[00:00:24] Speaker A: Good morning, everybody.
Welcome to the Camera Life podcast. It is Thursday, 10 July. I can't believe how quickly July is going.
9:00am Australian Eastern Standard Time. Here we are with the Camera Life podcast, proudly brought to you by Lucky Straps from Bendigo, Victoria. And speaking of the devil, sorry, mine's in the wash. I had to take the dog to the vet yesterday and the dog shed so much hair that my black jumper turned kind of a.
Kind of a beige color, so.
But yeah, we're joined by the founder of Lucky Straps, that's me, my good mate and co host of the Camera Life podcast, Justin Castles. G'. Day.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Good morning.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Good, good.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: I'm glad I made it. Hang on, I gotta turn my light down. Everything's disheveled. I got a remote for my light, which is kind of cool.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: But yeah, I'm glad to be here and I'm glad you can hear me because we had microphone issues all the way up to. That's why we're late.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Had microphone issues for six months in one form or another. One of us.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: One of us. It's been chaos, but we're getting there.
But we're here.
Awesome. Good morning to Philip Johnson. Philip Johnson's always here first. Good morning.
Once again, we had a miss scheduled show. Philip let us know. He's right on top of our times, which is great because this software that we use for these shows has been doing weird stuff lately and we think it's been also miss scheduling the shows.
But not for you, but for me.
But Philip's been helping us, so thank you. Philip.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: Says good afternoon. Where are you from again? Ltk.
Where is it that it's Good afternoon.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Where are you?
[00:02:02] Speaker B: And I've forgotten.
Ian Thompson. Good morning. Good to see you, Ian.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: Classic.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: You'll notice. You'll notice that it's just the two of us. We normally have a. A guest on Thursday morning, James Little.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: Yeah. James Day was going to join us, wedding photographer.
And he's come down with a nasty bug and he can't join us, so we'll catch up with him down the track. We. We have every intention to get him back on, but for today you just stuck with us too.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Yeah, but that's good because that means that you guys that are listening live, you guys are going to help us run the show. We need all the help we can get from the chat this morning.
Throw things at us, give us topics. What do you want to talk about? We've got some ideas. We got. We got. Ask us anything, but ask us Anything.
Give your opinions or, I mean, if you're feeling really crazy, if you're feeling a little froggy, email me
[email protected] and come on the show.
Yeah, I'll send you a link. Join from your phone. It's not hard. Come on.
If you are listening right now and you just want to get on the screen with us, email me justin.com and.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: Look, for those of you that are at work and feel like you're missing out on this golden opportunity, here's my strategy for you. Okay? And this has worked in the past. So fake a stomach cramp. Like, so you're sitting at your desk, double over, go. Oh, oh, that didn't go down well. And then your colleague will turn to you and say, hey, man, what's up? You go, oh, I had a bad burrito last night and I think I've just got to go to the toilet. And then run off to the loose squatting a little bit, like holding your stomach bent over a bit. You really got to work it. Yeah, like that. Do that face. That's Justin's about to himself face.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: Never want to say that again.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: And then go to the. Lock yourself in a cubicle and yeah, jump on your phone and join. What could go wrong?
[00:03:58] Speaker B: You know, come have some fun.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Catch you.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: Yeah, we.
We're happy to talk about anything today, but we will. What do we get? We got a few plans to talk about some things. We want to talk about the potential future of photography, maybe the future of cameras.
We're going to talk a little bit maybe about the OM3 that we've both been playing with for, gosh, almost a couple of months now. It's gone.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: Oh, you said it back.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I sent it back, which is a shame because I could have held it up while we talk about it on the show, but they needed it. They said other people were waiting to use it.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: So anyway, we had a good run.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: We did. We did have a good run. We almost kept it and they sent.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: Like six or seven lenses with it. Yeah, it's a good way generous of the brand.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they're awesome. Yeah, Very, very good to work with. Super easy.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: We love you, OM system.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: Even when he emailed me and he was like, oh, that OM3. We've had a few people asking for it, like, if you. Only if you finish with it, though. But is there any chance that you guys might be done with it?
Yeah, we actually just wrapped up the review, but it was so, like, polite, you know, the email should have said, hey, you had this thing for six weeks. Send it back.
So.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Good morning, Rodney Nicholson.
Good to see you.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: Hey, old man. Good to have you.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: LTK photo says 7pm North Carolina, US. That's right, North Carolina. Very cool.
Relaxing after dinner.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: You know what we need? We need a world map and we can pin when we get different guests on. Although you can probably look that up in analytics. But I think my way is better at the moment.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: It would be like very converged around Tasmania, like 60 pins.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Tasmania, California. Yeah, yeah. And a little clump in Bendigo.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. And then the rest of the world's just empty, like, well, we got this whole map.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: We've got goals, we've got.
World is our oyster, Justin.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: It is. I hate oysters.
All right, where do you want to start? What do you want to talk about?
[00:06:10] Speaker A: Let's talk about your thing about the demise of photography as we know it.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah, look, it sounds pretty heavy and I'm not. I'm not trying to do. I. I didn't want to title when I retitled this show. When we found out James couldn't join us, I was like, I'll throw something up that we can talk about. I was going to make it, you know, like the classic YouTuber thing. Photography is dead or something like that.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: I was like, we're kind of doing a fake, a weird facial expression for the thumbnail because clickbait.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: You know, I don't think photography's dead, but I am. I often wonder about video is just becoming more and more accessible and Elena says dead.
More and more accessible and also more and more the priority of the places that we consume, I guess, imagery or media.
You know, all the social media platforms are definitely leaning towards video.
And same with, I guess, everything, everything in our life. Our devices all have video capability and it's even being prioritized. So I'm wondering, is there going to be a point where cameras and still photography, it's just not really a thing anymore? Maybe it becomes so super duper niche as a small little hobby. Kind of like, I don't know, quilting. Trying to think of a small hobby. The quilters are going to kill me.
And. And it's. It's all just video. Moving pictures.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: What do you think?
[00:07:50] Speaker A: Look, I don't know.
It's interesting because I think social media is going to dictate much of what happens with our industry.
Unfortunately, as more and more people and, you know, newer generations step up to take on social media, it will be all they know.
You know, it's not like we were raised on a world of imagery. There was very little video content for us other than what we saw on the tv.
And so we know what the quality, what, what still images can mean. You know, there's a, there's a nostalgia attached to still images for us. There's a, there's a demand in our generations for still images. But as newer generations step up to the plate and start picking up smartphones and start getting social media accounts, their world will be purely video.
Well, you know, majority video. And so there won't be that appreciation for still images, you know, and I was actually, I think about this topic a bit too, Justin, because often I'll be scrolling social media and I'll realize that I'm not even consuming anymore.
I'm glazed, you know, and I'm just flicking through as a time sink because I don't want to, you know, do that work or do the dishes or whatever it might be like. I just, you know, and I worry that even video will become a bit saturated, I reckon, in some ways because, and people will stop. You know, we're so, we're in this, this state of mind that if it's not, if it's longer than three seconds and unless it grabs us in those first three to six seconds, you know, why is she calling me a Krispy Kreme?
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Because you said you were glazed.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: Ah, good one, kiddo. I like that. But you know what I mean, like if it doesn't grab us in those first three to six seconds, we just scroll on and so people are going to create this content that is really heavy on the front end purely to get people to stop scrolling and I don't know, it's just going to shift the whole dynamic of it.
[00:09:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's, I mean, it is. People are always going to be looking for meaningful, meaningful content. But yeah, that, yeah, that whole, you know, at the moment you can make a piece of content and even with no followers, it can blow up and go viral. Because of the way that the social media platforms are set up now.
What do they call it? Interest based instead of like subscriber based? Yeah, social, which is actually a benefit for a lot of people. Newer content creators, there isn't a barrier now to, you know, you don't need to have a million followers to have a piece of content that could go huge.
That is, that is a benefit.
But the downside is, yeah, it's, it's all about that, those first few seconds capturing people's attention with some moving Moving imagery and shocking something. And then.
Yeah, that's what I think is leading to maybe photography potentially fading into the background a bit and becoming more of a niche art form as opposed to a main component of media and visual communication.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: In.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: In. Because if you think about it like all of the. What are all the big things that, you know. Photography. Newspapers were photography. Yeah.
Billboards.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: With those things, you know, newspapers are now more online than they are in print, I believe. I don't know if that's true, I just made it up. But I'm pretty sure they've really feels like it would be primarily online, even though there are still printed newspapers.
Magazines have obviously dwindled a lot down to very sort of a small amount of niche magazines instead of being huge. And then even billboards now, like a lot of billboards, the big billboards are still fixed image, but a lot of them are digital.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: So they can be video.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: It's almost like Blade Runner. It reminds me of Blade Runner where it was just visual video and holograms everywhere you looked.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: So where do we fit into that new world of where the capability, you know, if.
If everywhere around your house has digital photo frames and, and all that kind of stuff, would you have still pictures on there or would you just have videos on there?
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: And when Everybody's got a 4K capable smartphone to film videos, it.
It's going to become the medium of the everyday medium.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: I think it will. And I think also I think some of the art of it will be lost too, because everyone that you know, wearables like Ray Bans, like what? Lucinda. Good morning. Lucinda, who has joined us, she uses a pair of wearable glasses that record shorts for her reels that she then uses in social media combined with mixed media of her own images.
You know, going to a wedding, if everyone's wearing a pair of those, you know, is there a need for a photographer?
Because everyone's going to be able to share with you their version of what they saw at your wedding from really unique vantage points.
You know, is that going to replace wedding photography? Is that going to, you know, the same with photojournalism. If everyone on the street is wearing is. Has a wearables or, or a video camera in their pocket, is photojournalism going to become more that, you know, that news sites just almost pluck content from your social media to use in their newsreels in their. In their news feeds? Yeah, you know, it.
There's a whole bunch of stuff that could change dramatically because just because of, you Know, because we're so heavily gadgeted now when we walk out of the house, you know, and people have seen enough online content that they can. They know how to record stuff, they know how to comment on stuff, you know, and it starts to deplete the. The need for, you know, tried and tested genres like photojournalism.
And we've already seen it.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. I mean, it's happened with phones and stuff. Like it's. Yeah. You know, this. Sending out journals with phones.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Or even just journals. Don't have a. Don't even get to the site because it's already been covered by, you know, 50 witnesses.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: They might interview a couple of witnesses, but that, that will be down the track. Like, you know, recent events. Let's just talk in Australia because there's too much political going on in the world, but in Australia, where we see something happen, like something crazy goes on at a shopping center, like the news people don't get there until lockdown has already happened by the police. But they're plucking stuff that people have recorded on their smartphones.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: Yeah. All of the videos, the smartphone stuff that. And then it's just compiled over a news anchor talking about the story, often with not a lot of information.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: 100% it.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: Elena's comment is here, but I'm going to hold that until we change topics. Elena. So you just, just, just hold tight. LTK photo says. I find when I give people printed work, it makes the most impact of their work. And I. I would agree with that.
Something physical. So physical prints are probably going to be key to keeping photography meaningful, because if it is shown on a screen, I mean, it could just be a video, it could just be, you know, whereas if it is printed, it has a very different feel and impact on the viewer.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Yeah. And it comes back to that topic we had when I first started with you guys on this podcast about why do we shoot and who do we shoot for?
You know, maybe that's where the niche of photography will go. That. Not so much that you'll see still images on screens, but you'll see more physical.
It'll become more of an art form, maybe.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think you. I often think about this sort of stuff with live music or with music in general. You know, there's. There was all this hullabaloo over the last week or two about that AI band. The people trying to figure out if it. If the band was AI. What was it called? Velvet Something Velvet. Someone help me. Velvet Sledgehammer. Velvet AI band.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: I don't know Velvet Underground, but that's. I don't think they're AI Velvet.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: Velvet Sundown.
You didn't hear about this?
[00:16:30] Speaker A: No, I didn't. Can you show us a clip without getting struck?
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Yeah, let's see, let's see what happens.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: Even if you just show us an image.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: All the, all the.
Let's see, let me see what I can find.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: So what you're saying is it's someone use some sort of AI software to create music or.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the contention.
No, no music.
And let me just show you, let me make it more interesting.
Basically announced, it's, it's blown up in terms of it's get being picked up by news places all across the world because they've got quite a Jesus on it. They've got quite a decent Spotify listenership and, and the contention is that the.
Not only are the imagery of the band fully AI, so the band isn't real, but that could just be it because it's a one man band working from their basement and they're like, I'm just going to pretend I'm a real band and put AI imagery out of the band. Like that's what happens. So. Yeah, well, yeah, just like pretend. But also people have ripped apart the, the songs and there's a lot of artifacts in indicating that it's been prompted and generated from an AI music generator.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: As opposed to someone, you know tracking this themselves. Yeah, and pretending to be a band.
So yeah, there's, there's tons of these videos. I don't know if we'll be able to hang on. I don't know if I'll be able to plane other stream platforms. Where are we? Because this is like a reaction video. I'll see if I can find some of the music.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: Just a, just a word of warning, guys, sorry, I've got renovations going on at the moment, so might be a few bangs.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: So it's like a kind of like 60s throwback band.
But yeah, there's, there's a heap of discussion around that at the moment about, you know, is it ethical? It's been trained off.
Off musicians obviously. Because otherwise an AI can't reproduce music like that if it hasn't been trained off copyrighted material in the first place.
But then the cool thing with music is that band can never stand up and perform those songs live. So there is always the proof of like, you know, Metallica can take the stage and you know it's there and you can hear the music and it's real.
