second lens you got? [01:33:13] Speaker C: Second lens was The F, the DA 70. [01:33:17] Speaker A: Okay. Yep. [01:33:18] Speaker C: Yeah. It's a tiny little thing. It's about this big. Again, beautiful image quality, but it's just that longer focal length. [01:33:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:33:28] Speaker C: Which I probably wouldn't use that often. Whereas the 50 is, you know, as I say, it's a perfect lens. [01:33:35] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, most definitely. [01:33:39] Speaker C: But yeah, those camera stores, they're tucked away in some weird. Weird and wonderful places. [01:33:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:33:44] Speaker C: There's just like a. A tiny door in the side of an office building and you go up narrow stairs. No, that's right. [01:33:50] Speaker A: Or you get into a lift that only holds one person. [01:33:53] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:33:54] Speaker B: Wonder how they make money. [01:33:56] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. [01:33:57] Speaker B: Like how they're surviving but they obviously are. [01:34:00] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:34:00] Speaker A: I've seen a lot of videos on YouTube of mostly for gaming. But you also see them looking at camera stuff because YouTubers love cameras too. And they'll go into the second hand. Second hand stores in general. In Japan there's a hot. There's a couple of chains of them. One's called Book off, the other one's Hand Hands Off. Hands off is just general kind of secondhand furniture and homewares and stuff. And Book off is books and gaming stuff and electronics and camera gear and some of that they'll just have buckets of old DSLRs. [01:34:35] Speaker C: Wow. [01:34:35] Speaker A: You know, huge. Just tubs, open tubs. And they'll just all be dropped in there, you know and they're all wrapped in plastic and. And they're. They're, you know, absolutely cheap. It's amazing. [01:34:45] Speaker C: Now, speaking of old cameras, I. I wanted to show you something that. That's my segue for the day. [01:34:52] Speaker A: Sure. [01:34:54] Speaker C: I've got this old. Old vintage camera. I want to say. Vertical cameras have been around forever. Look at that. So this was my great grandfather's. And it's a. Hang on. I've got it written down. A Fest Pocket Autographic special, which apparently Ansel Adams had. [01:35:14] Speaker A: Wow. [01:35:15] Speaker C: Yeah. That's a glorious piece of kit. [01:35:18] Speaker A: And it's meant to be held vertically, you're saying? [01:35:21] Speaker C: Yeah, because this is the viewfinder here. And you look down and out and that's. Yeah. [01:35:27] Speaker A: Wow. [01:35:28] Speaker C: So half frames. Not such a silly idea after all. [01:35:31] Speaker A: And what sort of film does that take? [01:35:34] Speaker C: Yeah, it's autographic, they call it, basically. [01:35:40] Speaker A: Did you say pornographic? [01:35:43] Speaker C: Autographic. [01:35:44] Speaker A: Oh, autographic. Sorry, I missed. [01:35:46] Speaker C: So, just fits. There's a little reel that goes in here and you spool it on up here and it's all tiny. All manual binding. It's just incredible. Have you actually shot with it? Oh, God, no. No. Yeah. If you find it's full of fungus and stuff, I. I really need to get it all cleaned up. Yeah, yeah. [01:36:06] Speaker A: Oh, wow. And it folds right down. That's amazing, isn't it? [01:36:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:36:09] Speaker A: Oh, there you go. Vertical. [01:36:11] Speaker C: Yeah. So I don't know. I don't know how many of those there are around, but. Yeah, that just sits like that. [01:36:19] Speaker A: That's your collection. Nice. [01:36:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:36:21] Speaker A: Well played. Well done. [01:36:24] Speaker C: I have this affinity for older cameras and some of the old tech. I've got a couple of old litro cameras that are pretty much useless, but they're. They're a fun bit of tech. [01:36:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:36:38] Speaker C: I don't know if you're. Are you aware of the light tray? [01:36:41] Speaker A: I've heard of it, but I don't think I've ever. [01:36:42] Speaker C: Yeah. So basically what they do is they. They take the light that hits the sensor. Not only has the gradients of, you know, black to white, they also look at the direction. And so when you load the image up onto the computer, you can then change your point of focus after the fact. Yeah. And change your aperture after the fact. It's really quite amazing. So you can pick out objects really easily because it's got that whole depth as well. [01:37:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:37:16] Speaker A: The. [01:37:17] Speaker C: The major disadvantage there was that the 24 megapixel sensor, because it's got so much information in, ends up