Talking GAS with Denis Smith (EP203)

[00:00:25] Speaker A: Well, g' day everybody and welcome back to the Camera Live podcast. It is Monday 27th July, 2026, and this is our random photography show. And of course, being a Monday evening, we're here to talk about all the latest industry news. We've got some product launches, we're gonna look at your images, but more importantly, we're gonna talk about GAS and who better? Who better than probably the, you know, the author of the GAS bible, Dennis Smith. G', Day, brother. How are you? [00:00:56] Speaker B: I'm really good, man. It's been a wild, wild day, but I am great. I am not Justin. He is, he is doing lines and tigers and stuff, but not doing. [00:01:08] Speaker A: But he's with them. [00:01:09] Speaker B: Well, you know, he. I'm super, super stoked to be here for sure. [00:01:16] Speaker A: Nice. Yeah, very good to have you here. I was so pleased when you agreed to jump on tonight. And then of course you've had a huge day and, and barely got in by the skin of your teeth. But. But we'll get an update from you shortly. For everyone watching, G'. Day. Welcome. We've got a lot to get through tonight. By God, you people have been taking some photos. It's just. It's prolific is my favorite word of the week. It's prolific. There's a lot, it's great. People are out and about with their camera. There's lots to see, lots to do in the photography world. You just got to look for it. But of course we, yeah, we've got a bit to cover. But before we do, let's do an ad read. Do you want to do it, Dan? [00:01:59] Speaker B: I would love to. Here we go. The show tonight is brought to you by Lucky camera Straps. Comfortable leather camera straps with a modern quick release system that doesn't leave any dongles on the camera. Anti theft features including a safety lock and cut resistant webbing. Our camera straps will keep your gear saf and ready to capture the shot when you don't have a second chance. And personally, I can assure you you will never look cooler than when you're wearing a lucky camera strap. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Oh, I got chills. [00:02:38] Speaker B: Oh, man, I should record that. And you guys can use it. Yeah, we should. [00:02:41] Speaker A: Well, we are recording it, so. [00:02:43] Speaker B: Oh, you are? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh dear. [00:02:49] Speaker A: Well, look, before we get into the show proper, let's say good evening to some folks. What have we got here? Evening, legends. G', day, Paul. [00:02:58] Speaker B: Here we go. [00:02:59] Speaker A: Philip Johnson's evening mate. Good to see you. We're at first tonight, Philip. [00:03:03] Speaker B: Paul. [00:03:04] Speaker A: Paul, a bit a beat you there. Just By a few minutes. We've got Richard Mail sending some cracking images tonight. We're going to get to those, of course. G'. Day, John Latimer. Always great to see from you. Evening all. From someone who doesn't suffer from. From gas. What? I'm here to see what I'm missing out on. [00:03:20] Speaker B: Wow. [00:03:20] Speaker A: Your time will come. Your time will come. And Rich has also added, I can't afford to have gas. Who else? We've got Rodney Nicholson. G', day, old man. I'm an old hippie and there's only one gas I know of. Indeed. Tintype man. G'. [00:03:38] Speaker B: Day. [00:03:39] Speaker A: Evening all. I don't have gas. Really? All I ever see is you buying old gear. I just keep accidentally winning camera auctions that Somehow I've acquired three 4 by 5 large format cameras in the past month. Not sure how that happened. It's okay. Just lean into it. Let it happen. Resistance is futile. Isn't that what they say, dude? [00:03:57] Speaker B: It is, yeah. It will come. It will come. [00:04:03] Speaker A: Oh, Peter's here. [00:04:04] Speaker B: I can't. [00:04:05] Speaker A: I want to get rid of equipment. Anti gas. [00:04:08] Speaker B: I like that idea. [00:04:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I like that too. Who else? We've got John Pickett. G', day, John. Hi, everyone. Lisa Leach is in the chat. Hi. I think I may have anti gas too. Keep it simple. Is a good ethos to work, but you people are so boring and disappointing. Listen to good ones here. [00:04:26] Speaker B: G', day, gang. [00:04:28] Speaker A: Greg Carrick reckons he cured his gas by becoming broke. [00:04:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that'll help. [00:04:33] Speaker A: That does help. Although there's always a way around that someone. Oh, Paul was asking if I forgot the password. No. I've had some similar issues throughout the. The last few days that Justin's been away. Bruce is here. G', Day, Bruce. Evening, all. Parabellum. Parabellum collectibles. Evening, all. Bruce Moore's back. I shouldn't have made a bet about Dennis being the mystery co host. I should have. [00:04:58] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I nearly wasn't, mate. I nearly wasn't. But. But that's a funny story. [00:05:03] Speaker A: Well, I reckon Bruce. Bruce didn't get a call or a message from me in the last few days, so he probably made that assumption. [00:05:08] Speaker B: Oh. [00:05:08] Speaker A: Because it's either you or Bruce most of the time. Rick Nelson. G'. Day. [00:05:12] Speaker B: Good evening, all. [00:05:13] Speaker A: Stuart Lyle. Hey, everyone. Shamicha. Hey, all. Chris Nelson. [00:05:22] Speaker B: Hi. [00:05:22] Speaker A: From across the ditch. [00:05:23] Speaker B: Hey, brother. From another mother. [00:05:28] Speaker A: The long white cloud. Yeah. Greg Thomas, Photography. Yeah, mate, you do have gas. You are. You are like the. You're the poster boy for gas. There is a pill for gas, I believe. You know, it's one of my favorite things to do sometimes, you know, walk into the supermarket with, you know, Sashi or someone else and I'll. Or a chemist and I'll go into a different aisle as them and I'll call across the aisles. Hey, I found the Degas. It's over here. This time. Who else? We got Phil Thompson, we've got David Skinner. We've got Rick Nelson is back. Gas is plentiful when you work at a camera store. My ebay account. No help either. Yeah, that. Having access to it. It's like it, you know? Yeah, yeah, just check. Just check the auction sites. The Takihara 11x4 is still available for 46, 000 if anyone is interested. I can. I can barely afford groceries these days. And Lucinda, I'd like to think I was an easy call up on co host. You are always. Of course. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to segregate anyone. I didn't mean to isolate or diss anybody. And David Skinner says the cure for gas is twitch alcohol. Yeah. David's not a doctor. Please do not involve it. Please do not follow that advice. So, yeah, all right. Where are we? There's a lot to go through tonight. We've got a bit. [00:07:01] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a bit. There's a bit these. There's a lot. There's a lot happening. Some big things happening this week in gear, that's for sure. [00:07:11] Speaker A: What have you been up to, though? Dennis, let's. Well, let's cut to the chase. [00:07:15] Speaker B: It has been a remarkably chaotic week for me. We have a big thing in South Australia called Sala, which is a massive arts festival. And this year I am collaborating with another artist and we have an exhibition that is opening this Saturday, Friday night for early bird sales. But Saturday night is the big opening and we are behind, to say the least. So for the next four days, I'm finishing work, but it's a collaboration with an actual painter, so someone who uses paint to paint. And we're blending light, painting and painting. It's going to be stunning. You'll see. Everyone will see that on my socials as well. But this weekend I've been up in the Brossa Valley, which is an hour north of Adelaide, working on a project with a team. We're putting together a trailer, a pitch document. We've come up with a concept for a new show, so a new docu series, and we have been working on that furiously this weekend. And I just went to drop the lady Our the person who's the star of the show. At the airport, got all the way home, 35 minutes, looked down to get my keys and her phone was on the passenger seat. So we scheduled our day so that I'd be back here ready for this. And I quickly did some maths, figured I could get back to the airport, drop the phone to her, and on the way we. Oh, it was chaos. But anyway, I got back with minutes to spare, so it was super exciting. [00:08:38] Speaker A: Nice. [00:08:39] Speaker B: Yep. [00:08:39] Speaker A: Had time to catch your breath. [00:08:41] Speaker B: Yep. But other than that, yeah, life is pretty much the same, mate. I'm really happy. And. And yeah, we're coming into Beef up time, which is amazing. That's all looking crazy. So, yeah, that will fill a bit of my time now. But, yeah, I'm a happy boy. Happy boy who needs a new camera. [00:09:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And we'll get to that. We'll get to that in just a moment. But it is interesting you bring up bfop. You know, we are heading into Beef Up Time and yeah, you know, never have I known an event to have so much anticipation and preparation from not just the people organizing it because obviously, you know, Justin and I are doing some interviews of all you fabulous Beef up workshop instructors. That's ongoing. But, you know, just the stuff that goes on that Matt and Nick are responsible for is crazy. It's crazy, but it's. [00:09:30] Speaker B: Yeah, it's massive. And I think, I think it's a good thing to point out that with these types of events, people turn up and they're there for those. Those few days at. And. And it's just impossible to ever understand the immensity of what goes on behind it. You know, we were talking before. I'm. I'm involved. I've got something happening this year. I go every year. But yeah, when you see. I mean, just even imagine just the role of organizing the presenters or the Instructors, what, there's 50 something this year. I mean, even that on some massive names, it's absolutely immense, you know, and you know, cj, the work she does. Yeah, it's incredible. I. I just. Yeah, it's humbling. [00:10:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And like we were talking before we went live, I was talking about, you know, getting these interviews out and you asked me how I'm finding it. You know, my, My response is that it's a bloody honor to talk to some of these people, to talk to all of them and to hear everyone's story. Because, you know, BFOP instructors aren't just cut and dry educators. They're. They're working Photographers, they're family people. You know, they're creatives, they're artists. And just having that, you know, we have half an hour together to get this interview done. But I think for me, the gold is on each side of the actual recording because we're just talking about, you know, our shared passion for the craft. It's. It's really quite humbling. So, yeah, you know, I'm looking forward to getting them done because it's a task that I have to achieve before the boss gets back. And, you know, we're getting there, we're getting there. But yeah, yeah, it is. There's a lot going on for Beef up and we're planning some special episodes, folks. We're planning some. We'll do a before booking party once again once the workshops go live. We did one of those last year, so we're going to do that again. We're also going to do a special beef at the end of August. We're looking at doing a special beef up 10th anniversary podcast. We'll get Matt, Nick and CJ on board and yeah, we're gonna. We're gonna talk about what's coming up at beef up 2026. Now, I don't know if anyone else saw today for. I'm sorry, we won't talk about Beef up the whole episode, but on the Beef Up Groupies page a few days ago, they posted a photo of Nick in a kind of a furries unic Unicorn kind of outfit. It was an AI image. It wasn't. Well, I assume it wasn't really his outfit, but, you know, no judgment, but they've since announced that the. The actual theme for the dress up is When I was. Was it when I was 10? I wanted to be a. [00:11:59] Speaker B: That is brilliant. Yeah, that is why I love that. [00:12:04] Speaker A: Yeah, it's pretty cool. What did you want to be when you were growing up, Dan? [00:12:08] Speaker B: I wanted to be an astronaut. Well, I wanted to be. Yeah, I wanted to be an astronaut. That. That was my big one. I was a space junkie when I was a kid. I still am. But. Yeah, that's what I wanted to do until I realized that I was a. And only smart people go to space. So [00:12:24] Speaker A: the iss. I'm sorry. [00:12:25] Speaker B: No, they don't. [00:12:25] Speaker A: No, no, it's like. [00:12:26] Speaker B: Yeah, your cv. Yeah, yeah, good at maths. But. Oh, sorry, you'll do the refueling. But no, I wanted to be an astronaut. So, yeah, maybe that night I'll dress up as an astronaut. That'd be cool. [00:12:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I wanted to be a helicopter pilot. [00:12:40] Speaker B: That is, we were trying to figure out today how we could get me a helicopter to help shoot this show that we've got coming up. But it would appear that that is not going to work. You'd be a great helicopter pilot, mate. [00:12:52] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know if the eyesight thing helps, but. [00:12:55] Speaker B: Yeah, but, yeah. [00:12:58] Speaker A: No, I wanted to be. Because I was fascinated by them. They're such immense machines. And when. Because I grew up in Airport west in Melbourne, outer suburb in the sort of the northwest. And we're right near the Essen airport. And of course, at the Essen airport they had the police air wing. Well, back then it was police air wing and an air ambulance. And I used to do a paper round every morning when I was probably a little bit older than 10, maybe about 11, 12. And. And the paper round would take me up through the airport because a lot of the factories would want their Playboys and their Penthouse magazines dropped off first thing in the morning. I. I will, I will. I will admit that I made it. May have snuck a peek now and then, but I. I used to watch the helicopters take off and it just fascinated me that this thing could generate so much power for something so heavy to lift it off the ground. But. [00:13:44] Speaker B: And they, you know, every now and then it pops up on the podcast, you know, this idea of doing door off shooting. You know, I've been lucky enough to shoot outside and skydive out of the helicopters as well, but. But they. Remarkable creatures. Yeah, you need to be very smart to fly them too. [00:14:02] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, Lots of moving parts. Quite literally. [00:14:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:07] Speaker A: Amazing. All right, well, look, we've got a lot of news to get through. I won't bring up every article, but can we park the FX the Sony released until we. [00:14:17] Speaker B: Let's hold that. Let's hold that till I chat. [00:14:19] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about gas in a little bit. All right, let's cover off some basic. Some basic headlines here, folks. I won't bring up everything that we've got to talk about because there's. There's a lot of images to get through, which is amazing. What have we got? I think we mentioned last week that Mika, which is M I E K E one of the lens manufacturers, had announced a Fujifilm gfx lens, an 85 mil f 1.8. And apparently the demands for that lens have exceeded their expectations and they're looking at developing more lenses for Fujifilm gfx, which is amazing. I think this is for Sony and Zed Seven artisans have dropped off. Sorry. Have announced and it's coming. Oh, it's coming. Tomorrow. Seven Artisans 10 mil f 2.5 max FE autofocus lens will be coming out. 10 mil. That's bananas. [00:15:12] Speaker B: Yeah. We did it. We did a, I posted ah. We showed it on the show. That, that thing Astro shot with the light painting. I think that was 6 mil and that was insane. It was like a fisheye but, but, but more wild. It was utterly