So that's the ultimate, like, hey, this is real. Whereas photography, we don't really have that as much. It's a little bit trickier to prove reality.
[00:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it is interesting. I guess our version of taking the stage is going out with a camera in hand and, and actually having to document ourselves, actually taking the shots that people then see. And that just seems really counterproductive, doesn't it?
[00:19:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's almost like, hey, I gotta prove it. Let me go and prove, you know. Yeah, prove that I really did this. Which is fun, but it's, it's a different thing.
Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, just something I've been thinking about a lot.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: Yeah, it is, it is an interesting problem. And I think it is a problem because I think it's currently rampant and people have a misconception of how powerful AI actually is and how accurate it actually is. So let me give you an example. So in one of the. I'm not going to mention the brand because you can all guess what it is, but in one of the Facebook groups that I'm an Admin of, 2 days ago a new post popped up from a new user in our group that we didn't add to our group.
And okay, so it's the Fuji Exos Facebook community. So yeah, I couldn't even last 10 minutes. Justin.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: 10 minutes before the show, Greg was like, I'm not going to say Fuji once on this episode. I was like, all right, we'll see.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: I have to make a point anyway, I'm not getting paid for that one. But, but anyway, so it's the Fuji X Oz Facebook group. Okay. And we've, we've got 5,6000 members. It's a pretty big community.
[00:20:43] Speaker B: I'm an admin.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: I have been almost since inception. And a couple of days ago I went into the, into the group page and there was this new member and it was Fuji xbot.
So Meta had create. Meta have been dumping into groups these chat bots as a new member. And it wasn't like an opt in, opt out option. They just dropped it in there.
Right. So they. And so basically what it says in the first post, it says, hi, I'm Fuji xbot. So they actually took our name and created a new user using our name.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: Douchebags.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: And then it says, so basically the chat bot will potentially respond to posts and questions from other members.
So instead of admin or other members supporting other, this chat bot thinks it needs to step in and actually answer.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: Questions with whatever it deems whatever, whatever, whatever.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: We don't know because we didn't get any background information about this new member. So we're a closed group and we choose.
It's not like we can just, we just let anyone in. We actually have a series of questions. People have to accept rules and this guy just jumps in. And at the bottom of this post it says, just like a disclaimer saying, please, please note that responses from Fuji Xbot may not be accurate or appropriate.
[00:21:59] Speaker B: No shit.
[00:22:01] Speaker A: And it's like, well, why would you drop something in there saying that it's going to respond to questions, it's going to give people advice, it's going to answer questions, but it may not actually be accurate. And so me and another, myself and another admin took about an hour to deep dive through Meta's and Facebook's operating system finding out how to turn this thing off. Because it wasn't an opt in, opt out option.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Did you get it turned off?
[00:22:26] Speaker A: Yeah, we got it turned off.
[00:22:27] Speaker B: Can you tell everyone on the Internet briefly how they should go about switching that off in there?
[00:22:33] Speaker A: No, I can't remember.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: You can't remember?
[00:22:36] Speaker A: Excuse me.
So it's all happening here. I'm being attacked by a box. I've got the coughs.
Sorry, guys.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: Philip Johnson says. Oh dear, the F word. Lol.
Yeah, that Fuji word. Also, Maple Glade says welcome back. Welcome back to Twitch.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: Thanks Glades.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: Be back, Maple Glades. You're our only actual listener on Twitch so far. I think.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: I don't understand why he's welcoming us.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: Back though, because, well, back to Twitch though. Twitch is his, his domain domain and I really like it. Makes me feel welcome because, yeah, we don't get a lot of Twitch love, so I appreciate the love. Maple Glade. Sorry that it's a show that we're down a guest today. But anyway, we don't stop. Jimbo's building a fence.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: Oh, I saw that on Facebook. Yeah.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: So Jimbo listed his fence on, on.
What do you call that thing that you sell stuff on? Oh yeah, that's right.
[00:23:37] Speaker A: Marketplace.
[00:23:38] Speaker B: There's probably an AI bot that helps do it. And so he listed his fence on there. I was like, hey, this is cheap. Come and take it away or whatever. And he got like 6 million messages about it because it was obviously pretty cheap for a full side fence.
[00:23:52] Speaker A: Like a hundred bucks.
[00:23:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it was cheap. Just like, yeah, somebody do me a favor. You remove it, but you get a fence. That's probably worth a lot of money in materials if you need a fence. That you want to install at your house. And our friend Tony, who you would know as get off my digital lawn in the chat. He's not here today. He's probably working. He zoomed in on the photo Jim used to about the fence onto Jim's clothesline and listed it on Gumtree for $10 instead for removal. Clothesline.
And yeah, he got some messages about it. It was. That's hysterical. Yeah, you gotta have a bit of fun.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: You do.
But, yeah, getting back to the Facebook meta thing, it bothers me immensely because, you know, Facebook used to be a platform for the users, right? For the subscriber, for the. What do you call them? I don't know, for the account holders.
And when they make big decisions like this, you know what it's like. When they. When I saw that bot, you know what it reminded me of? Remember when they launched an iPhone or an iOS update years ago and they forcibly gave everyone YouTube, U2's new secret album, and they just dumped it onto everyone's iPhone, whether you wanted it or not?
And there was huge backlash because people didn't want it. And it was.
It was possibly their worst studio album ever.
Yeah, it's like that. It's like. No, hang on.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: Like an invasion.
[00:25:32] Speaker A: Yeah. As opposed making decisions for us. And that's what this felt like. Like, you know, that. Because there were members in the. In our group who were going, you know, what the f is this? Like, hey, guys, why are we having to deal with AI? And I think it just feels a bit insensitive on Meta's behalf to do that without at least letting the group owner knowing that this is what we've got coming up. The admin team.
[00:25:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: Because what if it did give someone the wrong advice, you know, or. Or created confusion amongst the group? Like, it just. It just felt underhanded to me and sneaky. And so we. We've removed it. And I. A couple of the other admins said, oh, they're in other groups. And the same thing has happened and they're all trying to get rid of it because no one wants it. And I think that the biggest fear is that the, you know, Facebook.
A lot of photography communities hang out in Facebook, you know, because we're of an age, we grew up on Facebook in terms of early social media use, you know, and.
And it. It almost doesn't feel safe because, you know, there's meta's plucking our images, Meta's using stuff to train AI. Now they're dumping chat bots in our groups without Asking. So anyway, sorry I cut you off.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: No, no, no. It was. It's. We'll get. We'll get back to that. I just want to say Yelena said that YouTube album was. Would also always auto play when you didn't even want music to play. Yeah.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: It was such a cluster. It really was.
You will like it.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: I promise to hear it four or five times. Then you'll really start to enjoy it.
[00:27:07] Speaker A: And it was a. And that was another case of a, you know, a tech giant misreading the room.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: Yeah. They probably thought this is a cool. Like, no one's ever done this kind of collaboration before and this will be cool. And everyone loves you too. You know, it's that guy. What's his name? Bono. Bono.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think they thought they were doing everyone a favor. Everyone loves you too. Right.
I was going to complain about free.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: I mean, worst case, you just don't play it and then it auto plays.
LTK says, I find Facebook groups. The only reason I keep Facebook. I find it. So this. There's. I agree.
[00:27:40] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:27:41] Speaker B: I want to talk about this later on as well, because I've made some progress on my infrared photography journey, but I joined three infrared photography groups yesterday on Facebook.
And, yeah, just because I just wanted to get a feel for, like, because, you know, you can see infrared photography from amazing people. But I'm like, what. What sort of results are just. It's just average users getting, you know, with various camera.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: Because you're an average user.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: Yeah, not yet. I'm not going to buy a camera first and get it converted. I had a great conversation with.
Oh, what's the. What's the company called in Melbourne that does it? That used to be called Camera Clinic and now is called.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: I can't remember. Sorry.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: No, no, I. I literally rang them yesterday. I've forgotten. Imaging by Design.
[00:28:28] Speaker A: Okay. How'd that go?
[00:28:29] Speaker B: They are.
Well, we've already sideswiped a long direction from where we were going with this. But, yeah, they. They were super helpful. Like, really knowledgeable. Immediately it was. I was like, all right, I'm gonna ring this place because it sounds like they do a bit of stuff there.
You know, they do camera repairs. They do, you know, crazy custom sort of camera stuff for forensics and all sorts of things. So I was like, this is going to be a bit of a few hurdles to jump through because their website's not great. I have to say, guys, you know, let me. Let me help you build a new website. Doesn't have a lot of info on it says, you know, coming soon or whatever.
But the. You ring them and the first person that picked up the phone knew exactly what I needed to know immediately. And then after a 10 minute nice conversation they even asked the boss a few questions that I had as well.
It was, yeah, they. So far I'm very impressed with them and I will absolutely be sending a camera to them to get converted. I just don't know what camera yet.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: So what did they tell you that you wanted to hear and that you didn't know? You needed to know.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: Basically how that. How the conversion process works. So how they do it, how long it takes.
So at the moment it's taking up to six weeks. But they usually like to have it at like four weeks or just under prices. The prices they do, they're like all cameras are different levels of complexity but to keep things simple they just price things as either crappy crop sensor or fantastic full frame. I think.
[00:30:06] Speaker A: Sorry, got an allergy.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: But yeah, they just have a standard price for crop sensor or full frame. And. And then obviously. And then she goes, I don't know if you would do this but we do have pricing for like Phase Ones and, and Hasselblads and stuff. And I was like that would be cool.
[00:30:23] Speaker A: She's like, did you imagine? Yeah, imagine.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
So basically ran me through all of that. Ran me through needing to. They need to know like whether you're going to use clip in filters with it or not and. And that kind of stuff and just they sounds like they've had a lot of experience with it. Made me very confident. Oh, Bruce is here. Bruce says, hey Bruce, imagine Infrared converted Phase one.
[00:30:51] Speaker A: And Rodney said it used to be like an operating theater. I imagine he's talking about that business you're referring to.
[00:30:56] Speaker B: Oh, camera clinic. Yeah.
[00:30:59] Speaker A: So where have you landed in terms of, you know, top two or three models that you are considering buying?
[00:31:06] Speaker B: So I'll probably do. I've read a little bit. There's a lot of information on Kalari Vision as well, which is probably where I'd get the filters from. That's a us place. They do conversions too. They've got a lot of info on their website and they've got quite a bit of testing with Canon lenses and hot spots and that kind of stuff and any other issues that they might have. They can have infrared light emitting leaks and weird things like that. So I've done some reading on that but I think Canon makes the most sense because I've already got a selection of lenses.
[00:31:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So it Would be fun to experiment with the whole. With all of your lenses. All 78 of them.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: That's right.
It's not 78, but yeah. So I'm thinking that I've actually got. I'll save it for another. A more Deep Dive episode, but I got a great email from David Leporati.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: Hey, thanks, David.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: Our last Monday show. Yeah, he's a legend. Every time we talk about IR photography like it's. It's full page. Like, just following up on the chat about infrared from last night's episode 95 of the Random Photography show with Andrew Chapman. That's how he starts his email. And then it's just like everything we talked about and more information. More information. It's so good.
Talks about how it works with skin.
Skin tones and different. It's. Yeah, it's so good. Wow.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Got your own mentor.
[00:32:25] Speaker B: I know, I'm. I'm excited. I'm actually. So, long story short, I really want to have a.
I would really like to have a infrared photography kind of discussion and get the guy from Imaging by Design on the boss.
Just to have him, you know, be able to talk to us about the nuts and bolts about converting cameras and everything he knows and then potentially have, yeah, one or two infrared photography sort of gurus on as well, talking about the technical and creative sides of shooting with various IR camera systems.
I don't know what appeals to me about it. I think I've been trying to think about this. I'm like, am I just looking for something to waste money on or am I looking for that?
It's like it would all be new again, you know, like every scene you don't know how the camera is going to display that. Yeah, it would almost be like starting photography again.
[00:33:29] Speaker A: It would. In a way. It'd be a little bit like film photography in a lot of ways, because there's that.
That unknown. You, you know, you're basically starting off again trying to understand how this particular setup captures light.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: That's right. And I think that's why.
Interested in film again lately. But films not as dramatic of a difference of the scene. Like, I have an idea of what's going to happen. Whereas with Reddit, like. And I guess I would probably learn fairly quickly what will happen and what a scene might look like.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like I, I think that would be. And I think getting people on to talk about it and having a dedicated panel show would. Would be really beneficial because I think infrared has piqued the interest of most landscape photographers at some point. And most photographers in general who've seen an infrared image, you know, I've seen Greg Carrick's work, I've seen some of our other guests work and it's, it's fascinated me. I think that's, you know, if I was going to shoot black and white, I'd like to have a crack at that.
[00:34:26] Speaker B: Well, I was thinking, Greg, why don't you look at getting your XE4 converted? Because it can be a full spectrum conversion. So you can still put a clip in filter.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:38] Speaker B: To shoot regular.
Just thinking, because that was, that would be my other, my other option would be like maybe getting a secondhand Fujifilm camera, but then I need lenses.
I know, I know, get too excited.
The issue of the tiny little sensor, I just, I can't get past that.
[00:35:14] Speaker A: Right, okay, you need to get over that. You don't need to get past it. You just need to get over that. All right.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: The. It's just, I think, yeah, I think it would make more sense.
I don't know if I can give up my R3, but I'm like, if I got an R6 Mark II, I could convert it and it could be a backup camera because it's full spectrum. I just don't know if I'm.
