Lessons

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Lenses Part 1

So the hundred five millimeter macro what led me to this was a sort of slow progression of mac rose. For a very long time, I thought that what my ring shots in my detail shots were lacking was just my own technical ability. I was trying to shoot them within eighty five, I was trying to shoot them with twenty four to seventy I actually had somebody on my facebook page last night asked me, why do you have an eighty five and one hundred and five when they're both really similar in focal length and both of those focal length links are covered with your seventy two, two hundred? Now, I understand that question kind of in the abstract, but in the reality of one hundred five millimeter it's, not just one hundred five millimeter lens it's a macro lens, so you have the magnification of that lens to take into account every time you use it. You're staying at home and you're like, but I have a macro lens, but I still can't get all of my detail shots and focus. I'm going to guess that you're shooti...

ng your macro lens at two point eight or three point five yeah, everyone's like yes, because that's just what you think you do, write like I should've bride getting ready it one, four, one eight to eight and then they're pretty much in focus but why would I shoot a ring it to eight doesn't just look like total crap that's because of the magnification magnification factor of the macro lens you have to take that into account when you're putting together you're seeing so when I'm shooting my rings I'm starting them at f nine eleven f sixteen above and beyond it f twenty two if I'm trying to get the entire inscription in focus so for example when you look at this ring right here this was actually shot at eleven and that doesn't look like f eleven but if you look at the placement of where the actual ring is in the sort of loops of the shoe you can see that the on ly areas to talk in total layman's terms the only areas in focus are the parts that are literally on the plain of the prongs of the diamond in the facet of the diamond even it f eleven so I used to shoot the sixty millimeter macro and that's a great linds I have no problems with the sixty millimeter macro it was sharp, it was light, it was fast it focused as well as you can expect a macro too which is s o so usually I like to give the macro fighting chance before I give up and start manually focusing it but after about ten seconds of hearing free yeah, you're like, listen, I got this because you put a sparkly thing on a sparkling thing and it's, just like I have no idea what sparkly thing you wanted focus so I usually do take over I usually do have to manually focus it, not because it won't eventually figure out what I'm doing, but because it's just faster, I don't manually focus any of my other lenses, but the macro it's, it's just a lot easier to just switch it over and handle it yourself. So when I was shooting the sixty millimeter for my detail shot, my husband shot the one oh five he got ahold of it, he was he was working with it, and he made a really great comment and he's like why you're into compression with everything else? Where are you shooting a sixty with your macro? So me being the overzealous overachiever that I am was like, you know what? I'm gonna buy a one o five animal via tele converter and he's like that's, not really what I was getting at, but whatever. So then I actually sat down and I assessed my work because again, I'm not gonna buy something new if I don't need it, so I looked at the images that I was producing out of the sixty millimeter macro and they were fine, they were but then I tried one hundred five millimeter and I realized that we're the results were way more in line with the rest of the work that I was doing, and with the effect that I was trying to achieve, I was having a much easier time of it setting up the scenes the way that I wanted with that little additional compression. And then I mentioned a tele converter. I did buy a one point five tell a converter it's little it's light, I think it's less than six hundred dollars and I use it for two things and one of them which bears mentioning is the macro, so if I get overzealous and crazy and decide I want one hundred five millimeter to be a two hundred and ten millimeter, I'll go ahead and pop that tell a converter on, you need to make sure with your tele converter that you're careful with your settings because you will lose a stop when you put the tele converter on so you won't be able to shoot like one hundred five millimeter macro at f to two point eight. You won't have that two point eight capability when you put the tele converter on, so just be mindful of that I don't do it all the time it is a little trick in my bag and it's one of the little kind of add ons that I'm married to the lens that I use here but again with one hundred five millimeter macro talking about what I use it for I use it for shooting rings and again f sixteen which you look at it and it sort of defines your photo one o one logic of f sixteen you're like, well, the ring itself is kind of in focus but the band has gone in the foreground is gone in the background is gone that can't be f sixteen it's f sixteen because of the magnification factor of the macro so if you're struggling with your detail shots first of all, if you're not using a macro lens, you're never going to get this look with another lens and then somebody else said, well, what if I just have a twenty four to seventy and then I just shoot it and then I crop it closer that's not the same thing it's a macro lenses of macro linds you can't force your twenty four to seventy to look like a macro lens and I'm not saying that you have to buy the hundred five it's it's not an inexpensive linds I bought it because I had the room and my gear budget for it we talked a little bit about were going when you really get into the pricing and marketing days we talking very strongly about staying on top of your finances I do have a line item for a new gear so I knew that it was in my budget for the year, I knew that it would actually improve the work that I was doing, which meets my two requirements, and I still have my sixty millimeter and it's still in my bag because macro shots are such a big thing with what I do and what my clients have come to expect from me that if something happens to my mackerel, linz, I can't. They're literally is no weather lands in my bank that I could use to substitute it, so that sixty is buried somewhere it's in there somewhere, probably under the cristian, but it's in the in there, but you never know. We talked about having back up, and I'm not saying that you have to go out and buy duplicates of every single one of your lenses because that's redundant and really who's got the money for that. But if macro shots are your thing, if it is something that clients have have expected from you, having a backup is nice, and I'm not saying you have to have another one hundred five millimeter but having some form of backup and if you can't afford that one, oh five and if you can afford that sixty, look for a used lynn's. You don't have to buy a nikon linds, you khun by an off brand linds like there you have a bunch of options, it doesn't have to be fancy. You can get a good used in sigma macro for, you know, a much lower price tag on a brand new one o five so my very first macro was a cannon and I bought it used and I bought it old and it was cranky, but it was what I could afford it the time, and it allowed me to start shooting the images that I wanted, and then I was able to upgrade when I was making more money, and then I was able to upgrade when I knew that the limbs would help me make better images. So just to continue illustrating what I do, use that macro for and if you have a lot of questions about the shooting of the details, luckily enough for you haven't entire hour dedicated to shooting details, so you're going to be all good, but because I am here today, I can take questions today, it's a little helpful to go over it again, but I use one hundred five for things like this and things like this, and I will talk to you on the details day about how I think through my setups. And what I'm looking for when I put together a ring shot and you'll get to see some before and after I mentioned yesterday you'll get to see like a picture taken with my iphone of here's the ring sitting on this with this in front of this and back in a bunch of junk port on the table this is what it looks like one shot with the macro even something as simple and kind of nineteen eighties is putting the ring in the bouquet can look really beautiful when shot with the right light and the right linds I'm not here today to talk to you about light but I am here to talk to you today about lin selection and if you're trying to do macro detail work without a macro lens it's going to be a kind of kind