beautiful. [00:15:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it's hard not to get your toes in that shot. [00:15:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:29] Speaker A: Finally. Hey. Yeah, that's really bananas. And Viltrox have officially announced a new 35 and 25 mil f 1.7 micro 4/3 lenses. [00:15:43] Speaker B: Beautiful. [00:15:44] Speaker A: Which is good. Some nice cheap options for mfg. [00:15:46] Speaker B: Yeah and I think, I think it's great that people are still supporting lenses for those systems even though, even though whatever, whatever it is they're doing, there's still a massive amount of people out there with Olympus and om, you know and I, I, I still, I still, I was out massive event. The other, oh, that thing I was doing with the multiple light painting portraits, that was all on, on Olympus gear. Yeah. It's remarkable. Yeah. [00:16:12] Speaker A: Yep. Very cool. And then in camera news we'll come back to Sony's big announcement. But according to Fuji rumors, the Fujifilm XT6 will be unveiled at Fujikina Paris which runs between September 4 and 6. They often use their Fujikina events to drop new products. I'm hoping for some new lenses or at least some, some modernization of some of their classic X mount glass. [00:16:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I've been, I've been, I've been asked to do the launch, the South Australia launch. Yeah, yeah. And, and, and there's, we're still what is. But there's, there could be a Ferrari involved which is exciting and a bit of a launch here, down here and, and I do some, some of my auto art stuff which is really exciting. It's, I'm not used to a lot of that. I, I've done a heap of stuff with GFX Fuji gear but, but not a lot, not a lot with that smaller gear. But it looks gorgeous. I mean a lot of friends that shoot with it, I've, I've played. But yeah, they look, they look lovely. Yeah. [00:17:15] Speaker A: And you know the XT series, that, that's where I started. I started off with an XT1, I started with the X with the original X100 and then I said well I need a, you know, kind of pro body as well and I got the XT1 and I got the 16 mil F 1.4 which they still sell today. That's one of the lenses I want them to Update. And the 23F 1.4, which they have updated and that's my current. The new 23 1.4 is my go to. It's welded to my XC5 pretty much. [00:17:42] Speaker B: Yeah. That's a 35 mil. That's a 35. Yeah. It's such a wonderful focal length for street. Street. Or for anything really like street photography, video, all of that. [00:17:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. What else we got? Oh, I did see this. That an AF adapter that lets photographers use M mount lenses on Canon cameras. It's an M to RF adapter. [00:18:08] Speaker B: What's the M? [00:18:10] Speaker A: No M mount. Like it? Yeah, like an M mount. [00:18:13] Speaker B: That's crazy. [00:18:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:15] Speaker B: Wow. The only good thing that can and make is glass. So I don't know what they're doing there. That's. That's problematic. Yeah, that. That's not fair. But yeah, that's wild. Because that's the best glass you can buy, right? Easily. Yeah. That's cool. I like that. And a new case for the Leica Q3. That's a bit. [00:18:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought I actually threw that in for you. Let's bring that up. Why not? [00:18:42] Speaker B: It's bring. Let's have a look at that. [00:18:45] Speaker A: We're calling the shots. What have we got? Overworth. Oh, hang on, let me just add that. [00:18:51] Speaker B: Yeah, they feel. When you look at those. When I look at those, I think. Oh, that's what my granddad's camera came in. [00:18:58] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. And I used to have some of these for some of my first Fujifilm. Not Overworth, but different, a different brand. I used to have the leather half case for. [00:19:07] Speaker B: Really interesting. Oh, see the one with the grip? Yeah. Actually that is actually quite cool because I use a grip on my Q3. Yeah, the one that. The one. Yeah. It's got a grip sort of a thing there. Oh yeah. [00:19:22] Speaker A: Here. [00:19:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Like a. Like a finger grip. And because I use a grip on mine, it's a third party thing that. That also has a. A plate on the bottom of it for going on the tripod. [00:19:34] Speaker A: Yeah, same. Yeah. [00:19:35] Speaker B: But I certainly. I certainly would never put a case over it. If you look at mine, it looks like it's been to war and back because I'm very good at dropping it, knocking it around. Yeah. These look really nice actually. [00:19:47] Speaker A: They do. [00:19:49] Speaker B: That's not my quality. [00:19:50] Speaker A: Quality, quality. Let me just get rid of that. [00:19:54] Speaker B: Thanks for coming. [00:19:55] Speaker A: Thanks for coming along over with other little bits of News Peak Design dropped a new field bracket, which is basically like a cage slash L bracket. [00:20:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:04] Speaker A: They've put out. It's currently on Kickstarter. I'm pretty sure the Kickstarter has already well and truly exceeded [00:20:13] Speaker B: those guys. I mean, we talk, they, they come up a lot on the podcast, obviously, because they, they make straps and stuff, but they do, they do make good product. Some of my Peak Design bags have just been fantastic and, and I modified yesterday. Yeah, that thing looks sexy and. Yeah, you know, it's going to be good. [00:20:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it's going to be good. And it's got like, you know, it's got a spot under it where you can put in. They come. I think they bring their own tile, but basically it's like find my. It's like an air tag where you can, so you can find your phone. And the L bracket allows you to, to like plug in your, you know, if you're using tethering cables or something. And then it sort of protects that. That connection, which is pretty cool. [00:20:54] Speaker B: Yeah, but I like that. [00:20:57] Speaker A: But the. In terms of the funding, their goal was 71,000 Australian dollars. They're at 677,000 Australian dollars with 24 days to go. [00:21:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's pretty wild. Yeah, that's nuts. Yeah. You know, you're making good stuff when that happens. Hey, when, when things just get blasted out of a Kickstarter like a nuclear bomb, it's. It's good stuff. [00:21:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's good because they, they keep supporting their original backers. They started on Kickstarter and they offer special deals and extra products and all that sort of stuff to people that back them. So, you know, I have seen criticism against them for, you know, they're an established company. Why are they using Kickstarter? It feels like it's cheating. Well, it's not. They're just honoring the way that they've always done it. You know, if it works well and it continues to work, why would you change it? [00:21:45] Speaker B: You know, there is, there is something to be said for doing exactly that. Looking after the people who have invested in you. Yep. It's because they're getting pushed around and, and, and if they, if they, if a company like them can maintain a client base and maintain revenue in this market, where companies like that, they just get chewed up and spat out by, by China and they haven't. And it's really beautiful to see. [00:22:11] Speaker A: Yeah, they deserve to be supported. Yeah, that's how I see it. [00:22:15] Speaker B: I do, too. [00:22:16] Speaker A: Final bits of news. Oh, today, yesterday, I Think or maybe it was the 25th. I think the 25th of July, Nikon celebrates its 109th birthday. [00:22:27] Speaker B: Oh my Lord. That's a long time for a camera. Japanese camera company. Yeah. That is incredible actually. [00:22:34] Speaker A: Yeah, well, Fuji's at like 91 years. [00:22:37] Speaker B: Yeah. I often wonder, like, I often wonder, you know, when you, because when we think of cameras, when you think of a pro camera, when you're, when you're a bit, a bit gray like me, you kind of think of those cameras, those Nikon, the classic, you know, the, the nick on pro body and, and those early F1 cannons and that sort of thing. Yeah, that's amazing. 1917. Yeah, that's, yeah. [00:23:09] Speaker A: Wasn't that just before the, the Spanish flu? [00:23:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:23:14] Speaker A: How long ago it was. What else? And the folks at Godox, clearly they're R D department aren't sleeping because they've announced a Lux Junior 2 retro camera flash. I'm going to bring it up because I've got to swap the screen. [00:23:29] Speaker B: Hang on, look, I have a cool go story. I, I, I loaned my strobes. Well, I, I have lots of strobes but I loaned my, my camera strobes to a friend and then had this job pop up that I needed some and, and he was moving house, they were in storage. So I shot down to the local camera store and ran in and I was like, I need something real cheap because I was just doing off camera flash event kind of stuff. And I got myself this Godox flash with the, a really solid trigger with a kit with all the diffusers and gels and barn doors and stuff. And it was extraordinary. It was something like maybe 300, like in a rush for an urgent job. 300 bucks blew my mind how good it was. You know these people are owning. [00:24:16] Speaker A: Yeah, they're definitely, they definitely know how to sort of, you know, diversify because they're supporting pro, pro photographers with big, big, you know, heavy duty lighting kits. [00:24:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:27] Speaker A: And they're looking after the little folks with stuff like this, these little retro. And this isn't the first retro sort of flash system they've put out for smaller cameras like you know, Fujis and Leicas and they're great. And this one looks pretty cool. [00:24:43] Speaker B: Yeah, they look great. Lucinda was asking if it was a 8200. No, it was a little, My friend just got a two pack ad pack and, and those things are wild. Now this was like a traditional sort of hot shoe thing but I, I was using it off camera. It was like a bendy thing but Gosh, it was. Yeah, it was great. It weighed nothing. It didn't miss a beat. The, the. I was using it on the, the Leica, so I was just using the trigger part of it. But yeah, it was very cool. Those ad flashes are wild. [00:25:13] Speaker A: Yeah, they're very cool. [00:25:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:17] Speaker A: All right, now should we look at a few images before we jump into gas? [00:25:23] Speaker B: Yeah, let's do prime. [00:25:24] Speaker A: Let's prime it. [00:25:25] Speaker B: Let's prime it. Let's find, let's find some people who, who need a new camera or, or more importantly, think they need a new camera. Yep. [00:25:34] Speaker A: All right, I'm gonna try my best here, guys. This is my first time doing the image thing for a while, so forgive me, there is something I want to bring up. So a couple of weeks back we had Andy Campbell on the show. He was. Andy runs his own portrait photography business, but he's also mad, mad astrophotographer, Deep space astrophotographer. And when we were interviewing him for the podcast, he was talking about how he was soon heading off to. Oh, crap. What's the place in, in near Canberra where they have the, the. Where the, where the, where the dish was shot. My God, where's the name gone? I can't, I can't think. [00:26:19] Speaker B: I'll look it up. You, you do that. I'll look up. Where's. Where's the dish? In Australia. [00:26:23] Speaker A: Shout it out in the chat. Oh, Parks. Thank you, Bruce. Yeah, he was soon heading off to, to parks. He was going to go and sit and watch this award presentation. He had entered an image, but he was, you know, obviously going to network and catch up with other people. Well, turns out that he actually won the award that was on offer. Oh, no, I've just lost the screen. Hang on, folks. And let's bring up his winning image now. And Andy has said, well, that was unexpected. I just won the deep sky category. The 2026 David Melon Awards for Astrophotography with a 10 year old camera too. Here's the winning photo. It's the Rippling Flames Nebula. Dark dusty storm. A star forming region near the southern celestial pole. Happy dance time. And then he goes on to talk about what sort of a cloud it is. [00:27:19] Speaker B: That's wild. 600 light years away. [00:27:23] Speaker A: Yeah, that's bananas. The math on that is just. It does my head in every time [00:27:29] Speaker B: I think about it. [00:27:30] Speaker A: But congratulations to Andy. That's amazing. Well done. [00:27:34] Speaker B: That's great news. Yeah, yeah, his, his interview was fascinating. I caught most of that. It was great. Like they all are. The quality, the quality of the guests hitting the podcast every week at the moment. [00:27:45] Speaker A: It just. [00:27:46] Speaker B: It is relentlessly awesome. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's so good. [00:27:52] Speaker A: And then we have people like Bruce Moore. Let's look at Bruce's photos. [00:27:55] Speaker B: This is from last week, wasn't it, where we kind of missed it at the end? [00:27:59] Speaker A: Yeah, we missed some stuff. Hang on, I just gotta find them. [00:28:02] Speaker B: I think I know what's about to pop up. I can't see it. I can see the notes, but yep. [00:28:07] Speaker A: All right, let's bring up Bruce's image. Can you read out some of Bruce's words, please? [00:28:12] Speaker B: Let's go. Hi. A new fun bit of work for the show. Please check it before it goes onto YouTube in case it's too risky. I added a censored version if needed. Yeah, I thought this might be this. I saw it on. On Bruce's social media page and it's just stunning. Shot on the. A Sony A7R 550 mil F14. Wild bit of glass at 1/100th of a second. F28 ISO 200. Yeah. This one is a lot of stuffing around with Photoshop for toning the weird ass blurb I wrote for it. A stroke across the plane with graphite in hand outlines the thought before it moves on. The addition of pigments brings more life and challenges the creation. Brings more life and challenges the creation to become something more. Does this superficial existence on geometry bring feeling or emotion to the newborn creation or just the observer? As always, thanks, guys for the show. I hope people are having. People have been tuning into Australian Photographic Prize judging, which he's a judge. It's been interesting. Three still three categories to judge, mate. That's wild. Yeah. I saw this image pop up. Pop up on your socials, man. And. And it is just utterly gorgeous. [00:29:30] Speaker A: Yeah, it's so clever. [00:29:31] Speaker B: Yeah, this. This flash then movement, I imagine. Or it's funny because. Yeah. Bruce, you. Is this a multi shot composition in Photoshop or are you popping and then moving and then popping again? I imagine it's a composition. [00:29:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:47] Speaker B: It's just gorgeous. Very fun. Fun. That's what it is. It makes you look at what. What is this and that image make an image. That does. That makes me happy. [00:29:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Very cool, Brucey. Thanks, mate. Let's have a look at someone else's stuff. Who else we got? We got Peter. So Peter has been sending some images and he has sent in a short video just before. Actually, I'll bring up the video. You can talk about the. Let's just talk about the the three points about his video here, do you want to get. [00:30:22] Speaker B: I'll read you. Get that up. I thought I'd give you some information on my experimental video that you're showing this Monday on the podcast. Firstly, three points. One, in the storyline of this video, it's made by the fictional company Old Rose Movies. Two, this video uses time warping techniques. You see a flower opening through to its demise. The flight path of birds turns curvy paths, ducks, straight paths and the graceful underwater flight of a