being more like 4 or 6 megapixels. [01:37:26] Speaker A: Yeah. How long ago did they come out? [01:37:29] Speaker C: Oh, so I bought that one in 2014, I think. [01:37:34] Speaker A: Okay. [01:37:35] Speaker C: But they've probably been around a couple of years for that because I got it for about 600 and I know. [01:37:40] Speaker A: Is that the one that looks a bit like a mobile phone? [01:37:43] Speaker C: Well, so the original that I got is this little one that's tiny. [01:37:49] Speaker A: Oh my God. [01:37:50] Speaker C: So you've got a screen on this end, leans in there, but the image on that is next to useless. It's tiny. Tiny. But then this is the, this is the main one. So you know, for its time it was pretty advanced. Pull out screen. [01:38:09] Speaker B: That's the angle. [01:38:11] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that's right. But it's fixed lens. This was it 30-250 millimeters F2. [01:38:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it's pretty. [01:38:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:38:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's pretty good. [01:38:26] Speaker C: Yeah. And one of the ones of the added benefits was all the close up stuff. You could make a little movie moving around an object. You had this 3D effect because you. [01:38:38] Speaker A: See behind an object as you move the focus point. [01:38:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:38:43] Speaker A: And does it. Is it like focus stacking in that sense? [01:38:46] Speaker C: No, I don't think it is. I think it's looking at the vector of light. [01:38:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. [01:38:53] Speaker C: Yeah, really hard to really come to terms with it. It's. Yeah, it's a strange concept but that they ended up ditching those and going to full cinema rigs for hundreds of thousands of dollars with. Oh, okay, like computer racks and everything. [01:39:09] Speaker A: Yep. [01:39:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:39:09] Speaker A: I remember a few years ago there was a mobile phone, an obscure brand brought out a prototype. It might have been a crowdfund thing and it looked like a smartphone, but it had like nine lenses on it. Oh, wow. And so when you took a photo, it basically took multiples and then you could choose where you wanted the depth of field, what you wanted to be in focus and what you wanted to be out of focus. It required a lot of post processing obviously, because, you know, manipulating data. But yeah, it worked with like a focus stacking thing. But it meant that, you know, you could. It would take a photo where everything was blurred, right? [01:39:47] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay. [01:39:48] Speaker A: And then it would slowly kind of. And so you could choose. All right, well I want that and that blurred bit over here and I want the sharp bit here. And yeah, it was really. But it never really took off because it was. I think it was quite expensive and complex. [01:39:59] Speaker B: Kind of like a tilt shift in a way that you could have kind of a few things. [01:40:05] Speaker A: Yeah, but all at once. [01:40:07] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:40:08] Speaker A: So it had multiple different lenses and all the lenses fired at time, the same, same time. [01:40:11] Speaker C: And I could imagine. [01:40:13] Speaker A: You could choose. [01:40:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I can imagine sitting at a computer really thinking hard about what you had to do with that. [01:40:20] Speaker A: I, I think it would do your head in and I think that's part of the reason why it didn't take. It was overly complex. [01:40:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:40:27] Speaker A: And, and you know, they were trying to say you don't need a bag of lenses ever again kind of thing. It was probably Canon who shut them down. You know, someone, one of those corporate kind of espionage things will, Will shut you down kind of thing. [01:40:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:40:44] Speaker C: Buy you and bury you. [01:40:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Buy you and then get rid of you. Yeah. But, yeah, it is interesting talking to guests on this show. You know, we've spoken to, to a lot of people who shoot both digital and film. We've spoken to people who shoot film only. And some of the cameras that we've had the good fortune to see and talk about on the show has been amazing. We spoke with, when we spoke with Lucinda last week, you know, she's got 100 and either 45 or 154 cameras in her collection. [01:41:12] Speaker C: Yeah, I just, I just stopped before we, we got to that point. I was saying that I'll have to go. [01:41:18] Speaker A: Self control. Yeah, yeah, go and have a look. Actually, Justin's really keen to, to, to interview Lucinda again, but at her, at her