[00:35:38] Speaker A: Which camera? An R6.
[00:35:40] Speaker B: An R6 Mark II.
[00:35:42] Speaker A: What do they cost retail? Australian, roughly.
[00:35:46] Speaker B: Gosh, I think some of them are selling at the moment because I think there's an R6 Mark III coming. Yeah, some selling for like $2,500. No, that can't be right.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: No, that's, no, that's not right.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: That's not right. 3,500, that's a lot, man.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: You're better off buying a second hand one.
[00:36:07] Speaker B: No. Yeah, Harvey Norman has an R6 Mark II for $2,598.
[00:36:13] Speaker A: Yeah, but they won't have it in stock.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: I don't care.
Did you direct?
[00:36:19] Speaker A: That's not a camera score, dude.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: Hang on. Check stock. Let's check.
Available soon.
But still it's so, at that price, like it sounds like a lot, but to get a decent secondhand Fujifilm camera or, or anything is going to be like 1300, 1500, something like that. And it's like this would be brand new.
[00:36:43] Speaker A: Plus you've got the lenses, you don't need to invest in glass.
[00:36:46] Speaker B: I've got the lenses and in theory it could become my backup camera because I can put a clip in. What do they call them? Hot mirror. I never, I can't remember. There's like a hot mirror Filter or something. Basically it just means becomes regular camera filter and you can actually shoot with it like a regular camera.
[00:37:06] Speaker A: Because when they do the conversion, don't they strip something off the sensor?
[00:37:10] Speaker B: They take. They. They remove and replace it with a piece of glass. They remove the IR and UV filter and replace it with like, I don't know, some Glad wrap or something.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: Let's jump to some comments because there's a lot going on in the chat.
[00:37:27] Speaker B: There's a lot going on. So we've got.
Nick Fletcher is finally here, which means our money worries are over.
David Fluttersuck says at Nick Fletcher. Are you really their biggest financier?
Nick Fletcher says at David Flutter suck. You better believe it. A whole $20 and then David.
[00:37:50] Speaker A: 25.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: No, that was. David Flutters is donated. 25.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: Hey, David, you should jump on with us and, and, and why don't you both. We'll send you a link.
[00:38:02] Speaker B: That'd be cool. Yeah. Can we get you both on? That'd be great. We need some people on. Does anyone want to join? No one's. No one's emailed me justinuckystraps.com you could join us on the show right now because we don't have a guest today. So we're just chatting.
[00:38:16] Speaker A: Just a couple of other, well, new people too.
[00:38:20] Speaker B: And so David Fluttersuck says Nick Fletcher. Not anymore. I'm the daddy now.
So, yeah, David. David Fluttersuck is now basically owns this podcast.
[00:38:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: Bruce Mo says Justin. Sounds like Justin's not wanting to waste a decent camera. That's right.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:38:41] Speaker B: LTK says Fuji. Fuji, Fuji.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: More power.
[00:38:47] Speaker B: Fuji.
Inda read.
Forging. Forging. Am I pronouncing that correctly? Inda from joining us from Facebook, by the way. Come over from Facebook to YouTube. It's more fun.
YouTube. The chats. The chat's busier.
Can you tell us why Canon people need to go to Fuji? Why do you love it? So that's a question for you, Greg.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: Well, I was a cannon shooter and I had a lot of big glass and I had to carry two camera bags wherever I went because I had so much glass and I had FOMO and gas and all of those sort of conditions that we all catch at some stage and eventually heal from.
But I. This is before I was diagnosed with a neck issue. I was just getting really bad back pain. Neck pain. It was stopping me enjoying photography because Canon cameras are.
And they're heavy and the. Well, the cameras aren't heavy because they're real. Just really just plastic bodies. And there's only like this much technology inside of them and so they're quite. The bodies are quite airy, you know but the lenses are heavy.
And so that gave me a really bad. And it almost stopped me doing photography. I almost quit and then someone handed me an X, the original X100 and I went for a photo walk. I was in love. Haven't looked back since. Sold all the Canon gear, bought a Fuji kit and yeah, look at me now. My neck is. My neck is so much better.
[00:40:16] Speaker B: I do have to say as much as Canon lenses haven't got at the highest level, Canon lenses haven't got a lot lighter at the highest level. Some of them have.
It would be a different prospect now if you compared especially crop sensor Canon cameras now to what Fuji offer that the whole lightness thing isn't as big of a. You wouldn't necessarily change systems for it. I think what you would change systems for is the feel.
Absolutely.
You know, the way you hold it, the way you shoot with it and that kind of thing. Because like if you use a Canon.
Gosh, those little R1 hundreds and stuff, they're. They're as small as a Fuji.
[00:41:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:03] Speaker B: Camera.
[00:41:04] Speaker A: That's an XP5. That's their flagship.
[00:41:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: It's not mine, it's a friend's but you know, it's tiny.
[00:41:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And that, that's why. So that actually brings me to a good question. The. The Canon R8 is tiny as well for a full frame camera. It's very light. It's. It's quite compact and nice in your hands. It's probably a similar size to an XD5 or the lenses will be slightly bigger because they're full frame lenses. But you can also when you go full frame you can afford to shoot F4 when you would need maybe 2.8 on Fuji and so on. So it's. You got to make sure you're comparing. If you're comparing full frame to crop sensor sized lenses, make sure you're comparing about a stop slower because that's about what you'll get in terms of depth of field differences and that kind of stuff too. It's like you don't really.
And low light ability and that sort of stuff. You don't want to be like oh Well a Fuji 2.8 versus a Canon 2.8. It's half the size. You're like.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:05] Speaker B: But there's a lot more benefit in a full frame 2.8.
You would want to compare a full frame F4 to a Fuji 2.8 and go, okay, what am I getting? What, what am I not getting? And that kind of stuff.
But this is the question that we got to. John Pickett says, would an R8 be a better value for a converted camera? I thought so, but so because the Canon R8 has a similar size sensor to the R6 Mark II, 24 megapixels or whatever, it actually shoots quite well. It doesn't have IBIs, which means it's terrible that you absolutely could not use in 2025. Matt Crummons wouldn't use it, Matt Crummins would not use it.
But so the cheapest R8 I could currently find from a reputable place known as Amazon is $1900.
So for the extra $600 I'm getting to go to an R6 mark 2, you're getting IBIs, which is worth its way in gold.
Much better video capabilities, including the fact that it has Ibis means you can actually shoot handheld video. Whereas without Ibis, more of a challenge.
It shoots faster. A bigger buffer has better body ergonomics, including like the joystick on the back for focus selection, that kind of stuff. And then the, the one big thing, it uses the same batteries as my R5 Mark II, whereas the other one uses small battery. So then I'm going to buy another battery. There's 100 bucks, you know, like and dual card slots. Not a big deal. But you know, like there's a lot of benefits. If it was $1,000 difference, I'd absolutely be looking at the R8.
[00:43:57] Speaker A: But from the sounds of it, you're looking at getting a fully fledged camera so that you can shoot everything in infrared or different spectrums. Because you're, you're talking about buffer speed, dual SDS video.
Whereas I think a lot of people get IR conversions for the landscape.
[00:44:12] Speaker B: Exactly. And then it's.
[00:44:14] Speaker A: Don't need all the bells and whistles.
[00:44:16] Speaker B: And I'm considering this is what, this is the, it's a long term play.
But I'm considering, I'm like, could I do without my R3?
Because the R5 Mark 2 is doing pretty well as a sports camera. Not, not quite as good, but it's a better all rounder. I use it on most shoots now and then the, the. Can I live with a. Just a backup camera that's IR converted? That's what I'm wondering. Because I don't shoot with dual bodies that often with one body and a backup. I'm not, I've kind of gone away from the two body slinging, two cameras running around Crazy sort of stuff.
[00:44:53] Speaker A: Are they too heavy?
[00:44:55] Speaker B: No, because shooting hybrid photo video is a lot to think about. Introducing a second body into that.
There's a lot of settings to keep track of. And I just found it slowed me down more than it sped me up. Plus, you gotta. It is too heavy. Cause you gotta throw them all in your.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: Sorry, what was that?
[00:45:14] Speaker B: They're too heavy because you've got to throw them all in your backpack and then try and clip that down. Runs that I'm not capable of.
Yeah.
So, yeah, there's a lot to it. I don't know. The hard thing is. Yeah, exactly like you say. The. The infrared conversion thing in my mind was always like, you buy a cheap secondhand camera.
[00:45:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:34] Speaker B: And you do that.
But what I want to do with it in. Is I really want to try and shoot action sports with it as well as play around with landscapes and stuff. So the things that I.
[00:45:46] Speaker A: Shooting everything with IR would be amazing.
[00:45:49] Speaker B: Just, Just to try. Just to see.
[00:45:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Go out and shoot street. Go and shoot macro. Like just try everything.
[00:45:57] Speaker B: It's, it's. It would. I feel like it would be fun. I'm just worried that it's also that I'm.
What do you call it?
I'm.
[00:46:09] Speaker A: Looking to compensate for something. Like, in terms of your creativity.
[00:46:12] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: I don't mean you like your pp. I mean a bit of both.
[00:46:16] Speaker B: That's why I need to be a big IR camera. That's why.
[00:46:19] Speaker A: Can I make a recommendation or just a suggestion and then we can talk about it? Why don't you, for your first time, buy cheaper secondhand IR camera?
No, just a body. Then get it converted and just see how you go before you step up to the plate and convert an R3.
[00:46:38] Speaker B: Now, I'm not going to convert an R3, so the Pro. The problem is with that, the cost of the conversion and the clip in filters, you're talking way over a thousand bucks.
So doing it on a cheap camera is basically throwing that money away.
So, because. Because I feel like I'm going to go. And then that cheap camera, if I only have one lens for it, you know, do I.
Do I do what I really want to do with it or do I end up just sort of having it as a bit of a novelty for a few weeks, I'd probably have a bit of fun. And then either being like, okay, now I've got to invest all that money again in a camera that can do what I want, or it just sits on the shelf for a while and I end up putting it on Facebook, Marketplace.
[00:47:21] Speaker A: Well, the other option is that you hit up Canon, you've got a good relationship with them, given how much money you send them every week and say, hey guys, I've got a project in mind. Can you give me a camera?
I'm gonna it up.
[00:47:35] Speaker B: And then let me, let me send it to Imaging by Design to like.
[00:47:38] Speaker A: Yeah, no, like be completely transparent about it. But yeah, but then you've actually got to commit to making it work and making a project out of it that Canon feel happy about. I don't know.
You know, it can't hurt to ask a question.
[00:47:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I think there's ways, there's ways that I could try and minimize the costs and risks.
LTK Photos is romanticizing the idea. Yeah, it's. It's kind of like that. I'm worried that I'm like, am I just sort of using it as a crutch? You know, you can be creative with a regular camera. Am I just like, oh, this, this would be new and different, but it's not actually, you know, there's nothing behind it. That's what I'm worried about.
Nick says, talk to Jen at Canon. Yeah, I know I could hassle Jen. I definitely could. I'm actually going up to Frame Fest in Sydney.
[00:48:23] Speaker A: I saw that.
[00:48:24] Speaker B: Yeah, next weekend.
[00:48:25] Speaker A: That's funny. I haven't got my flights yet.
[00:48:28] Speaker B: I couldn't afford to. I couldn't afford to send us both.
[00:48:32] Speaker A: You heard it here. You heard it here first, folks.
[00:48:35] Speaker B: So also because it. Frame Fest is like an influencer festival. So it's like, for younger influencers. And as it is, oh, the results keep coming. I'm gonna have to wear some sort of disguise because I don't think they'll let me in.
I'm gonna have to put like some smooth baby skin.
[00:48:54] Speaker A: We all call you Baby Baby Face Justin. Behind your back. So I don't know why you're worried.
[00:48:58] Speaker B: Because I can't be.
[00:48:59] Speaker A: John Pickett. Great to see you on the show. John has said free cameras are the best cameras. Haha. And Bruce says this is great.
[00:49:10] Speaker B: Nick says, get a man bun. Yeah, that's how. That's the only way I'll get into this Frame Fest thing. I think I, I'm actually, I'm pretty excited about it because I think we can find some guests up there.
[00:49:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:23] Speaker B: From this, this world of. There's a lot of what they call, you know, creators, but I think that in, in these creators, there's some, some great photographers that are just putting. They, they're Putting a lot of their social, but making great work. And I want to try and track them down and get them on the podcast, I think.
[00:49:46] Speaker A: Yeah, to see people that sort of maybe grew up in our block and then have adapted to compete in a younger market would be great too.
[00:49:56] Speaker B: Nick Fletcher says, can I send you a list of cool guests? You can, Nick, you can. As long as we can get Justin's email. As long as we can get you and David Fluttersuck and David Clutterbuck on the show.
But yes, please. It's a list of cool guests. Please, please, please. Anyone else listening to if you have any guest suggestions. I found a storm chaser that I want to try and get on the show. Would you guys like to hear it? Like a storm chaser that travels to the US chasing storms. It's like they're more of a storm chaser than a photographer, but when they track the storm down, they take photos of it and their photos are epic. But I think the passion lies more in the meteorological storm chasing side of it than it does in the image making side. But I thought that would be a really fun chat if we can.
If Greg can track him down, I think he's a hard man to catch.
[00:50:51] Speaker A: I'm onto it.
[00:50:52] Speaker B: You're onto it?
[00:50:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm onto it.
[00:50:55] Speaker B: Nice.