of hard thing so over the years I've just been refining the way that the lenses that I've been bringing to the table have been helping me with these images some of them are sixty millimeters this was a sixty millimeter but everything else that you saw before was one hundred five just that little extra compression I really believe helps me push the way that I set the scene up over into something a little bit more special so before we move on questions about the macro lens from both our intrepid studio audience in anyone on the internet who has a question yes, ma'am one of five to eight or is it v r it is the arm okay? Yes, because I have I have one that does not have the r and I'm really considering getting the our cause. I'm shaky and I tried to use a tripod just a table mount tripod and I still in just a little too shaky, you know my hands get shaky, shaky ok, well, and another thing to consider when you're shooting the macro if you are shooting at like eleven f sixteen your s o is going to start to go right so you try to counter by keeping your shutter speed down, but there's only so down you can keep your shutter speed with one hundred one hundred five millimeter lens on your camera before your hands are like, so I can hand hold my one o five like a sixtieth of a second and I'll hold my breath and I'll shoot three shots in the middle is almost always and focus, but even then okay, I get a little crazy handed so that for me would be a reason to upgrade right the lens who frustratingly enough so but yeah, I kind of knew that little additional avi are when you're like it s o ten thousand because the room is dark dish our most of these little with natural, lighter with your eyes light, okay almost all of them are lit with natural like and that's. What to take a step back and just take a quick look, and I absolutely don't mind looking through them again. I kind of think they're pretty. They may be pretty happy. So this is the bride shoe sitting on the bed with the window with my back. I'm probably about a foot away from the window, so that's just all naturally, that is a chair about a foot from a window again, same sort of concept that has tea lights underneath it it's just a ring in champagne with some tea lights underneath it, but not visible, so they're kind of off to the side like a ring of cheap, crappy tea lights that's a window also a window over our king theme here is that that's a window and then one more that is also a window. I'm generally about a foot away from the window, the window at my back usually open all the curtains all the way up, even this year's all the way up, I am avoiding if there's a direct patch of light like a big beam of light ah lot of times I'll avoid putting it in that because the second it gets into the facet of the ring, then it becomes really hard to control. So I'll pull it just out of the light. Yes, ma'am. So what is the highest highest s? So you're comfortable with freshen out on ten thousand, I'll add a little noise reduction in light room later, if I'm gonna be completely honest, jen from sidecar post adds, that adds a little let's, be real on jen is going to come and talk to you about, you know, her process of all of that, but we do for I s ten thousand if I'm going to block it myself because I do my block images myself, sometimes to jen's great consternation, because I make them entertaining color balance price is I will put a little noise reduction on to bring it down a little bit, but it's a ring? I mean, it's, I can generally nail the exposure and with s o ten thousand, if you don't nail the exposure, if you are under exposing, you bring it up and then you got a pass, so if I don't nail it just right, I have to I just re bracket reshoot and try to get it just right. Yes, he's in the internet was curious about whether you ever use macro tubes no, no, not because I think they're bad, not because I think there's anything wrong with them, I've just never worked with them okay, if they work for you do it I just never done it and jule would like to know do you have other things that you use the macro for other jewelry usually it's the rings, the hearings anything tiny anything smaller than my fist perfect thank you. Sometimes the shoes but a lot of times I'll shoot issues within eighty five it really just it just depends sometimes it's a lot easier to just take that hundred five millimeter macro switched over to eight and shoot the shoes with it then it is to change the lens when I don't need to but a lot of times it's there for just the ring shots and because because it is sort of a hallmark of the coverage that I do on the day of it's something that I feel is worth the investment of that kind of expensive piece of glass it just raises that were kind of up to a new level great thank you. Surely any other questions from you guys before we talk guesser question but can you use the macro lens for a portrait? It's charlie when I was a cannon shooter before the days that I thought that the seventy two, two hundred was an awesome thing to have, I would actually use my hundred millimeter macro to shoot babies miss fine work pretty ok in a pinch, I've used it for a portrait one hundred five millimeter macro I would have used it for like a shot of the bride like looking down on her if I could get way high up I don't recommend doing x it's kind of hard did use, but in a pinch it'll work just fine. It's still one hundred five millimeters itjust has macro capabilities. It's actually a pretty fine portrait, linds good for babies if you shoot them, which I don't not anymore or if we feeling happy about our macros so let's don't talk about the thirty five the one I love in the one I don't so because I love shooting my eighty five millimeter one point four at one point four so much I thought I would love the thirty five one four, right, like I have a twenty four to seventy but twenty four to seventy is only a two point eight and I really like being able to shoot getting readies details uh ceremonies that air super dark receptions where the ambient light might be interesting I like being able to shoot that eighty five one for at one four so out of thirty five one four and my rational behind that was a long time ago I had bought a little baby thirty five thirty five to o it is it's a literally that sick it is light, it is fast it is sharp, it is inexpensive and it's a great lends to put on the camera at the end of the night when your arms are getting tired, even shooting dancing for three hours. It's a phenomenal dancing lessons so I thought, my gosh, I love this thirty five so much I use it for dark ceremonies I love it for dancing I think I would really like the thirty five at one four I would really like that capability. I think I've used that lens six times, maybe seven it doesn't resonate with me, but I did all of the right things to get there. I did my research, I knew that I liked the focal length. I knew that I liked one point for I had the money in the budget, so I bought the linz I took it to the first wedding and I was like, oh huh, I don't think it's my lens and it doesn't it has nothing to do with lindsay's, too great lens, it just didn't fit into my arsenal and into the way that I saw the day in the way that I thought it would no, no, a lot of photographers to use it. I know a lot of photographers who love it, but now it's a very expensive paperweight in my bag because it was a misstep and so sometimes that goes to show that no matter how much you planning, no matter how much you think that adding something into your repertoire is really gonna help you. It actually doesn't. It ends up being this. Oh, oops thing. So if anybody on the internet wants to buy a thirty five one four, I know a really great place that you can get almost brand new one, andi I would sell it to you, but I do have it every once in a while I pull it out every once in a while I use it in a ceremony that is just so dark that there's nothing else that you khun dio except goto one point for but the lens that I do use the most often is my thirty five tuo because it's little because it's light because it's wicked, wicked sharp and because sometimes even though I know that I can get to that thirty five millimeter focal length with my twenty four to seventy, sometimes I want to shoot it to o instead of two eight, I thought I wanted to shoot it at one four, but I don't not really so I will use the thirty five two over things like this where I want to go wider, but I don't want to go super wide and I have experimented with the twenty eight not really my thing for stuff like this it's a little too wide, so if we're getting ready, so for images like this, the thirty five is kind of my widest side. I'll use my twenty four to seventy I don't often go all the way to twenty four and listen, shooting dancing in which we'll talk about later, but it lets me get a really nice wide angle well, to me, a wide angle, and it lets