stingray. Three, these time warping techniques enable the unaided eye to see events unfold that would normally not be visible. Video sources Rose Time lapse. Single photo taken over time taken over time of an old variety rose flower using my codec DSC SLR with a manual Focus 105 lens. Birds in Flight original footage is 4K video from the Nikon D500 with manual Focus Nikkor 55 MIL 3.5 lean. And the Stingray original footage is 4K video from THE COMPACT TG5. Hallelujah. TG5 mounted on a house brick for stability in the underwater wave surge. Peter, that is remarkable. You'll do me. I've mounted on a brick. [00:31:42] Speaker A: That's amazing. [00:31:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Good fun. [00:31:46] Speaker A: Very cool. [00:31:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that's creative. Creative. And we're going to talk about this a lot in a bit. I, I'm. I shoot a massive amount of video and I was trying to describe someone we're working on this new project with who's never been in done much moving image, a lot of photography. I was, I gave her this description amongst a whole lot of other things. Video is simply 25 photographs a second. And if you are a good photographer with a good eye then, and you approach video like that, it can really help elevate your video because all you're doing is you're making 25 beautiful images a second or more. But it's a beautiful way to think about it, that's for sure. [00:32:29] Speaker A: It is. Yeah. I often think of that. I've heard you say that a few times. [00:32:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And it can. And it can really remove the, the, the, you know, or feel. Make people feel a bit more confident to have a go at video. That's for sure. [00:32:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, for sure. [00:32:44] Speaker B: And Bruce, Bruce is saying that was a single shot, which is bananas. So that's flash, move, flash and so on. Just gorgeous, mate. You know that, that stuff gets me juicy. [00:33:00] Speaker A: All right, let's have one more. I'll just get rid of Peter's video. Let's have a look at Chris Nielsen's photo. You want to read out Chris's blurb [00:33:10] Speaker B: while I. Yeah, let's go. Chris Nielsen. Evening all. My contribution this week is a photo I took of the RAAF F11 that came to New Zealand in 2008 for an air show. In this photo is doing a dump and burn with where they open the fuel dump valve and then light the afterburners. This aircraft is now the gate guardian at the RAF Base Amberly in Queensland. Shot on a 30D with a 70 to 300. See you later. Now, Chris, I have a sneaking suspicion, mate, that I may have been there because I'm a Kiwi and I remember seeing an F1, although I imagine this is a pretty standard air show party trick. But I have been near an F111 when it does this and it is. [00:33:57] Speaker A: Yes. [00:33:58] Speaker B: And really exciting. Yeah, yeah, that's amazing, actually. [00:34:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I went to one of the, one of the earlier air shows at Avalon in Melbourne years ago. I was still a student in art school, so I would have been like 20, maybe 19. And my friend and I, we had our film cameras at the time and his dad, his dad worked for an aeronautical engineering company or something. And so we got, we got free pass, like VIP passes to the air show. [00:34:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:28] Speaker A: So we had pretty much open access. Oh, gosh, it was a great day. [00:34:32] Speaker B: Now I'm gonna do a quick intervention. Matt Crummans is in Africa with Justin and they are watching the podcast in the van right now. Hi, guys. [00:34:46] Speaker A: How are you guys? [00:34:47] Speaker B: Yeah, how's everything going? Oh, man. [00:34:51] Speaker A: Oh, here it is. Matt wants to say hi. Just landed at Kruger. [00:34:56] Speaker B: Oh, that's amazing. How wonderful. Very cool. Now a quick, that, just a quick thing on that photo of the F111 because we're here to talk about these images. One of the, one of the tricky things with that photograph is that because it's taken on a, on a, an overcast day, it doesn't look very bright. But see how the flames are overexposed and they've blown out. It's so hard to get ready for that kind of thing when you just don't know how bright it's going to be. And the problem here, because it's an overcast, dull day, if, if he had exposed for the flame, knowing it was coming, it would be so dark in the rest of the image. Yeah, yeah. [00:35:36] Speaker A: So it's tricky. [00:35:37] Speaker B: That stuff is like next level, bringing those elements into it. Yeah. [00:35:41] Speaker A: But the lines are tack sharp, like the, the light, every line of the airplane, even the, some of the Edging on the flame is just crisp. It's beautiful. All right, let's park that for now. Let's come back to some images a bit later. [00:35:57] Speaker B: Nice one. [00:35:59] Speaker A: Where were we? Let's talk about gas. [00:36:01] Speaker B: Yeah, let's do that. Hey, yeah, so, yeah, sorry, man. [00:36:06] Speaker A: No, don't be sorry. So, you know, we, I hit you up on Friday or on Saturday saying, hey man, do you want to come and help host the podcast on Monday, have a think about a topic? And you came back to me and said, I want to talk about gas. Sony, you're bringing out something I desperately want, need, had, need to have. Your life depends on it. [00:36:24] Speaker B: You're creating. [00:36:26] Speaker A: And, and so we're here to talk about gas. So what was it about the launch of the XS, the FX5, Sony's latest cinema camera that that's gotten you so worked up about your gas? [00:36:39] Speaker B: It's, it's, it's a, it was kind of a no brainer for me and it was really timely because just that day it was kind of all the videos were hitting the web on, on the launch and, and sparks up the usual sort of cacophony of, of, of obvious, the obvious videos of the product coming. Right. But then, then it's this whole, it sparks all sorts of, [00:37:06] Speaker A: all sorts of [00:37:07] Speaker B: debates about, you know, is it this, is it that, is it better, is it not? And I thought it was really interesting because I have become these days very good at making decisions around the purchase of cameras. And I thought that it would be cool to describe what my thought process is or what happens to me personally. And people will either relate to that or if they start having these feelings of gas come up in them, I, this might help them to relieve that and, and move forward without divorce or selling the house. [00:37:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:44] Speaker B: But I, I am a commercial filmmaker, you would say. I, I shoot a lot of video, mountains of video, both as part of my fine art practice, but also commercially. And there is a camera that exists called a Sony A7S3. I have two of them and they are, I think, the greatest video camera ever made for a whole lot of different reasons, but there are three. There was a key moment in photography. There was a camera called the Canon 5D Mark II and it was released forever ago. I remember getting a very substantial loan to buy that camera and a whole lot of gear back when I was just starting out. But it was the first real proper DSLR camera that would shoot high quality video. And it was remarkable. It was a total game changer. There's no one Worth their salt. That does not really say that was a marker in the ground for anyone that created video. It was the first real hybrid camera. And then when the A7S3, which is this Sony camera, was released I think five or six years ago, it was, it was another marker in the ground. Like it totally changed the landscape of our work because what it did is it put a, a hyper professional, all the inside boring insert boring video tech stuff in here. But it was that big and we had. I went through a stage where I fell into gas, came and got me hard and fast and I. My video career was starting to sort of blossom in my photography career and I believed that I needed a big professional looking camera in order to really be sort of held in high esteem by the clients. They would look at you weird if you didn't. So I went and bought a Sony. It's called a Sony FS5. It's what you would traditionally think of as a cinema, professional cinema camera. And then when this thing, when these cameras came out, I remember when I got the first one, I had grown up a bit and started making good work. Didn't really care what the client thought and this was a far better camera and it was tiny, it didn't weigh anything. We weren't lugging these big things around. So these things have. This one in particular, you know, it looks like it's been through a war. This has been through India, it's, it's been in the water, it's been, it has absolutely been a wild camera. And over the past few years particularly Sony, you know, have launched these kind of what, what people think, you know, like a video camera that you might go grab or, or it's an upgrade to this camera here. But yeah, fundamentally nothing has existed that, that has come close to it and, and there's some very special things around low light performance, which for me is huge, the type of codex they put out. But you, you can produce and I have produced stuff on this thing, on these things that is as good as anything that will come off any camera that is available to a normal human. Bruce has got a comment and a comment in the, in the comment section there that he, he's got an A7, A73 that's been alongside his FX6. Now the FX6 is, is a more professional body. It's, it's a wild piece of kit. And so for the last two years I have been contemplating getting an FX6 because. And, and then the FX5 was released and now that is the no brainer and I'll talk you through the mindset because this is really hilarious. And anyone who buys cameras will understand this especially. And this doesn't really matter if you're a professional or you are a hobbyist, is you go, okay, this new camera is insert amount of money, right? Let's say in this case, 10 grand. So an FX5 is. An FX5 is. I just. My water just fell over there. An FX5 is ten grand, really, to get the body and the things that you need and a bit of memory and stuff. And so what I do is when I make the decision about that camera, I go, what are the key things that I use on this camera that must be improved, that I would add to this camera? But will it materially change either the content I create or the speed that I can deliver that content, or will it make the content that I create so much better that it will allow me to gather more work to help fund this thing? And it just becomes the spreadsheet of sort of numbers and ideas and feelings and emotions until you find the thing. And the FX5 extraordinarily ticks the box in a whole lot of ways. And it will be a camera that is. Will become another one of those markers in the ground. [00:42:49] Speaker A: There will be five. [00:42:51] Speaker B: The A7 S3, and the day the FX5 was released. Yeah, because it has some of these key things, and for me, when I look at it, I go, wow, to get these things that I want. And they're boring video things about codecs. You can shoot RAW on them internally in this wildly compressed thing. So that now I can shoot RAW on a video camera. And it's. And I can use a card because it has this wild new codec. It still does the ISO12800. It. It has some other things that, that, that are really cool. And so what I do is I go, okay, it's ticking more than two or three boxes. It, it. The. The image quality is going to be vastly better because of this new codec. The work that I can deliver will be significantly better. And with this project that I'm working on at the moment, there's a requirement for that because it. It, it. We're pitching it to be streamed. We're pitching to Netflix. And, and they, they have, they weirdly. They have all these weird stuff where they. That matters, right? [00:43:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:59] Speaker B: So, so I, so I go, okay, I'm. I'm going to own this camera, so I need to find $10,000 or whatever. But what. It makes me think about a lot. And, And I think that we're in this time where whether it's on Instagram or whatever social media you're on, whatever you're on or you know, YouTube, we just get slammed so hard now when any new gear comes out and all they do is tell you that you will be better if you own this camera. Your work will be better when you own this camera. And that's just not true. I have spent five years with these cameras pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing and making better and better and better work. And if the FX5 was not released, my work would continue to get better because I'm making work that no one looks at the quality stuff that a new camera would give you. And it's the same with stuff, still cameras, my, my Sony A7, R4, R4. I just can't kill that thing. I have tried so hard. And you will, yes, there's some fancy new tech around auto focusing stuff, but as an image, I have been tempted so many times with a GFX for a whole lot of different reasons. We know the technical issues with that, that if you get a GFX you need a new computer, a new hard drive, drives and all that sort of thing. But what I wanted to say around it is you can go and Google what is gear acquisition syndrome and it will deliver these three things to you. I'm doing this off the top of my head. It will say the first thing that we seek is the dopamine hit. The dopamine hit of buying a new thing. Right? It's really amazing. We get this new thing, this idea that it's a silver bullet, that all of a sudden your work will be dramatically better because you've got a hundred megapixel sensors. We see all the time on the images that people share here on the podcast that that's not true, that the images that we go, wow, oh my God, that is wild. Then you go look at what it was shot on and sometimes it's scare that that is quite normal or it's not super fancy. Yeah. And, and, and I think, I think what people I, I, I think that and, and here's the thing I thought about as well. There's two to my favorite, I've got some, some favorite YouTube video sort of sorry camera reviewers Gerald Undone and and James Popsis. Now these two guys, both at around the same have both just retired from camera reviews. And when you go watch Gerald talk about why he makes this, I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about what he talks about and what he says is. And James says The same thing is that fundamentally the camera problem has been solved. The fundamental camera problem has been solved. And they both said the same thing. What they mean, and it's quite remarkable when you think about it, is there's just no need for a new camera. They are all so unimaginably good. Gerald Undone does these wild like 10 technical camera reviews where he does, he will tell you millisecond camera readouts and these wildly accurate dynamic range things. And he just said, what's the point anymore? The, the differences in these cameras is so wildly tiny. We are clutching at straws as to why one is better than the other. And, and so he's given, he stopped, he's given up doing camera reviews, probably made a significant amount of money. And this guy James is the same. [00:47:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:47] Speaker B: So, yes, I have succumbed to a new camera, but certainly I don't think it falls into the gear acquisition syndrome. [00:47:57] Speaker A: No, I don't think it does because [00:47:59] Speaker B: I think I've made a really good case as to why this camera will, will, will fundamentally alter the way I make it will make what it will do. I feel like I may have come to a boundary with the gear that I have and when I really seriously look at this new thing, it starts to open up possibilities for me creatively and, and, and I, true, I truly believe that. And this thing is wild and I have all the glass. There's no need for me to, you know, I've already got glass. I keep telling the story that in my Lightroom catalog, I've only been a photographer for