Who else should we try and get on this show?
[00:50:59] Speaker A: Let us know, folks, let us know in the comments. Or you can send an email to Justin.
[00:51:07] Speaker B: Have you got a dream guest you'd like to get on the show, Greg?
Me?
[00:51:15] Speaker A: No. Because they're all Fuji shooters and you're just all hate on me for it. Jim especially. He. I just feel bullied in the workplace sometimes.
Do I have any dream guests? You know, it's interesting. I don't think I do.
I don't, I don't, I don't follow people. I follow a ton of photographers on socials, but I don't, I don't kind of fanboy over people necessarily.
So, yeah, no, I don't, I don't. But having said that, you know, we, we've, we're what, 96 episodes? We've had some astounding guests on the.
[00:51:51] Speaker B: Show.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: And people who I've learn to love and admire as creatives. So yeah, it has been an interesting process.
[00:52:05] Speaker B: Bruce says he can give us a heaps of suggestions depending on what topics we want.
This is the thing, we're open to all topics. We just want interesting people that our listeners will find interesting. So photographers that have done cool stuff, interesting projects, anything or, you know, People with knowledge on technical side of stuff that want to deep dive into printing photos or whatever. Speaking of which, I got to pay for my Canon printer that I've ordered.
[00:52:33] Speaker A: Did you get a Prime Ideal?
[00:52:36] Speaker B: No, no, I got a. I got a Canon a really nice to me deal.
Yeah, they're wonderful. And so it's, it's the 1100. The Pro 1100. I'm excited. Comes with.
[00:52:48] Speaker A: Oh, you'd hope so.
[00:52:50] Speaker B: You know what, did I tell you this last time? I'm. I'm gonna start having.
Not ideal for any of you guys that don't live in Bendigo, but I'm going to start having once I get this printer, pizza and print parties.
[00:53:05] Speaker A: Oh, I'll come to town for that.
[00:53:06] Speaker B: Yeah, you can come to town. So basically the plan would be I set the printer up.
Not that our house is very.
We don't have a lot of space. We live small.
But I'll set it up in a more communal area than my office maybe, and then have people over, just our friends and stuff. Tell them to bring a USB with any photos that they've been meaning to get printed and we just print photos and I'll cook pizzas.
[00:53:34] Speaker A: Are you gonna cook pizzas?
[00:53:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I've got.
For my 40th birthday, all my friends chipped in and gave me one of those little Gosney rockbox pizza oven thing.
[00:53:44] Speaker A: So I've been one of those. But I've got nowhere to put it here in an apartment.
[00:53:48] Speaker B: They're only. Oh, I was gonna say they're only small, but yeah. Apartment. Yeah, they kind of. Kind of need them outside.
[00:53:54] Speaker A: Yeah, you need like a.
[00:53:56] Speaker B: You need like a little courtyard or something at the front of your house. Little enclosed, like an indoor outdoor courtyard.
[00:54:02] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I tried to do that, remember? But the body corporate poo pooed it.
[00:54:05] Speaker B: I know. That's what I was.
[00:54:06] Speaker A: So now we're gonna buy this huge statue of the Virgin Mary with, With the baby Jesus and a fountain that comes out of his penis. I'm going to put it right in our little front courtyard so that I can just say you to all the neighbors without having to say it.
[00:54:19] Speaker B: Especially if you can turn that fountain up as they walk past and like really get the.
[00:54:23] Speaker A: And every now and then I'll put in a little. This might be sacrilegious, I'm sorry to anyone that is religious, but I might put a little red food dye in the water tank.
His blood.
[00:54:32] Speaker B: No.
[00:54:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm going to be the talking town.
[00:54:37] Speaker B: Rodney Nicholson says you're not 40 I.
[00:54:39] Speaker A: Know he looks 12.
[00:54:43] Speaker B: You're only as old as your podcast guests.
[00:54:48] Speaker A: But you know, guys, having, having. Just dialing back a little bit. Very much off topic. Talking about getting guests on the show. If you've got recommendations, hit us up. Either email me. Most of you've got my email. Or, or email Justin.
And yeah, just let us know who you think would.
Great person. Why?
If you've got an email or a contact number, even better. It makes it easier for me to get in touch with them. And international guests are fine. They don't have to all be Australian photographers. We're very non racist here.
[00:55:20] Speaker B: We'd like to. International guests actually.
[00:55:23] Speaker A: But you know, that's not to say we don't have guests coming up. We're almost booked out until October at this point. So you know, we're, we're well on the way.
[00:55:33] Speaker B: David Clutterbuck says I think Flutter Suck might be some dick with a spoof account. Amusing themselves at my name. Not funny.
Follows up with the ooh, I have the Pro 1000. Yours is 100 better. That's right, mine is 100 better. Yeah, I'm a bit concerned. Apparently that Pro 1100 weighs 40 kilos.
So I'm trying to figure out where.
[00:55:55] Speaker A: It'S gonna hate you.
[00:55:57] Speaker B: My newly laid out office.
[00:55:59] Speaker A: Yeah, you might need a new desk.
[00:56:01] Speaker B: Doesn't have a lot of space. I just got a new desk.
[00:56:03] Speaker A: Doesn't have space.
[00:56:04] Speaker B: No, you did.
[00:56:05] Speaker A: I need a new desk. I'm going to get a new desk. I'm going to look at Prime Day deals.
And on that topic, is anyone out there that's watching or listening? Have you ordered anything with Prime Day? That's for your photography, either creative or for your photography business. Let us know in the chat because I have spent almost 24 hours just scouring.
[00:56:24] Speaker B: There's not a lot in Australia.
[00:56:26] Speaker A: It's a lot. There's a lot of garbage.
[00:56:28] Speaker B: A lot of. I mean if you, if you want a air fryer or a Robovac Prime Day, but that's all it is. Air fryers, Robovacs and, and Bose Quiet comfort headphones.
[00:56:42] Speaker A: I've been looking for a new monitor for my desk, so.
[00:56:45] Speaker B: Oh yeah, I'm sure there's probably deals on monitors, but yeah, I mean there's Ugg boots that are 74 off. It's a good winter deal. But I don't know, the whole Prime Day thing over here doesn't seem to be quite as big as. As they make it out to be in the US with the deals.
Don't get sucked in. I did see Fujifilm had something like almost 30 off. Like a camera. I think it was the XT50 maybe.
[00:57:14] Speaker A: Was that on Amazon?
[00:57:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
[00:57:18] Speaker A: I mean, you can get some SD card deals, but SD cards have become so cheap.
Like they've got a SanDisk Extreme 128 gigabyte. Fine for camera, for stills, 128 gig 25 bucks. That's 47 off. So that's pretty good. You know, you can. Who doesn't need more SD cards?
[00:57:36] Speaker B: Seriously, you can tell us this, Greg, is this a deal or not?
[00:57:43] Speaker A: What's that? XD50? 1974.
[00:57:46] Speaker B: Let's have a look with the 15 to 45 lens.
[00:57:50] Speaker A: Yeah, but that's like a 200 lens. It's a piece of garbage really.
[00:57:55] Speaker B: Okay. Because it says it 39 off.
[00:57:58] Speaker A: Let's have a look on Ted's and see if they have XT50 plus. What, the 15 to 45?
Yeah, come on, Ted. G can do it. XT50.
[00:58:15] Speaker B: While you're doing that.
[00:58:16] Speaker A: 25.99.
[00:58:18] Speaker B: So it is a decent deal.
[00:58:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a great deal.
That's. That's a huge thing because that's a cracker of a camera. That's 40 megapixel sensor. It has the X processor 5.
[00:58:30] Speaker B: The issue was with it when it come out, it was basically just a Teemu version of the XT5 at a very similar price.
Because the XT5 was discounted so much. It's been out for so long because it's older, but. But they had similar specs. And if, if anything, the XT50 just was missing a few of the X T5 sort of pro features.
[00:58:49] Speaker A: It's only got a single SD card. It doesn't have weather sealing. It's a less robust body.
I can't remember if it has Ibis. Does it have Ibis? No, it doesn't have Ibis.
[00:59:02] Speaker B: Don't buy it.
[00:59:02] Speaker A: No, it does have ibis. Sorry. It does.
Oh, Matt will get one.
[00:59:08] Speaker B: So the, the XT50.
[00:59:13] Speaker A: That.
[00:59:13] Speaker B: Yeah. I think the issue was it was too close. It was the same price as an XD5. But if it's. If it's 500 or more cheaper, it suddenly is like, that's a. That's a decent buy.
[00:59:23] Speaker A: That's kind of what it was. Should be worth. No, actually it was. The whole pricing really shits me as a product reviewer because I took it up in my reviews. I talk about value for money and that most people complain about the cost of New cameras these days. Like so the X T50 came out and the biggest complaint was it's exactly the same price as the X T5, yet the X T5 has, is better and that's true. But the X T5 at the time was two and a half years old.
Okay. When the XT5 came out, the cost of consumer electrics was nowhere near what it is today. It has grown exponentially.
[00:59:57] Speaker B: But the problem with that is though, that's still the reality. Like I understand what you're saying, but it's still the reality of like why would I buy this new camera?
You know, like that's. And then for the same price and that. But then it always equalizes out a little bit after launch. Everyone starts to do deals on it and then all of a sudden it is, it is worth buying.
[01:00:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Look, if you're looking for a first Fuji camera and you've got about two grand to spare, this is exceptional value for money.
[01:00:24] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a pretty good deal.
[01:00:26] Speaker A: I mean that kit lens will serve you well. It's. It's a piece of gold by Amazon.
[01:00:30] Speaker B: Shipped by Amazon.
[01:00:32] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:00:33] Speaker B: That's weird. I didn't even know that was a thing in Australia for cameras. I didn't know like Amazon sold cameras. I always thought it was through like a store or something.
[01:00:43] Speaker A: Yeah, do it. But yeah.
[01:00:47] Speaker B: David Clutterbuck says that that printer fits nicely under a desk on the floor. Would that. I wondered that. Is that okay? Like is that going to cause me any problems with or anything like that? Or is that because I, I do have room under my desk. There's a heat event near there though.
[01:01:03] Speaker A: Anyway, don't do that.
[01:01:05] Speaker B: Cook it.
Bruce Moyle says I'm always scared of getting media off something amazing like sd.
[01:01:14] Speaker A: Amazon, Amazon.
[01:01:17] Speaker B: Oh, too many horror stories of fake. Yeah, that is, that is a risk. And it's like you want to make sure it's not coming from a rando seller. You want to make sure it's coming from a store that sells genuine SD cards. Because that is true. They'll just make, they just make sandisk fake cards and they're not perform as fast and then they also might corrupt. So yeah, that is one thing that if you're just like mucking around with photography, I don't know, get whatever. But if you don't want to lose your stuff, don't overspend. Don't walk into a big name camera store.
[01:01:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:01:56] Speaker B: Go to a small name camera store like Camera and Photo. Go see Brendan and ask him what SD card to Get. Don't walk into a big name camera store and buy something at retail price just because it's got the highest specs or whatever. Do some research first. Because spending $900 on a card, if you're not doing work like Bruce is, if you're just doing like, you know, general photography, you don't need to spend $900 on a. On a.
The higher spec card.
But also, don't buy cheap junk unless you're willing to risk just losing all of your work.
[01:02:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:02:33] Speaker B: Like I did, which was my fault. Nick Fletcher says Fuji Cast is going strong.
Agree with Bruce. Don't buy cards off Amazon or ebay.
[01:02:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:02:45] Speaker B: David Clutterbucks print has been under the desk for four years. He's never going to let it out. Throw a towel over it when you're not using it. Geez, we could be talking about anything.
LTK photo says I have a dust cover on my Pro 300. Oh, did you buy that somewhere or is it just a towel or something?
[01:03:00] Speaker A: I love how much your eyes light up every time you think you might be able to buy something new.
[01:03:04] Speaker B: It's so sweet. I love getting.
[01:03:07] Speaker A: Oh yeah. I really had our place for a while. We've had so much stuff arrive lately.
[01:03:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I'm just looking around here. I've been getting lots of stuff. I've been getting my guitar equipment set back up again, which, which is nice. I haven't had to buy much stuff for that. I had it all instant to buy.
[01:03:23] Speaker A: A guitar for Brendan, my son, who's. Oh, really? Based. Yeah.
Oh.
[01:03:31] Speaker B: That'S cool. So you're gonna buy.
[01:03:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm gonna get him an acoustic that can plug in.
[01:03:36] Speaker B: So we'll save.
[01:03:38] Speaker A: Yeah, you get bas acoustics and ones that you can plug into an amp later.
[01:03:42] Speaker B: Interesting.
[01:03:43] Speaker A: I don't want to start with an amp.
[01:03:46] Speaker B: You just do headphones.
[01:03:47] Speaker A: I tortured my family for six years in high school playing saxophone.
Okay.
[01:03:54] Speaker B: I would look, I don't have a lot of experience. I would get an electric bass and headphone setup because you might even find it than an acoustic bass and probably feel nicer to play. Acoustic basses are not common.
[01:04:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:04:11] Speaker B: So yeah. In terms of getting something that's quality for a lesser price, an electric bass will be a lot easier to do that. And then. Yeah, you just. There's tons of options these days for little devices that plug straight into the bass. That Bluetooth to headphones or whatever. Give it a nice amp.
[01:04:28] Speaker A: All right.
[01:04:29] Speaker B: Yeah, don't even get an amp. Just. Just be like, no no headphones.