me shoot it at two point oh, which really does let me knock out my background, and yet it is still super sharp and it is inexpensive, which is kind of a bonus. So this is one of those instances for me where when I look at my eighty five, the difference between the one and the one for is worth every single penny that I've spent on it. But with the thirty five, the difference between the two o n the won four ended up kind of being lost on me. So again, no matter how much you do your research, sometimes you just buy the wrong lynn's it just happens, so I'll use my thirty five two over things like this just really nice, lovely, candid moments, obviously using natural light here shot it too oh, great lens, I'll use it for portrait ce every once in a while I talked on and on and on about how much I love my seventy two two hundred but every once in a while I just kind of wanna wider look to a portrait I don't want to go all the way to twenty four but I'd like to go down to two oh so switch overto my thirty five it's a really easy linds for my assistant just pop in her pocket or if we're carrying the kelly more bag pops in there nice and easy great thing use it for kate cuttings if I can't get really far back with my seventy two two hundred which let's be honest you can't always get really far back the thirty five is a great lens could tuba signings when the quality of light is good but the quantity of light isn't great and what I mean by that is that the light that's falling on the subject is the light that I want but there's not a lot of it so in this instance if I filled in with a video like if I used a speed light it would have ruined the look of what was going on here so I wanted to shoot it with available light but I knew that I couldn't shoot it to eight the eighty five I couldn't get far enough back because I'm literally sitting with my back up against a potted plant to get this picture so the thirty five was great, the two oh was great. It lets me put push, focus straight to the bride's face at tuo. Everything else melts away into the background wide but not too wide, really versatile. Even for portrait. I don't shoot every single portrait that I do with the seventy two, two hundred. Please don't think that I d'oh so again, something like this bridegroom having their pictures done on their friends rooftop with a great view of the empire state building. And so I did a bunch of shots with the seventy two, two hundred kind of got up compressed the city behind them. But then in this instance, instead of making it look like the empire state building was right behind them, I wanted it to look like the empire state building was bigger further away, more separate from them. So I went with a wider lens because of the lens compression in bers gave me a completely different look to the images dropped down, shot up, eliminated the rest of the scene, and then it's about a bride and groom some shrubbery, a building and the sky. So when I saw this scene first, I saw the type of image that I wanted to make, and then I thought, what lens will help me make this image? So instead of saying, well, I've got the thirty five on what can I do with it? I assess the scene first, figure out the image that I want to make in my mind and then choose the correct tool for it, and for a very long time in my business, I went about it differently. Well, I've got, you know, an eighty five on one linz and a thirty five on the other, what am I going to do with it? That's? Not how I think about it anymore, which is why to my assistance, great consternation, we have to bring every lens that we have everywhere we go she's running when I might change my mind for dancing and by dancing you guys know what I'm talking about, like in the third hour of a four hour reception, it's the same people on the dance floor you've been dragging your gear around all day long no matter how good a shape you're in, you can not be prepared for carrying that marathon of gear for twelve hours straight, my arms are getting kind of tired. My first inclination is, well, why don't I just switched to a lighter camera? Why don't I just switched my d seven hundred instead that's a camera in my bag that I use for backup, but it doesn't have backup card slot and I know that I'm probably going to be fine, but it just makes me a little nervous, so I'm gonna stick with my deform I d three us, but how can I lighten that load? I can lighten it by using a thirty five millimeter and it's not because I'm lazy and it's not because I can't hold my camera and it's not because I'm a girl and I'm daunted by like the heavy weight of my camera it's because generally, when I'm shooting dancing, I'm either shooting at the twenty eight millimeter side of things or the thirty five millimeter side of things not really showing my dancing at seventy millimeters and I'm not talking about first dances I'm not talking about parent dances I'm talking about like, what you see in front of you, you know, quite man's overbite, you know, everybody has just stepped touching on the dance floor, that sort of dancing it's a phenomenal linds for it and when I use it for dancing, I'm almost always shooting at it at four and these are things that we will revisit. You've seen me talk about different instances throughout the day when we talk about each of those instances throughout the day in their designated episode, we will again revisit the linds selections for that part of the day, we will then re visit the settings that I like to use so hearing me talk about shooting dancing at f for now, we're going to talk about it again when we talk about receptions at four, four, four, I don't shoot my dancing at one point four that would drive me insane, but I also won't shoot it f ate because I don't need the whole thing and focus. So for me, that thirty five two o at f four is a really great linds just for break it down on the dance floor dancing and lets me get out there and let's me get close into the scene, I don't have to be up in their faces, it's just a really great focal length for this sort of thing. Any questions about either of either the thirty five I love or the thirty five that I can pretend I didn't buy it? And again, I'm not knocking that thirty five one four. I see people do really extraordinary things that jeffrey mosher he's, a headshot photographer out of new york, but he also shoots weddings. He loves that lens at weddings, he uses it all the time in front. I bought it because of him. Thanks, jeff, but it just didn't resonate with me, so I struggle back and forth, so I keep it do I sell it? I don't know. I finally you know what I'm gonna give myself ten more weddings and if I don't shoot it at all of those ten weddings I'm just gonna let it go I don't need it is a back up I've got a twenty four to seventy about a twenty eight I'm good we'll let it go nobody wants it not here try sell it to you if you didn't want it I can tell you where to find susan do you ever rent lenses and do you recommend len's rentals? Linds protego great it's really great they're really nice people I've never rented from them but I've got to know them a little bit and I like there work ethic they don't let the lenses get old they always keep them new and current so you're not going to rent it and get some mangy old thing I don't rent them anymore because when I first started out it was harder to find a place to rent from and I lived in the middle of nowhere I mean tell us he's not the middle of nowhere I apologize, but seriously you can't rent anything there and you know it but there wasn't you didn't have like a limp otago option I mean you could rent from places that it was complicated, so I didn't um my husband has started using does anybody have a twenty four to one, twenty no right weird focal length right? He incorporated that into hiss gear bag in the last year and I'm curious about it, but he won't let me touch his gear, which seems just shockingly unfair because it should be fifty percent mine and yet it is not s so that I do want to pick up one of those and try it and I'm curious about the diaz the new nikon camera but again, cliff won't let me touch hiss, so I'm considering renting one of those and trying it out ah lot of times if you are an icon shooter, if you're in nps member, they can consign you gear, but I just think it's a lot easier instead of having to bother them with a consignment, which is what I really do when I have a broken piece of gear. If I send in my seventy two, two hundred eighty six, they'll send me a seventy two, two hundred to use while I'm waiting, but if it's something that I just want to try for a front for fun, linds protego is they're going to be my people fantastic and that lindsay was just talking about it to eight four for okay yeah before right? Someone nodded at me so yeah it's just an interesting vocalist I feel like because a lot of times during the day my assistant uses my twenty four