the shortest time for under 20 years and I've used something like 79 different cameras. I am in the enviable, some would think position where camera companies really like allowing me to use their gear and, and so I get to thrash all these things. And so when I talk about this gas, it comes from that viewpoint that I, I've used all the 100 meg blads and, and gfxs and Leicas and all that stuff. And, and so I, when I talk about, when I talk about what makes an image good or what technically makes a video camera better or not, it comes from that viewpoint. It's not just being sick of douchebag YouTube shills trying to get clickbait from telling you that you shouldn't buy an FX5 because it doesn't have internal NDs. The vast majority of the, the vast majority of people who bag these cameras will never own one of them and we're never going to own one of them, you know? Yeah, you don't beg anything. Yeah, I, I think so. I, I do. It's, yeah. [00:49:40] Speaker A: So we talked about this last week a bit Dan with, with David and Mel and James pops us, he recommended we get James Popsis on the podcast. So I'm reaching out to him. [00:49:48] Speaker B: Yeah, amazing to get him on. [00:49:52] Speaker A: I think it's a bit of an echo, guys. I'm sorry, I'm not sure where that's coming from. I don't really disturbing. [00:50:00] Speaker B: I can't hear, I can't hear a double from you, but that's okay. [00:50:05] Speaker A: And you know, he, he was talking about this sort of flooded market of people that do reviews and create content. You know, trying to separate the, what's that saying? The chaff from the wheat. [00:50:15] Speaker B: That's it. [00:50:16] Speaker A: You know, it's really interesting. [00:50:19] Speaker B: Like I have three I, I, I, I have a handful of people. Like when this camera was finally released I, I knew that there were going to be a couple of hundred of reviews online and there's two or three I go to and I just know that without fail there will be no, that they're not being paid. That they, and, and, and they will tell you all the, all the good, the good, the bad and the ugly and, and you just go there first. And we all, all of our different camera brands have that. There is a Nikon YouTuber in Australia who, who I, I won't name, but I was watching a video they were doing the other day comparing the, the, the FX5 to some Nikon video camera and I think if Dennis was listening with headphone, the speaker doubling. Is it my speaker? [00:51:08] Speaker A: Maybe it is, yeah. Maybe I'm hearing you my voice through your speakers. Thanks, Crackers. Good call. [00:51:19] Speaker B: I've just come back from a. Where the hell are my headphones? Oh my God. [00:51:26] Speaker A: Talk about. [00:51:27] Speaker B: Yeah, here we go. Here's gear acquisition problems. I have way, way, way too much. I won't stay over here all day. There we are. How about. Oh, that's so annoying. I have too many bags, mate. Nah, must still be in the car. That's right. My apologies for that. [00:52:01] Speaker A: No, don't stress. We'll work with it. [00:52:04] Speaker B: I can, I, I, I can, I, if it gets too, I can go grab them if you like. [00:52:08] Speaker A: Yeah, let me just see if I can change anything here. [00:52:11] Speaker B: Yeah, give me two minutes. These guys can wait because I've got something cool to say. [00:52:18] Speaker A: All right, so while D's away, I might just jump into some comments. I'm sorry about the echo guys. I'm not sure why that suddenly come Up. Going back to the images we saw earlier, Twig production says, I used to love the dump and burn they used to do during river fire in Brisbane. Yeah, the F111 flyovers with the dump and burn was always, it's always a phenomenon, a phenomenal experience because it's loud and it's bright and it, you know, you hear the crackle of the engine. It's just phenomenal. And I saw a thing on Instagram recently that the Australian government buried most of those jets out in the desert because they've retired all the F111s, I think, apart from the museum pieces, and they buried them, get rid of them all. I don't understand that mentality, you know, especially given that I help pay for it. I, I think I should have a say whether my F111 gets buried in the desert, to be fair as a taxpayer. Can you hear me, Jen? [00:53:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I just need to change my headphones to. Okay, give me a voice. [00:53:25] Speaker A: Testing, testing, one, two, three. Here's a voice for you. Justin sent a message saying, miss you all. Well, that's fine. [00:53:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's terrible, terrible over there. [00:53:36] Speaker A: You guys would hate it here, all that. [00:53:38] Speaker B: Yeah, Bruce, I would love to, mate. If I was gonna. If I was gonna send anyone one, it would be you, mate. [00:53:45] Speaker A: Yeah, that'd be pretty cool. He says. This may be a lie. So where were we? So we're talking about, you know, gas. I just want to jump in for a quick sec. Dan, I know that you've still got some awesome stuff to say. Say, for me, gas has always been. It comes in stages. So there's kind of new gas. Right. When you first start out, you think you need every lens to be a good photography. You think you need a lens for every occasion. And it takes some hard lessons to work out that that's not the case, you know, and not everyone can afford to go down that pathway of new gas, but, you know, there is that desire and, you know, I think Nev dropped a comment saying, oh, you know, gas might be just fomo and I think FOMO is a part of it, but I don't think they're one in the same. [00:54:26] Speaker B: No, I, I agree. I, it's, it's. I, I reckon, funded that what I was going to say. I think fundamentally one of the biggest problems is that we, we live at a time now and it has never been more powerful, that the marketing machine is so unbelievably powerful and, and it comes at us in so many ways. It's not like the old days where you would go and buy your, your photo magazine and you know it up and there'd be an article on the new Canon or whatever it is relentless. Like the lead up. The lead. The noise leading up to the release of this camera was extraordinary and, and, and it comes at you hard and fast and, and they only, A lot of camera companies, they will only have people do their reviews and stuff that talk about their gear in a positive way. It, it's, it's that, that, you know, that's really well known and, and problematic. Problematic. Yeah, yeah, but go find a camera, go out and make good work and, and when, when it gets to a point. When it gets to a point where you, for some reason you genuinely. I did a post the other day. I found. Found this. Sounds hilarious. I found a box with some prints that were massive, 2.8 meters long edge. I think some of them were like absolutely epic. From an exhibition at the Museum of Photography. [00:55:57] Speaker A: Were they the ones that you're. You got your wife to lie on the studio floor just to. [00:56:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:02] Speaker A: For scale. [00:56:02] Speaker B: Yeah, they were longer than her and, and she's very good and, and not, not a. But it was a buzz looking at that and reminding myself that some of these images were made on micro 4 3rd Olympus cameras. And sure, you know, they're not perfect and I'm printing my exhibition this weekend. They're 1.5 square prints, you know, so I print big. But oh my Lord, the, that exists in our community telling people that, that if you want to do this or that, you must have this or that. It's. Yeah, yeah, it, it, it's, it's completely wild. [00:56:41] Speaker A: It's in everything though, isn't it? You look. [00:56:43] Speaker B: It is everything. [00:56:45] Speaker A: You know, you're not going to be an athlete, you're not going to be healthy unless you have Lululemon leggings and Nike runners and you know, all that stuff, it just gets shoved in our throats constantly. And you're right, cameras are no different. Now the sec. The second type of gas that I've, I've found myself coming across more recently is old gas. So I consider old gas. When you've been in the game for a bit and you use the gear that you've got and you've used it extensively and you're ready for that upgrade. You know, if you're shooting with a, with a, with a kit lens and you've, you've shot the crap out of it and you've taken, you know, 5, 10 grand, 10,000 images and you're ready, you've learned it, you've mastered it. Well then that's where old gas comes in. Because then you start that chemical and emotional cycle, that little, that little hamster wheel that your emotions and your chemicals get on to go, okay, well what's next? And then once you get into that, once you start looking, especially if you start looking on social media for what, what's the next best camera? For me, it will just, you will just be over overloaded with, with advertising and content about that decision making process. [00:57:49] Speaker B: Rick, Rick just made a good point and it reminds me of a story that I'll share with you. And I think it, I think in a lot of ways it describes this, the idea of what makes a good thing and it's this idea of story. So in 20, in 29, I think, or 2011, my business partner of 15 years, we met and he made a documentary about me. And it was about my life change back then, about my mental health issues and how photography helped me get through that. And three weeks after we met he said he, he came to shoot this thing and he came with this borrowed Handycam. It was hilarious. It was this little thing had a Bluetooth mic that this had this giant blue LED and no lights and a poor little laptop. And we made this little documentary and I'd never done anything like it. I was still at the beginning of my whole career. [00:58:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:45] Speaker B: Anyway, Falafsi entered it into the South Australian Film Awards, the bigger state awards thing. And he just for almost, for a laugh we entered this thing and he went away to London. He was in London. So we went with, I went with his wife and my wife, we went to the awards night for a laugh. Yeah. And it came time for the documentary section, they said. And the, the South Australian Film Corporation documentary of the year is. And out of the corner, this is a true story. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a group of guys start standing up, right? And I said, is the Ball of Light documentary. And we sit there, what did you just say? And won it. I had to go down and accept the award right now this document, it's on my website, it's on the About Me page on Dennis Smith.com if you want to go watch it. But this is before any virality existed in social media. These guys, they had a film crew go to LA twice as part of their documentary. And me and my mate spent about 30 bucks on gas and he made this thing. And the point is by point is a borrowed shitty handicam and A great story beats out four big cameras anytime. And. And that is probably the. And. And that Rick's point there is probably the most powerful thing that we can learn when it comes to this stuff is learn how to make good stories. Tell good stories with your stills or with your video and perfect that. Perfect that thing. Make people. When people see your images, they want to feel a punch in the gut or a tear or goosebumps. And if you're doing that and then you find yourself not being able to do that thing, then maybe think about how to make something easier or better or whatever. If you. If you take up sport as a hobby, autofocus. But learn how to tell stories. [01:00:43] Speaker A: Yeah, learn indeed. And I mean, just for the. Just. Just very quickly for the audio. [01:00:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:00:48] Speaker A: So he said, yes. Another photographer, filmmaker I follow, which is Ben Staley. Staley said about the gas of new cameras, what matters is what is your story you're making, which matters more than that camera. Which is a really great point. [01:01:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:04] Speaker A: And. Yeah, echoes obviously what you've said. And the other thing that I often tell people, you know, I've got this camera and this is what it does. And. And, you know, and I'm thinking about upgrading it. And my first question is, well, what glass have you got? Hang on, let's not talk about the camera, because like you've said, the diminishing returns on upgrading cameras is getting smaller and smaller by the generation. You know, so my first question is, well, what glass have you got? Maybe you need to consider getting some new glass. And then the second thing I'll say is, when was the last time you did a photography workshop? When did you go and learn? When did you go to. When did you last go and refine what it is that you've already learned today and consolidate that into something. You know, there's far better things that we can invest. [01:01:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:50] Speaker A: And, you know, go become a. Go become, you know, a gas sufferer for, you know, some of Bruce Moore's workshops or. Or, you know, or go on a Matt Crumman's, you know, safari in Africa [01:02:00] Speaker B: or a street walk with you like that. That. That's. Learn how to see things differently. You were. We were talking before the show, you were describing a situation where, you know, in. In a dark gray Melbourne, you. You two went out and you started to see something different, and it. And it just lit up and. [01:02:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:18] Speaker B: It's learning how to see differently now. You feel things, you know. Yeah. A glass, you know, it's just. This just happens to be on Here, this is a, an adapter for a, for, for, for a, a. I think this is a, I think it's a cannon mount ever or whatever. But I've got an adapted 50 mil on here and that's my favorite combination. [01:02:41] Speaker A: You. [01:02:42] Speaker B: I could go out and buy a new Sony one of these for like a bazillion dollars and, and the focus would probably work better. But I learned I know this piece of glass so intimately. Like when it is in my hand and I'm focusing or I'm feeling like I, there's just this intimacy I have with that bit of glass that will out trump speed of focus any time. [01:03:05] Speaker A: And actually it's one of the things I, I've said in my workshops because I, I just. For those that haven't heard, but I am running street photography workshops in Melbourne. You'd head to my website to check them out. Gregchromy.blog. but I did a test run on Saturday with a good friend of mine. We went out for a three hour street walk in Melbourne. Got some gorgeous light first thing and then it got some drizzle which meant was, which was even better because we've got reflections off, off the ground and all that sort of stuff. And you know, I said to her just, just bring the one lens. Just use the one lens and partway through. She, she chose on her Canon R6. And she said why did you say just one lens? I said, because in, in photography and in street photography you want to be able to shoot that camera from your hip or just pick it up and take a shot without even bothering to look at the screen screen or the viewfinder. You want to know what 50mil looks like in your eye, in your mind, before you even lift your camera, you can frame that shot without even having to, to look through the viewfinder. You know, that's, that's what you should do with every lens you have. You should know how to use it in the dark. You know, when you're wearing big thick gloves. You should be able to, you should know how to use it when you, you know, you want to be discreet. You don't want to bring it up to your eye. Yeah, all those sorts of things, you know, just really get the most out of the piece, out of the, what you've got, the gear you've got. Like you've been saying, you know, is, is, is, is great for what you're doing right now. [01:04:33] Speaker B: I, I have a. [01:04:34] Speaker A: Consider changing that. [01:04:36] Speaker B: I, I have a, a, a, A T. Here it is. Okay. You