[01:04:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:04:32] Speaker B: This is what we're starting with. Headphones. Yeah, I would do that.
Rodney says go matin. Yeah, that would be expensive. If they do make acoustic bases, M will be expensive because they're Australian made. Because they're high quality. I actually want to go and visit their factory.
And because a little known fact, the leather M guitar straps that you see in music shops with M on them are made in the same factory as our lucky straps.
[01:05:01] Speaker A: We're posh. We are invisible artist.
[01:05:07] Speaker B: Invisible artist says Amazon has a couple of okay deals on light modifiers for video aperture. Oh, I need an aperture line.
Did you? I actually needed a new aperture softbox for our product photography setup. Yeah, I got a couple of fake Canon batteries.
We can't stop spending money on gear. It's problem. Yeah, it's. I'm.
I'm going through that at the moment and I need to.
[01:05:30] Speaker A: It's only a problem if you can't pay rent and feed your family.
[01:05:34] Speaker B: This is true.
[01:05:35] Speaker A: And even then, as long as you can feed your family, toast and beans is perfectly fine. Two minute noodles, cheapest thing in the supermarket can survive on this.
[01:05:45] Speaker B: Since people seem to be sticking with us on this show, which is nice about considering we're talking about just all sorts of random stuff. Guess what I'm doing right now out. Out my window right here.
[01:05:54] Speaker A: What I'm going to guess.
[01:05:58] Speaker B: I'm smoking six kilos of lamb shoulder.
Put it on it.
Yeah.
[01:06:05] Speaker A: How long is that going to be on full?
[01:06:07] Speaker B: 12 hours.
[01:06:09] Speaker A: When will it be ready?
[01:06:12] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:06:12] Speaker A: I'm just looking at the. At the V line schedule.
[01:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm aiming to have one of them ready for dinner. One's bigger than the other. The bigger one's going to take longer for sure. Probably take 13 or 14.
[01:06:23] Speaker A: What time's dinner? And what should I bring? Red or white.
[01:06:28] Speaker B: And deer.
Yeah, okay.
[01:06:32] Speaker A: Actually session, session. One of the kids is coming to Bendigo again tomorrow.
[01:06:37] Speaker B: Oh really?
[01:06:38] Speaker A: What are they doing? Oh, Sasha taking Juno, our youngest daughter, to the Frida Kahlo thing. So Sasha's going to stay again at that hotel we stayed at last time.
[01:06:48] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:06:49] Speaker A: And yeah, they're gonna have a little, little girls night girls weekend away in Bendigo.
[01:06:53] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome.
[01:06:55] Speaker A: Great food, you know, art.
Lots of really nice boutique shops.
I love it. I had such a good time the last time we came.
[01:07:04] Speaker B: You should had dinner with it.
[01:07:06] Speaker A: Had dinner with a couple of losers.
[01:07:09] Speaker B: Hey, Elena's. 7:00pm you heard it here first. Yeah, I'm notorious. Or the meat. The meat does what the meat does. That's the problem with smoking meat. And it's not really.
[01:07:20] Speaker A: Tell you later.
[01:07:24] Speaker B: Was that innuendo? The meat does what the meat does.
[01:07:28] Speaker A: Elena. Listen, babe, the meat does what the meat does, all right? It's gotta go with it.
[01:07:33] Speaker B: Sometimes I don't. I don't control the meat.
But yeah, it's.
You just. Sometimes it's like. It'll be like seven. I'm like, it's not ready yet. And then it'll be eight, and then it's like pushing nine o'. Clock. I'm like, look, it's just.
[01:07:46] Speaker A: I can stay the night. I mean, I don't have any commitments tomorrow.
[01:07:53] Speaker B: Elena had a question early on. We're about to get onto that soon. About cameras.
[01:07:56] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, photography. Sorry.
[01:07:58] Speaker B: We're gonna get.
[01:07:59] Speaker A: The body wants what the body wants.
[01:08:02] Speaker B: Rodney Nicholson.
[01:08:04] Speaker A: You go, girl.
[01:08:06] Speaker B: Your straps are amazing. I just love mine. Oh, yes, we should. Also, Pete made a cool video about his strap.
Yeah, good story. I'll actually link it. Link it in this show. Yeah, I'm gonna find a way to share it around. He made a great video just on a little adventure he was heading on.
But he was showing off his. His new wrist strap that he got from us, which is really a great video.
[01:08:31] Speaker A: Have a watch of it, guys. We'll drop it in the show notes in the comment, in the comments down below somewhere.
[01:08:36] Speaker B: Yeah, or if you just go to. If you just type in Pete mellows into YouTube. I'm just going to check what happens. Yeah, it just comes up. Just go to Pete's channel. Go and make sure you subscribe to his channel. So go to. Hang on, let me. Let me just. Yeah, I'll share it.
[01:08:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:08:53] Speaker B: So if you type in Pete mellows on YouTube, you'll see this.
This face.
[01:08:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:08:59] Speaker B: Then press over here.
That will subscribe you. And then watch this video has the strap me in thumbnail because he actually tells a good story about dropping his camera. So, yeah, not without.
[01:09:14] Speaker A: And. And subscribe and watch Pete's stuff. There's two reasons for that. One is that it's. It's really, really well done. He's got a very unique documentary style that, growing up in Australia as a kid, Justin's too young for this because he's Baby Face. Baby Face Castles.
Baby Face Castles doesn't remember this, but some of the older folk out there remember the Leyland Brothers.
They used to do these really nice, humble Australiana documentaries about exploring different things, you know, and stuff would go wrong there, you know, the old Holden or Ute or whatever would break down. And they were really. And Pete. Pete reminded me of the Leyland brothers from back in the day. So please go check it out.
And yeah, lovely, lovely discussion about.
And you can see from watching Pete's videos his passion for local environment. For he's in Tasmania and he just loves it. Like he just gets this energy in him. It's really.
[01:10:07] Speaker B: Watch.
[01:10:08] Speaker A: So I recommend everyone have a look at Pete's channel. But the other.
The other thing that we're going to do, we're going to. We're booking in a power show in the coming months ahead and Pete will be on that again. And we're going to talk to some of the local.
Sorry, some of the photographers in our community who have YouTube channels. And we want to talk about what does it take to start, run and sustain a YouTube channel these days? If you're a photographer, like, how much work is really involved? What did you do to get started? I'm going to cover up all of that.
I think that'll be really. Because all sort of thought of it at some stage. I think I even set up a YouTube channel, but I think I maybe didn't put any videos on it. I can't remember. It was a long time ago and I used to drink a lot, so.
Yeah, we will.
[01:10:52] Speaker B: That'll be fun.
Hey, Chat. Is Greg glitching for you guys or is it just me?
How's his audio? Let me know.
[01:10:59] Speaker A: I jump to 5G if I need to.
[01:11:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know. It must be something the kids on. On the gaming platforms. Yeah, Kids streaming school holidays. Hang on. New comments. Let me see. Yes, yes. Greg is glitching. Sorry. Anyway, Greg was saying we're a panel show of YouTubers.
YouTube photographers talking about what it's like.
Yeah, Glitchy glitch. Occasionally. Little glitchy. Greg is glitching. Okay.
[01:11:27] Speaker A: All right. All right.
[01:11:29] Speaker B: Robot Greg. Yeah.
[01:11:30] Speaker A: Okay, let me just jump to. I might drop out for a sec. I'm going to jump to my phone.
[01:11:36] Speaker B: All right. I'm going to go back and find Elena's question from earlier.
All right.
Frozen. He looks funny.
He's frozen. This is great.
Let's all make fun of Greg while he's gone.
[01:11:52] Speaker A: I'm back.
[01:11:53] Speaker B: You're back. Okay. Yelena says, how about talking about the fact that the Leica did not make me feel like a good photographer at Electric Wonderland? As expected, Jim's Nikon photos were significantly better.
All right, let's break this down.
Yelena is experimenting with the idea of getting a camera.
She obviously knows a bit about photography just from proximity, but osmosis. Osmosis, but. And she's. She's handled my cameras and taken some photos with my cameras before. But this was sort of, I guess, one of the first times where I was like, all right, we're going to go to this electric wonderland thing, which is a, like a night light up, what do you call it? Activity display type setup. So if you went on the show the other day, we were talking about. It's just like in the Bendigo, the main park in town, they set up all these activities and light up things for after dark. Big light up sculptures and animals and displays and lasers and all that kind of stuff.
Kind of like vivid Sydney, but small is what I said. And then I got in trouble.
And so I said to Elena, all right, well, you know, take this camera, take the Leica and just, you know, have a bit of fun.
I basically set it to aperture priority with manual shutter speed, but auto ISO and showed her how to use exposure compensation so that she could dial in the exposure that she was hoping to get and had it set to F1.7 to let as much light in. And then we sort of changed the shutter speed down to as low as about a 60th of a second, depending on what she was shooting, to let as much light in as possible.
Yelena says, pull up the Justin and Jim Instagram. Okay, I could do that.
And can I do that?
Sorry. Distracting from my story.
And she was cruising around, having a great time. But obviously then if you see Jim's images, he was shooting with a Z8 and a 51.2 lens, which is going to one let in even more light and also focus infinitely better in low light situations and tracking subjects.
Let me share this.
Here are some of Jim's photos from the night. I think these are gyms. Yeah, they're Jim's. No, that's not Jim's.
Here we go.
So he was able to. Yeah. Get focus on kids moving around. That's Haley and my nephew.
My nephew Nash wearing his.
[01:14:48] Speaker A: That's really cute.
[01:14:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I was wearing one of those hats too. I don't know if there's. I think Jim's got a photo of me somewhere wearing the bear hat. I'll have to track it down.
And basically Yelena's like, how come, you know, it was so much harder for me to get those sort of photos using the Leica. And there's a few things to it, obviously, which Bruce has alluded to here, having a Hammer doesn't mean you're good at hitting things without practice. I recommend hitting lots of things. And that's a good point. It's like Jim has been a professional photographer now for.
Well, he went to uni for photography.
[01:15:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:15:28] Speaker B: Like, so after he left school, he became a photographer and he worked and.
[01:15:31] Speaker A: Then learned his ropes in a media office, like in a newspaper.
[01:15:34] Speaker B: Seven years at full time at a newspaper, shooting anything like, hey, you got to go. He. He would have been sent to this event in the past to cover it, to get photos to go in the paper. That would have been his job and that he was doing that kind of work 10 years ago.
And then since then has run his own business as a photographer shooting again.
Like, it's. This is the stuff that he was shooting there is like every day at a wedding, low light, fairy lights, people moving around.
You know, like, that stuff happens all the time at a wedding. Shooting after dark kind of activities.
So insane amount of experience.
But then there's also. I think that issue of like the Leica with the 28 is.
I think Jim's photos with the Leica with the 28 wouldn't have been as good as Jim's photos with the Z8 and the 51.2 for this situation.
Does that make sense? Even in Jim's hands as an experienced photographer, shooting 28 mil versus 50 mil in those situations, I think is trickier.
[01:16:45] Speaker A: Yeah, you've got to be used to the focal distance.
[01:16:47] Speaker B: And a wider focal distance means you're bringing in more of the surroundings, which means you need to be more considered of your composition and particularly lighting. Because the problem with this. This thing that they let us into it was it was running late to let us in. And so instead of it being at Blue Hour, it was dark, completely dark. So it's basically like you're either using the lights or everything is black. Whereas if it was Blue Hour, you would have got some blue in the sky and you could. You could compose those wider shots with a 28 mil and have some interest in your photo.
[01:17:24] Speaker A: Whereas here you actually see what you're shooting too. Better.
[01:17:27] Speaker B: Well, yeah, and it'll.
Yeah, all that stuff. So.
So yes, I think Yelena is correct. We set her up to fail.
No, I just thought. I mean, I'm trying to figure out what sort of a camera she would enjoy to have, because she kind of wants a camera like the Fujifilm. Like the Fujifilm X half, but something that actually takes good photos.
She wants.
It probably is maybe something like the X100, but what I wanted to see is does she like the, that wider focal length? Does she, is she happy with a focal length that's fixed or does she want to be able to zoom, say from about 24 to 50 or 24 to 70? Does she want to be able to kind of, you know, go wide but also go, go close?
What about form factor? How small does she want it to be? All that stuff. I was trying to get a feel.
[01:18:23] Speaker A: There's a lot. And my advice, because I get asked a lot about what's the best first camera as part of my role, doing reviews and you know, recommending gear to people.
I, I say to people, you know, if, if you are going to start with a fixed, sorry, interchangeable or even a fixed lens camera, but let's say an interchangeable lens camera, then start with a 50 mil, you know, or start with a 35 and just shoot with that. Only, you know, because it, it doesn't, you know, to Bruce's point, you know, you, me and Jim and most of the people following along on us with us on the chat, we can put a 23 mil lens on an APC APS C camera and know roughly where we need to stand to get the composition we want. We can put a 50 mil on a full frame camera and know where to stand to get the composition we want. You know, because that just comes with practice and trial and error and doing it over and over and over again.
I always recommend to people, if you don't want the complexity of having to also worry about zoom, then go with a fixed lens or just start with like a 35 or a 50 mil.
[01:19:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:19:30] Speaker A: And nothing else.
[01:19:32] Speaker B: And you know what's interesting is, is we'll get to some comments in a second about this. So I appreciate everyone throwing their, their thoughts into the chat, but I think if anything phone photography actually brought people back towards the idea of fixed lens.