to seventy and give her a little bit more kind of wiggle room to work with and it just also sounds like a really pretty good lens for every day day to day use like it home taking pictures of my kids get me a little extra compression in like a twenty four to seventy sounds pretty okay joseph dude wants to know if using the thirty five millimeter for dance shots gets you in too close and on the back side of that I have to confess that I'm always dancing on the dance floor at the reception is out of that idea I have a professional photographer as a photographer do you ever like get in get in the action in the middle of the action or do you feel like that's I will okay yeah kosher I will absolutely shove myself out in the middle of the action if they're doing the hora and they've got their arms linked and everyone in a circle I'm going duck over somebody's arms and get right in the middle of the circle when you're very new in business you think they're gonna they're gonna stare atyou like oh my gosh I have a big beacon of light beaming from my face everyone's gonna be like photographer they don't care yeah usually they're vaguely inebriated and even if they're not they're having so much fun they don't care that you're there I wear all black I'm generally pretty low key I only dance to mortify my assistant at the wedding not on the dance floor but usually in a very awkward instance in the corner of the room somewhere I corner her and forced her to dance it's just harassment in the work place it's really unprofessional but I don't dance but I do get out there and I don't thank you like if somebody is dancing and they're like performing for me you see a camera you want to perform I'll shoot them in all mouth thankyou at them they'll just keep on moving so yes I get in there and yes I get pretty close to them I mean if the water glasses somebody dancing I'll get right here but I get in and I get out I'm not going to like stay there in their face all day so I'll just get in and I'll shoot a couple and then just back off and keep on moving cool and outside of macro shot's out of focus most today auto focus most of the day thank you pretty much auto focus all of the time and single I'm not continuing thank you that's another I know my brain does not work in continuous like it it works in focus and recompose on single continuous I just my camera starting to think for me and it freaks me out okay a lot of people use it and love it that's not my method of going out yeah and while we're on the subject focal points focal points only if I need them okay, usually I'm a center focus and recompose kind of girl but a couple of notes on that don't do it when you're shooting a macro if you are letting your macro focus for you make sure that you have a focal point on top of what you want to be in focus for me it's usually a prawn of the ring right? Like we're the ring attack actually attaches to the diamond I'll focus on that if you're shooting or eighty five one eight you're thirty five one four at one for you can't focus and recompose because at one point four you're going to lose it so any time I shoot under two point eight that's when my focal points come into play and I start putting them right on top of what my subject also for the most part unless I have a flash on my camera I'm aperture priority great reason why? Because I like it yeah there is a literal I cannot think of a good reason one versus the other it's mac versus pc you know what I mean? It's just whichever resonates with you correctly so if you go home and you're trying to shoot aperture priority and you're working with your exposure compensation dina and you're like I just don't understand this don't do it you have to do it or if you're shooting manual and you're trying to shoot manual, some photographer told you that real professional shoot manual and you're like this is ridiculous. I can't figure this out, don't do it do whatever works for you, I don't care what you do as long as it results in pretty pictures. Great, thanks, yeah feeling happy you're smiling a lot today because he'll come back when I close this thing out, I want to see your faces again is good, so moving on with the lenses that I like going hand in hand with the thirty five millimeters like it, but not like it is my twenty eight. Why do I have a twenty eight? I don't know it's kind of nice. I was really something a lot of times when I was on a dance for especially during all hora ah thirty five millimeters just is not wide enough like it's, no matter what I did trying to get back on a really crowded dance floor when it's so crowded that you're literally a foot and a half away from the person that you're shooting, the thirty five wasn't wide enough. And then I needed something to kind of alleviate myself at the end of the night when the twenty four to seventy is just getting a little excessive, why would I carry something that heavy if I'm shooting on the wider side of it all night long? So I'm going to switch over to my twenty eight millimeters teeny tiny baby light littler than the thirty five, and all of these lenses are under five dollars, these aren't fancy, but they're well made their sharp is khun b I feel like they're nice little dark horses of lenses that nobody really talks about, so I'll shoot my twenty eight when I'm shooting a cake cutting, and I'm literally standing a foot away from the cake because everyone behind me has a camera, I can't ask them to move, I just need to pick the right tool for the job and make it happen. In this instance, the groom in the center is singing with a bunch of his buddies from college. It was fantastic. It wasn't one of those awkward things where they couldn't sing and you don't know where to look, they actually could sing, so it was a it was quite a pleasure, but I am standing like if the groom move forward one foot with his pointing finger, he would've pointed me in the face. Because he's up where the band is and everyone else is up super close and I know that I need to get in there and shoot the scene. I default to the twenty eight for that it's wide but not too wide it's just a great nice light, linds for dancing. I pull it out during a lot of horrors because I know that it's going to be crazy and it's gonna get loud and people are going fast, so I need to go a little wider. I pull it out for things like this that was right after that groom got off of the stage and he hugged his wife, and if I had reached out like that, I could have touched him on the shoulder. Now shooting wide really isn't my thing, it's not something that I favor, but if I'm going to do it, I need to make sure that I don't have distortion on the edges with adult with this twenty eight, because it's not too wide. The reason why I like my twenty four to seventy is because I don't have distortion on the edge is not a lot even all the way at twenty four just that it gets the job done, you know, and sometimes you're kind of able to use it to make great art, we're gonna talk about the eighty five one foreign why love that in a bit but we step back to this twenty eight but sometimes it's just about making a nice well composed well lit well thought out image in a really tiny space it's the getting ready room is super small pull out my twenty eight it's gin again it's not if you can't sit down and write a mathematical formula of quiet the twenty eight instead of the twenty four to seventy why the thirty five instead of the twenty four to seventy if you can't afford a twenty four to seventy maybe consider one of these lighter prime lenses that hit you at the twenty eight and then the fifty side of things although I don't really like the fifty you don't have to buy the biggest and brightest and best sometimes the little under five hundred dollar baby gets the job done just fine and I love those lenses they're great lenses when I shoot an engagement session I have a seventy two two hundred and that's my go to but I have the thirty five millimeter tucked in the pocket of my bag just in case any questions about either the thirty five or the twenty eight or their uses or my feelings quick question that everyone's asking how do you change your lenses so quickly and you have any methods to your madness just do it okay I mean there's really no because I do shoot two camera bodies I'm not changing lenses all day long when I was a cannon shooter like back in the early days, I was a single camera shooter and I would change lenses a lot, which was really detrimental because the shuttle on the shot on the beach a lot and you don't want to change your lenses on the beach a lot because that's just inviting a sandstorm in your camera, but now a lot of times you know, if I'm shooting with my twenty four to seventy and it's not really working for me, you know, look att sandra, my assistant and I'll say twenty eight and then I'll keep working with us that do anymore to seventy she'll bring me the twenty eight