see it, see that number there, India three on the, on there. That is a. That's an SSD drive. It's plugged in. Oh, I'm. Unplug it. Whatever. So that's a little SSD drive with India 3 on it. I've got 3 terabytes of stills and video I shot on my last trip to India that I still haven't done anything with. But that trip I took the Q3 and I took an A73 with one piece of glass and I did an entire trip through India with, with that rig and, and limiting. All of a sudden you, you start to see because you're not like, oh, that'll be cool if I was close up. And you miss things, all that stuff. It's so obvious. But we miss it. Right? But so my advice to you to, to close down on the subject of gas tonight. My, my advice, My advice is to. Yeah. Think hard about why. Upgrade. Do better. All those things. Have more fun. Glenn Lavender. Richard's just hit the nail on the head. It's. Glad neighbor just says it's not the tool, it's the tool holding the tool. [01:05:46] Speaker A: That's very true. He does say that. I like that. And Bruce has said, probably sell that SSD and fund it. [01:05:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. [01:06:00] Speaker A: All right, let's have a quick squeeze at the FX5. It did, it did drop last week and we had talked about it a little bit on the show, and we're obviously very excited for, for you to get a new toy. Putting gas aside, let me just bring up the camera. So now for most people, for most [01:06:15] Speaker B: people that are not. That are watching this, the vast majority of people watching this are still shooters. So this is, this is a little foreign. You, you, you can't take a still with this camera. [01:06:30] Speaker A: It's not what it's like. [01:06:32] Speaker B: It's a video camera. Yeah. [01:06:35] Speaker A: So you, you mentioned earlier that there's some key things that, yeah. You know, excite you about this. What, what are your top three things about this Sony. This new Sony FX5 that excites you. [01:06:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:49] Speaker A: So they don't mind. Why wouldn't you spend two or three times more and get a, you know, get a big cinema body? [01:06:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So. So it's tiny. It's. It's fundamentally the same. The same size as a normal camera body. Right. It's absolutely tiny. So the form factor is beautiful. You can be intimate, you can be. It's small, it's light, it's compact. But the key things Is also has a great flippy screen at last but it shoots internal raw. So what that means is that all of the same things that we get with RAW are still photographs stuff which is the ability to adjust white balance and white balance and all that stuff that we get to do with the RAW files we could do with video because video traditionally mainly is jpeg. Basically you can shoot in a single log which gives you a bit more, but everything's baked in. Once that white balance is in there, it's locked in. So there's a lot more stuff we have to manage there. So RAW internal. But the most important thing is the files are not stupidly massive. There's a version of a RAW codec out of this, this Sony that allows us to shoot RAW and it's the same sort of system and process at RAW and that, that comes in the much bigger epic, epic Sony cinema cameras that are. That are multitudes times the price price. The other thing is that you can. It has that top handle, it has viewfinder. So the version. There was a version of this that came out that, that I contemplated moving to but I had no viewfinder. And for me a viewfinder is really critical for a whole lot of reasons. One is that I like to be able to see the image and I don't give a how good your screen is. You're not seeing your screen properly no matter what. But it also, when that camera is up to your eye, you're locked in and stable. So it's beautiful for that. Yeah, so that was a big one. And also with the top handle you. It's got XLR inputs which for us in video is huge. So that means that we can put high quality cables into it and then so that top thing there. Yep. That there you can plug XLR leads into it which is what High quality, high quality microphones have XLR cables on them and you can plug into there. But more importantly and quite excitingly it records in what's called 32 bit float. And what that means is that you can in theory, in theory you, you, you can the audio up and recover it. So, so you can, it can be too, too quiet or too loud and in post you can save it. Basically. [01:09:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:09:49] Speaker B: You still want to monitor your sound properly. I actually don't like that that giant thing is on the top handle. I will potentially still use my other other methods. I find it a bit big and clunky but it's very cool. I would rather have the viewfinder because unfortunately at the moment it's one or the other. But it's got a big, nice screen. The autofocus is insane. It's got all the stuff. Everything is improved. There were some weirdos. See the false color button on the back? That's a big one. [01:10:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I was wondering about that. [01:10:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So false color, what that is is traditionally with video, just like with. Just like with stills where you. You can use your histogram to see what's happening with the color. Or you could have this other thing called waveform. And waveform is like multiple histograms for the different channels. What the false color is, is when you press that button, the screen goes into what looks like comic colors, like purples and reds and. And, and, and blues. And what that is is that at a glance you can tell really fast what parts of the image are over or underexposed. So it's just a more professional, quick way of checking exposure, which is astonishing. But my perfect setup for this would be having a viewfinder on it and then run DJI mics into the 3.5 mil port. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, this. It's got a big screen, it's got all the stuff. It's remarkable. Yeah, yeah. See, Bruce has made the point about 32. But it. It's a. It's a. It's a bit of a trick, people say. And I've used it a couple of times. But yeah, we still wanna. Audio still needs to be monitored properly, that's for sure. [01:11:40] Speaker A: Yep. Oh, yeah, absolutely. [01:11:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:42] Speaker A: So at the moment on at Camera House, our friends at Camera house, the Sony FX5 with the XLR H2 handle unit is 8850. To get the body on its own, it's really not much different. You can buy the body on its own for 7850 and then spend an extra thousand on the OLED viewfinder, which. That itself is a pretty amazing little bit of kit right there. [01:12:10] Speaker B: One of the things. One of the things that I thought. The other thing is memory. I would need to invest in some memory, which is expensive at the moment, but also new batteries. I have. I have like 20 Sony batteries and they don't fit this camera, but that's fine. Whatever. [01:12:26] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah. All right. That's amazing. [01:12:30] Speaker B: Exciting new gear. [01:12:31] Speaker A: It is always. Should we have a look at some more images? [01:12:37] Speaker B: Let's go. [01:12:38] Speaker A: Can I show some of my images? I've been busy. [01:12:39] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, let's go. Let's have a look at some of yours first. I've really been enjoying. Mate. I've been. I've really been Enjoying seeing your Instagram? Because I don't. I don't go on Facebook much. Groupies. I've really been enjoying seeing your work come up on my Instagram feed. It's been a real. [01:12:54] Speaker A: That's lovely. [01:12:55] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:12:58] Speaker A: We've talked about this a lot, you know, and I. And I kind of neglected my Instagram feed because for far too long I felt like my images just weren't worth sharing. You know, I'd put a few on Facebook because I think, oh, you know, they're more my closer friends, my connect people. And then I've launched, obviously, my workshops, my street photography workshops in Melbourne. And I thought, you know what? I've got to put my money where my mouth is. Like, I can't claim to be this, you know, street photographer educator if I can't show the. Show the work. So I've been doing large image dumps and just going through my catalogs and finding, you know, the cream of the crop and putting. Putting those on. And I've been getting out a lot more as well. So, you know, like we said, went and did a test workshop on Saturday with my friend, but pretty much every day last week I was out hunting light. [01:13:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:48] Speaker A: And I just, you know, it's. It. I don't know if this happens to you, Dan, and maybe people in the chat, you can let us know if this ever happens to you, where you get so entrenched with photography that you find it so incredibly hard to either not head out again with your camera or not sit at your computer doing photography stuff. Editing, research, writing, you know, updating your Instagram, whatever it may be. And I'm really in that wave at the moment. I'm riding that way very high and I'm loving it. You know, I'm feeling creative and inspired and all that sort of stuff. So. [01:14:19] Speaker B: Well, you can feel it in your work, mate, that's for sure. There's a joy. There's a joy in the way it's been coming, which I love. [01:14:27] Speaker A: So I've been doing a few. Did I do this right? Please tell me you're going to move forward. Where are you? Oh, it will. I'm sorry that I can't zoom in too much, folks. You can jump on my Instagram if you want to have a look at these in more detail. This one here was from the weekend. This was shot with my. My 27 mil, which is a 40 mil equivalent, f 2.8 on my XC5. [01:14:48] Speaker B: It's a nice focal length. Hey, the street. [01:14:50] Speaker A: Yeah, great. 40 mil. I usually shoot the 35 or 40 mil, which has been great because it's actually helped me to reduce my gas because I know that they're the, they're the lenses, they're the focal distance where I do the best work and I've already got the lenses I need for that, you know. [01:15:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:15:07] Speaker A: Doesn't stop me looking, but, you know. And then I must shout out to Glenn and Talia from Tamron, Australia. Glenn Lavender. As you know, he's a folks, he's a friend of our show. He's. He's been on our show several times and he teamed me up with the Tamron for Fuji Mount. 150 to 500. Wow. So I thought, you know what? I'm not a wildlife photographer. I did photograph some birds and they look absolutely shit because then I looked at Felicity Johnson's bird photography and I just felt so incredibly depressed at mine. Well, you know what? I'm not a bird photographer. I'm going to make that really clear. I'm not a photographer, but I am a street photographer. So you know what? I, I took a super zoom out on the streets of South Yarra and I went and shot some street photography with. With that lens. So some of these images are from that. Yeah, the reaches is just phenomenal. Yeah. On this thing, you know, and you [01:16:06] Speaker B: can make street images with long lenses. You can make sure. Yeah, any lens. It's that thing of that challenge. [01:16:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's just. What have you got with you make that work? You know, this is one of my favorites from that, from that outing. I just. Yeah, I just, I just love that. [01:16:23] Speaker B: Is she looking at us? Is she or isn't she? I wonder. [01:16:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I just, I really like this. Sorry, where did it go? This kind of this purple color under her eye for this, obviously from the glasses and this, this sort of crescent shape of her face that's lit. Yeah, it just, it just really spoke to me. And again, it's a real skill. [01:16:48] Speaker B: It's a real skill finding that moment. Right. And it's something I struggle with, but have some people around me that are very good at it. And you like, like the moment, like recognizing a scene, understanding that there is potential that something could happen there and then being there at the right time when it happens. And. And it's your skate photography is really, really good, man. I have been loving that. [01:17:13] Speaker A: I, I have a lot of fun. [01:17:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:17:16] Speaker A: So for the folks watching and listening along at home, I live in, in the city of Melbourne in South Yarra, Lived Here in various forms for about 32 years, since I started industrial design at Swinburne in Prahran. That's gone now. But the Pran Skate park is just around the corner from where we live. It always has been. And, you know, my kids grew up skating at this park, and a few years ago, they gave it a huge. They bought some adjacent properties and bulldozed them and made the park almost three times as big as it was. And it's just such a great community there. Like, it's a really. It's fascinating to watch these people that come to skate parks, you know, these young kids, there's little. Little grommets that are just. You know, they're like 10, and they're doing. They're on the ramp. They're on the half pipe doing insane work, you know, and then you get these older guys that are sort of hanging on, you know, like this guy here. [01:18:08] Speaker B: And there's a lovely sense of community that happens at those parts as well. With that, you know, with the. With the groms and the. And the older guys, they. They look after each other. They teach each other. Yeah, yeah. Which is really nice. [01:18:23] Speaker A: And. And, you know, I'm slowly building a long form series, and I'm calling it Flight, because, you know, these guys literally defy gravity. They. They leave the earth on a plank of wood with some bearings and some nylon wheels, you know, and these guys are just nuts. I love it. [01:18:41] Speaker B: That's cool. Yeah. This is great. Wow. [01:18:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:18:46] Speaker B: Wild. [01:18:47] Speaker A: This is a 16 mil, so it's a 24 equivalent. Just threw it on the XC5 one day. It's a 2.8. I walked up and down Chapel street for a few hours, and there was this new place. [01:18:57] Speaker B: I can't remember what. [01:18:58] Speaker A: It's some sort of weird ball game. It's not. It's like pickleball, but it's not. Anyway, right, this is the kiosk, and this is smack on Chapel Street. And I was just walking along, capturing some shots because the light, obviously. Well, you can see the light. It was bloody phenomenal. Very compelling. And. And, yeah, I just. I just found this. This moment. Yeah. [01:19:20] Speaker B: Do you. Are you there framing up that shot, thinking if someone comes past, it's good? Or are you just. Is it like a moment of realization of what's happening and grabbing it? How much design is going into that? [01:19:34] Speaker A: It's a good question. It can be both. So sometimes I will see the moment and I'll just. Like I said, I know the focal distance. I can lift that Camera from my hip and capture that frame. But sometimes I find a spot. And so when I teach street photography, I talk about that. You always look for the light first? Yeah, you know, I don't go looking for composition first. I look for where the light is best and then I look for the composition. I look for the leading lines, the colors, the typography, the shapes, the geometry, that sort of stuff. And then I might frame up a shot and wait for the. What who I like to call the [01:20:07] Speaker B: hero to walk through. Yeah. [01:20:10] Speaker A: And so in this case, the hero was quite the juxtaposition to the bright. [01:20:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:20:15] Speaker A: Primary sunbaked backgrounds. And she's in all different shades of brown. Yeah. [01:20:22] Speaker B: But the positioning, it's like. Yeah, it's remarkable. That's a