You know, like, because we were, everyone was so like zoom was. You just zoomed with all digital cameras and stuff, like consumer digital cameras. Yeah, everyone kind of like shooting with just a 50 was kind of a weird thing. When I started photography, I know it was normal in the earlier days shooting film, but when I started and I bought a Canon 60D it you did in a camera shop they didn't really say to get that, but on the Internet everyone was like, get, get a 50, get a, you know, like get a prime, you know, you'll love it, just get a cheap prime. But in a camera shop they're like, get a twin lens kit. You Know, zoom, zoom in and you can do everything with that.
But then the iPhone for so many years was just like, it took one photo, one focal length. You just, if you need to get closer, you walk closer. And it kind of got people used to that idea again of like, you know, now you can pinch and zoom on an iPhone or if you've got the triple cameras, you can select which one you want or whatever. But it was. Yeah, for a long time and it was at about 28mil. That was just what you shot with if you took a photo on your phone. Yeah, yeah. So, okay, so John Pickett says you don't take photos with a Leica. You take photos of a Leica. Gotta let people see that red dot.
It was too dark for anyone she was shooting with. It was actually funny because it was a photography. Like they invited all the photographers in town to this pre opening show or whatever and we're rocking around. I was like, yolanda, you've got the most expensive camera here. Just so you know.
Nick Fletcher says would be worth swapping cameras. Give Jim the Leica, bet the results are similar.
Do you mean similar as in Jim would struggle with the Leica or similar as in Jim would do well with the Leica, he would do well with whatever camera you slap into his hands.
And Nick also's fair call says fair call on the 51.2. The 51.2 is like in this situation, it's the lens, it helps you focus in on the subject, get massive amounts of bokeh, let tons of lighting on the camera and those Z8s focus in the dark, basically.
So yeah, Jay, shanny, my favorite 28 mil is a slightly unusual focal length for many people. For some, 35 or 50 is more natural. That could be it too.
LTKC says seems like more of just a point and shoot camera set up with the Leica. And it is, it's. I mean it's kind of a point and shoot sort of thing.
But she was controlling, she was in control of aperture and exposure compensation and stuff like that. So it was, yeah, it was more than just pressing buttons.
[01:22:45] Speaker A: But yeah, I think you threw her into the wrong experience to test a Leica or testing camera. Yeah, I think you did set her up to fail. But you know, I applaud her bravery.
[01:22:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean the, the thing was, it was a non. Like it was, it didn't matter if she came away with no photos. It wasn't like she was going there by herself to get photos, anything like that. It was like there was A few of us going, didn't matter. What she got was more of the experience of using that camera and what it was like. But, yeah, certainly shooting in the dark is not a good way to start. And Yelena says, ignorance is bliss.
Bruce.
I always get a 51 point. Always say to get a 51.8 because you can learn heaps with it. Zoom makes people lazy and not learn technique. Zoom is where you go after learning the basics. Yeah, for sure. And they're so cheap. And the quality of a 51.8 on almost every system is great enough to make professional work with.
[01:23:49] Speaker A: Obviously, it doesn't even have to be a 1.8. You can get a slower aperture. It really won't matter.
[01:23:54] Speaker B: No, but at one point, the cool thing about a 1.8 is you can get those results that you've seen other people do. Like, Jim's got that 51.2. If I was shooting next to him with a 51.8 and we compare the photos. Yeah, everyone's going to say the 1.2 looks better. But if you take them away from each other, you don't show people the 1.2. You just show them my photos on the 1.8. Everyone will still like those photos.
[01:24:19] Speaker A: Yeah, but we're not. We're not trying to teach Yelena how to create photos that people like. We're trying to teach Yelena how to operate a camera system, you know? Yeah. I'm just saying the 1.8 isn't. Isn't a necessary.
[01:24:32] Speaker B: But unless you learn depth of field in a lot, you can actually really see the depth of fields.
[01:24:37] Speaker A: You can learn depth of field on F2s and 2.8s.
[01:24:40] Speaker B: You can't learn depth of field on that X half that they made.
All you can learn is that everything is focused all the time. Now.
[01:24:47] Speaker A: You're just clutching at straws. Now you're just sounding pathetic.
[01:24:50] Speaker B: You know, hey, I don't want to hate on Fuji, but they get a lot of love on this podcast. So we've got to stick the knives in where we can. I saw an X half. This is very interesting to me. I've seen an X half on Facebook Marketplace for three weeks now at a discounted price. Brand, like, brand new. They're just like, just not for me, just getting rid of it. And that would have never happened with the X100 when it got released in any, any of the versions because it would be getting sold for probably more than new. And same with the GFX100RF. I. I think if the GFX100RF was on there. Unless it was like used too much or something like that, it would have sold very quickly to one of these people that's waiting for it.
[01:25:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:25:34] Speaker B: And the XR is just sitting there unsold.
[01:25:37] Speaker A: Yeah. It's an interesting problem.
[01:25:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And I know he's telling him it just doesn't have the same, I don't think it's got the same release success that the other that the X100 series and the new GFX100 have had.
[01:25:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:25:55] Speaker B: Do you think that's accurate?
[01:25:57] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I think you're spot on. I think that there's a real dilemma at the moment with the pricing of these products and it's only going to get worse because America has just dropped another tariff on Japan.
[01:26:09] Speaker B: 25. Yeah.
[01:26:12] Speaker A: So that's going to screw with all sorts of stuff. Cameras, gaming mostly my two favorite things.
[01:26:18] Speaker B: Well it shouldn't too much in Australia.
[01:26:20] Speaker A: Like it will but there will be fallout.
[01:26:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Because they amortize the, they're like okay, this is going to cost us this much in the US if we raise prices 5% worldwide that helps balance that out. You know that, that kind of. Right.
[01:26:34] Speaker A: So yeah, we don't burn one market, we just burn the whole world kind of thing.
[01:26:38] Speaker B: You know hinge the whole world. We don't burn one, we. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:26:43] Speaker A: You know but yeah it's just price bad lit but I mean there is a big gap in sub $1000 cameras too.
You know 1500 tops. There's a big gap. You know all the brands used to have point and shoots. They used to have, you know all of them Lumix, Canon had Ixis. Is it Canon Hadixis.
You know Sony had more power shots.
Everyone had these really capable point and shoots and they just, they've disappeared from the market because it's not worth them to. Not worth it for the brands make them.
[01:27:17] Speaker B: Canon had the S90s 100 and S110. I think that series that was quite popular.
Were they 1 inch sensors? I can't remember. They were pretty popular as the, the pocket camera of a pro photographer for a while and then Sony had the RX1 hundreds which are kind of level above but there hasn't been a new RX100.
Oh the RX1R.
[01:27:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:27:42] Speaker B: No but you know the RX100.
[01:27:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's up to number seven but that hasn't changed for six or seven years.
[01:27:48] Speaker B: Yeah, crazy.
[01:27:50] Speaker A: I, I just think the bottom has fallen out of the the, you know, they're trying to flog bigger cameras to people. They're trying to inspire people to, to. Because if you remove anything that's $1,500, what's the next option? We'll have to save longer and buy a two to $3,000 camera.
[01:28:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
[01:28:05] Speaker A: The brands win.
I'm not saying they're being deceitful about it because I'm sure it costs them a shitload of money to make a camera and you know it's, it's got, they've got to get their money back. They've got to make everyone happy at the other end of the, the consumer experience. So.
But yeah, that, that the X half is just way overpriced for what it's, even for the experience of it. It's just not, it's that and it's.
[01:28:32] Speaker B: It'S not the image quality doesn't match up to I think the sell at the price and also the, the pitch, you know, like hey, become a photographer I guess experience film and stuff like that.
Yeah, I just, just slightly missed the mark I think on that.
Yeah.
[01:28:55] Speaker A: What about one of those new, new Canon influencer cameras we've been talking. We saw them at the, what was it, The Camera House 40th birthday celebration.
[01:29:05] Speaker B: The V1. I'm trying to get my hands on.
[01:29:07] Speaker A: One as you get one of those for your later and then technically you've got one in the house.
[01:29:11] Speaker B: I think people have said it's not a great photography camera. It doesn't have an EVF I don't think does it?
[01:29:17] Speaker A: Oh no, that's different then.
[01:29:20] Speaker B: But there's rumors that there might be a photo more photography oriented version of the V1 coming in the Canon rumor site. Let me see.
New G series power shot is coming which you know, because Canon always had the G7X and all those kind of things.
Yeah. And basically because I've just discontinued all.
[01:29:49] Speaker A: Of those, haven't they?
[01:29:50] Speaker B: That's right. So yeah, that's the, the rumor is that maybe before the end of 2025 we will see a more photography focused version of the V1, basically which I think that would be a great, that'd be a great camera if it still had some video features, you know, just standard 4K recording, just did normal, you know, nothing fancy but a bit more photography focused with an evf.
Maybe a nicer feel about how you control the camera for photography. Yeah, I think that would be a.
[01:30:25] Speaker A: Really cool thing and Sorry folks.
[01:30:28] Speaker B: Okay, you know, we'll keep this between us. And the few people watching maybe listening, but I'm even working on, like, a smaller connection system for those cameras. This is some prototype webbing that we've had made and sent to me yesterday. It arrived.
So because they have very small strap lugs on them, but they don't have the ability to put like, they. I mean, you can, but they don't come with, like, triangle rings. It's sort of odd the way that they've done it.
Can put triangle rings on them to fit our larger straps, but anyway, so I'm trying to figure out if we can make something that fits these new.
[01:31:13] Speaker A: Exciting.
[01:31:14] Speaker B: Yeah. See what we can do.
[01:31:17] Speaker A: A couple of comments here from JS Hanny. Let me just bring it up.
[01:31:22] Speaker B: Got it.
[01:31:22] Speaker A: There's a huge disconnect between consumer expectation, manufacturing costs.
If I look at the new omn5 2. New it. The 2 or the 3 at the moment, om52, they've done a pretty good job to keep the price the same as the old OM51.
But to do so, they've had to reuse the old sensor and evf. And that's drawing some criticism. Yeah, it has.
[01:31:43] Speaker B: It doesn't have a cool desert colorway though, is it Cool?
[01:31:48] Speaker A: But building a sub $1,000 camera means building a fundamentally compromised device that buyers will inevitably find fault with.
And that's something that we're seeing more and more. It doesn't matter how superior the technology is in brand new cameras. Everyone finds fault in something and those faults then become viral, and it sways people's opinions. But really, at the end of the day, it's still a phenomenal piece of technology, you know, and just because a couple of YouTube influences go, oh, yeah, but it does this or That's. It's only 7. It's really only 7.5 instead of 8. Stop. Survivors. And, you know, and people latch to that negativity. It's really frustrating to see sometimes.
[01:32:26] Speaker B: Yeah. But also. Yeah, it's, It's. That's it. Like for. For under a thousand dollars, it's.
It's gonna be tricky. It is also interesting, though, because you think about it as well as all. All the sorts of things that you can buy for under a thousand dollars in technology. And it's like, well, I mean, you can do a lot with.
With that. But maybe it's economy of scale. Maybe they're much, you know, Robovax, for example, maybe they're selling. If they're selling 10 times as many or 20 or 100 times as many, you can. You can do Quite advanced things for under 100, under a thousand dollars price point.
[01:33:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:33:03] Speaker B: But if you think about all the moving parts and technology that goes into. And the. The app, you know, there's those freaking Robovacs that are on sale for Amazon Prime.
You know, they scan your whole house with lidar or something and it's insane. The tech is pretty advanced.
[01:33:20] Speaker A: Just a word to the from the wise. If you have a Robovac and a pet who happens to poo in the house every now and then. Yeah, that's not gonna. That's never gonna end well.
[01:33:30] Speaker B: Never just gonna smear it around.
[01:33:33] Speaker A: Yeah. It just paints the house because it just keeps. It keeps thinking that it's got to clean it up and then it goes back over it with the same. Literally, there's videos on it. Watch it.
[01:33:43] Speaker B: Oh, dear.
[01:33:44] Speaker A: Don't Google it at work, though.
[01:33:46] Speaker B: Can you hold down the fort for one second just while I check my lamb is still actually cooking?
[01:33:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, go for it. Can you take some photos for us?
[01:33:55] Speaker B: Yeah, how would I. Oh, did you live stream it? Yeah, I was like, can I add myself to this?
Can I add something?
[01:34:02] Speaker A: Why not?
[01:34:03] Speaker B: Let me see what I can do.
[01:34:05] Speaker A: Let me just read some comments while Justin's working out that so from John Pickett.
John, thanks for joining us again. It's a difficult sell at that level when people already have a phone camera. The tech that differentiates a phone to a camera means the camera will cost 1500 plus, at least.
Yeah, it is interesting. And that's still something that camera brands don't seem to be able to master, like how to convert people from their smartphones to their.
To a, you know, a digital camera. And that's where that whole sub $1,000 camera range came into its.
Into its own. Because people could see the benefit at a cheaper price than what, you know, Fujis or Canons or whatever are currently costing. They could see an opportunity to actually get into photography with something that meant that they didn't have to be distracted by their phone by taking a photo and having notifications pop up and, you know, all sorts of stuff going on.
But that market is just empty. And even sub 500. There used to be some cracking cameras. Sub 500. But they're all. They've all disappeared. And now you, you know, you buy them at 50 bucks and they're all crap and they last for one shoot and then they die or there's something terribly wrong with the sensor or. Anyway, I'm rambling a little bit, but just while Justin has stepped out of the room to.
To hopefully join us and show us his meat.