and off we go again. It's really? When I switched from canon tonight gone, nobody told me that everything was gonna be backwards. Doesn't anybody done this? The linds literally mounts to the camera in a different direction. The back cap goes on the camera in a different direction and now sometimes even after years of being a nikon shooter when it's nighttime and I'm tired, I'll try to put the back cap on the wrong way and it'll fall off, but I had to re learn how to use everything and so it just becomes faster than where you do it and if you don't overthink it, just you line up the little white dots and you turn and it's all so a lot of times I am trying to think ahead so what's coming so that I don't find myself in a horrible situation where I realize that I'm standing in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong lens if I know that they're doing the first dance, followed by ahora, I'm shooting my first dance with my seventy two, two hundred I've got that twenty eight, pre loaded on the other camera before we've even done the introductions, so I'm ready to go, but sometimes every once in a while I'll find myself in a ceremony and it's really, really dark, and I'm trying to make my seventy five at my seventy two, two hundred work and it's not working because even it to a it's just not it's not helping me and that low light, you know as well as I know during the ceremony, you can't have a flash, so we'll turn around and sanders basically trained to just stare at me all day long for when I need something. I'll just look at her and I'll do that and she knows bring eighty, eighty five we've worked together for almost six years now she knows all of my desperate frantic hand signals and there were there were comments, you know from people saying, well, it'll be earth's just starting out and we don't have an assistant yet. I know that you have shop multiple things without an assistant. I have it's possible it's possible it is possible, but it I couldn't shoot a wedding tomorrow without an assistant. Of course I could, but timmy, I would strip I would learn how to do all of my own post processing again myself, before I let go of my assistant like that would literally be the last budget line item to go, and I won't be very clear that it's not because I can't do it myself. I could do it myself, I bring some light stands, it would be really awful, but the peace of mind of having another person with you that someone else can help you if something goes wrong, someone else's parking the car, someone else is watching the gear, someone's grabbing things when you need it. It doesn't have to be another photographer, and sandra, the woman who works with me, doesn't run a photography company doesn't want to be a wedding photographer at all, which to me is perfect, and she is not gonna work for me for three or four years and then leave me to start her own business. Which is hilarious the number of e mails I get from people who are like, can I come assist you? You know, I really want to start my own wedding photography business and I want to learn how you do it and I'm like, you know, you can't when I lived in tallahassee, the woman who worked with me was a photographer. She is an extraordinary photographer now, but when we started working together she wasn't looking to really kind of do her own thing and now she doesn't show I mean she's really brilliant she's got her own style and it's really fantastic, but I was never looking for a photographer to assist me and if you're looking for someone to help you, you can find someone to do it for not a ton of money you don't have to pay your assistant like three thousand dollars for wedding you could look for somebody and also somebody to just help you during the parts that you need. Maybe you just need somebody to show up and meet you at the ceremony and stay through the family formals and that's it but having good help with you and I feel very fortunate that she's turned into one of my best friends, which I kind of never saw that coming, which was really nice, so I kind of got a family out of it as well but having help having an assistant with you even in the early days just alleviate so much stress, it frees you up to not have to think about the little ticky tacky stuff throughout the day and it just lets you make images and like I said, we've worked together for six years and I can literally turn around to her during all fora and just be like, and that means get me something wider or when we're working with the flash, I just looked at her and I go and that means take it up to the next stop. We've got our own weird like baseball hand signals, and whenever I work with someone who's, not her, she can't come to a wedding and try to hand signal to them, and they're just like, I don't know what that means. The photographer assistant relationship is just I feel like it's, a very important thing and nothing that you can't do it, but the amount of help that it brings to the day is well worth more than what I paid her and I know that she's listening right now, and I do not want her to think that means she's getting a raise, but I would do anything it took to keep her from leaving me I think the natives are a little bit restless they wanted to about back button focusing don't do it, okay I love that that's what made the native russell but I was like, uh I don't do it and again it's not because I don't think it's youthful actually think it's way better than what I do I but I'm so trained to just shoot it I borrowed a camera from a friend one time that terrible day that I have mentioned yesterday when I dropped the d four with the seventy, two hundred on it I borrowed a camera from a friend he was in manhattan I was like, listen, I'm having a really hard time with this wedding I was really relying on my d for are you around? Can I borrow yours? I mean, I say that really calmly but it went down in a serious of hysterical phone calls teo borrowed the camera from him even though I had backups I really knew the performance of the d for because there was such a dark there are many brought into the back button focus her, I swear to you I could not use the camera. I could not figure out how to work it so it would be like retraining myself all the way from the beginning to use it. I understand it actually is faster for all of the millions of reasons that it's amazing I think it's a wonderful thing, but I don't use it just because I never did use it and now I'm old and cannot be re talking it's true what yes I am but then I'm old things I may join thirty six and my husband is totally like you need to use back but focus it's you know one command it's not it's not oh it's great it's great but I'm the same way like I like you's back but focus um I forgot it's just I'm so I can't just focusing and re composing and things like that that I just I have to consciously go it is and I understand why people love it I know why ae you know why it's better right but I don't do it yeah and so far I'm not suffering but I wish I could train myself to do it but I just I cannot think that way I just can't it's like a mental block of mine do you guys back what back button focus? You're the only one you uh portrait but not lands are landscape but not portrait that is a very multi task. You know that doesn't know because nikon doesn't have the because I used back but focus and then focus lock and then and sometimes not all the time I mean because I use selective focus all day long so I'll use the front button front button but if I need to then all back button focus focus lock but you can't do that when you're but it's funny how you get ingrained in doing something some way and that someone will bring it too and be like listen even though this is easier it's like you and your new fangled technology I'll just push my front button over and over again and thanks for playing I realize now I sound like a curmudgeon anything else making the natives restless this morning or was it really just back in focus? Yes thirty five so have you tried shooting it just at one port one for or do you shoot it enough to I've tried cheating in at one for like thirty five one four but have you tried shooting enough too or just at one for just that one for like I feel like if I buy a thirty five one four I should be using it at one four one eight if I want to shoot it up too maybe it would be sharper crisper better than the baby thirty five to go but is it really gonna be that much better like really I'm just sour about it because I thought I was really gonna love it and then just didn't resonate so I could probably try a couple of different ways you know everyone's one shouted at one eight it's it's okay it's just not my cup of tea for some strange reason you don't know why it does not is the internet cries when sad little tear for me so let's talk about the eighty five continuing on in my pantheon of lenses that I love very much the eighty