home and just have it. Just talk about each camera and so. Yeah, stay tuned for that, folks. I don't think we've told Lucinda that's happening yet, but we're coming to your house, kid. [01:41:37] Speaker C: That could be like one of my old slideshows that my dad showed. It could be a little. [01:41:43] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, 78. [01:41:49] Speaker A: But yeah, we've unraveled lots of really obscure cameras. You know, when we talked to Andrew Rovenko a couple of weeks ago, he had a large format camera. He shot with film medium and large, and he had a lens and I think it was like alpha old World War II spy plane or something like it was a spy lens because that camera was actually fitted into the, the belly of a plane with the lens pointing through a hole in the bottom of the plane. [01:42:14] Speaker C: That's crazy. [01:42:15] Speaker A: And you know, with, with that old glass and he. Yeah, he's shooting with that now, so. Really amazing. And yeah, I think, you know, if you've got your hands or you've inherited an old camera, you know, don't throw it out. Use a display piece to sit alongside your brand new flashy, you know, Canon or Nikon or whatever it is. Yeah, don't throw them out. [01:42:38] Speaker C: No, look, I was going to get rid of that Lytro, and a mate of mine said it's. It's a piece of history. You can't get rid of it. [01:42:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, most definitely. [01:42:47] Speaker C: And I'd probably get nothing for it anyway, so. [01:42:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not worth it. [01:42:51] Speaker C: No. [01:42:51] Speaker A: Yeah, not worth the effort. Jim, did you have anything you want, anything else you wanted to touch on today? [01:42:58] Speaker B: No. [01:42:58] Speaker A: No. Well, I think on that night we might. We might actually call it a date. Now, Pete, was there anything that you wanted to plug or promote or talk about that's coming up for you? [01:43:11] Speaker C: Really? Just subscribe to my YouTube channel and hope that. Hope that you like what I do. You know, I. I just like to share this great place I live in. I. I know I sound, you know, like a bit of a fan, but I love Tassie and I think more people. More people need to see what this place has to offer and. Yeah. So just come along for a ride. [01:43:37] Speaker A: I think that's. I think that's great advice. You know, every time I go down to Tassie because my partner's family's all from there and are all still there, I. I just find that everything slows down for me, you know, because obviously I live in a city in Melbourne, you know, I've got a full, busy household and we do lots of running around, but, you know, going to Tassie for me is just. It's like a. It literally is a breath of fresh air. And so, yeah, I encourage anyone to visit and travel down there and now. [01:44:08] Speaker C: Is the best time. [01:44:10] Speaker A: So this time of year, right now? [01:44:11] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, for sure. [01:44:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:44:13] Speaker C: It's cold, but the skies are clear. There's a lot going on right now. We've got Dark Matter one at the moment and there's a few other festivals happening, so now's the best time. [01:44:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:44:25] Speaker B: Maybe instead of Japan, Greg, we can push for Tassie for our Christmas party. It might be a. Oh, yeah. It might be more achievable. [01:44:32] Speaker A: Well, we aim high first, Jim. [01:44:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:44:35] Speaker A: And then if Jay says no. Yeah, can't do it, then we'll say, all right, well, we'll settle for Tasmania. [01:44:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:44:42] Speaker A: And maybe we'll make a. We'll organize a bit of a camera life, catch up. Yeah, there's some folks down there. [01:44:48] Speaker C: Perfect. [01:44:50] Speaker A: All right, let's just jump to a couple of quick comments before we wrap. Nev Clark. G' day, Nev. Nev's from Western Australia. I thought I was bad with three Cameras, you're just a junior, Nev. You're still at the start of your game. You've got a long way to go, mate. It. Rodney, it's a paperweight. Yes, it can be a paperweight. Nev Clark, I want to come to Tassie. Yes. Nev is also a landscape photographer and the child of mine said. Great show as always, lads. Wonderful to hear from you, Pete. Thanks, Seb, Thanks. From Philip. Thanks, Jim and Greg and Pete, good show. Thanks for joining us. And once again, said. You said. Yeah, those. That's. That's rookie numbers, Nev. Yeah. [01:45:35] Speaker C: It's not the cameras that count, it's the number of lenses you have. [01:45:38] Speaker A: Ah, yes, yes, very true. Yep, Very good point. But I say, why not have both? But look, on that note, I think. I think we're going to wrap for the day. Some