Wow, that came out so wrong.
Just a reminder that this is the Camera Life podcast brought to you by Lucky straps. Head to Luckystraps.com for a leather camera strap of your choosing. And you can customize them, you can add embossing, you can fill in the embossing with color foil and it's all heat press, so it's there forever.
But yeah, make sure you head to Luckystraps.com use code Greg for a 15 discount and. And yeah, we'll get a strap out to you anywhere in the world. Oh, here's Justin. Let's add him to the stage.
Oh, g', day, mate. Hang on. How do I make you just press.
[01:36:08] Speaker B: The buttons down the bottom. One of them will work. Try another one.
Try another one.
[01:36:12] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I like that one.
[01:36:14] Speaker B: Now there's one that makes you. Yeah, now just drag me where you are.
There we go. Hey, look at.
[01:36:20] Speaker A: He did it, folks.
[01:36:21] Speaker B: Hang on.
[01:36:22] Speaker A: How do I turn myself around? Oh, no.
[01:36:25] Speaker B: There we go.
[01:36:26] Speaker A: Okay, so how many barbecues have you got, Justin? Let's just get a little quick scan.
[01:36:31] Speaker B: It's not important.
It's not.
It's not important. Don't worry about that. There's more. It's just not out here. Can you see?
Yeah, yeah. This won't look good because they're only. Oh, they're looking all right.
[01:36:47] Speaker A: Oh, look at that.
[01:36:51] Speaker B: So look at. We're getting there. Just need to check, make sure our temp been on for three hours.
[01:36:57] Speaker A: And six kids.
[01:37:00] Speaker B: And six kids. There's not that much land. Oh, lucky.
That's the charcoal. So gravity feeds charcoal and, and wood.
So hang on. I can do this. Just gonna have to pop you down for a second while I put some more stuff in there. Yeah, let's put you guys there.
[01:37:20] Speaker A: Nice.
I think everyone's really looking forward to seeing your meat.
[01:37:27] Speaker B: That's disgusting, Greg.
[01:37:30] Speaker A: So what sort of. What sort of fuel are you putting in there?
Get to see how much of a nerd you really are.
[01:37:38] Speaker B: Lump charcoal.
[01:37:44] Speaker A: I can't believe you've got a gravity fed smoker.
That's impressive, Justin. Meat man.
[01:38:03] Speaker B: That's what we do.
[01:38:04] Speaker A: That's an impressive barbecue. Gotta say, it's pretty cool.
[01:38:07] Speaker B: It's pretty cool. It's got a rotisserie attachment. I can do rotisserie chicken and stuff in there.
It's. It's pretty fun.
[01:38:15] Speaker A: Yeah. I gotta say, you're the man with my.
[01:38:19] Speaker B: My meat smoking equipment.
[01:38:20] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really impressive.
[01:38:22] Speaker B: The Weber flat griddle I love this thing. Makes me feel like I'm in a diner.
[01:38:27] Speaker A: We've got to change this, this podcast to Meat Fest or something that'll get the views.
[01:38:34] Speaker B: Cameras and meat.
[01:38:36] Speaker A: Cameras and meat.
Wow.
[01:38:39] Speaker B: I don't know what's going to happen here, so I'm going back in. Oh, I'm switching off.
[01:38:45] Speaker A: All right.
[01:38:54] Speaker B: How many live viewers did we lose there?
[01:38:57] Speaker A: 2. Does the smoker have a red dot? It did one of them.
[01:39:01] Speaker B: Like a smoker cost 15 grand.
It does less than your average smoker, but it's about the feel and the 3D Pop. The micro contrast.
[01:39:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
Oh, Johnson wants to know.
[01:39:20] Speaker B: Does the barbecue fit in the van for beef Up? Look, as much as I would love to, I think cooking for a large group of people would be stressful. And what happens if I give someone food poisoning? But yeah, that would be fun. Although the. The meat people that were there last year were pretty good.
Yeah. So I'll be hanging out near them.
[01:39:41] Speaker A: Yep.
Okay.
Well, what else? What is it?
What else have we got? Did you want to Talk about the OM3 quickly for Monday night?
[01:39:54] Speaker B: Well, yeah, maybe we should do that on Monday night. Actually, I don't know if we've got anyone coming on on Monday.
[01:40:00] Speaker A: No, it's just us.
[01:40:02] Speaker B: Rodney says this is your life. Just like Justin.
[01:40:05] Speaker A: It is just a day in the life of Justin Castles. Adorable. Idiot.
[01:40:12] Speaker B: You want to see some other secret camera strap stuff?
[01:40:16] Speaker A: Yes, please.
[01:40:17] Speaker B: Got a few more rolls of this.
This non leather biothane webbing. Yeah. You've got a little sample one, don't you?
[01:40:25] Speaker A: I do. I don't know where I put it. I think I threw it out.
[01:40:28] Speaker B: Like it's the closest thing to the feel of leather that I've found that's actually strong.
And no, it's not vegan leather. It's.
It's called biothane. It's made in the usa. It's actually very cool. Looking at making some thin straps out of it some more, I guess Fujifilm or Leica oriented straps.
Just playing around. Playing around with stuff.
[01:40:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I'd still like a thin leather strap for Fujifilm.
[01:41:00] Speaker B: That's coming too.
[01:41:00] Speaker A: And I know that's on the cards, so I won't answer you about that anymore. I've already said my piece. I wrote a very long letter.
[01:41:08] Speaker B: Stern letter to the boss.
[01:41:11] Speaker A: Dear Mr. Castles, you know how much I love your products and brand. In fact, I work for you. But.
[01:41:18] Speaker B: But I want a customer strap.
[01:41:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I do.
Cheeky.
[01:41:27] Speaker B: You. Are you taking any photos at the moment? I know, we talked about. You took some with the OM3, but you got anything?
[01:41:35] Speaker A: I don't. I don't. I've been busy.
You guys might have heard some drilling and banging in the background before. We're currently in the middle of updating our house and I just haven't had time for much at all.
In between podcasts and writing reviews and testing gear, I've got a bunch of trades people in the house. So Sasha and I are kind of sharing the project management of that. So it's.
It's a lot, to be fair. It's a lot. And one of the interesting things I find about this whole process is I have a sense of urgency. There it is now. And Sash has a sense of urgency. But no, tradespeople have the same sense of urgency as us. Their priorities are very different.
And yeah, so it's a long. Anyone that's renovated will know it's a long, slow, drawn out process.
So everything takes twice as long.
[01:42:27] Speaker B: Does winter also slow down your photography? Yeah, normally. In other years. Yeah. Okay.
[01:42:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:42:33] Speaker B: Because. Because you're a street photographer. Is it just because it's less hospitable out on the streets? It's. It's colder. You need to rug.
[01:42:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And as I get older, it gets harder to get out. Like getting out of bed. This morning I was like, I said to Sash, she was up getting ready and I was lying in bed with. And the dog was under the duna with me and we were very toasty. I don't want to get up.
You got a podcast. I don't want to do the podcast.
[01:42:54] Speaker B: Oh, man. Imagine if you'd. If you'd been like, all right, I'm just staying in bed too.
No guest, no Greg. A solo show.
[01:43:02] Speaker A: I'd still do it. I just wouldn't leave the room, wouldn't leave bed. I just. You just see me peeking through the covers.
[01:43:08] Speaker B: I don't think anyone would care. I don't think the chat would know.
[01:43:11] Speaker A: I don't think they notice any difference from my usual effort.
[01:43:13] Speaker B: Oh, I like this.
Oi. Some of us tradies have some urgency.
[01:43:18] Speaker A: I didn't say you didn't have urgency. I just said your sense of urgency is different to ours. Ours is an expediated sense of urgency because we, you know, we're a household of eight people now. We've just inherited another one somehow.
And, you know, it's a busy household. And so having extra people in the house is stressful. And having extra and having rooms that were usually kind of free flowing and open. Filled with stuff because we've had to move stuff to make room for stuff to happen. It's. It's a lot, you know, it is a lot. So I'm not, certainly not criticizing tradies. I just said their. Their sense of urgency is very different to our else.
[01:43:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
And also they're. They're probably juggling how many jobs currently and all that sort of stuff and.
[01:43:59] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. It's all understandable. It's just, you know, you get in your head that I want to get this kitchen done, want to get it updated and then we can enjoy it. It's like, just can't wait to enjoy it.
[01:44:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:44:09] Speaker A: Everything's kind of. People don't reply to your emails, people don't get back to you. It's. Anyway, we're not talking about photography anymore, so the short answer is no, I haven't.
Lots of life priorities and the weather hasn't been terribly good around here lately.
What about you?
Anything on or have done or coming up, apart from teaching Elena how to shoot?
[01:44:30] Speaker B: Yeah, shot a lot last week and so I've got. Our New Zealand trip is coming up and I'm not sure what role photography is going to play in that because that at the moment is purely a.
A holiday, I guess you would call it. Like, it's just a trip. It's not. There's no photography work or anything involved. So everything from, like, what gear to take and how much time to dedicate to photography over there is. Is all completely optional.
[01:44:59] Speaker A: Do you think maybe it'd do you good to not take a camera and then come back?
You can't do it, can you?
[01:45:05] Speaker B: To New Zealand to go house.
[01:45:08] Speaker A: That's the challenge. Could you do it?
[01:45:10] Speaker B: Nah. I mean, I absolutely could do it. I just. I don't think I would enjoy it as much as. Yeah, I. Because I. I haven't.
Normally, if I go to New Zealand, it's like, it's a lot of snowboarding. Whereas this time, because Yelena's injured, once she joins me, there's no snowboarding for a couple of weeks and we're just traveling around and I'm like, that's the perfect opportunity to actually do. I've never done, like a lot of photography in that kind of situation. It's either been photography for a client or it's been just as I'm doing other activities.
Whereas this could be. We could actually go on a hike to take a photo somewhere or whatever. You know, like, we could go to locations specifically because they're a Nice cool spot that we want to explore and take some photos.
[01:46:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:46:04] Speaker B: So it's just. Yeah. Matter of equipment.
[01:46:07] Speaker A: What would you take then?
[01:46:11] Speaker B: Yeah, this is Bruce. That's what I've been thinking. Bruce is like, New Zealand is the best for casual landscape photography.
I think I would take.
I'm not sure if I'll take a film camera or not. That's. That's the thing that's up in the air because that's. That's like a fair bit of extra weight and stuff. But it's also. Could be really fun.
I mean, if there had been a possibility to get an infrared converted camera before then that might have been the push that I needed to get it happening. But it can't be done. Their wait's too long. So I didn't even ask.
The way that she was talking, I was like, I don't want to put that pressure on. So it's just not an option. But I feel like that would have been really fun landscape wise.
But I think the R5 with my new selection of lightweight lenses is probably what I would go. So like 20 mil and the 50 mil 1.4 primes. And then yeah, potentially the. The 28 to 70 zoom maybe.
Yeah, I think, I think I would keep it pretty lean on that side of things. Maybe take the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 to try and make a few videos. POV, shooting videos or something. If I feel the. I don't think I'll put pressure on myself, but if I feel the desire to film a video and other than that, I don't know.
I don't know would be optional on a film camera. And then whether or not I. Something for Yelena to shoot with. Maybe we can get our hands on one of Those canons, the V1 or something to test for while we're over there. I should chat to them about that.
[01:47:56] Speaker A: It wouldn't hurt. I mean, and if you've got it, then you can, you know, you can, you can test it too and you can review it.
But.
So you don't think that the. Like when you went over to the States and you just took the Leica, you don't think that that's for you anymore?
[01:48:14] Speaker B: Not on this trip and. And possibly not on other trips too. I enjoyed that process. I also did that in Japan. I took just on a snowboard trip. I took just the Leica in Japan and it was fun, but it's. It was so limited for casual. Like I took it out a couple of days snowboarding and actually, you know what? I Haven't looked through those photos much. Let me see Japan.
Geez, listen to him go.
[01:48:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Sorry guys.
[01:48:55] Speaker B: It's okay.
Here we go.
Like a.
You know what, let's just. We got time.
You guys are here with us. Let's have a quick look at these photos that I took in Japan with the Q3.
These are unedited JPEGs. I do have the raws and I am going to edit them at some stage, but I just kind of never got around to it.
[01:49:21] Speaker A: Let's go.
[01:49:25] Speaker B: Because I. In my head I didn't get a lot from that trip and it was mainly a snowboard trip. But I thought the Leica would be great for documenting the.
Just the journey.
It's just a bit of a fun trip. And I think I didn't get what I wanted because of the limitations of the Q3, particularly with autofocus.
For when I did take it out on the snow, it just felt like it struggled so much that I. That it wasn't worth it that I missed the shots.
So these are. This is just the sort of stuff that I shot while I was over there. Just general swanning around like that's people waiting for the buses at Yuzawa where we went first and really just getting in the zone. This is. And this is literally I haven't been through these, so I'm not going to go through every shot. But this is every shot I took. So if you're wondering why there's a lot of average stuff in here.
So this is. If we're out on the snow. This is the sort of stuff that I was getting.
That's my friend us waiting for the bus.
These cable ropeways in Japan are crazy. Have you ever seen any of this stuff? Like obviously this is just kind of like a normal ski lift, but like it's a. It's like a 40 person ropeway just to get you up to where the mountain starts. Because they road or anything like. So this isn't a ski lift. This is just to take you from.
From the road to where up here where the base of the. The kind of ski area is. And they're just massive. Like. Yeah, you would easily fit 40 people in that.