great photo. [01:20:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm pretty happy. I'm gonna get that. I'm gonna print that. I was speaking to Brendan Waits, our friends from. Our friend from down at Ocean Grove, Cameron photo, and he runs a print. Running a print printing service for images. [01:20:39] Speaker B: Amazing. [01:20:39] Speaker A: As well as running a store. So, yeah, I had a chat to him last week after I did his beef up interview and I'm going to send this down and try and get this one printed fairly large. Yeah, I'm pretty happy with it actually. Yeah, it's one of my best shots in a while. [01:20:52] Speaker B: I like. Lucinda's point is so true, you know, with. I imagine with her with. With a lot of light on the stage and spots and stuff is waiting for. Waiting for the moment. Wait, you're being ready knowing the composition and waiting for the person to walk into the frame? [01:21:07] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, pretty much. And the same here, you know, but I'm moving, you know. [01:21:12] Speaker B: Okay. [01:21:13] Speaker A: Previous shot, I'd stopped because I took it. I photographed about three or four people were walking through there. But she was the first and she was the greatest. But as I'm walking, you know, I'm using a fast shutter speed and the camera is always on and in my hand, ISO is dialed in. And if the light changes, then I change the ISO instantly. That's the first thing I do. As soon as light changes. Yeah. [01:21:34] Speaker B: You know. [01:21:36] Speaker A: Yeah, just wait for this guy to. I could see him coming. There's a mate behind him and there's one behind him, you know. Yeah, well, and it's just. It's just that observational awareness that you're always looking for where the light is and then you look for all the other elements. [01:21:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:21:50] Speaker A: So, yeah, I think that's the last lovely. Oh, no, this one was outside the National Gallery. Beautiful light. [01:21:57] Speaker B: It's such a cool spot. Hey, that. [01:21:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, this is at like 7, 7:30. [01:22:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Just. [01:22:06] Speaker A: And then this was outside the art center. [01:22:09] Speaker B: Yep. Just down the road. Yeah. Gorgeous. [01:22:11] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah. Literally. [01:22:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:22:13] Speaker A: So that was me. [01:22:15] Speaker B: Oh, nice one, man. I, I, I, We've talked about this. I'm probably, I still haven't pulled the trigger on. Adam and I were going to do a, a Sea Lake workshop prior to Bebop, but we, we both just totally snowed under and had to pull the idea. But which means that I might activate that. I've got a booking, standing booking at Jason Lau's place Fabric in, in Melbourne and I've got that locked in for the Sunday before beef up. So I'm thinking about doing a workshop. But I would love to go for a wander with you and Melvin. It would be, I'd be such a blessed to see it through your eyes. It's a great place. It's a complex. Yeah, it's a complex place to shoot, but gosh, it's nice. [01:22:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep. And you know, the good thing is that there's always something going on in Melbourne and it's interesting since I've really elevated my street photography game and, and especially since I've gotten more consistent with my Instagram posting. [01:23:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:23:14] Speaker A: The amount of Melbourne street photographers that are popping up now that I'm coming across. Across and some I'm going to try and get on on this podcast for Thursday morning interviews. The quality of work because it's such a beautiful city to photograph. [01:23:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that's it. That's it. [01:23:27] Speaker A: So dynamic and diverse. So, so. Yeah. All right. Where are we up to, my friend? [01:23:34] Speaker B: I think we've done the news. We did. Oh, should we do, should we do some more images? [01:23:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we should go on. [01:23:42] Speaker B: Are you the users? The news is pretty hard news. [01:23:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that's all of that. [01:23:47] Speaker B: Whatever. Let's go. Greg Carrick. [01:23:51] Speaker A: Hey, yeah, let's go crackers. Let me find his images. You can start reading. [01:23:54] Speaker B: All right, let's go. Greg Carrick. A playful. He's such a cheeky. He's so cheek. A playful pareidolia pick. Pareidolia is when your mind tries to make something familiar out of, out of an unfamiliar scene. This shows up mostly by seeing faces and objects and shapes and clouds, etc. Here, a watering can. Looks like an angry Easter island statue. Insert Easter island tattoo. There we go. Thank you. Yeah, I've included the original color image, but I think it looks better mono. What do you think? Fujifilm x70 it was a dark. For the winter garden. Yeah. Yeah. A dark corner of a garden. Shutter speed to 60 or theft 2.8 ISO 3200. It does look like an angry moai. [01:24:46] Speaker A: Actually, I. I like the color crackers. It's those Fuji that Fuji green. Oh, it's amazing. Especially from the X70. That renders color so beautifully, that camera. What do you think, Ben? The colors are just. [01:25:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Don't know why. [01:25:05] Speaker A: And the way that this sort of. [01:25:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:08] Speaker A: You know, it's contrasting but the tones. [01:25:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's. [01:25:11] Speaker A: Yeah, it's just beautiful. Yeah. Such a simple subject matter too. [01:25:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Angry moai. I love that idea. Yeah. Pareidolia. I love that. [01:25:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Greg shot an event, I think on the. Over the weekend and he put some images on his. On his Instagram and Facebook and it was. And it's interesting because I sent him a message saying, oh, once a street, once a. Once a photojournalist, always a photojournalist. And he photographed a community event around his area and the images were just gorgeous, like just full of character and storytelling. Yeah, you never lose those skills when. Once you've been a photojournalist, I imagine. [01:25:48] Speaker B: I don't. I don't think I'm following Greek on the gram. No, I'll sort that out. All right, Jamie, let's. [01:25:58] Speaker A: I don't have permission to access these files, so. Right, Jamie, sorry, we're going to have to bounce those to next week, mate. [01:26:04] Speaker B: That's cool. [01:26:05] Speaker A: But we'll add those in because I. I didn't get the permissions from the Google Drive because I think they'll sit for Justin. That guy again. See, just that. [01:26:14] Speaker B: Why don't we still listen. Go. Go look at an elephant. [01:26:20] Speaker A: Go look at an elephant. Let's look at some of John Latimer's. John Latimer's image. [01:26:25] Speaker B: Alrighty, Johnny. Hey, guys. Not sure if you're doing it this week. We are. Last week in Sydney for work. Had an evening off, so took my staff on a ferry ride around the harbor and ended up in Sydney Botanical Gardens. Had my macro lens with me, so we decided to look for insects. Found this creepy little yellow flying insect. No idea what it is, but about the size of a mosquito. That's stupid. It managed to sit still for long enough to really play around with settings and lighting before it flew off. The photo wasn't really the point. It was great company and a day out. And for a bonus, I've got one of my staff into photography. Yeah, a recruit. Sony A7R3 100mm Macro, 1100 F11, ISO 4000. ISO 4000. That's insane. Oh, my God. That is. Stop it. [01:27:23] Speaker A: That's crazy. [01:27:24] Speaker B: That is amazing. Yeah. Incredible. [01:27:29] Speaker A: Great work. [01:27:30] Speaker B: I'm. I'm tempted to ask, at ISO 4000, have you given that any. Any treat noise treatment in post? But it doesn't really matter. Like, I think about that often. It doesn't matter. Who cares? It's. It's there. And. And at F11, you kind of got to be at that ISO setting. Hey, that's the thing with modern cameras is, is if you're complaining about noise, you're just complaining. [01:27:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And, you know, like, most macro. I mean, I've got a macro kit and I've got a, you know, a flash and a special diffuser from Cygnus Tech. Yeah, yeah. Which means that I don't have to bump up the ISO, but, I mean, this file is very clean. [01:28:08] Speaker B: It's wild. [01:28:08] Speaker A: I. I don't think he had an issue with ISO. [01:28:11] Speaker B: No. [01:28:12] Speaker A: You know. [01:28:12] Speaker B: No way. Yeah. That's gorgeous. [01:28:15] Speaker A: Tiny bit of. I mean, you guys probably can't see this here because obviously the power of the Internet's not that powerful. Tiny bit of beautiful grain in the background, but I'm zoomed right in. [01:28:23] Speaker B: There is actually. I can see that. [01:28:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:28:26] Speaker B: Wow, that's a beautiful photo. Well, see. [01:28:29] Speaker A: Well, great work. Up next, we have Paul Carpenter. Where's my image file gone? Where's Paul? Paul. Pick district. Do you want to read this out? [01:28:41] Speaker B: I do. I'm the reader tonight. Like, news. [01:28:43] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. If you don't mind. [01:28:45] Speaker B: You're probably sick of airplane pictures, so here's a bit of wildlife taking near Padley Gorge in the Peak District, UK. I have Cam Blake to thank for his YouTube video last year that highlighted this amazing location. [01:28:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:28:59] Speaker B: Canon R5.1 to 500 at 400 if 7.1. ISO 640 at 16 40th of a second. Yeah. Lovely. Look at that. [01:29:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:29:09] Speaker B: I've been to the Peak District, went on my trip there a couple of years. It's in there. So that is crazy, that photo. Look at the light. Yeah, that's nice. Look at the bug on the right there. The bug at the bottom right of the corner there. [01:29:27] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Over here. [01:29:29] Speaker B: Yeah, that's gorgeous. And the ferns. It feels very Kiwi. That does. Yeah. Look at that bug. That's nuts. [01:29:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's just this tiny little dot in the corner. I didn't even see it. That's incredible. Gorgeous. Well done, Paul. Gorgeous. [01:29:43] Speaker B: I feel Like I'm there. Feel like I'm there. [01:29:45] Speaker A: Yep. Oh, and interestingly, Dan Paul's put his hand up to be part of our live audience again at the. At the Beef Up Airbnb. [01:29:55] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I might have to do [01:29:58] Speaker A: something a bit more formal about that. Maybe get some other folks to show up. [01:30:01] Speaker B: Well and give them and. And have a T shirt that says I was. [01:30:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I went to be flopped. The only thing I got was a shitty camera life T shirt. [01:30:13] Speaker B: It is going to be fun this year. I've got a crazy thing happening which is good. I can't wait. [01:30:18] Speaker A: I cannot wait. Let's. Let's keep moving because it's already 9 o'. [01:30:22] Speaker B: Clock. [01:30:22] Speaker A: We still gotta. All right, all right, let's. Let's look at David's. [01:30:28] Speaker B: There's a bunch. I knew I was coming. This week I'd like to submit the following images for review. Take it at the Fushima Inari Taisha in Kyoto on my recent visit to Japan, taken on Justin's recommendation, I've selected the six images that would best capture this amazing experience. I've tried a few different techniques to capture the. There are. Some sections are quite dark and in other areas there were quite a few tourists to contend with. Having had success in Nagasaki using time exposure to blur out people. I applied this to some of the images I took here using the Canon R7 with Sigma 16 300. I'm gonna. I saw one of them at the corner of my eye. But I'll tell you something interesting, mate. I did a presentation once for Sony and I called it Smash the Histogram. And what it was was a. I developed a deep understanding that modern cameras and I'm sure your R7 is the same. I just exposed for the highlights really hardcore and I saw one there where there was a very bright light at the top. [01:31:34] Speaker A: Across the top. [01:31:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And we're very lucky as modern photographers is with the gear that we use that. That. My Lord, you could just. The blacks can be black and you get it all back in post. Yeah. So some. Your. Your statement. Sorry, your. Your words there, that some sections are quite dark. Lean into that. That's what I say. Yeah, I shoot. I shoot way under these days, but those are great. I love that one. [01:32:06] Speaker A: One. [01:32:06] Speaker B: That's nice. [01:32:07] Speaker A: This is gorgeous. [01:32:08] Speaker B: Yeah. You could easily go stupid with the saturation slider on that. I'm glad you haven't. [01:32:12] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't think you need to. This. The. The color speaks for itself. It doesn't need to be shown off, you know. It's just there, it's contrasting to the surroundings. It's just. It's soft, it's beautiful. A few little highlights, but. Yeah, go for it. Yeah. [01:32:28] Speaker B: Battery just ran out on my studio light there. [01:32:31] Speaker A: Oh, no. Dennis in the dark. Oh, that could be a podcast, Dennis. Oh, that's Bruce's image. Yeah. Great collection. I'm hugely jealous, but I think this is my favorite that's just popped up here. [01:32:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's lovely. I love. I actually like the. That it's muted. [01:32:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I do too. Well, it just lets the story tell itself. Yeah. You know, [01:33:01] Speaker B: I. And this p. Yeah, it's gorgeous. I love it. Nice set, mate. [01:33:06] Speaker A: Indeed. [01:33:08] Speaker B: Now you can see my studio is such a mess. My apologies. [01:33:12] Speaker A: That's all right. We'll. We'll do a close up in a minute. All right, let's have a look here. Philip Johnson's up next. [01:33:19] Speaker B: All right, let's go. [01:33:20] Speaker A: Philip Phillips. Let me just have a quick greetings. [01:33:25] Speaker B: Attached him as the attached image was captured some time back at a local lake. Decided to focus on eye and face of a goose that wandered by. The image was processed in Photoshop 2026 with a bit of topaz love in there. Sony A74 with a 70-200 f 2.8, a 2.8 M2. Great lens made of mine. Just got one of Those and a G1 and it is so light compared to my canon equivalent one. [01:33:54] Speaker A: Which lens is it? [01:33:55] Speaker B: Sorry, I didn't hear the 70 to 202.8 Sony. [01:34:00] Speaker A: Amazing. [01:34:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's wild. Great bit of glass and cool photo up close. Animals are cool, man. They have. Yeah, they got ice and stuff. [01:34:09] Speaker A: I've lost it. Yeah, I've been getting into doing close ups of. Because I've got these kittens that are always around, you know, you know what it's like. You've got cats. [01:34:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I've got eight cats. [01:34:21] Speaker A: Yeah. So. And yeah, just photographing eyes is just. Oh, it's fascinating. I love it. [01:34:26] Speaker B: Remarkable. Yeah, very cool. Lovely. Good. [01:34:30] Speaker A: Philip, as always, love your contribution. Incredible. We're up for Rick Nelson. [01:34:38] Speaker B: Yep, there's still a lot of images. We'll power through these. Hey, I know. [01:34:42] Speaker A: Let's get through these. [01:34:43] Speaker B: Yeah, let's go. Okay, Rick, let's go. Thank you. [01:34:46] Speaker A: Oh, hang on. I don't know if I have them. Ah, here they are. Sorry, my bad. [01:34:51] Speaker B: Okay, thank you for each and every week you do the show. Well, thank you very much, mate. Yeah, I love being a part of such a diverse group of creatives today. I had three images from the past week. We finally had fog in Brisbane and I was available to photograph it. I quickly dropped my wife at her work and hit the road with my camera. These three photos are from different areas around Brisbane that I stopped and explored. I was truly spoiled with options as the fog hung around to almost lunchtime. I shot the windmill with the S5 II and the TT Artisan 40 mil F2 and the others with the Lumix S5 II and the Lumix 20 to 60 lens. The scenes were so ominous, I felt like it was on a Stephen King movie set with the props still in the misty fog. That is a great way to describe how you felt looking at images. Yeah, that's great. I love that. I love that. [01:35:46] Speaker A: I'll go to the next one. Just a sec. Just quickly, this one here, I really love over here the way that the. The tree branches are popping through the fog a little bit with a bit more definition and contrast. Just adds that kind of layers of depth. It's beautiful. Well done. Great shot. [01:36:03] Speaker B: Fog is cool. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. That feels like War of the Worlds. [01:36:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. War of the Worlds. [01:36:10] Speaker B: That is that. They're gonna come and get us. [01:36:14] Speaker A: Just enough definition, you know. [01:36:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And. And the other thing, when I look at stuff like this, good for, like, making the image, sometimes you'd look at, wow, there's nothing there, or whatever. Well. Well, again, well seen. I don't know why that keeps coming out of me tonight, but I love when you see people that. Yeah, you've seen something and grabbed it. Yeah, beautiful. [01:36:34] Speaker A: You can tell that they've seen it. You can tell that they've seen something that's worth recording, worth documenting. [01:36:40] Speaker B: That's it. Yeah, Lovely. [01:36:42] Speaker A: Incredible. Up next, we've got our friend, Lisa Leech. [01:36:45] Speaker B: Hey. Hey. Having. This is from Lisa. Having taken on board your feedback and input from last week's podcast, I thought I might share the same image with some of the adjustments you suggested. That's a great idea. Nature's duality has been flipped to show the reflection of the trees the correct way up. I think this serves to change the subject of the image to the tree reflections as opposed to the dark remnants of bull rushes in the water of the reverse image, which works well in this case. I've also brought up the whites as suggested by Adam. Thanks for sharing and for your feedback. It's greatly appreciated and I enjoy seeing the incredibly diverse and amazing work of the chat team and the crew. I tell you a funny thing. [01:37:27] Speaker A: Oh, just Looking for an image. Sorry. [01:37:30] Speaker B: I take something interesting without even seeing it. Lisa. I'm doing this epic exhibition with a. With an artist, an actual artist. And he did this thing the other day we were trying to figure out. And he's a painter, so he's painting and I'm light painting. We're printing. It's. It's extreme. But he did this thing and he teaches art. He said, you know, what I do sometime then. But I'm sort of struggling to decide what to do with the painting is I turn the image upside down and he hangs the painting upside down and will sometimes work on it that way. And he was describing to me how you see it differently. You see blocks and stuff differently. So, yeah, when you described upside down, [01:38:09] Speaker A: I'm just having trouble finding this image. I don't know what I've done with it. Just give me a second. [01:38:14] Speaker B: That's all right. [01:38:14] Speaker A: Just. Just chat amongst yourselves, folks. [01:38:16] Speaker B: Yeah, good. So, yeah, very good. Beef up photography. Yeah. This exhibition I'm doing, so it's called Response. So my collaborator goes and paints a certain thing in our sub, in our area. And then I see his painting and I go and make a light painting to respond to it. And then the two canvases are being joined together. That's one of the things we're doing. The other is I give him a photo, he paints the photo and we. He. But he paints it on a translucent material that we did testing with. And then I light paint his painting and then we print the light painting and that's the final piece. [01:38:57] Speaker A: 1.5. [01:38:58] Speaker B: Yeah. 1.5 meter square prints. It's insane. [01:39:02] Speaker A: That's amazing. No. [01:39:03] Speaker B: Lisa Leach photo. [01:39:05] Speaker A: Not found it. Oh, yeah, got it. [01:39:08] Speaker B: Amazing. [01:39:09] Speaker A: I would go with. [01:39:10] Speaker B: To go. [01:39:10] Speaker A: It's here somewhere. Here we go. Sorry, Lisa. And add to stage. All right. [01:39:19] Speaker B: Ah, I remember this from the other week. [01:39:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, [01:39:26] Speaker B: yeah. Okay. So let's. [01:39:28] Speaker A: Duality. [01:39:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, let's just quickly. Yeah, Duality. It's. It's fascinating. I think I said feedback last week. I thought I might share the same adjustments. Yeah. So we. [01:39:38] Speaker A: I think we said flip it, didn't we? [01:39:40] Speaker B: Yep. So it's flipped and lowered the whites a bit. Yeah. So played with it. [01:39:44] Speaker A: What a. What a great. [01:39:46] Speaker B: And. And that. I remember remembering it from last week. The. Yeah. The tree is a bit more prominent, which makes it more abstract. [01:39:54] Speaker A: It does, yeah. Isn't it interesting, though, Just flipping something on its head. [01:39:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:39:59] Speaker A: Just changes the mood of it and the story it tells so much. Yeah, yeah. That's very cool. [01:40:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:40:06] Speaker A: Beautiful work, Lisa, as always. [01:40:08] Speaker B: And I'm looking forward to Europe as well, mate. We're gonna have a blast this year. [01:40:14] Speaker A: Absolutely. All right, David Skinners. [01:40:18] Speaker B: Hey, Dave. Okay, here we go. He says he made the comment. Boy, are you whipping out those beef up videos. Yeah, they're coming. There are a couple of shots taken yesterday near home in the Dookie Hills or Dookie. Interesting story. While driving up and down the back roads, I was approached by two farmers. [01:40:37] Speaker A: Very nice. [01:40:38] Speaker B: Once they knew I was just taking photos, we had good friendly chats. They told me there has been some serious robberies of off farm properties in the district adding up to tens of thousands of dollars. You can understand why they're being vigilant. They tell me the canola is about three weeks early this year and will peak in a week or two. That is early for canola. I may not get a chance to get back. Perhaps next week. Well, mate, canola is so wonderful. Hey, it's so. It's a cool, challenging thing to photo. [01:41:07] Speaker A: Oh, look at that. [01:41:08] Speaker B: Oh, that's a banger, that. Nice work putting this on there. Right there. [01:41:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well played, sir. Yeah, I saw an article about farmers getting shitty about a special. More social media influencers that love to get in amongst it and we'll walk out into their fields, jump fences and walk out into the fields and you know, just for that canola shot or a sunflower shot or whatever it may [01:41:32] Speaker B: be, [01:41:34] Speaker A: it gives the rest of us a bad name. [01:41:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's just nasty. But yeah, they're lovely. That, that, that, that. Yeah, the one with the sun is, is magical. [01:41:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:41:47] Speaker B: How cool. It's right, it's pretty clear. Yeah. Classic. [01:41:52] Speaker A: Yep. Oh yeah, very cool. Who we got next? Dan? [01:41:57] Speaker B: Phil. Come on, Phil, let's get this on. [01:42:03] Speaker A: Hang on. [01:42:03] Speaker B: Phil Thompson. [01:42:04] Speaker A: Phil Thompson. Why don't I have Phil's images either? I just talk amongst yourselves for a moment folks and what I did wrong here. But I'll find. [01:42:13] Speaker B: Well, I'll tell you funny story about jumping over fenced in farms. There's a famous house down here in South Australia, Australia, that was on the front of a Midnight Oil album. It's called the Midnight Oil House. And when I first started light painting, I didn't even sort of all I knew. It was just some dumb ruin in a paddock and I jumped in and created these wild light painting like it was some of the. They're still some of my favorites and just got pummeled online on Facebook for being there. And I'm like, what the hell are you all talking about Now? I look back and it's like, you go down there now there's really razor wire on the thing. Like they. Because everyone goes there to photograph it. And they built a parking, parking thing near it and stuff. But I didn't know. Yeah, yeah, I had no idea. [01:42:59] Speaker A: All right, let's bring up Phil's images I found. [01:43:01] Speaker B: Okay, Phil, here we go. Phil Thompson. The theme is surfers at sunrise. And all of them were taken at Torque's surf beach on different summer's mornings with different people as they're either about to go for a surf or just after they finished. For the morning. I opted for silhouettes, pretty much exposing for the color and depth of the sun rises. I find often that these are just an added bonus for me, usually after capturing an incredible dawn or sunrise. There all were shot on a Pentax K1 Mark II with a 15 to 30 mil lens and a Wonder Pana wonder panel. GND filter. Shutter speed 15140 and 125 a second. Lots of apertures, lots of ISOs. Keep up the great work. Dude, they are. They are insane. They look like surf company marketing videos. You should definitely, ah, I reckon just because that's what we're sort of here doing. I do wonder with the other one. I know I get the sky is amazing, but imagine if we could just see their full reflection on the bottom. I know we would lose the cloud at the top. So that's a creative decision, but yeah, that's beautiful, man. Big step back maybe. [01:44:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:44:18] Speaker B: Look at even the cloud reflections, mate. They are so, so wild. [01:44:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And I love how punchy these images are. You know, it's just, it's just poof, there it is. It's the sun. [01:44:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:44:30] Speaker A: You know, it's full sun. You know, it's just. [01:44:34] Speaker B: But you got like those, those, those surfers and stuff. I, I imagine they're. When they're not posing for you. I mean, you got to be quick, like to position. Like that person is probably not holding the board there for two minutes waiting for you to get the perfect angle. Yeah. And so that means you've moved quickly, positioned yourself quickly had the camera settings right. Like, that's really, really, really red. Yeah, that one's the absolute banger. [01:45:00] Speaker A: Yeah, that, that. [01:45:01] Speaker B: Print that. [01:45:02] Speaker A: Print it, print it. We only got a couple of people left, I think. No one person left. One more. [01:45:10] Speaker B: It's. It's pretty epic. Yeah, we ducked it out. I don't know what the hell Justin does when he's here, but you need to. [01:45:17] Speaker A: He just. He's like this. It's just sometime the guy. [01:45:24] Speaker B: What a bastard. [01:45:26] Speaker A: I'm still shooting with me in Melbourne while he went to bloody Africa. That's. I'm so upset. Love you. Boss. Let's have a look at Richard's. [01:45:36] Speaker B: Okay. Richard. Richard. [01:45:37] Speaker A: He's got three shots. What's the first one? [01:45:45] Speaker B: Richard Bell Gig. So it's gig. Guitar Roller derby. [01:45:48] Speaker A: There it is. [01:45:49] Speaker B: All right. [01:45:49] Speaker A: Thanks, boss. [01:45:50] Speaker B: Alrighty. I've been. I've been wanting to submit my work for a while now but felt intimidated by the high standard of the photos already shown. Especially since my passion is people photography. A subject I haven't been. Haven't seen much of here. However, I've selected three images as an introduction to my work over the last nine months. Outside of client work, I've shopped exclusively in black and white that. Here are the details of the three photos. Gig this was taken during a live gig for the 90s band the Sharp who made a comeback in the past 12 months. Along with this gig, I photographed their press kit and promo shots for their comeback. I'm no Lucinda, but I love the connection I captured with the lead singer during the show. This is shot on a Z9 with some pretty sick set glass 24 to 12042 mil F8 1 200th and ISO 2000 using the stage lighting. That's really rad. Actually, you know what I like? I just thinking about the settings because when I. Without seeing the images I look at that and I go f8 with the high. With such a high ISO that what I can. What I love here is we can see the drums and the double bass there. [01:47:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:47:06] Speaker B: Which is why you would want to be at F8 because I think so often we fall into this trap of if it's. If it's not perfect conditions, just be wide open. But by pushing the ISO and going to F8, what he's done is really told a story. So we've got the connection with the guy and there's no confusion. This guy is in a band and it's in a. I love Lucinda. I could never edit. The next image is guitar. This is from a series of musicians I've started. Heavily inspired by Avedon and Platon. While I. I should say that properly, heavily inspired by Avedon and Platon. While I used to shoot portraits using the long end of a 70 to 200, I now prefer shooting as wide as possible. Including with my recent 20 mil F1 8 purchase. Great, great, great lens. Nikon Z9. 35 mil F1. 8. 25 milli Fate 1, 200. That ISO 201 overhead 300 watt strobe, they've got 35 millif 18. Yeah. I'm not sure what the, what the deal is that I think it, I think the shot is at 25 mil F8. Yeah. Correct. Yeah, yeah. That's another red photo. [01:48:26] Speaker A: Yeah, it's really clean. [01:48:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Really, really, really nice. [01:48:30] Speaker A: Yeah, beautiful. [01:48:31] Speaker B: Next one is roller derby dedicated to Bruce Moyle that I'm trying not to look at the photo. I want to read the thing dedicated to Bruce Mole. This was taken at the WFTDA Oceania Regional Championships in June where I served as the tournament head photographer. I've been photographing roller Derby since 2013. Even when covering this sport, I am drawn to sport rates rather than action shots. Last year I self published a coffee table book by Kickstarter called Faces of Roller Derby featuring over 100 close up portraits from the community. This is taken again on the Z9, which is an insane camera by the way. 70 to 200 F28 at 200 miles. Sorry, I think the shot is shot at f 2.8. 