five one four is completely indispensible I don't want to say that I couldn't shoot ah wedding without it but I have two of them and I have two of them for a reason the lenses that I haven't duplicate not intentionally just kind of happened thatwe have to map rose because I upgraded and kept the old one they have two eighty five I upgraded my eighty five because I used it all the time and because I thought evidence that the newer eighty five was actually sharper was actually crisper was actually clearer and focus faster done you improve upon a lens that I use hundreds of shutter clicks at every single wedding to me that's a reason to upgrade give me a new thirty five two o mine's fine, but a new eighty five one for that improves upon the one that I have that's good for me for a while I had my eighty five one for loan down to somebody but I got it back and then I thought, well, you know, I got it back I guess I'm just gonna sell it and I thought, you know, I'm not gonna get that much money for it and the insurance policy of keeping it I think I'm going to keep it. I'm really glad that I kept it because in december of last year we shot a wedding in mississippi and I have no idea how, but we left the eighty five behind. I can't figure out what happened, we were trying to stay on top of it. We think that like one of the little kids might have maybe moved it because we took it off and set it down and they were running around there were lots of people in the house, we have no idea how it got misplaced, but because I only used it in the getting ready portion of that day in the portrait of the bride in the room. When I got home and I was packing for the next wedding, I'm looking around like, where in the world is it? And it was gone, so then I had a very difficult decision of am I going to file an insurance claim on it? Is that worth it? I mean, it's an expensive linds, but do I want to make a claim on it? I don't know. Then I was really lucky that I had the old eighty five because I was literally packing on a friday for a wedding on a saturday and I realized my eighty five was gone. My husband also had a wedding the next day my friends had weddings the next day so I had no idea what I was going to do with that eighty five millimeter one point four I was glad that I hadn't sold my old one so I just dusted it out of you know brought it out from its little undercarriage cleaned it out and was ready to go luckily I thought to email the bride and say hi did anybody leave a piece of equipment at your mom's house and she's like, oh yeah, I'll send it to you so luckily my at my new eighty five one four was returned to me but when I do buy a new linds I have to look at what I could possibly make from selling the old lens and if I'm not going to make enough money to really make the sale worthwhile I'm going to keep it and keep it as a backup so now I have an extra macro I have an extra eighty five and have an extra seventy two, two hundred just because I can't make the images that I can make with those lenses with any other linens so I need to hang on to them it's kind of crucial so what I used eighty five one point four in for in short is a little bit of everything I will actually use my eighty five one four for details if all I'm looking for in my detail is one tiny facet of the image and focus and then everything else melting away like butter, the reason why I like the eighty five is because of the combination of the slight compression of the eighty five wins com bowed with the one point for just creates a background that you can't match with any other type of focal length an aperture combination. I know a lot of photographers who are like my favorite lenses, the fifty one too, and I'm gonna shoot it all day long at one point, two family formals bridegroom together details and I'm like you are deranged you're shooting all day long at one point to you look at their blawg there there the nose and focus but nothing else there's a tip of the collar and focus and nothing else people abuse linds is because some photographer told them to oh, I should the fifty one two all day long at one too, because this photographer that I really like told me to do it well, that's kind of dumb why would you do that? Take that fifty one to try it, see if you like it incorporated into what you're doing, but don't just blindly go by an eighty five one foreign start shooting at one four because I said I like it you have to figure out if it works for you as well, but I will actually shoot that eighty five one for at one four for detailed pictures, it lets you have it kind of gives the same thing that I'm trying to achieve. With the macro a little bit in focus, the rest is beautifully knocked out in the background. Your eye goes straight to the focal point. Great focal length, lovely eighty five one four out one for even in the bright sun why not? Doesn't mean you can't they'd have one for at one four for getting ready is butter is gorgeous, but again a lot of time to shoot that eighty five one for at one four, because why would I buy it at one four? From not planning on shooting it? One for my friend to show you my eighty five one for at one eight all day long? Why don't I just buy an eighty five one eight right like that? Extra stops or totally lost one you if you're not going to be using them, why spend the money for a lens that expensive if you're not going to shoot it that way and that's another thing that I see people during I bought the eighty five one four, and I shoot it all the time at two point eight well, then why'd you buy the one for didn't just buy the one eight would have saved a couple hundred bucks, and you're not gonna use the one for anyhow, so when you're looking at a lens and you're thinking about buying it, spear a realistic about what you're using it for if your cannon the one eight in the one two don't buy the one, too, if you're gonna shoot it at one two, I don't think that you have to shoot it at one, two or one for all day long, but if you're not going to utilize that capability, why spend the money for it at one? For, as I mentioned already, I'll be very careful with your focal points. You have to make sure they're right on top of exactly what you want to be in focus, because if you focus and compose even the slightest bit at one four, you're out of focus. Oh, well, I'm really steady with my hands that has nothing to do with it. You're knocking the plane of focus off, you'll notice it really strongly when you're shooting the images I was talking about where the bride sitting on the ground and you shoot down on her if your focal point is not directly over her eye it's going, you're gonna have an eyelash and focus you're gonna have the inside of her nose and focus, you have to be really, really deliberate at one point four so in this instance, my focal point is right on her eyeball, and my focal point is right on the bride's eyeball. Yes, the people behind her and her mother are not in focus it's not that I can't do it it's, because the picture is about the bride it's, because it's deliberate, if I wanted everybody else and focus, I would have shot it at four, and I have no problems doing that that's just not what I was going for here. So again, picking the tool to create the effect that you're looking for to me is very crucial focal point right on top of the eyelashes, all of these air at one point for focal point right on top of her eye, and you don't have to use it for super close up stuff all the time all back off on a scene and still use it at one four. Why at one four because you lose that hand fluffing the veil because you even lose the veil itself because it adds an additional softness, and then to the images that I really love shooting with the eighty five one for the portrait of the bride alone, and yes, if you're looking at this image one eyelashes and focus the other eye is not in focus and that's deliberate I'm always making sure that the eye closest to the camera is the one info lucas yes the other eisen and focus it's not because I can't do it because I did it on purpose I don't make mistakes like that if I'm doing something like that if one eyes in and one eyes out it's because I thought it through even things like this during a chinese tea ceremony eighty five one for at one for when she's receiving a gift from someone else the lights right I know the compression is going to do what I wanted to do it eighty five I know that that one point four is gonna not my background out beautiful I'll even use it at receptions this is available light this is the bride's dad and her mom when the toast were happening the on ly light that I'm working with is the light that was in the room I wouldn't shoot the eighty five one for at one four during a reception if the light was bad I'm only going to do it if the quality of light is what I'm looking for and it wass or here this is the eighty five one four at one four at a sixtieth