[01:51:11] Speaker A: That's crazy.
[01:51:13] Speaker B: So big, you know, it's very cool.
And this. Their signs are all just the greatest colors ever.
[01:51:18] Speaker A: Oh, Japanese signage.
[01:51:20] Speaker B: Yeah. How good is it?
[01:51:21] Speaker A: I could make a photo book just on that.
[01:51:23] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[01:51:25] Speaker A: Actually there was a. Someone put out a photo book a few years ago and it was all about Japanese taxis. Because every Japanese taxi is owned by like a, you know, like a company.
And they all had their own unique emblem, you know, like logo for the brand. Okay. And every Japanese company will car will either have it in the window like as a lit up LED sign or on the roof like a little bubble or on the.
Even on the hood sometimes. And someone did a photo book of Japanese taxis just documenting all these amazing little company logos as they appeared on the car. Cars just that like. And it was really compelling.
[01:52:02] Speaker B: That's very cool.
[01:52:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
That door just looks cold and miserable, Justin.
[01:52:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, us eating whatever it was, you know that there's hot coals in these little pots and they put the grill over the top. We're looking for somewhere to eat. We couldn't find anywhere. Everywhere's booked out. And then we wedged ourselves into this place and it was the best.
That's a foot on.
[01:52:24] Speaker A: One of the best places I found in Japan were just little holes in the wall that obviously locals knew.
[01:52:29] Speaker B: Have you ever seen these before? Foot on since?
[01:52:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep.
[01:52:33] Speaker B: Yeah. So they're just. Everyone's just chilling, take their ski boots off or whatever and just got their feet in the foot onsen defrost.
So it was. That's me. So Matt. I gave Matt the Leica and yeah, again, it's like, you know, he should have taken the photo when I was up. But shooting with. If I'd given him a Canon, he would have got 15 frames of that.
You know, it's a different thing, but trying to get some action like these. I missed most of those.
This is Matt taking his shirt off because it was hot. What a goose.
But yeah, got some of our scenic photos. Beautiful views.
Beautiful.
[01:53:18] Speaker A: Look at that. That background is just majestic.
[01:53:21] Speaker B: It's crazy. It's such a beautiful country.
Are we going to go there this year?
[01:53:27] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. Why not?
[01:53:28] Speaker B: Are you serious?
[01:53:30] Speaker A: I'd like to.
I don't know how. How I'll go with my getting my. My pain medication into Japan, but we'll.
[01:53:38] Speaker B: We'll worry about that later. Do they have laws on that kind of stuff?
Dang it.
[01:53:42] Speaker A: Yeah, they don't do THC and CBD products, so.
[01:53:46] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[01:53:47] Speaker A: Anyway, Sasha's keen to go too. So we're.
We're just kind of toying with how do we do it.
[01:53:55] Speaker B: CP plus is like first weekend of March.
[01:53:59] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Well, it gives us some time to think and plan, doesn't it?
[01:54:03] Speaker B: I would definitely like to do a bit of a snowboard slash.cp/tokyo street photography.
[01:54:11] Speaker A: The more you and Yelena and Jim are off Snowboarding. Then Sasha and I can do our own thing. We want to go.
And a whole bunch of other stuff.
[01:54:21] Speaker B: Yeah. I think we could definitely figure out a bit of a. Yeah. Trip.
[01:54:25] Speaker A: We want to go anyway. And you guys want to go. And if we can wrap it up into a lucky straps field trip, then, you know, we could do it. We could do a podcast from Japan. Like.
[01:54:34] Speaker B: Oh, imagine.
[01:54:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:54:36] Speaker B: From a tiny little food place.
[01:54:38] Speaker A: Little is a car. Yep.
[01:54:41] Speaker B: So what's insane is the Q3. I can crop in on this photo so close, and it's got epic resolution.
Very tricky to shoot action with. Just. It really was tricky. It's probably one of the only decent shots I got.
These are some people that we had lunch with.
[01:55:02] Speaker A: Beer.
[01:55:02] Speaker B: But yeah. So I probably got more of what I thought of the kind of the behind the scenes lifestyle stuff. This is one of the best parts. At the bottom there was like a craft. Where was it? Yeah, this place.
Craft beer? No, not a brewery. Just like a little food shop that was selling craft beer. There's not a lot of craft beer around.
[01:55:21] Speaker A: And I remember seeing those. I was in one year, I was in Tokyo in the summer, and it was brutally hot and brutally humid.
Like, it was breaking records for them kind of thing. And I remember going into a park and there were kids playing everywhere, and they had strung up all these demisters by trying to cool people down. And then there was just this little shack in the middle of the park, and all they sold was beer and crushed ice with flavor on top.
[01:55:45] Speaker B: Oh, that's cool.
[01:55:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Snow cones. Yeah, yeah. And. And be not craft beer, but just, you know, Japanese beer.
[01:55:52] Speaker B: But Japanese beer. Yeah.
[01:55:54] Speaker A: You know, everyone was just in the park. Kids were having a snow cone. All the parents just sitting around having a beer. Like, it was so delightful, so relaxed.
[01:56:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's what this is. So we got. We bought these beers and they were like, you want some chairs? Because the sun, as you can see here, like, the sun's coming straight at where we were sitting. It was warm. There was no wind.
The sun's still above the crest of the mountain.
So it was like you just sit there and just enjoy a beer at the end of the day.
[01:56:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that's cool.
[01:56:24] Speaker B: And the reflection.
These are the window reflections of the building. So the building is still catching some sun because the sun is just going down over here and the window reflections are just perfectly on the. On the snow. It was. Yeah, it was quite fun.
[01:56:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:56:42] Speaker B: Kids just chilling.
But yeah, it was just kind of a document things trip the hotel that we stayed in joined some other people for a bit of a snowboard tour.
[01:57:00] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:57:01] Speaker B: There's no shots of people's wangs or anything in this. I can't remember how crazy. We got plants, pool, sneaky shot.
This is how we spent a lot of our nights because the hotel bar didn't open till 7 and you finished, you know, you finished Snowboarding at like 4. And then everyone wants to have a beer after they snowboard. So it ended up being just these hallway parties. It was, it was great.
So I didn't take that shot. Someone did. Who did anyway, because that's me out of focus. And that's the other problem with the Leica, you know.
[01:57:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:57:44] Speaker B: You know, you hand it to someone to grab a photo and it's not. This is not that easy.
This was one of our guides, Kai. Very, very cool, dude.
So I just think that I would have probably got better stuff. How cool is that?
[01:58:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:58:03] Speaker B: With.
With my Canon gear. As much as I really enjoyed what we did.
[01:58:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:58:09] Speaker B: With the Q3.
[01:58:11] Speaker A: So let's say you take the R5 with you to New Zealand. What lenses will you take?
[01:58:16] Speaker B: I would take seeing if there's anything else that we missed when we finally got some snow. So food trucks in Niseko, this is where having like primes and stuff like that really came into their own to let light in. But that's what most of Japan. Ah, that's what I wanted to find for you, Greg. There was this. At this food truck. So this.
Which one? This food truck here, the gyoza one.
There was this mouse living under it that had built a tunnel system here and here and here.
And it would just, it would just like wait for its moment and then you would see it like pop out of a tunnel, grab a gyoza that someone had dropped and then like run into another tunnel without stopping. And it just, it had built like a network in the snow. It was amazing.
Yeah, it was very cool.
Anyway, that's about it.
But yeah, so R5 Mark II. I would take the 20 mil and the 50 mil primes and they're probably one zoom. And the only thing that makes me slightly concerned with that is like, should I be taking a long time telephoto lens.
Then it just starts becoming more to lug. But on the other hand, we are, we are in a, in a camper. So it's like, yeah, it can just sit in the camper if I don't have it in the bag.
[01:59:53] Speaker A: I mean, if you, if you're happy to have it and lug it, you know, with the, the airport in queues, waiting for a bus, all that stuff, then that's fine, you know. Yeah, I mean.
[02:00:08] Speaker B: It'S all kind of what you want to get out of it.
[02:00:11] Speaker A: Pretty lucky to be able to go to New Zealand. You know, there's so much bullshit going on in other parts of the world. We're lucky that we have these places that are still safe and pristine.
[02:00:21] Speaker B: Bruce, don't do this to me.
[02:00:24] Speaker A: Bruce.
[02:00:25] Speaker B: Bruce says, I'm a big fan of the 100 to 400 New Zealand. 400 is what I use constantly in New Zealand. I have had on my shopping list for, for a long time the Canon 100 to 500 RF and I haven't bought it because I haven't had a specific use for it.
It's just something that I've always wanted. I've shot with it before, I've tested it. I know it's a great lens, but I haven't had like a particular sports job or anything like that where I'm like, this would be this. There's times when I could have used it, but I haven't had something that was coming up that I was like, oh, I really should buy that.
I. And I'm not sure like, would I use it in New Zealand? Would a 70 to 200 be enough?
Should I borrow Grant 70 to 200 F4 and just leave him with my 2.8 if he'll let me.
And just because it's half the weight. Therefore.
[02:01:21] Speaker A: What about the 7200 with a teleconverter?
[02:01:26] Speaker B: Canon doesn't do.
[02:01:28] Speaker A: Ah.
[02:01:29] Speaker B: Canon doesn't do teleconverter compatibility on their 70 to 200 because of how compact it is. The rear element would hit the teleconverter as you zoom. They've really made it compact.
[02:01:41] Speaker A: Yeah. But yeah, it's compromising it.
[02:01:45] Speaker B: So Bruce, do you. Bruce, are you saying that I should buy the 100 to 500 prior to my New Zealand trip or. Oh yeah, 70. 70. 70 to 400 F4. 7200 F4 would be fine for landscapes.
100 to 400. This is from our friend Jay Shannon. JS Jason. 100 to 400 is a photography centric trip in my opinion. I'd waste far too much time on family travel trip if I took the full kit. Yeah, yeah.
So.
[02:02:25] Speaker A: Competing, competing advice.
[02:02:27] Speaker B: There is competing advice.
[02:02:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
Hey, I, I had to cut the party short but our electrician has to turn the power off.
[02:02:36] Speaker B: Well that could cause a problem for.
[02:02:38] Speaker A: The podcast it might not last long after that.
[02:02:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, so Bruce is still recommending 400 for the length of.
Okay, what does this podcast do to me? It's the most expensive podcast to host in the world.
No, podcast cost the host more than this one cost me.
Thank you, everybody, for your help.
[02:03:03] Speaker A: Thank you.
[02:03:03] Speaker B: You're all wonderful. And seriously, though, thanks for hanging out with us this morning. Sorry we didn't have a guest. Hopefully poor James Day's feeling better and we'll get him back on at some point. States to talk, everything, wedding photography, but otherwise, you guys were awesome.
[02:03:20] Speaker A: Yeah, we really appreciate it. We appreciate you.
[02:03:23] Speaker B: Bruce says you can come on Monday. Convince me. Can you actually come on Monday? Bruce, do you have any shots from New Zealand that you could come on Monday and show us? Do we have anyone on Monday?
[02:03:32] Speaker A: No, no. Monday's free, I think. Hang on, let me just check.
Monday, which will be the 14th of July. No, we're guest free.
[02:03:48] Speaker B: Guest free. You know what I should do now? We'll see. We'll definitely see if you can. Come on. Bruce, if you want to come on Monday and show us some of your New Zealand photos With the 100 to 400, try and convince me if I should buy one. That would be amazing.
And then I should also see if, like, Levin or someone's around. We could just talk New Zealand photography, maybe.
But if not, anything. Bruce, we'd love it. That'd be amazing.
[02:04:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[02:04:15] Speaker B: All right, ltk, we'll have to get to this on another show. We'll chat about it. We'll chat about your project. Thanks, Philip. You're a legend, Bruce. You're a legend.
David Mascara, you're also a legend. This is the first comment for you today. Look up, there's Gray. New Zealand. He's traded. Traded the world. Traveled the world with one camera, one lens. Great stuff. I'll write it down. There's Gray, and we'll get him on.
Amazing.
[02:04:44] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, everybody, look, we do have to wrap. I'm terribly sorry, but, you know, without electricity, there's no podcast.
But this has been the Camera Life podcast. And if you're new to the channel, if you're new to watching us today, please make sure you give us a like. It helps out with the algorithms.
Subscribe. Tickle the bell so you get notified of what's coming up. We do two shows every week.
We have a Thursday morning show, 9am Australian Eastern Standard Time. Typically, we have a guest, but our guest fell ill last minute, so that's why we've just been rambling nonsense today but important nonsense nonetheless.
And then we also have a Monday evening show which is the Camera Life random photography show where more like what you experienced today.
We talk about current topics, news, reviews, all that sort of stuff that's going on in our industry.
Then that's at 7:30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time. Make sure you like and subscribe. And probably brought to you by Lucky straps. Head to Luckystraps.com use code Greg get enough love.
[02:05:47] Speaker B: Use code Justin, Jim or Greg, whoever you like the most to get 15% off. If you do need a nice new leather camera strap, we can even personalize them. Do whatever you want.
And with that we better get Greg going. Even though our friend Jay Shannon, J.S. hanny, Jason Hannigan says I'm a sparky, I'd find a way to keep you rolling, Greg.
And with that, Rodney Nicholson says thumbs up. Ian Thompson says, have a good day guys. Have a good day, Ian.
[02:06:12] Speaker A: And thanks everybody.
[02:06:13] Speaker B: Thanks everyone for joining us.
[02:06:16] Speaker A: Bye.