1 500th of a second ISO 6400 natural light. That is gorgeous, man. Thank you for your time. Loves the podcast to being part of the community. Well, I tell you what, Richard, your opening comment there is that you, you feel a little intimidated. Firstly, it takes astonishing courage to place your images into the public image environment. So firstly, thank you because these are gorgeous. But also, yeah, you don't need to feel intimidated, mate. These are wild, wild photos. And, and I, and, and I don't. When I look at these, I look at this one and I go, how nice is it that she's got a nice clean background of no one sitting on the stairs by her. So we've got people outside. If there was a person on either side tight in, it might be distracting. I don't know how planned that was, but it's extraordinary. I'm not distracted in the slightest by that. Yeah, just lovely. Man. Your work is gorgeous. Can you just pop back to the other one for me? I didn't see the first one. [01:50:21] Speaker A: This one. [01:50:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I, this is really timely actually. Even though you're shooting on one of the greatest cameras that's ever existed. But before we were talking about how the importance of story, right, it doesn't matter what camera you have, you, you can shoot at F8. You don't need fancy pants. Super mega glass to be shooting at f8 at ISO 2000 and 200th of a second. And what you've done here is you have told a perfect story and you could in, in, in a lot. What the point I'm trying to make is, is that you've not shot this at any extreme settings. And so fundamentally any camera with those basic settings, you could make this thing. You've told a fantastic, perfect story. I know everything about this guy and that's beautiful. So telling good stories works. [01:51:19] Speaker A: Indeed. Should never be underrated. [01:51:22] Speaker B: Never. No, I think it's a great set. Keep, Keep sharing them, man, because. Yeah, and you're so right. It's something, something. It's funny being on this side of the podcast, you know, after being feeling quite Tourette's. All the time in the comments is the amount of time the word community comes up. Right. And, and I, and I, I really, I just. Again, Justin's probably now rolling around in the dust trying to capture some video. But I, I just want to say to you, Greg, that I constantly just feel this really beautiful sense of community when I'm here. And, and being on this side and reading some of these comments, it seems it comes out all the time from, from everyone. And I think there's a sense of safety that people feel to share their images here, to talk, to ask questions. And I think that's what, that's the real power of this thing that you guys have built is, is it's just, it's a nice, safe place for people to share and learn and, and, and be a part of. And yeah, it's really lovely. [01:52:25] Speaker A: No, thanks, man. I really appreciate that. You know, and it's, it's. It's. When Justin first proposed this gig to me, so he already had the podcast going and clearly it was a show so they needed someone to come in [01:52:36] Speaker B: that actually what they were doing. [01:52:38] Speaker A: Not that I knew what I was doing, but I made it work. What's that saying? Fake it till you make it? That's it. But yeah, and we often get, you know, I get emails or comments or, you know, social media posts from people saying, you know, that, yeah, thanks for making a safe space for us to, yeah. Talk about our craft because, you know, often on social media it can be quite isolating and B, there's some absolute pricks out there that would just love tearing people's work apart and making them feel great, you know, crap about it. But, you know, here we've created a space where like minded folk can come, they can spend a couple of hours you know, once or twice a week or they can watch it or listen to it later and just feel that level of connection that other people get it. [01:53:25] Speaker B: Yep. [01:53:25] Speaker A: Other people. What you're seeing, what you're thinking, what you're experiencing, all that sort of stuff. [01:53:30] Speaker B: People don't want to be judged. They don't. You know, Bruce is. Bruce's right now in the middle, in the thick of it of judging in the. Whatever fancy photographic prize. Yeah, yeah, that thing. Right. So people. People do like to be judged when they know they're going to be judged. Right? Yeah, we live in that. We. You're so right in that. We live in this time where clickbait and. Clickbait and rage baiting holds real, genuine currency in. In the social media landscape that, that we live in. And so safe places. Safe places are havens, man. And, and. And if you can find somewhere safe to be part of a community. And that's here. That I feel it here. And it's like at bfop, douchebags get spat out of that thing real fast and, and. And it's just. It's magical. [01:54:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. Yeah. [01:54:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:54:34] Speaker A: Well, goosebumps. [01:54:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Do we need to do another Ed read? [01:54:40] Speaker A: No, we don't need another. Unless you want to. [01:54:45] Speaker B: You can. [01:54:46] Speaker A: Well, what. Hang on. Let's, let's, let's. Let's talk about what you got coming up. What you got coming up next? [01:54:51] Speaker B: Yeah. So this week is all about my exhibition, so it's adding on my. Adding. That's so funny. I've got a post on my Instagram which is the ball of light, so that. That is all consuming for the next week. Then I'm. We've got some quite big changes happening around my counseling business. So for those that don't know, I've. I now I. I'm. I'm a trained counselor, so I work in mental health and developing a few things around that. So we're making some changes there. And then really it's leading into bfop. I've got. I really want to come and spend a week in Melbourne. I really want to do this workshop at Fabric. So Fabric is this amazing space in Melbourne that Jason Lau, who's been a guest on the show and a host we hosted together, actually he has this incredible place in. This incredible place in Melbourne that can be darkened out during the day. So I'm thinking about holding it one or two light painting workshops there prior to bfop. They'll be affordable, fun and mega. But yeah, just surviving really, mate, at the moment, like just Battling like a lot of people. I think I'm trying to figure out how the hell to pay the next mortgage payment. [01:56:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I hear that. [01:56:12] Speaker B: Yeah, it's rough at the moment and there's a freelancer wannabe thing. You, you're just out there trying to do the best you can and, and make people happy. And that makes me happy indeed. Bruce. Oh, sorry, go. [01:56:28] Speaker A: No, I was just going to bring up Jason. So this is Jason LA space. We've had Jason podcast a few time, guys. He was one of the first people I got on when I joined the Camera Life podcast. Speaking of the early days, I, you know, reached out to a bunch of mates and, and got a bunch of amazing creators on. And Jason, Jason continues to go from strength to strength. You know, he's been involved with alpaca. I've been to a few alpaca events, done some review work for them and Jason's all over that. Jason's all over the GR space and the GR launches in Australia. You know, he was at the Fuji summit. He, he's going to. I'm pretty sure he's doing something. It's Sony Scenescape, which is in Melbourne that Sunday before coming up. Yeah, yeah. [01:57:09] Speaker B: Is he. [01:57:10] Speaker A: Yeah, it's coming really far. What's that whole weekend? It's Saturday and Sunday. [01:57:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:57:16] Speaker A: But yeah, so Jason's got this amazing studio space. [01:57:21] Speaker B: He was, I, I reached out to him and I said, hey, it looks, I can see that it can be darkened out during the day. Can it? I'm thinking about doing workshop. And he was at his business partner. Unbelievable. They were like, absolutely, we'll lock it in for you. And I said, hey, it would be great to do some stuff with bikes, like maybe do some auto art stuff. And he was like, what bike? How many? Windy want them? Jace was, he was incredible. I, I would love to do something there. I think he should. [01:57:49] Speaker A: And he does a lot of motorbike work. He's got his own bike, he and his partner and they do a bunch of stuff around that. He's got a separate Instagram account that's just about his bike stuff. [01:58:00] Speaker B: It's great. [01:58:00] Speaker A: So, yeah, huge studio. So the main space is 12 by 13 meters. Yeah, a lot of stuff that, you know, there's two bathrooms, there's a kitchen, there's a changing room, there's roller doors, blackout blinds, three phase power. So you could just go nuts. [01:58:16] Speaker B: You know, we could do, we could bring up old mate that does the, that super high powered large format printing that's in the chat. I Can't remember tin type. [01:58:26] Speaker A: Oh, Scott. [01:58:26] Speaker B: Yeah. He needs like 50 gigawatts. You know the challenge though, mate. Like, here's the thing. I'll tell you. I'll tell you a bit of a challenge that I have and. And you having now starting doing workshops will appreciate this. Here is. Here's the challenge for me and it always has existed and it does right now is I always want my workshops to be really, really approachable for everybody. I'm not really interested because these exist and I do do them things where it cost $2,000 dollars. Right. Like they're cool, but we all know who's going to those is. Is people who have a bit of disposable cash or they've saved up or whatever. [01:59:03] Speaker A: My. [01:59:04] Speaker B: I always want my workshops to be accessible to people that are really finding it a bit tough. Right. Like that can maybe want to drop 150 bucks or that's. And so it's just dilemma because I go, okay, that's a big space. How many people can I fit in? And then it just becomes this maths thing. It's like, okay, if I have 12 people there and they're paying two, then it's massive, all that stuff. Yeah. But right now it is rough and I really. I'm trying to find a way to do. I'm trying to find a way to make these things like just almost that you don't have to think about it. [01:59:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:59:43] Speaker B: Whether that sponsorship from someone that. That throws in a bit of stuff or whatever, I don't know. But. But I always, always, always desperately want anybody that even thinks that coming and having a play with this thing can do it. So that's what I'm thinking at the moment, now that I've decided to. To do that workshop. And if the Sunday sells out, I'll probably do it on Saturday as well. But it'll be good. It'll be amazing. And then you and I get to hang out, mate. [02:00:09] Speaker A: I know. And it looks like Bruce wants to come over early too. Maybe. [02:00:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. Yeah. [02:00:15] Speaker A: Come over. Yeah. [02:00:15] Speaker B: Oh, I'd love it. It's. It's the. Yeah. Yep. [02:00:19] Speaker A: What do we got here? We got Phil Thompson has said, dennis, I'd love to like painting workshop with you when you're in Melbourne. Please keep me in the loop. Brucey says. Yeah. Workshop I. I can attest to that, having just tried to work that out, that's for sure. [02:00:34] Speaker B: Big. Yeah. A big one. Is that the big problem with it? Especially with light painting workshop? Because there's just so much gear is, is people. It's hard for people sometimes to wrap their head around just, just how much time is involved. Right. Like it one, any, any workshop for me is three days and all that, but it doesn't matter. [02:00:51] Speaker A: Yeah, very cool. Well, I think that might be a good place to draw a line in the sand of this episode of the Random Photography show. What do you say, sir? [02:00:58] Speaker B: Yeah, man, I'm looking. You want to see? That's what gear acquisition syndrome looks like. Look at all these cameras here. It's crazy. I've been, I've been shooting for three days and it's. Yeah, it's wild. Well, so this is the beauty of [02:01:11] Speaker A: having your own, your own studio. You can, you can walk away from that and turn the light out and you can deal with it tomorrow. I know you won't, but you could. [02:01:18] Speaker B: Are you okay? Hey, thank you for asking me to come and fill the spot. I feel, as always, I just feel humbled that, that I have anything that anyone would ever want to listen to. And, and how neat to be sitting here with that community. [02:01:32] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a pretty cool gig, huh? But look, couldn't do it without you. That Justin guy, whatever, [02:01:44] Speaker B: he could just keep. I could come to make this a full time gig. He could. [02:01:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's he gonna do about it? Anyway, look, D, thank you once again for your insight, for especially talking around, you know, because buying gear is. It can be a stressful thing. Yep. It's always good to sort of just flatten that playing field a bit and look at it rationally and go, well, hang on, what, what do you really need right now? [02:02:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [02:02:10] Speaker A: Is an incremental increase in mega pickles really going to make a difference to what you're doing? You know, so thank you for bringing that, that down to earth logic to it, to a dilemma that a lot of people face. For the folks watching and listening along at home, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Justin is away. He'll be away all of next week as well. And then he'll be back for the, the following week, I'm pretty sure. No, he'll be back for next Thursday's podcast. And on that note, actually we have this coming Thursday. We have. [02:02:42] Speaker B: Who have we got? [02:02:43] Speaker A: Jesus, Greg, get it together. We're catching up with Matt Hudson. Sydney based photographer, 15 years. Yeah. Shooting sports events, landscape portraiture, the whole, the whole bit. So we're gonna have a long form chat with Matt Hudson. But yeah, if you're new here, this is the camera life Podcast. We do this twice a week. Every Monday evening, 7.30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time, we do our brand of photography show. We cover industry news, we cover product launches. We often have an amazing co host join and add insight to a particular topic like tonight's guest discussion and yeah, and then every Thursday morning we interview amazing photographers from all over the globe. A couple of weeks ago we had Steve Parish on. Last week it was David Amel who, you know, co produces a 20 million subscription YouTube channel. But we have an incredible back catalog. We've got over 200 episodes of the Camera Live podcast ready for you to watch. Every one of them is live because we'd like to involve community and the best way to be involved is to say g' day in the chat. Give us a like and if you, if you got a moment, hit the subscribe button. Running out of words. Hit the subscribe button and tickle the bell so you'll get notified in your time zone when the next episode of the Camera Life podcast is out. And of course, don't forget to check out our BFOP 2026 workshop instructor spotlight series of interviews. They are going out thick and fast. I've got a bunch of them to do this week. I've got a couple tomorrow and then a few more throughout the week. We're almost done. We're almost, I can almost see the light. [02:04:17] Speaker B: Then there's a lot, man, that's a lot of people that's going to be, it's going to be a wild beef up. And John Latimer, I'm looking right at John. So John Latimer who's in the chat there, he, he often shares images I was hoping he would share. He's got this crazy L image on his Instagram at the moment, which is insane. Okay, thanks guys. [02:04:39] Speaker A: Check it out. All right, on that note, I'm not going to play any music out because I can't remember where the button is, but thank you, thank you to everyone in the chat. Thank you to everyone who, who joined us tonight who's watched along and commented, you know, if you are new here, don't be shy, just say g'. [02:04:55] Speaker B: Day. [02:04:55] Speaker A: You don't have to send images in if you don't want to. That's fine. Let us know who you are, where you watching or listening from and join the community. It is a safe place and we're here just to talk about Hunting Light. So on that note, folks, thank you so much to everyone. Thank you again, Dennis. I look forward to catching up with you again soon. And everyone be safe out there. Have a great night, everybody. Bye. [02:05:17] Speaker B: Thanks, everyone. See you later.