exciting things are happening today for both Pete and us. And me. Sorry. The Nintendo Switch 2 has launched today and Pete has his arriving at any moment. And once we've wrapped, I'm heading to pick mine up and you will not hear from me. You will not see me Monday night, you will not see me next Thursday. Just jokes. I. I will be. I will make time for work. I've got to pay for it somehow. [01:46:13] Speaker B: You'll have to give us a review next week, Greg. [01:46:15] Speaker A: I will give you a review. Yeah, I think everyone should have a switch too. [01:46:22] Speaker B: I don't know if I can get a switch too. [01:46:24] Speaker A: You just got to switch for your place. [01:46:26] Speaker B: Yeah, March, my daughter's birthday, so. Well, for her birthday. [01:46:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fair enough. [01:46:34] Speaker C: Yeah. Look, switches will be cheaper now too, so pick up the original. [01:46:40] Speaker A: Lots of games. You should do it. [01:46:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:46:42] Speaker A: Back to the world of photography for now. Rodney Nicholson. Great show, guys. Enjoyed. Pete, J.S. hanny. Thanks for the Pentax show, guys. You're welcome, man. And Cheeky Sev says Greg will be here next week, but he'll be playing Switch 2 the whole time. I'll just have a second monitor up here and I'll be very distracted. [01:47:02] Speaker C: Controller behind there. [01:47:04] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. No one needs to know. And Nev is a PlayStation. I. I was going to say PlayStation, but I shouldn't say that. Never plays PlayStation. Yeah, I know. Could be worse. But look, anyway, on that note, I just wanted to thank you, Pete, for. For joining us today and sharing your journey and your inspirations and, and, and the steps throughout your life that have led to you to explore your photography further. I think that's. That's really wonderful to hear. So, yeah, on behalf of us. Thanks for joining us. [01:47:37] Speaker C: Thank you. It's been fun. [01:47:39] Speaker A: Thanks for jumping on, Jim. [01:47:41] Speaker B: Thank you. A bit soft and blurry today. [01:47:47] Speaker A: You're a bit soft. Look. [01:47:48] Speaker C: I think it's called a beauty filter, I think. [01:47:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:47:51] Speaker A: Beauty filter. Yeah. You've just burnt toast or. Yeah, it doesn't. [01:47:59] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll. We'll work on that before next week. [01:48:04] Speaker A: All right. Got to get that. That Nikon fixed. Oh, it's not the camera, it's the software. Sorry. I know it is the software. But look on that note, folks. Well, I've got to find my music. Justin set me up with music, so we'll give this a crack. I don't think he has the outro music. Anyway, look on that note, folks. This has been the camera Life. It is the 5th of June, and this has been episode. What did I say? 85. I should know this. Yeah, it is 85, Jim. [01:48:33] Speaker B: How do we get. From the other day we were 70 something. [01:48:37] Speaker A: I don't know. Maybe I'm just making up the numbers now when I do it, but yeah. This has been the. The Camera Life podcast, proudly brought to you by Lucky Straps from Bendigo Victoria. We make fine leather camera straps and you should check it [email protected] we're also going to put Pete's links to his website, his Instagram and his YouTube channel in the show notes below in the comments. So please make sure you check those out. A lot of great content there that is free for everyone to access and to learn from, which is also wonderful to see that Pete's also contributing to our community. So thank you, Pete. [01:49:15] Speaker C: All right, thank you. Great, thanks. [01:49:16] Speaker A: Thanks for joining us and we'll see you on Monday evening. We don't have a guest on Monday evening, everybody, but next week we have Craig Watto Watson joining us for a chat to talk about his craft. So make sure you like this episode because it helps with the algorithms. Subscribe to the channel and make sure you tick on the all notifications so that you get notified when stuff comes up. [01:49:47] Speaker B: Yeah, Elaine is picking on me. [01:49:49] Speaker A: So what did she say? [01:49:52] Speaker B: She said the other day and then she said one month ago. That was the other day. [01:49:58] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:50:01] Speaker A: But yeah, on that note, I'm gonna try and play some music because I don't have the boss's fancy deck thing and we'll. We'll see on Monday night. Thanks again, Pete. Have a great weekend. Everybody get out and shoot. And there's some music for you. The High school Chuck in one foot. That's all you got there. You did. Everybody join me at home. Come on, get into it. Bye, everybody. [01:50:30] Speaker C: Have a good one, you guys. [01:50:31] Speaker B: Thank you.