of a second at s o ten thousand outside at night no flash it's a testament to the four it's a testament to the lens the file quality coming out of these cameras that I could make something like this at twelve o'clock at night in jersey city on a roof with no additional flash because I found the weakest, tiniest a baby ist quality of light that was still beautiful, and I was able to record it that for me defour's worth it, the new eighty five is worth it because it actually let me make that image of the bride and her sister. I love this picture before we move on questions about either the eighty five shooting at one four david any of the david I know I can decide they want to is one of their best pieces of glass that they make doesn't icahn making equivalent? They don't okay, no one so that's why? If you're listening, I totally buying eighty five one, two, three, two lenses that kept me in cannon about eighteen months longer than I should have been was the eighty five one two and the two hundred to eight god that I literally have dreams about that I can't even but the angels singing it's, it's, it's a two hundred that way is like an eighty five and it is it is sharp as a tack, so have fun with that cannon users another david david be the chat rooms was asking for you to explain if the one for and the one are that significant of a different make the costs one foreign one eight if you have any doubts at all rent one shooted at one for shooting at one six shooted at one eight if you feel that the difference yourself is worth the cost, buy it for me I saw that the difference right away when I was cannon shooter at the very beginning, the very first ones that I got there eighty five one eight and I wanted the one too, and I thought that if I tried hard enough, I could I could be okay with the one eight but I should have just spent the money at the very beginning to get the one too, because I knew that it would have let me make better images, but if you shoot it at one fourth who she don't want to, if you're a cannon, if you shoot it at one six and you you don't like the look or you don't think you're going to shoot it that much or in maybe in your early days or even if you've been in business twenty years if you don't see the value in it and I'm not saying, oh there's value in it and if you don't see it your dom, if you don't see the value in it, don't buy it stick with the one eight but for me in the images that I make it makes a significant dip it makes a significant difference enough that the price is so worthwhile to me absolutely up for one more of course great so it kind of a two part question katie would like to know can you explain a little bit more how you achieve perfect focus and fly up says oh my gosh one four with a recomposed you don't recompose its like one forward that's what I've said like six times can't recompose there was no recomposed on this one the focal point is directly on top of helen's eyes perfect done and in years past would it take me a while to get that focal point moved over and getting exactly the right spot? Of course it would have it's faster now not because I'm better than you because I've been doing this longer if I do it over and over and over and over again it's like it's like anything the more you practice the better you're gonna get at it and now I can do this on the fly I can also switch over and I can manually focus on one for on the fly not because I'm better than you but because I've been doing this for freaking forever e if you're frustrated with your ability to like move your focal points and get them right where you want them practise it at home, you know shoot your kids all day long at one point force don't have kids shoot your dog if you don't have a dog should plant like anything practice street photography like the more you do it over and over and over again one day you'll go to do it, and you'll be like, oh, I just did that without even thinking about it, and it will come more naturally to you and you can't focus and recompose without girls is just going to be a smooshy fuzzy disaster. Great. Thank you. I mean, not great, but, you know, I understand the answer is great because she fuzzy disasters are a very bad it's something that with my photography personally, yeah, something I practice with pets and kids with that re composing that those focal points and move them around just moving around all day. Well, and then you mentioned a good point with pets like I'm not gonna try to shoot a kid running down the street at one point four that's hard I mean that's, that's inviting disaster. But have I shot professionals with eighty five one for at one four? Because I literally had no other choice. I have did I hyperventilate what I hyperventilate if I had to do it tomorrow, huh? Somebody wants to do that like, you know, it is my husband likes to say, I mean, I was never mind I'm gonna botch that, but I'm not crazy, right? Like, I might be stupid, but I'm not crazy. I'm not going to invite myself into some sort of disaster on purpose, but if I find myself in a situation where I have to do it, I need to be prepared technically, to make it happen. Thank you. You're welcome to move on. Yeah, they're smiling. You see how many people went over and bought some gear this morning? So let's talk about the twenty, forty, seventy millimeter if I had to choose one lens to take to a desert island, it would probably be this one. It's listen it's wide but it's not too wide it's zoom e but it's not too zoonie. It literally hits every single wonderful average vocal link that you could possibly need on the wedding day. There is a reason why it goes on the d three s at the start of the day and doesn't come off it's because there is literally no situation in which I can not use it except to shoot a macro. Could I shoot a bride sitting down at seventy at two point eight, yeah wouldn't look so bad, okay? Let me find could I shoot a whole day with it? I mean I could if I had to it's not a lot of variety and focal length but it's there's a reason why it's on one of my cameras all day long because it's a great lens even a twenty four millimeters you don't get a lot of distortion on the side it is christmas khun b it to eight it's heavy but it's not too heavy I don't have a single bad thing to say about it except that at the end of the night I just don't want to touch it anymore because my arms hate me but I don't want to touch anything at the end of the night because my arms hating you so it shouldn't take it personally but what do I use it for? Is it in short for literally everything pictures of the dress something like this? I can't shoot that within eighty five unless I can get super way far back and even if I couldn't get super way far back maybe I don't want to shoot it at eighty five I like the focal length of twenty four I don't always want to compress everything at two hundred millimeters all day long because if I do compress everything at two hundred millimeters all day long that I'm exactly like that guy shooting the fifty one two at one two all day long it would be all too one note so I'm trying to make sure that all day long I'm varying the focal links that I'm using it's kind of important wide angles of the ceremony this is the camera and linds combination that I give to my assistant when she stands in the back of the ceremony and shoots wide angles it's great white angles in a church phenomenal whether you're on the floor or you're in a balcony or the videographer his standing at the end I realised he's still in this picture got blessing did not move the entire time but it is a wonderful wide angle all purpose linds why don't I have a fourteen to twenty four because that lens is ridiculously expensive and I would never use it it's ridiculously expensive because it's a phenomenal, ridiculous gorgeous piece of glass but the number of times that I would use it is not even worth that price tag the number of times I take a look at my set up and I say gosh, I wish I had something wider than twenty four has not been so much that I am then prompted to buy something wider than twenty for I just wouldn't use it that often if I do it some point in time decide that I need something wider than twenty four I'll probably default over getting I'll get like a sixteen to thirty five and go to town on that it's really? Just occasionally to be super wide in a church or to be super wide shooting a venue like so, but for the most part, ninety nine point nine percent of the time, the twenty four to seventy at twenty four gets it done it's the lens that I use when I stand on a chair in the corner of the room and shoot the room, and when I do shoot the room, I always do get up on a chair because if I'm shooting straight into the room, I'm just skimming across the tops of the tables. If I can stand up on a chair, I can at least shoot down not so much that I look like I'm on a ladder shooting down, but it gets me up a little bit and lets me shoot down onto the tables so you can see a little bit more of the scene. It's always on my other camera in case I need it for getting ready shot in case I just need to go a little bit wide sometimes I don't need to put something else or something specialty on I just want sandra to toss it over to me so I can shoot a couple of twenty four and they go back to my eighty five all use it for things like this. Things like this again use it for everything. I try to be really careful with my twenty four to seventy that if I go vertical, I'm going vertical more on the seventy side of things and said the twenty four side of things wide angle verticals made me want to cry because they distort people. It's not flattering I would never get up in your face and shoot a vertical of your face at twenty four millimeters. That would be wretched. Why would I do that? Does something like this? If I shot that at twenty four millimeters? This is it's, the seventy side of things it would elongate her. I don't like that two great linds for receptions. It's a great linds for ahora fantastic linds for ahora lets you get in there without having the climb in people's laps. Just any moment of the day. I've included all of these images to show you that there literally is not a point of the day unless I'm shooting a detail that the twenty four to seventy would not be in some way applicant sparkler exits I'm going to try to shoot something a little longer, sure, but it's my twenty four to seventy going to be at the ready in case I need it? Absolutely I am not above using a twenty four to seventy with it for a portrait open it twenty four like I said, I don't always need to compress the heck out of everything again a portrait sometimes I don't want to bring my background up behind my subject sometimes I don't want to compress my subject off of the background. Sometimes I literally want to make my subject look tiny in a big space. You can't do that with a seventy two tow two hundred you can do that with twenty four like so this image would not look like that if it were shot with a seventy two, two hundred, itjust wouldn't need to simply wouldn't and it's a good dance england's it'sa good dancing all night all the time until my arms give out from under me sort of lens so clearly versatile use it for a billion different things I shoot it at all of its focal lengths I shooted at two eight I shoot it for if you did it for five if I'm in a church and I've got a group of like fifty people that I have to shoot and there's literally no way that I could get super far back with my seventy two, two hundred, we're gonna talk about this with family formals I'll have to shoot that with a twenty four to seventy with the flash coming from directly over my head and all she did it at eleven so when I say that it's versatile I mean that I use it at every inch of its spectrum both focal length wise and aperture wise you got about five minutes before we have to break we're gonna come back and I am going teo inordinately discuss my wild love affair with my seventy two two hundred but before we get there, any questions about mac rose wide angles, the bag that I carry, how I prepped to start a wedding, any anything that I can help you out before we take a quick break and move on david number two yeah, keep all your stuff just in your bag or do you have somewhere else in your story in my bag? And if I'm out near philly, I'll just keep it in the studio with my husband's gear, which kind of shove in the back of the gallery studio space if I'm at home, I put it in the closet of my office, but he just stays in the it stays in the bag the second I start taking it out of the bag, I'm just gonna lose it like I'm just not I have the special power of just putting crap places and not knowing where it is, so it is in a very secret, very careful place where nothing's gonna happen to it and then I can't find it, so if I unpacked the bag I don't know how, but it's gonna be gone, so I just keep it in the bag. I don't do anything special with it. Yes. And you take a tripod with you for any reason. I had a tripod. Did I cry to you guys have heard about my stolen tripod? Uh, someone stole my tripod. So if you were a gotham hall about a week and a half ago and you took my tripod, give it back. No, it got stolen from me at a wedding. It's the only thing that's ever been stolen from the outer wedding. Someone snatched it and kind of really mad about it. But, you know, it was one of those purchases where kind of like the thirty five one four I bought it, and I thought I'd use it all the time. I really didn't use it all that often, so I only miss it because it was expensive and it makes me angry. But I would only use it a couple times that I did use it were toe, like do an overall shot of the room when everybody was dancing so that I could move like that blur the subjects. I'm also pretty good about making a tripod with my own shoe and I make these kind of ghetto tripod so that it could just kind of sit still but again it's one of those things where I can see how I would use it but not enough to really warrant filing an insurance claim on it or going out and getting another one it's just not used that often same thing with the monarch pod I have a modified but we really only just use it to hold our off camera flash it doesn't actually hold my camera at all so I mean, I've got pretty steady hands I can hand hold it pretty decently low shutter speeds and no, uh no tripods here except for the person that stole it from me at gotham hall. David, do you still see apart at your weddings and if so, where do you put them? Almost never. Usually I can get everything that I need on a card every once in a while if I get defore tastic during a day all fill a sixty four needed another one on. I have a little cross body wallet that I wear all day long and it's got two extra cards in the inside pocket just in case either a card goes down or I need to switch a card and they're just loose inside the wallet effect take a card out of my camera I put it in the wall at night the compartment and I wear it on my body all day long so it doesn't come off is your camera on that's trapped as well? No, I have straps on my camera so that I can put them on my shoulders but I don't ever put them on my shoulders I try to hold them in my hands because I see photographers that are older that have been shooting for a long time who have trouble with their necks they have trouble with their backs that arthritis in their shoulders from carrying the stuff all day long I would rather just hold it in my hand by my side then hook on yes I've tried straps that hold them at your waist yes I've tried straps that like looked like the holsters I can't get down with any of that not because it doesn't work I've tried this fighter holsters apparently I have my body is not built correctly for them because they fell off and then I think I was I was literally a walking disaster with those things on I was just like like hitting them right? It was just awful it was about all the way around on dive tried like the really cool like kind of dominatrix like suspender things I just look like an idiot I look like I'm in a western and I just can't I just hold them old school style grab my hand and off I go I use a quick release traps. I don't like this. Perhaps that come with a nikon cameras. I think they're a little sticky, so I just switched over to just go to good old fashioned quick release. No, my camera traps or not be dazzled. No, I am not interested in buying a pretty camera strap. I just wanted to be black, and I wanted to work, basically like everything else. Just make it dark and depressing, and I'm gonna buy it. And just exactly what is a quick release strap it's. And if I had one here, I would show you the strap comes around and it's got a hook. The part that hooks into the cameras when you threat a camera strap through the actual camera and you follow it up a little bit. There's a little quick release thing so you can actually take the camera off the strap if, like if when I was hanging around my neck, which it isn't ever, I could just pop on either side and it would come down into my hand if you google quick release camera strap, there are a billion different versions of them. Do I ever quick release them? No, but I could if I wanted teo, and just so we're clear so most the day, your camera's in your hands and the straps are flying around, hanging around, flying around. Okay, thank you. The straps are on them, partly because if we ever shooting a balcony, I always want to put it around my neck, just in case I drop it, because that's, what every nightmare that I have looks like is dropping the camera on someone's, grandma from a balcony, and also just in case we have to move fast. It's, nice to be able to throw it over your shoulder, but to give my upper body a break. I do hand hold it as much as I possibly can.